My Revised Color Pie

Lately, I’ve been getting into Magic: The Gathering, and as any Magic player (and designer) will tell you, the most interesting and foundational characteristic of the game is its color pie. The five-way relationship between red, blue, green, black and white mana is the centerpiece upon which all decks and Planes are built. 

Magic has inspired countless other card games, and the color pie is always something developers are quick to mimic, whether it be the Civilizations of Duel Masters or the five factions of Eternal. However, the color pie in Magic itself is also far from perfect. 

In this essay, I wanted to put forth a new project, my Revised Color Pie (RCP). Note that this is not merely a reinterpretation of the color pie, but a wholesale reimagining of it, complete with new mechanics and, yes, new colors. 

Magic is by and large a game that is designed bottom-up, meaning the mechanics are created before the flavor is. However, my fascination with Magic began because of its flavor and lore. Thus, the RCP was designed top-down, meaning that flavor came before mechanics. I know that many of you may find this design philosophy strange, but I think it’s actually turned out pretty successful. 

Without further ado, let’s begin. 

Flavor Problems:

I’ll cut to the chase. I’m dissatisfied with the color pie in Magic, and as part of a fun project, I wanted the RCP to be made from the ground-up using it as a reference. Plenty of people have discussed the problems with the mechanics of the color pie—White has a tiny slice of the pie and is infamously un-fun, while Green dominates the metagame, and color bleed is abound—so I won’t do that here. But there’s obviously room for improvement and there are circles of fans constantly proposing mechanical revisions, such as Another Color Pie. 

Since others have talked plenty about mechanics, I want to focus on the other half of my beef with the color pie: the flavor. I have two problems with the flavor of Magic’s colors, and both problems are heavily intertwined and related to the specific amount of colors we ended up with. 

1. Because there are only five colors, everything is binary. When you look at a color (such as Red), all other colors are either enemies (White and Blue) or allies (Green and Black) of that color. There is no in-between. 

2. Because there is an odd amount of colors, each color has to try to oppose two others simultaneously. Obviously, the intent is that this will create multifaceted, dynamic interactions between philosophies, but it doesn’t succeed because many colors believe in a key philosophy but one of their enemies does not believe in the opposite of that philosophy, so the enemy relationship is unconvincing. 

The enemy relationship between Black and Green is an example of these problems at play from a philosophical standpoint. While Green’s opposition to Black is partially because Black is focused on self-interest and ambition compared to Green’s communal interests (it’s also the reason why Black and White are enemies), MaRo also declared that it is because Green is deterministic: it believes that all things occur due to a series of events outside our control. This fits wonderfully with Green’s flavor of nature, community, spirituality and destiny. However, this explanation by MaRo fails to explain why it is opposed to Black. Ambition is not the opposite of determinism, indeterminism is the opposite of determinism, and that’s not what Black believes in. 

In fact, one can easily make the argument that Green and Red should be enemies based on this logic. Under MaRo’s explanation, Red is traditionally opposed to White because White is all about structure, law and order whereas Red is all about freedom, and Red finds White too restrictive. What’s more restrictive than the knowledge that all of your actions were set in motion by events you cannot control? 

This is the butterfly effect of MtG color pie philosophy. When two colors are in opposition to one-another, attempts to flesh out that oppositional relationship end up isolating whatever color sits between them. Trying to make Black vs Green convincing isolates Red, and trying to make Red vs White convincing isolates Green. 

Those problems that I mentioned are deeply intertwined. Colors have to be in opposition or cooperation because there are only five, but a lot of WotC’s flavor revolves around very binary philosophies, so when you try to build two oppositional relationships, only one of them is usually convincing. 

My solution is to add a sixth color. 

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As I’m sure many of you know, WotC actually considered adding Purple as a sixth color in Planar Chaos. It would have gone between Blue and Black, and the developers tossed around a few ideas, such as making it time-based, a jack-of-all-trades color, and giving it some mechanics from the other colors (namely Blue and Black). 

Nowadays, it's completely off the table, both for the designers and the developers. Many fans have said that a new color could never fit into Magic because the five existing colors both encompass every imaginable philosophy and every possible mechanic, so adding a new color would end up just taking away from the existing slices of the pie. 

There is no fundamental rule of human philosophy stating that all philosophies and worldviews can be grouped together into five categories. And there is no fundamental rule of game design that says mechanics have to be put in groups of five. I think people who believe these things don’t really understand what we mean when we say we want a new color, and they are looking at Magic—both its flavor and mechanics—with a lens of circular reasoning. Magic doesn’t have five colors because only five playstyles or philosophies could exist; rather, WotC tries to cram everything into five playstyles and five philosophies because only five colors exist. Every new idea that WotC comes up with, they have to make work in their five-color system, and I’m proposing uprooting that system from the ground up to carve out more philosophically and mechanically unique ideas. Hell, in the article I linked above, Paul Sottosani even admits one of their ideas for Purple was to take several of the mechanics that weren’t strongly associated with other colors and put them in Purple. This idea obviously fell apart because it wouldn’t be mechanically cohesive, but it goes to show there is room for growth. 

This is why projects like Polychromia exist. Sure, Polychromia has many philosophies that could be in the existing color pie, it also has some totally new ideas that don’t fit neatly anywhere. 

Okay, so we’ll add Purple. This would create a hexagon, meaning that each color has two allies, two neutral colors and one enemy. Each color could have a more cohesive philosophical identity because it would be created in opposition to a single other color, and certain philosophies are allowed to simply be neutral. But where do we put it? 

Thematic Implementation of Purple:

As part of my top-down, flavor-centric approach, I wanted to revise the philosophies of the existing color pie to create enemy relationships that make more sense. Blue and Red should obviously be in opposition; everything from Star Wars to Voltron indicates that these two are in opposition, so I’m revising their flavor a bit to reflect this. And Black and White should also be in opposition for much the same reasons. This means that, in our hexagonal structure, Purple has to be oriented so that it is opposite Green. This would put it between Black and Blue—coincidentally where the R&D team considered putting it in Planar Chaos all those years ago. 

Blue is probably the most changed in my revised color pie. In MtG, Blue is the color of logic, technology, science, innovation, discovery and perfection. Those are all traits I am keeping, and all of this would indicate that Blue should be a control deck. For the most part, this is accurate. However—as Brian Demars pointed out—Blue ended up encompassing a lot of other ideas that aren’t necessarily in line with this theme, both thematically and mechanically. Notably, Blue is also the color of trickery and deceit, and reflecting this, Blue has access to lots of counterspells and tools that disrupt the opponent’s gameplan. To me, trickery and deceit don’t gel very well with the ideas of logic, science and technology, so I took them out for Purple to use. 

Now, where does that leave Purple? Purple has to be in opposition to Green, and Green is the color of nature (among other things). Does that mean Purple will be based on urbanization? Well, not necessarily, no. That overlaps a little too much with the technological aesthetic of Blue. No, the opposite of nature isn’t urbanization. The opposite of natural is unnatural. 

Purple is the color of aliens, space, the cosmos, psychic powers, interdimensional beings and Eldritch monsters. It has an almost Lovecraftian vibe to it. Whereas Green is community-oriented, Purple is alone. Whereas Green believes in being authentic and open, Purple is secretive, employing trickery, deceit and sabotage (elements inspired by Blue). Green and Purple both agree that the natural world is dangerous, but whereas Green has reverence for nature, Purple seeks to control it and disrupt the natural order. Thematically, Purple consists of cowardly characters on the verge of madness, hurt by what they perceive as an unjust world. They have turned to cosmic, alien and psychic powers in an attempt to control the world, and these powers let them disrupt the magic of others (reflected in a newfound focus on counterspells), but these powers are slowly driving them mad. 

Okay, so all of that covers what Purple will look like thematically. But how will they play? And how will Blue play now that so many of its features have been taken away? In fact, how will all of the colors play? 

Mechanical Implementation of Purple:

Now, I think it’s about time I have a bit of a minor segway. Traditionally, in all sorts of TCGs, players tend to think of decks as falling into one of three archetypes: control, combo and aggro. However, as Zac Hill explained, WotC actually believes there are actually six types of decks: control, combo, aggro, disruptive, resource/ramp and midrange. And wouldn’t you know it, we have exactly six colors to work with. 

Furthermore, I wanted each color to have a clear specialty to work with. I made a list of the major card type we have at our disposal (Sorceries, Instants, Enchantments, etc.) and the major zones on the map (Hand, Deck, Graveyard, Exiling), decided Black should be in charge of the Graveyard, and then I worked backwards from there. However, I was not counting Creatures or Artifacts as specialties. Creatures being a specialty is why the current meta is fucked in Green’s favor, and Artifacts are colorless by their nature. All colors should have access to Creatures and Artifacts that are relatively equal in strength. 

By the time I was finished, I had a surprisingly solid color pie, where each color had its own philosophy, specialty and distinct playstyle: 

• Red is the color of passion, emotion, impulsiveness, rage and experiences. It is allies with Black and Green; neutral with Purple and White; and enemies with Blue. Its playstyle is Aggro and its specialties are Enchantments. Specifically, Red is focused on boosting Power on the battlefield.

• Black is the color of ambition, individualism, independence, self-preservation and decay. It is allies with Purple and Red; neutral with Green and Blue; and enemies with White. Its playstyle is Combo and its specialty is the Graveyard. 

• Purple is the color of space, madness, isolation, trickery, sabotage, otherworldliness and secrecy. It is allies with Black and Blue; neutral with White and Red; and enemies with Green. Its playstyle is Disruptive and its speciality is Exiling. For my revised color pie, I am reinterpreting Exiling (traditionally a White mechanic) as more akin to Banishing in Yu-Gi-Oh, where it represents being sent to another dimension. 

• Blue is the color of logic, reason, technology, apathy and knowledge. It is allies with Purple and White; neutral with Black and Green; and enemies with Red. Its playstyle is Control and its specialty is the Hand. 

• White is the color of peace, order, compassion, empathy, justice, life and religion. It is allies with Blue and Green; neutral with Red and Purple; and enemies with Black. Its playstyle is Ramp and its specialty is the Deck. 

• Green is the color of nature, earth, community, authenticity, spirituality, reverence and change. It is allies with White and Red; neutral with Black and Blue; and enemies with Purple. Its playstyle is Midrange and its specialty is Lands—specifically, Lands with new effects of their own. 

Now, a lot of those changes might seem weird, but again, this is all in the name of mechanical balance from a top-down perspective. Red’s newfound focus on Enchantments is to further the idea that it is the headstrong, Aggro color—and to contrast with Blue, the Control color. Purple now gets the Disruptive playstyle that Blue once had elements of; it is an extremely reactive, high-risk color that struggles to get momentum off the ground on its own but specializes in crippling the opponent down to its level. Green is iconic for bringing out massive monsters that are difficult to deal with, hence its Midrange playstyle (Midrange decks are known for being persistent and having a mix of Aggro and Ramp). 

White is now based around the Deck. A lot of White abilities will involve sending the opponents cards to the deck as an effect or sending your own cards from the field to the deck as a cost. I also picture White as having a lot of card costs that involve milling from the top of your deck (akin to Lightsworns in Yu-Gi-Oh) and having lots of search abilities. (Which is fitting, because search abilities are also characteristic of Blue, a color based around the Hand which is adjacent to White.) To reflect the fact that White will be searching a lot, it is now the new Ramp/Resource color. 

Wait, Why The Hell Is He Adding More Colors?

Look, just let me have this for a bit. 

So, as I said above, I now have six colors with a clear mechanical specialty, playstyle and central philosophy. However, as I researched this project more and more, I encountered two other really, really interesting ideas for colors. 

The first came from this Reddit post, where the writer made an interesting observation: White has, by far and away, the largest conceptual design space. If we were to streamline everything and add more colors, it would be best to split White into two: one to embody truth, selflessness, justice and morality, and one to embody law, order, conformity and rigidity. White would embody the former, while Gray would be added to embody the latter.

The second came from the aforementioned Polychromia. Most of Polychromia’s ideas could fit neatly into this framework in some way, but one really stood out to me: Yellow, the color of boredom, imagination, art, fabrication, transformation and exaggeration. 

What was most interesting was that these two new colors, Gray and Yellow, also perfectly opposed each other. Where Gray is colorless, washed out, uninteresting, technologically advanced, collectivist and overly obsessed with order and rules; Yellow is larger-than-life, colorful, artistic, creative, dynamic, dramatic and constantly changing. These two colors needed to be added, and they needed to be opposites. 

The placement here became clear immediately. Yellow’s obsession with art and creativity felt right at home in the Red-Black-Green quadrant of things. Meanwhile, Gray’s focus on rules, order and technology meant it should go somewhere in the White-Blue-Purple side of the pie. Ultimately, I decided that Yellow should be placed between Red and Green, while Gray should be placed between Purple and Blue, making our hexagon an octagon. (For bonus points, this also puts Gray exactly between Black and White. Hell yeah.)

The problem with doing this is that Gray and Yellow don’t really have any new playstyle to bring to the table, seeing as WotC only defines TCG decks as having six playstyles to begin with. Oh well. That’s definitely a disadvantage, but I still think this is an interesting enough idea. 

However, these decks do have a clear mechanical focus. Yellow is a color that embodies fresh new ideas and creativity, so it gets unconventional Scheme and Saga cards as it specialties. Meanwhile, Gray focuses on defensive mechanics: boosting toughness, abilities that activate when blocking, increasing life, that sort of thing. One idea I particularly like is for Gray to have a mechanic akin to Shields from Duel Masters, where players can set aside the top cards of their deck and those can be added back to the hand later to nullify instances of battle damage.