[Theory] Color Pie Discussion: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to [Theory] Color Pie Discussion: (Generated at 2026-08-08 19:07:10)
Something else I see fitting the colors is a kinetic theme (see above, "Potential", "Drive"). I could see inspiration as a mechanic for these colors with red-white being about the combat path to tapping and white-blue about the tricky tap/untap mechanics.
Vitenka's technique of putting three key phrases from the colors together and finding the common ground between them can help you find a variety of flavors to built upon.
Even Maro's podcast does a very bad job of explaining what tri-colour facitons are about. He ended up just describing what the individual colours are.
So I'd pick three words, one from each colour definition; and see what you come up with.
e.g.
:Potential, 
:Drive, 
:Unity
A faction that puts its all into growing together - cards would be all about combining other cards together; both as horrendous science experiments and witht hings like 'crew'.
or.
:Blank, 
:Chaos, 
:Equal
).
Here we are more focussed on the tabula-rasa as the beginning and end point of all things; with "Wheee!" as the middle state. So lots of things that go from dull to exciting, and back again. something like werewolves would work well here (though not the wolves themselves, they are too
A second way to do it is to define a faction by its enemies - and say "Not that". So not
. 
is all about snakes in dark forests, life growing from swamps; and generally wild dark icky poison things. So the 
faction would be where you'd put poison erasure (do not make a poison erasure mechanic though - maybe 'remove -1/-1 counters' as a mechanic?) control and cleansing.
Blue and red are the spell colors and white is a/the enchantment color. With all of them caring somewhat about artifacts the thing Jeskai cares about was determined to be "noncreature spells" - hence prowess.
I recently made some three-colored cards e. g. Orchestrate and Narset's Preparation if that helps.
I could see more dedicated focus on artifacts as well which seem a common ground among all three. Thopter tokens e. g. would work well.
EDIT: Sinter, Forge Artisan is a neat concept for a blue-red-white legendary Artificer.
EDIT2: I swear, I didn't know that was my own card - I randomly discovered it testing my new search function and thought it fit the point I made earlier.
I could maybe see migrating white to the ability to nerf/exile-until/otherwise-contain artifacts; as it can creatures?
Anyhow; I don't have an issue with black getting "You gotta sacrifice summat" style things. As long as it doesn't get a tranquilise (or a one-sided one) then it's probably ok.
I always like the idea of having green being allied with an artifact-removing color and an enchantment-removing color. But white used to start out with Disenchant and it's hard to remove something rather iconic like that entirely.
Regarding what MaRo says about only two getting enchantment removal - I would rather remove artifact removal from
. It always seemed somewhat out of place there. Artifacts being in many ways being the pinnacle of order and white having too wide-spreading removal base as is.
I noted a while ago that black has effects like Undercity Plague that can force an opponent to make the choice between sacrificing a permanent black would have problems with and a permanent black would bot have a problem with removing and made a whole lot of hybrid designs based on that e. g. blue-black "Counter target spell unless its controller discards a card." or "Counter target spell unless its controller sacrifices a creature."
White-black hybrid "Target opponent sacrifices a creature or enchantment." would fall into the same category. And since hybrid design space is just an intersection of the design space of the two colors this would fall into either color. It's a hybrid-level bend by the way of punisher mechanics.
I'm fine with this expansion.
Blogatog
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/search/black+enchantment
> "Here’s what we’re up to. We realized that three different colors could get rid of artifacts (white, red, and green), but only two could get rid of enchantments (white and green). Black seemed like the right choice as it had two permanent types it couldn’t remove. Now, red has trouble with enchantments and black has trouble with artifacts.
> Our constraints for black were as follows. We definitely want black to be third in efficiency behind white and green. We also didn’t want black to be able to destroy its own enchantments as we like the Deal with the Devil enchantments in black (this was the major reason black hasn’t had enchantment removal).
> With those constraints, we’ve started designing cards. Our plan is to roll them out slowly, so I don’t believe Throne of Eldraine has one. You will see more though, just slowly."
Mire in Misery (upcoming card).
http://mythicspoiler.com/c19/cards/mireinmisery.html
Thoughts?
My take on this awhile back was Forget Your Dreams.
Oh; now THAT works. Make it a card with life on it that you can pay towards costs; but lose that life when it leaves play.
I'm not sure I get the arguments against this. Sure, life gain can drag a game along, but does that mean any life gain effects are unacceptable all of a sudden? Should lifelink be shunned now? Surely this is then the 'better' variant of life gain since the isn't just given to you, but can be counter played by removing these life giving / 'maintaining' permanents (more interaction).
That aside, this would play well into
's temptation themes and could/would probably lure even newer players to use those life points as resources.
temporal -> temporary
I don't have much for discussion right now, but I did try and design a few green clone cards. ((C97237)), ((C97238)), ((C97239)), ((C97241)), and ((C97242)).
The first four were all designs I felt tied to animals and nature, with the last being mechanical (which I mention should probably be another color).
I don't buy there being proper variants in
. Maybe something with a tribal team etched onto them such as "Zombies you control ETB as a copy of ~" but otherwise - naaah man. 
are the rebellious colors about individuality. I don't see it being thematically correct for them to conform and become part of the faceless mass.
Some kind of curse or whatnot where opponents' creatures ETB as a certain Zombie or whatever could mayhaps work.
Re: Coronation Malach
I don't know whether I got that across because I was talking about so many things in my lastz comment, but I think Coronation Malach and Essence of the Wild are equally valid - they just use similar mechanics to get each an in-color outcome.
I would feel worse if green had flying or white a big groundpounder, but as long as the base-template is in-color you could probably have a black Demon or Zombie lord expand upon the mechanic as well.
Yeah, discussing where in the current color pie setting a individual creature's p/t to some dynamic value is worthy of another discussion. I think it's truly one of those 'purple' effects that has no place at the moment. Biomass Mutation is one another card doing the thing Mirror Entity does, but it too is a mass p/t setting effect.
I recall seeing the idea of Essence of the Wild first on a Fumar's card at MTG Salvation as a white card:
> Coronation Malach
> Creature - Angel (M)
> Flying
> Each other nonland permanent you control is a copy of ~.
> When dawn arrives, there will be a crown for each head.
> 6/6
To me this kind of assimilation and 'copying perfection' seems like it should be a
thing - not 
since nature likes its diversity. 
is quite predicated on that hunter & prey cycle (survival of the fittest - life and death) among other things.
Hmm, in the article that I link to in the OP, I was thinking
could copy your own artifacts (mass production) while 
could copy your opponents' stuff (reverse engineering).
On enchantments I'm not so sure...
I don't think mixing discussion about p/t setting effects with copying effects just because both are flavored as shapeshifting is fruitful. They are often far closer to +X/+X and -X/-X effects.
Maybe that's an entire different topic.
Now Essence of the Wild does make a good impression impression of something similar why Mirror Entity should be green: When it comes to X costs you take into account the most favorable outcomes and while I expect it can be explained as "turning all your creatures 0/0 and then repeated Charge would do something similar" the ability has a tendency towards Overrun. In essence it is a bend, because changelings explored a lot of less-used design space - and its own can of worms/wurms.
Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, Permeating Mass add interesting questions. The first would seem far more green (though token copies fit white - and maybe any color - more than outright clones); while the second could be blue-tinged, though it is somewhat expicable based on green getting deathtouch.
Everything that just expresses itself onto other things is basically the color itself is; I imagine some keyword that allowed creating copies of itself could go into any color - myriad style - even if the copy overwrites your other creature - but overwriting an opponent's creature? While there are existing examples, I think blue/black should be at the core of that - for the same reason I would say that about offensive p/t setting. Again its own can of worms.
What does this say about Body Double though? That would be black. What about Copy Enchantment? Sculpting Steel? Copy effects have a wider range than just your own creature permanents.
I assumed Mirror Entity was partly because it applied to everything, white gets mass effects more often than other colours.
Becoming copy of another you control is certainly something
's can do. How/does that relate to Mirror Entity? Going with that train of though, do we morph into Ursapine ie. into shade pumps. Mirror Entity's effect is rarely used anywhere. It's in a sense an untapped space that hasn't been used and as such, it made sense in purple (sixth color) - even in flavor as the color had a infinity-nothingness theme (
& 
). This is kind of off-topic but what do you guys think of Infinomancer? How about Emptiness?
Well, Gift of Tusks overlaps with Song of the Dryads when it comes to replacing Beast Within. Definitely much meat on that topic.
But since Skinshifter was mentioned, wouldn't that also be a viable flavor for a clone effect?
> "
: ~ becomes a copy of target Beast you control until end of turn."
etc.
I recall Pyrulea had (at some point, maybe still) a rare variant on the simple mana dude that could become a copy of a land you control until end of turn.
When they devolved into the "all upside, all the time" philosophy, it was inevitable that the power creep would rise meteorically. (pun fully intended.)
I did allude that this philosophy is nonintuitive at the very least. This is constantly being risen as an issue / inconsistency by random players (ie. misunderstood) and that slanders the whole concept of the color pie. The color pie itself is becoming a hypocritical and sanctimonious concept that is being taken less and less seriously as these behemoths of permanent destruction roam around.
Also, Meteor Golem is IMO pushing that concept more as a 3/3 body is a respectable and very easy to flicker. So what I see is WotC doing consistent harm to the game in the long run. The further we go, the farther this trend will likely be pushed. Once the CMC / activation costs of these cards start dropping below
it's gonna be all-you-can-take buffet on the color pie.
This is all wrong.
With all of that being said, let me post my mono-
enchantment removal card xD (Forget Your Dreams)
Spine of Ish Sah exists. Now Meteor Golem exists. It shows that Wizards consistently creates cards not following your philosophy.
That's it. No new argument or perspective added, right?
Okay, first of all, SPOILERS for M19
...
... but have you people seen Meteor Golem? Absolutely reprehensible. At uncommon? With a 3/3 body? Seriously? People are already getting so confused as to why mono-
and mono-
can Naturalize your stuff like it's nothing.
This backwards logic just isn't gonna fly for most people. "A black card can't, but black deck can." Yeah, sure, just try explaining that to the common folk starting to play MTG.
> "What's the color pie, daddy?"
> "It's this thing that thematically divides the colors and their capabilities with their identities. Expect when some Spine of Ish Sah or whatever comes along and takes a giant dump on it. Then the color pie is nothing to worry about."
And it's not like that there aren't cards that can reduce the cost of artifacts. 'Colorless' really needs to be listed on gatherer as a search option for a color, doesn't it? That's all good and all, expect that we are talking about generic
mana card, not 
.
Menace isn't really "new" in red - just from the top of my head I can think of Goblin War Drums; it certainly has become more prolific though.
> One (single-sided fight) has been outright removed from red.
Erm, since when? Is there some kind of statement by MaRo? Fairly recent cards: Mutiny, Fall of the Hammer, and Burning Anger. Not that I much care for one-sided fight in
since it's barely outside of that "only deals damage" category - it's just tied to you having a creature.
I agree with your other points.
> Does red need more options? It's got the best option. It gets to blow stuff up. If it has a physical existence, be it land, artifact, creature - or your opponents face - you get to make it go boom.
Artifact removal is most of the time limited to sideboard slots. Land destruction is no longer preferred. So we're down to one. Out of all various ways to remove a creature, burn is the most restricted and the easiest to safeguard against. Most removal resistant creatures ignore damage by default, heck, just having a large butt on a creature can put the red player into a spot where they have to use multiple burn spells to get rid of a single creature - at which point the have most likely already lost. Arguably the best place to place that burn is face, which is quite non-interactive - and boring if you ask me.
So, as far as "blowing things up" goes, I would rather pick black since it can get rid of any creature without any pesky restrictions. White might be even better since it can get rid of any nonland permanent while it might (or not) at times be more restricted in targeting or be "reversible" (ie. Banishing Light). Most of the time it actually exiles which is better than destroying.
> Why would you ever have "Return target creature of power 2 or less to its owners hand" when you can have "Deal 3 damage to target creature or player"?
Power restricted bouncing was never mention - that would IMO be more home in
, which strangely we haven't seen much. It was more along the lines of "untapped / your opponent controls" restrictions because once those fatties go beyond 6+ toughness, burn isn't really a good solution anymore.
> Bounce is already very well established and prolific part of blue and white. That there isn't much to go around for new design space.
This has to be a bit disingenuous. Prolific part of white? Recently we've gotten Aviary Mechanic, Alley Evasion, and... that's about it. White's space in this is very limited here so obviously it means that the larger part of bounce-space is still untapped.
> Tuck permanent, put target permanent on bottom of library. Perhaps compensate former owner with draw a card. Ex. Leave
I really don't know where are you coming with this - putting cards on bottom of library is perhaps the best kind of removal. I could it as a white card as a mix of Oblation and those common Path to Exile variants that make you draw instead of ramping. Definitely not
. Maybe your idea was inspired by Chaos Warp?
> Swap control of permanents. Alternatively, steal, then compensate former controller with token or equivalent.
Yeah, this is something red could do if it isn't already doing it. Matches well with Bazaar Trader / Act of Treason.
> More taunt / provoke, I agree.
I'm gonna namedrop Tongshan Pathmaker here; a really nice card.
> Red's "temporariness" isn't about granting temporariness to opponents' permanents. It's about red player himself giving up long term benefit for a short term gain. Hence self-bounce is what red should be doing, not using bounce as offense.
Hmm, this sounds fairly reasonable.
So, would you shift one or both white and blue out of self-bouncing with this? Like, would boros colors be the self-bouncing colors now?
I kinda like
self-bouncing its lands since it has that time manipulation feeling of Rewind and friends. Also, the flavor of tides rising and falling. Singer of the Shore for example.
All in all, it might be worth of note that IMO bouncing in
would be one of many things that needs to be changed in the color for it to be revitalized. Having one effect cover over 50% of your cards of the color is laughably to the point of being a bad joke. Red: Color Fixing is another in this "card set". Also, feel free to post your own color shifting ideas as "cards" here.
Red's "temporariness" isn't about granting temporariness to opponents' permanents. It's about red player himself giving up long term benefit for a short term gain. Hence self-bounce is what red should be doing, not using bounce as offense.
Red is allowed to gain temporary resources, i.e. mana, creature, token, card. That's the realm of temporariness red mechanics should aim for.
Ex. Swinging Goblin red creature trades tempo for bigger hit.
Landeating Giant Return your permanent to hand could be red cost (instead of blue Moonfolk).