Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #253 - White-Red

Episode Date: August 14, 2015

Mark talks about the color pair white-red.

I'm pulling on my driving space. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. And then I drop my son off at camp again. Okay guys, today is another in our two-color podcast series. So I've already done eight of them. I've done white, blue, blue, black, black, red, red, green, green, white, white, black, blue, red, and black, green. So that means today we're up to red, white. So on number nine. Okay, so let's begin by talking about what are the philosophies of red and white and talk about where they contrast each

other, but also where the overlaps are, because there are some. Even with enemies, there are some overlaps. Okay, so first off, red. What does red want? Well, Red believes that there's a clear message of what you should be doing with your life. It emanates from within. That your emotions, your heart, it tells you what it wants. That your body, it tells you what it needs. That you know deep in your soul what things need to happen. And that if you just listen to that inner voice, that if you just, like, there's already something telling you what you need,

that's how you can find true happiness. That's how you can, that's living life to its fullest, is understanding and being part of yourself, being one with what you want, you know. And that Red really believes that, like, when things are happy, you should laugh. And when things are sad, you should cry. And when you're angry, you should probably punch somebody. You know, that you need to express those emotions.

And you need to, that living life to its fullest, that following your heart is understanding the expressions of what you need. And Red really believes that there's this innate source, that it is the truest sense of who you are supposed to be. And that every individual comes with this sort of guidance system, but a lot of people just ignore it, that they don't even use it.

They don't, they sort of ignore it. And Red's big thing is like, look, it's just, just embrace the thing that is there. I mean, your body is made to feel things. Go with the flow. Follow it. Okay. White, on the other hand, white, so, oh, red, by the way, so red, I always say it wants

freedom because red wants the ability to follow its heart and do what it needs to do. And it doesn't want any restrictions that keep it from doing that. The most important thing to red is to be able to embrace its passions. And that having things in its way cause problems. It does not like being locked up. It does not like being told what it can and can't do. Red wants freedom. Okay, let's move to white.

So white, white wants peace. Okay, let's move to white. So white, white wants peace. White's like, look, there are enough resources in the world that everybody could be happy. Everybody could have what they need. Maybe not what they want, but that's not the key. They can have what they need. That there's enough resources in the world that if we, as a group, work together, everybody could be happy.

Everybody could have what they need. And so White is like, look, we have the means to do this. We have the resources. The only thing getting in our way is us. Each individual must act with the interest of the group at hand, even if those decisions might not be necessarily best for the individual, but it's best for the group. And that's how the group thrived. If every member of the group acts in the interest of the group, then the group can thrive. So white is all about selflessness, about realizing that you are serving a larger purpose,

which is not just making yourself happy, but making everyone happy. Okay, now you can see where the conflict comes in here. White is very external. It's looking about how to improve the things around it. Red is very internal. It's looking at addressing the voice from within. Well, white and red look at each other and see the enemy.

White looks at red and says, oh, well, you know one of the biggest problems of trying to act in the interest of the group? Self-interest. You know, we each have emotions and we have things that prop us to do selfish things and things that are inwardly motivated. You must ignore those things. You must ignore those desires, those emotions. You must think about what is good for the group and not for yourself.

And so white looks at red and just sees chaos. That if you just follow random impulses and you're not thinking of the bigger picture, you're just going to cause anarchy. Okay, well, red looks at white and says, look, the greatest joy of life is following your heart, is being true to who you are. Well, white just wants to make all these rules and restrictions to tell you why you can't do that.

You know, that red looks at white and just sees an obstacle, lots of obstacles. So, I mean, pretty much white looks at red and sees anarchy. Red looks at white and sees fascism. You know, each one really sees the enemy of what it wants to be. But that doesn't mean there's not overlap. So one of the things that's very interesting as you study enemies is that one of the neat things about magic is this idea that

there is similarity within the enemies, that the enemies come at it from different ways, but actually overlap in some interesting places. Okay, so let's start talking about that. So one of the most interesting things from a red and white perspective, game-wise, we'll start game-wise and I'll branch it out into the philosophy, is red and white happen to be the colors

of combat and small creatures. That they're the two what we call aggro colors. Aggro, I think it's short for aggressive. I'm not sure what aggro stands for. But aggro means that you are trying to win the game as quickly as you can. And the idea of an aggro play is, I'm going to constantly put threats to my opponent, and at some point, if they can't address every threat, I win the game.

There's a great quote from a guy named David Price, who was a pro player from way back when who loved to play aggro decks and this quote was there are often wrong answers, there are never wrong threats what he meant by that is that if you have a deck that answers things, sometimes your answer won't address

the problem, the threat that's coming at you but if your deck is threats, well threats will win the game this will make some threats. And so there's no wrong threat. If I'm threatening you, there's no wrong threat. If a threat is going to make you lose the game, well, then you have to address it. And what Dave was saying,

and one of the things that Dave Price pointed out is that there's this misnomer that somehow control decks, that takes great skill to play. And aggressive decks, you know, aggro decks, no, there's no skill to that. Just play your creature and attack. And what he said is, no, that's not true at all.

Knowing when and where to apply pressure, knowing what order to do things, knowing when you bolt your opponent in the face and when you save the bolt, knowing those things, knowing how to be aggressive is just as skill testing, you know, and that one of the reasons that he did so well is he understood how to play an aggro deck. He understood what you need to do, what pressures you need to do, understanding which threats are the most valuable threats in the moment. How do you figure out what answers they have, what answers they don't have? Like one of the important things is reading your opponent and getting a sense of where are they vulnerable.

And when you're having success somewhere, you want to push in the area that they don't have an answer to. So red and white come out from philosophically very different places or ironically end up in the same place. So white and red, so white is the army color. White believes that, you know, white does not have a lot of big creatures. It has lots and lots of little small creatures. It has the most creatures. It is the color with the most creatures,

but it has the smallest creatures. And so white's big philosophy is, look, I'm the group color. Well, if lots of individuals come together and work together as a single unit, they are very powerful. And the idea of the army is that very thing. We have all these soldiers. Each soldier is probably a 1-1 or 2-2, a little tiny soldier. But together as an army, we can do great things. An army can take giant threats because they're working together. So White has a bunch of good fighters, small good fighters, because it's the army. It's trained. And the reason they're good fighters is they are trained fighters.

They are trained to be able to be good in combat. Okay, let's get to red. Well, red has training, but not in the way of the white. White has training because you literally have somebody who puts you through paces, and you do training exercises. Red has life training. Because if you're red, and you're like, you know what? Whenever someone upsets me, I'm going to get in a fight with them.

I'm going to answer it. Whenever there's some sort of tension, I'm just going to get in a fight with them. When you get enough bar brawls, eventually you start to be a good fighter. And that red's expertise in fighting just comes from it fights a lot. It's willing to get in there. Red is like, if I believe in something, if something's important, I should be willing to fight for it. If someone hurts a person I love or somehow is causing a problem, you know what? I'm not going to back down from that.

And so Red is very willing to be aggressive. So Red has a lot of sort of life skills training, and white has a lot of training through, you know, actual military style training. So white and red end up being the best fighters. Now usually whites, they're soldiers, reds are warriors, but they're trained fighters. No matter how they got their training, they're good fighters. The other thing is white and red both tend to have a lot of... White's main race are humans. Red's main race are goblins.

Those are both small. Those are both... The average human or the average goblin tends to be like a 1-1. I mean, there's some larger than 1-1s, but they're smaller. And so white and red, because they have this combat oriented, for starters they share two keywords. First strike and double strike. Now those are extensions

of the same thing, which is why it's in the same colors. But the reason that it has first strike is, first strike is representative of, I am faster than you. Either I'm more trained than you, I have a reach weapon, or I have a weapon that has some distance to it. First Strike means that I'm just able to

hit you before you're able to hit me. And Red and White as being the two skillful combat colors, well, they're the ones that are able to do First Strike. Also, they tend to have the most combat-oriented spells, things that are instanced that

affect combat. So in general, white and red both do a little bit of power pumping. So white tends to do plus one, plus one when it does its pumping, or plus N, plus N, where red, N just being whatever number. Usually white's plus one, plus one, or plus two, plus two. Usually it starts getting to plus two, plus three, you get into green.

Red tends to do its pumping just in power, so it's plus one, plus O, or plus two, plus O, plus three, plus O. in power so it's plus one plus oh or plus two plus oh plus three plus oh, sometimes like plus three plus one its power is always higher than its toughness if there's a little bit of toughness usually it's skewed like plus three plus one now red can often grant

trample or first strike, white can grant first strike it can grant lifelink the idea is that these are things that mid-combat might be valuable to you and that white and red have a lot of combat tricks. That they're the colors that are good at fighting, they have the keyword that's the fighting keyword, and in general they do a lot of things to help you fight with them.

There also is some boosting that goes on. White tends to boost the team, so like plus one, plus one to everybody. When red boosts the team, once again, it's usually just power pumping, like plus one, plus oh. And sometimes it's just general pumping, but again it's usually just power pumping like plus one plus O and sometimes it's just general pumping but usually it's tied to attacking the most common pumping for red is all attackers get plus one plus O

or plus two plus O so in general white has a little more of a defensive quality it's pump spells don't define attacking so sometimes you can block and use them so white has a defensive quality that red doesn't have as much with its creatures. Now, as far as

creature keywords, the one other overlap, but it's a small overlap, is white and red both have flying. White and blue are the major colors of flying. Red actually is number four. Only green is less flying the red. But red is one, or two, I would say, big exceptions.

Red's iconic is the dragon. Dragons always fly. And white's iconic is the angel. So red and white both have, its iconic is 4-4 to 6-6, usually a creature that always flies. Now, white tends to be more protective. It has a vigilance or a lifelink. Red's dragons are like fire-breathing. But they both are similar.

Red's flying also, flying in red also can be seen on phoenixes. These are birds made of fire that explode and come back from the graveyard. That is in red also can be seen on phoenixes. These are birds made of fire that explode and come back from the graveyard. That is in red. Red, every once in a while, we'll have little dinky, very sucky flyers. Back in Mirage, we said they were from the Kisku Mountains, K-Y-S-K-C-U, which was sucky anagram. The red and green flyers were from the sucky mountains because they had bad flying. Also, by the way, two other things I mentioned. Fire Breathing, Power Pumping,

not only can Red Pump Power through a spell, but also it has a regular activated ability where it can pump its power. White tends to have pumping a little bit. Sometimes it's power and toughness. Every once in a while it's just power on things like knights, but we don't do that all that often. I also mentioned

that Phoenixes come back from the graveyard. Well, white is one of the two colors that does graveyard recursion on a regular basis. Black is number one in it. White is number two. White usually does smaller creatures. So red does do phoenixes and white does smaller creatures. So there's a little bit of overlap there. Okay, let's talk about how white and red deal with threats. Okay, so red is king of direct damage, meaning just directly doing damage to creatures or to players. White has a little bit of direct damage. Pretty much white's rule is that if you're in the middle of combat, so it can do damage to attackers or blockers, or if you've damaged it or one of its creatures, if you've harmed it,

I call it the federation strategy. It's like, I won't strike first, but once you hit me, then I can do something. So direct damage. Now, a lot of those effects aren't necessarily damage. Sometimes they're exiling or destroy. But white can swap in direct damage. Any place it can sort of destroy a creature,

you can swap in direct damage. Any place it can sort of destroy a creature, you can swap in damage there. White does have the ability to also destroy bigger creatures, usually power four or greater, sometimes five or greater. Ironically, that's the opposite of what red can do. Red is always a point-based. Red does not do destruction effects for creatures. It does damage based on the amount of damage dealt. So red actually is worse

at killing bigger things than better at killing smaller things. Where white a lot of the unrestricted stuff happens to be at higher, the bigger things. White is good at sort of bringing down the big monster, but not necessarily the smaller things. Okay, the white and red both have artifact destruction.

Green is number one at it. Red and white are both secondary. White tends to not do it at common, where red does. Red has the shatter effects at common. Red, and the difference is, red usually does straight off single, I just destroyed an artifact,

and does that at common every set, where white will destroy enchantments, but usually if it destroys enchantments or artifacts, that's at uncommon, a little higher, a little bit more expensive. Both of them have land destruction. Red does pinpoint land destruction. White does sort of mass land destruction. We don't do a lot of mass land destruction anymore,

so you don't see it all much in white, although technically white can do it. Red can also, by the way, red can both do pinpoint and do mass. But anyway, we've been coming back on land destruction, so just in general you don't see too much of it. The last is, each of

them also has a means to deal with planeswalkers, although they do it differently. Red has direct damage. If it can hit a player, it can redirect to the planeswalker. So one of the ways red has to deal with planeswalkers is literally burning them out, doing direct damage to them. White has to use things like Oblivion Ring.

White has some means to sort of remove something, and then it's kind of like put it in jail, sort of a thing, that White, because White doesn't like to kill things, a lot of times what it'll do is it'll either pacify it so it can't attack, or it will remove it from the game.

So like Oblivion Ring removes it from the game where something like Face Fetters will keep you... There's like a rest function where you keep things from attacking. So I think there's white ways to stop Planeswalkers from being used and white ways to remove them from the game. So that's how white can address Planeswalkers.

Also, another thing that makes them good at combat is both white and red have means to get through. White has a little bit of evasion, obviously. White has flying. But white has the ability both to tap creatures.

Sometimes as an effect, sometimes it'll have a creature that we'll call a tapper, where you spend mana and it'll have a creature that we call a tapper where you spend mana and you can tap a creature it also has protection we've been dialing back on that but it still has a little bit of protection one of the effects of protection

is you can't be blocked by certain colors so white can use protection as a means to break through red has what we call the panic effect where red can make creatures not be able to block so it's not that red makes itself unblockable it sort of scares things, it panics things

it keeps them from being able to block you okay, next, red and white also tend to have some aggressive auras one of the things is to help them in combat sometimes is to just build them up and then make you harder to deal with in combat. And red and white both do that a little bit. Oh, token making. This is another important one.

So red and white, every single color can make tokens. Red and white are the best at making 1-1 tokens. White usually is primary in token making. Green is secondary. But green tends to make bigger tokens usually 2-2 or bigger green makes less 1-1s these days every once in a while it does

but less than it used to white's more the king of the small tokens and then red, because it's goblins and stuff red also will make small 1-1s so you'll see both white and red make 1-1 tokens you'll see both white and red make one one tokens. You'll see both colors also, interestingly, another common token, or not common, but another token that is white

will sometimes make angel tokens, which are four four flyers, and red will make dragon tokens, which usually are four four five five flyers. So interestingly, white and red tokens are definitely similar to each other. Okay, now I've talked mechanically a lot of the overlaps. Let me talk a little bit philosophically what's going on. So white and red, white and red both have a sense of justice, but a very different sense. White's sense of justice is the idea that there is a moral code, that there is morality. White

is big on setting rules. One of the rules it sets are moral rules, a lot of where religion comes from in white. But white believes that there is right and wrong. And so to white, justice is when something is doing wrong, you need to fix it. If someone is doing something they're morally not supposed to be doing, you as a white person, for the good of society, you need to stop them. Now, red is very passionate in its relationship. Now, white and red are both colors of loyalty. If red cares about somebody, it will go to the end of the earth for them. Red is very passionate and very loyal. And so justice for red is when you've harmed somebody that red cares about, that red is very passionate about that. Red is like, I will not

let that go. I will not let that, you know, you've harmed somebody I care about. I will, I will make sure I make, make, make right. And so both white and red believe in justice, although their justice is a little different for each other. Now, at times, they line up. So the interesting thing is, there are a couple different kinds of red and white characters you can get. So first off is, you have white means with red, sorry, a white end with red means. Meaning, I'm trying to do good,

but I'm willing to do what it takes to do it. A lot of vigilantes fall into that. Vigilantes tend to be red-white. Because the idea is, there is injustice being done, I must stop it, but I don't believe in the system. I don't think the system can stop it.

Daredevil is a good example of a white-red character. Daredevil clearly, clearly believes in the system. He is a lawyer, you know, and he tries whenever possible to use the law to accomplish what he needs to accomplish. But what he finds is there are certain people that seem to be above the law, that the law doesn't always work. So he uses the law when he can. He has great faith and belief in the law, but he understands that there's some criminals that have just the law that can't trap. And then he will go out as a vigilante and he will address the people

that the law could not address. And that's a really good example of white-red where, like, his goals are really good. He is trying to make society better. He wants a better world. But he recognizes that the system doesn't always work, and sometimes

you have to go outside the system to make it work. Okay, so let's talk about the reverse. What is a red ends character with white means? An example there would be like a hacker character where the idea is I want to cause chaos. I don't like the system, but I'm going to use the system to cause the chaos. I'm going to understand the system. I'm going to become enamored in this. I'm going to understand the structure, and I'm going to work within the system, within the structure, to be able to create the chaos. And like I said, a lot of sort of the stereotype, hacker trope, where it's like, I'm trying to mess up the system, but I'll do it from within the system, understanding the system,

that it's by me knowing what the system is well, by me understanding that, that I'm trying to mess up the system, but I'll do it from within the system, understanding the system. That it's by me knowing what the system is well, by me understanding that, that I'm able to add the chaos to things. The other thing about white and red is that white and red definitely are the two colors that are the most driven. You know what I mean? Blue is a little more impassionate. Black is a little more power hungry. Green is a little more

laid back. That red and white are the two colors that are like, uh-oh, something must be done. And like I said, it comes from

a slightly different place, but they're the two most driven colors that really, like, feel like, compassion, I mean, passionately, that things must be done. Something must be done about this. And that is

why the white and red, I think, have the most aggressive colors. White and red definitely believe that a good defense at times is a good... I'm sorry. One of the best offenses at times... I said that backwards. One of the best defenses at times is a good offense. I had that right the first time. And that sometimes you defend by attacking. And then white and red definitely do that.

Now, white and red also both have a more defensive quality to them. White clearly will gum things up and will prevent things from happening. Red tends to blow things up. That red uses its destructiveness as a means to control things. Red is sort of like, if I blow everything up, well, that'll stop the system. And so red and white, and that's another thing where they overlap a little bit, is we talk about mass destruction, right? That white and red will both blow up all the lands. White and red will both destroy all the creatures. That they are the two colors that most have the reset button. that they are the two colors that most have the reset button.

And that it's funny because clearly Red gets angry. I mean, one of the things about Red, which is we tend to show fighting. Our games are about combat. So you see a lot of anger in Red. I don't think Red and Henley is more about anger than the other emotions. I think Red is just about all the emotions. You know, and that from time to time you see stuff like panic where it's implying fear or it's getting fervor out of something, it's getting a great passion out of something. I mean, red can, one of the things red does is, red is very good at influencing others

because it flames their emotions and gets them, it understands what makes them tick. White is good at getting things to move because white is good at motivating how people think. And that both of them play off of... Both of them are very charismatic. White and red, when you talk about high charisma, I mean, black also has high charisma for different reasons. But white and red are ones that definitely bring together...

You know, if you have white and red in you, that you really have a sense of morality and a sense of passion. That you are driven, and that you want, you believe there are things that need to be done that you really should get done. White-red characters are very

passionate characters. They really feel strongly about what they're doing. Now once again, because different parts come forward, it's possible to have a character that firmly, firmly believes something but the white quality of them keeps them a little, keeps their emotions a little more in check. The Punisher, for example, from Marvel Comics. So the Punisher was a character

whose family was gunned down by gangsters in, I think, in like Central Park or something. And he dedicates himself to ridding the world of the scourge of all these criminals. And so he decided what he was going to do is he's just going to kill them all. And the interesting thing is, most people don't know about this, he started as a villain. He was a Spider-Man villain long before he became, I use hero in quotes. But the idea was, he was somebody, it was a very interesting white-red character, which was, he honestly, if you look at what he was doing, he was making society a better place.

He was trying, and, now it's interesting, I mean, because he's willing to kill, there's some people that will attribute some black to him, so maybe he's Mardu, I guess, if I really think about it, but he had, there's an interesting quality of red to him, so maybe he's Mardu, I guess, if I really think about it. But he had, there's an interesting quality of red to him,

which I think is very strong, which is the sense of really, I mean, his, the loss of his family. Like, he is driven by a very personal, like, emotional response that he keeps in check somewhat, but he definitely is a very,

he needs definitely to address something, and he's willing to break the system to address it. Now, there's people who ask, this came up on my blog, about won't white ever break rules if it believes they're unjust? It will. Breaking rules doesn't inherently make you red,

but it makes you red if you have any faith in the system. Like, Daredevil does believe in the system in general. He believes in the laws. He believes there's things that fall through the cracks. That's why he puts on a mask and beats up criminals. But he does believe in the system.

So that's why he's white red. Now, there are white people that believe there's an inherently corrupt system that will go and try to fix a corrupt system. That doesn't necessarily need red. That could just be white. In general, by the way, the good part

of white-red is the passion, is the really caring for others, and the following through and trying to help others out. The downside of red-white when you get together can be that, I always like to say that your weaknesses and your greatest strength push too far.

And that I think red's passion for caring and white's zeal for sort of protecting the innocent can sometimes go so far that it becomes destructive. And that it can be a little... White red can sometimes get a little bit too carried away, get a little too in the moment and too so focused in its mission that it kind of blurs the line of what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. Okie dokie.

So how we doing on time? I'm not too bad. So whenever I travel not from home, I try to be careful to make sure that I have a... I'm not cutting out any extra time from you guys. But anyway,

let me just wrap up today by saying that red and white are definitely two very focused, passionate, excited colors. Like I said, when I say passion, I mean white comes across as more zealotry and dedication to the cause. But you know what? Having a white and red person on your side,

they will fight for you. They will believe in you. They will be there for you. They are someone you can rely and depend upon. It's funny that in Ravnica, the Boros, the police, the people who protect everybody are white and red. That I find very, very interesting. Okay, guys, but that is about all I got to say today.

That's what I have to talk about red and white. Obviously, not very next time, but coming up soon will be my last of my two-hour podcast when I will finally get to green and blue. For all the Simic fans out there, I'm finally going to get to you. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed my talk on red and white.

Like I said, it's... Ah, color philosophy is so much fun! Anyway, but I'm in my parking space, so we all know what that means. It means it's time to end my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.