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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ต.ค. 2023
- The combination of 4 color cards, as introduced by the Nephilim, is one of Magic: the Gathering's least used combinations. Even falling behind 5 colors. But why is this, you would think a game like mtg would have use for any color combination. Well the truth is that even the color pie begins to show its cracks with so many colors present. In this video I will discuss why from a Color pie philosophy, identity and design standpoint why this combination is bound to fail, and why it is never seen in Magic: the Gathering
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Do you think this is an issue that can be overcome?
Not really, no
@analyticalj8687 honestly I feel the same way, I mean I made the video, but I just think there are too many factors that go against the combo.
@@DiceTryIndeed. To further elaborate, my biggest issue with 4c is that the simplest way to define it (to me at least) is by defining it by the absense of a color. The problem with that is that defining anything by what its not way too expansive. If someone asked me what a banana is, I'd rather say that its yellow, rather than that it is not blue. You don't really get that privilege with 4c.
Yes there are just sadly so few 4 color cards and prob will always be. You could easily push all 4 color combinations in certain directions. Alsow fixing limited could easily be overcome with added colorless cards .
They’re not supposed to be competitive. 3-5 color combos were what originally made commanders with the elder dragons. I think the real issue is that we have commander in the standard competitive draft and it’s gumming up the competitive scene. I love them i see their relationship with their chaotic identities but if you’re competing then you pulled a dud.
I think 4 color is most identified by what it lacks. So all but black, should be the antithisis of black. The same goes for the other four combinations. It's reached the point of not being able to rumage through it's own bag to find anything solid, and must rummange through what it lacks to find what to not be, and not just not be, but to be actively antaganistic to.
I feel that the lack of one color is the only way to use 4 color. I agree.
I think MaRo said something along these lines on Tumblr too. It makes sense to me.
But right there is the problem. If a four-color identity is only defined by what it _lacks_ , then it would be inherently impossible to create compelling four-color factions.
For example, on Ravnica, the ten guilds are each defined by the combination of their unique pair of colors; they're not defined by the colors that they lack.
By contrast, if a four-color faction is to be defined by what it _isn't_ , then what real conflict can there be been, e.g, a Yore (WUBR) faction and a Dune (WBRG) faction? They have more alike than different.
That’s why 4 color cards aren’t a good idea. The game doesn’t need them and they don’t make sense and they are impossible to fit into a draft format.
@@genius11433 So the answer could be to focus on color-aversions, instead of 4-color mixes. Like, multicolored cards that can use any mana to cast or activate abilities, except the aversed color. Try to imagine *Sphinx of the Guildpact* , but anti green. So _"Sphinx of the Guildpact is all colors, except Green."_ Next, create factions that got elements of all colors, except the aversed color, like an Chaos-driven cards that are a twisted mirrored version of white, or that could have all the elements that could complements the white weaknesses, but excluding any possibility of using white.
It's not a perfect solution, and definitely could have elements that wouldn't be so distinct from other two color pairs, like Rakdos aversing white, but at least would opens space to focus the identity and philosophy on excluding any elements or ideals of an specific color. If anything, would at least count as a 4-color identity.
I feel like 4 color cards could work if they leaned really hard into the absent color, rather than pulling from the identity mud they have. Make them interact in interesting ways with the color missing from their identity. I dunno, maybe its just cope cuz i really like the nephilim for no real reason XD
The way I see it is, yes they lean into the color missing, but do it similar in the way they did the shards of Alarraa and have each be their own mini Plane
Yes, it's super easy, and these people act like it's some impossible task.
Exactly,
this is the resson I don't use the Nephilim names to describe the combinations, I use the names of the original Commander Precons that actually refer to the absent color ( The deck that lacks Green is named Artifice for example)
I'd argue they definitely already do that, at least the legendary ones. The Gay Kings are sans-Black, and feel that way, helping the entire table to nurture and grow, antithesis to black. Saskia is sans-Blue, shown through a lack of perceived forethought and cunning, simply there to hit hard without fail. Atraxa is sans-Red, which I think hold's the most weight because of their intense code in the story and feeling of rigidity in gameplay. Yidris is sans-White, the least chaotic color, which is very much the opposite of what cascade ball does (usually). And Breya was excellently put by another person's comment, with sans-Green being a sort of antithesis to growth, natural progression, because everything is just a sacrificial means to an end.
@DiceTry This video has very high production value for the most surface level analysis. 4 color cards are defined by the absent color. From a weird "what does this casting cost say about the character?" perspective, it tells us what they eschew to differentiate them from 5 color cards. This video reflects a very shallow interpretation of the color pie and what it means in the wider context of Magic: the Gathering.
What I think your missing about 4 color combinations is that there is a meaningful difference between lacking a color and *opposing* a color.
Breya makes a good example here. She makes new things and then breaks them dawn for temporary effects. You can frame this a few ways. Through black it can be the classic willingness to sacrifice for power. Through red it can be a representation of being impulsive. Through blue it can be a focus on progress and moving forward to learn more. Through white it can be a sacrifice made for a societal good (as in the flavor of selfless savior). Those, especially together, are all a bit flimsy, though. All for reasons you pointed out in this video.
But, frame it through green, the color of growth and conservation, the color of tradition and faith in the old ways of life, the color of natural and slow growth and the pervasive permanence of the wild, and it becomes clear what Breya is. Anathema.
Green can make sacrifices, bit never trivially, and never from producing mass amounts of disposable new things. Greater good requires the sacrifice of some significant and old, as represented with wanting to be used on thighs with high power. Survival of the fittest represent the natural rule of the powerful, an adherence to the ways of times long past the the preservation of such dynamics to this day. But the production of sacrificial, vapid, plastic things all for the sake of burning that away in search of a temporary and insubstantial benifit is *never* something green can do.
Breya isn't allied with white, blue, black, or red. At least, not to the same level as she is *against* green.
That's what a four color card should be. Defined not by what they lack, but by what they oppose.
At least, that's how I'd handle it.
That is a very interesting way to look at it.
So, according to your reasoning, atraxa is the symbol of relentless and methodical expansion, assimilation, and homogeneity (proliferate enough, and a 1/1 and a 4/4are pretty much equally dangerous).
Saskya is the embodiment of strength and conflict, cutting off the self-reflection of blue, and the kings are the emblem for selflessness and community, while Ydris is mostly chaos.
@@riccardocalosso5688 No, they are more defined by a strict opposition to the color they lack. You *can* look at Atraxa through that lens, but I think it gives less of a sense of her identity then saying she is the antithesis of Red. Her steady proliferation over time in a wide spread and predictable way is in opposition to the impulsive and immediately gratifying things Red represents. She's slow and consistent, not because her colors represent slow consistency, but because red is almost never slow or consistent.
Same things with Saskia, The Kings, and Yidris. Saskia picks one person and stubbornly ensures everything she does also hits them, staying to a single course of action with no room for it to progress or improve is antithetical to blue. The Kings give away with great charity, never relenting to selfishness and helping all prosper even if it can be to their own detriment, something the self centered and pragmatic black mana would never allow. Yidris is a bit more subtle, affecting your deck building. Because he makes everything cascade he wants proactive spells that work in most boardstates and discount themselves, eschewing boardwipes more then most commanders and forcing the cards in your deck to work independently of one another fairly well, the opposite of what the fair and social minded white mana desires most.
That's the framing I am proposing is the most useful for understanding 4 color identies, anyhow.
@@tylershannon9319 I just wanted to point out the irony of what you said when Proliferate Atraxa in Commander or Brawl is popular in aggro Poison strategies, even if there are other ways to take advantage of proliferate that are control or midrange.
Thank you! I was trying to find a way to put this as I was falling in love with Saskia's design within the ludo-narrative, as she perfectly embodies the antithesis of blue, with vigilance and haste, she gets on the field, goes right away, and simply does not stop; and-due to the wording of her other ability never specifying it ends when she leaves the field-the most efficient way to make use of her other ability in a commander setting is to let her die to recast her again and again so you can eventually have all of your opponents targeted at the same time, while doing your best to land as many big hits on any of them as possible to kill all of them.
Her playstyle is anything but logical, relies entirely on creatures actually landing hits(so a no on the technology front), cares very little about knowing anything about what your opponents are actually doing, and easily dodges inaction by a wide margin. Boom. Every blue keyword dodged expertly by the game designers while maintaining genuinely easy to understand rules text.
Might genuinely be one of the coolest card designs I've discovered recently, big W for the game designers in my opinion.
I agree you can't do a four color set, but I do think a set featuring 5 four-color villains, or even a story arch across multiple sets featuring four-color villains warring across the multiverse would be interesting. Less impersonal than the Eldrazi, but more impersonal than someone like Bolas. It would be impossible for any of them to come to terms with one another because they are defined by the absence of a color that all of the others possess. Make them apocalyptically powerful. Could be good stuff
I really like the idea of sneaking a handful of 4-colour cards into each set. Even if they're very powerful they'll almost certainly be a trap, but there will always be that temptation to try and make them work.
This requires wizards to start using their own IP again
The Nephilim are one of those older, more unique creations from MTG's past that really made the planes in the game feel more creative and unique compared to standard generic fantasy worlds.
Also just have a few more aspects of the plane that weren't directly tied into the "Main Plot" of each set is good for world building.
I think that hybrid mana symbols can give us a set based on four color fractions. So basically a creature for U/B G/W is quite easy to cast, easier than quite usual UG creature, for example, but it is four colored and it does not require to use complex lands to cast it.
This fits so well with the idea that 4colors are more about the lacking color, and that the present colors being somewhat interchangable
I agree with this. Even if you're casting something like U/B,B/R,R/G,G/U, a 4 color card, you only NEED two opposing colors to get it into play. Hybrids make multi color cards much easier to cast with a weaker land base, and more deeply defined by what they are not rather than what they are.
The way I’d interpret making 4c cards in both philosophy and gameplay is identifying and playing with the missing colour. (It’s probably the only reasonable way you could, without making keyword soup cards)
In the philosophy sense, being 4c means you’re almost willingly disregarding an important piece of the whole pie. Because if you’re strong enough to become almost perfectly balanced, why would you NOT be 5c? Unless, you chose not to be; 4c cards are in my mind, defined by their zealot-ous denial of the colour they’re missing. Omnath is the best example that they’ve made imo. In his prime form, he was missing black because being a locus of creation doesn’t lend itself to black very well. Only when corrupted by phyrexia did he become “balanced”, and in doing so became the locus of all. (Atraxa is also a good example, since she was designed by Elesh Norn to be the ideal phyrexian, without the rebellious-ness of Urabrasks influence)
In the gameplay sense it’s significantly harder in my mind. The biggest issue with 4c cards that I see is their propensity to just be lumped in with other 5c cards. Similar to the arguement of “why not just be 5c”. The way I’d imagine you’d have to do a 4c set is to actively discourage using the 5th colour. Cards that have powerful effects, but only if you have the correct colours. The simplest way I could think is like Wild Nacatl or Kird Ape. Cards that have bonuses for having the correct lands, but tack on a massive downside if you have the incorrect ones. (ex. A green creature that gets +1/+1 for each of Plains, Mountain, and Swamp, but gets -3/-3 if you control an island)
There are many issues and design challenges with that style of design, especially in limited, but that’s how I’d do it.
(Stuff in brackets got edited in)
The lore explanation of Elesh Norn creating Atraxa for that reason was news to me, and that was pretty sweet to learn.
I feel like the new dominaria set actually set a good precedent for a 4 color set. It gives bonuses based on the number of basic land types, encouraging the use of more colors. Yes you would be handicapping yourself a bit to not splurge for the fifth color, but you’re still getting something out of additional colors
@@Poenasyeah, but main problem that OP rings with gameplay mechanics for 4c is that you want to create some way to reward for 4c decks to stay 4c (other than just a usual consistency that you gain with bringing less colors into the mix). Yeah, you could use domain in non-5c decks, bant control for example use leyline binding a lot. But still you get more bonuses from gaining all colors. And it would be cool to actualy see a mechanic that would work in 4c decks and not work in 5c and not only that but even punish you for using it in 5c, like in example from OP comment maybe creature would gain +1/+1 for each needed color but actualy gain -5/-5 or some drawback effect like defender when it get "affected" by 5 colors/opposite color. Or other interesting, but clunky effect that was mentioned in the comments is blocking one color at all, like a good UBRG creature that dissalow you to gain White mana at all.
@@Dreadnote-pf7of There's also some colorless creatures that get bonuses and penalties depending on which/how many colours you use to cast them. I can't remember any of the names, but one had the effect of gaining +1/+1 for each 2 (I think) G spent and giving your other creatures +1/+1 for each 2 W spent
I don't think it needs to be fixed. The idea of 5 linked planes that are each missing one color sounds fascinating. The set could still be 5 colors, and aimed at 2 colour decks, but have 5 major factions. Sub factions that exist in two planes at once would be a way to help limit the keyword soup. It's almost infinite though, and way a color influences the others would need to be the focus.
"The idea of 5 linked planes that are each missing one color sounds fascinating."
So, Alara, but probably worse. Got it. Genius.
@@StarkMaximumAlara doesn't own the idea of multiple linked planes. Whilst I think it's a really cool place (and really am excited for its return), you can definitely do another place with 4-colors as well (alternatively if you really want to keep it different, make it continents / countries on one plane)
Personally I believe the 4 colors can really embody a playstyle and a show a distainment cycle for what the missing color wants to do. For instance you could take a Dune Eye Color card missing blue, and make it a massive pain or enchantment penalty for drawing cards for everyone involved, attack what Blue holds dear, knowledge and buying time. Every turn this cost grows and grows until the desert dries up all resources and hopes.
The Glint Eye one could parallel with life gain, a bit of a call back to your previous video where you could have this creature steal the life that would be gained from someone making it bigger and bigger. That along with protection from the missing card could pose a really really big scary threat. There are so many untapped potentials with the identity of vindicating and treating the missing color as the strongest identity rather than homonginizing the other colors for a single unity in their similarities or differences, its taking what is not inline with them and villainizing it.
i think the best 4-colored creature thinking about lore is Atraxa. She was created by the power of four Phyrexian Preators and who was the lacking Preator is obvious, when we see her colors.
Shame she was just a glorified miniboss who got killed by a falling building in the actual story.
@@DarkinBladeGamingBeing impaled by a girder is a good way to die. It's a warriors death.
She also falls into the antithesis catagory by the fact that the one color she is missing, Red is the color of freedom and chaos, which while her cards don't scream that the lore certianly does
@@lunermist4039 Umberask betrays the praetors as well. (The mono red praetor)
Atraxa is just a generic good stuff card tho
Do the four color combos lack an identity simply because they don't have the cards for one to form. I'm not saying that they should just make more four color cards, difficulty aside, but you can't fix something without working on it. Other colors and color combos formed an archetype because more cards were made and the parts of the identity that didn't fit were left behind. We have orzov mechanics because we have orzov cards. I don't think multiple factions of four color combos could exist in one set but maybe a set with one dominate four color faction and the lacking color being some sort of rebel/outsider faction. I have no idea just sharing my thoughts. I didn't even think about this till your video, thank you.
This is totally valid, I would love to see them make some more cards simply for the examples, but as someone who spends a lot of time making videos about the colors pie, even I have trouble locking down their identities, without simply looking at the color that is missing.
The enemy pairs feel, to me at least, like the guilds defined what they mean.
You can look at the ally pairs and go "Oh, red and green, both make big creatures in the form of dragons and beasts. So Gruul is big aggressive stompy stuff."
But green and blue didn't mean +1/+1 counters until the Simic guild was a thing. Why does Red and Blue immediately make people think spellslinger? Because that's Izzet.
Personally I think 4 colour should be designed around Uncolor (So GWRB is based around being "Unblue", for example), but a set that gives each quad a keyword could really help.
I could imagine doing a four colour set in Ravnica as a post apocalypse survival set, focused on guild alliances, so two colour pairs that don't share a colour teaming up. You could do this with fun things like some new split cards with Fuse, with each side of the card having a guild mechanic and colour, and if you have the 4 Colours to play it it becomes a powerful value card.
Split mana symbol cards, treasures, Quad lands could make it work, and to avoid 5 colour soup you can have colourless cards reward for playing exactly 4 Colours (4 colour adamant?). It might be the example of something that shouldn't be done just because you COULD for a designers ego, but something fun/playable that could invoke the feeling of Guilds working together like War of the Spark did for a cycle of uncommons.
I really like the IDEA of 4-colour combinations and I think they can sometimes work well. I think Atraxa is a great example, embodying Phyrexia in such an effective way through being defined by a lack of red-mana. No individuality, no passion, no fire. Hard and cold and cruel. Breya's also good, embodying her own self-removal from the natural world (green) to the point where she's entirely hollow and mostly metal.
With all this said, I don't think it always works out and it definitely seems very hard to make any kind of broader faction out of 4-colour combos, though I'm sure it'll be tried at some point.
Was going to just put this in the background, but your arguments were so compelling that I stopped what I was doing and listened. Great video man.
Good video over all. I really liked that you pointed out at the end the difference between real world complicated humans (I tested Inkmaw on the quiz you've promoted in the past) and characters in media, who need to be somewhat simplified for the sake of processing and purpose in the story. I do wish we could do one more 4 color commander set with factions just so we could have better names for the combos (never been a fan of the nephilim names tbh). I do agree there's no way to do a regular set that could support four colors well.
I think a commander set might actually be the only way to do it. They wouldn't have to do a bunch of factions but rather 4color characters from different planes
I mostly just want the factions for names 😂
@@DiceTry To add onto this idea, any defined character could then be given that extra 4th color based on them being corrupted/compleated (black) or being enraged (red) or enlightened (white), for ex.
I was thinking of Nissa being given Simic and Golgari colors in different sets in regards to this.
Or heck, they could even do more teamups like with March of the Machine. That's practically begging to be explored. Then you can easily have 2 characters from 2 color factions in one card for 4 colors. And then you add distinct effects based on each 2 color faction, almost like what they already did with teamup cards.
I've never taken a quiz about it, but I'm confident that I would be Witch. Red is the most difficult color for me conceptually, and I would have a lot of difficulty building a mono-red deck. Paradoxically, I really enjoy Dimir and Selesnya more than any other color pairs.
Really nice job. I had kind of felt like this but had never put it into words and you did so remarkably.
What’s going to end up happening is what always happens, and that is cards are just going to become so broken that you most likely will win in 3-4 turns. I can see four color combinations taking these ranks accidentally by attempting to make them unique mechanically and creatively.
Glad you covered this,cause while we may be a combo of 5 colors,the majority of people I think express 1-3 colors in how they come off in terms of philosophy,I have white and black in the quiz that shows off your color philosophy,but it's so small it's really insiginificant,and if i ask others they would be like i see the red,green,and blue in you,but as for white or black it's not really there even if I have like 1 trait from each of those colors
Ever since they introduced 'party' as a mechanic, I wanted a yore (wbur) commmander for it. Each color representing a card type; white for clerics, blue for wizards, black for rogues, & red for warriors. It just seems so flavorful.
I like your take on the problems with designing and even focusing a set on 4 color cards. A fair number of the cards that are 4 color do feel like they pushed an extra color into the identity becuase their was a demand for it rather then the card actually reflecting the color identities. You also show a good point of the trouble to making a card's colors really reflect having the 4 colots or lack of that 5th color without becoming "keyword soup".
You're spot on. One of the biggest issues you touched on is the lack of identity, mechanically and flavorfully. That's what really limits it. Four colour cards either feel like: Not one colour, three colours with one tacked on, or just a mess of everything. They also don't seem to have much in common. I do hope wizards will figure it out though. I think four colour cards are better in small quantities as you alluded to. The one area I disagree with is the idea that four colour lands would break eternal formats. Although I don't think they would be great for standard, eternal formats already have such powerful lands like the tricycle lands and mana confluence/city of brass. If made correctly they could be balanced. (I would suggest they not be fetchable though.)
The reason why 4-color cards are a problem is because in Magic’s CURRENT design policy they are difficult to use. Magic changes all the time though; a great example was that Aragorn card. Back in the day Magic’s leadership would adamantly push against community requests for crossovers with other properties, something that has definitely changed. If someone postulated a design concept for 4 color cards that was satisfying enough, or, something changed within MTG’s color pie identity (something that happens very frequently) we would start seeing more 4 color legends with the quickness. In fact, as this video points out, we already are.
I was thinking about this, the answer could be to focus on color-aversions, instead of 4-color mixes. Like, multicolored cards that can use any mana to cast or activate abilities, except the aversed color. Try to imagine Sphinx of the Guildpact , but anti green. So "Sphinx of the Guildpact is all colors, except Green." Next, create factions that got elements of all colors, except the aversed color, like an Chaos-driven cards that are a twisted mirrored version of white, or that could have all the elements that could complements the white weaknesses, but excluding any possibility of using white.
It's not a perfect solution, and definitely could have elements that wouldn't be so distinct from other two color pairs, like Rakdos aversing white, but at least would opens space to focus the identity and philosophy on excluding any elements or ideals of an specific color. If anything, would at least count as a 4-color identity.
There's a bunch of comments on leaning into the missing color but in my opinion that doesn't really work because the colors share too much between eachother. It does work sometimes but it's very specific I think and there's not a lot of design space. Thinking about it when it comes to keywords most are shared across multiple colors. Flying in 3+red, lifelink in black and white, deathtouch in black and green, menace in black and red, trample in red and green +black. Other identifying mechanics like drawing cards is available to everyone in some way, discarding cards is red black +blue, gaining life is black white and green, dealing direct damage is red black +white, exiling cards is mostly white but everyone can do it every once in a while. Even counting cards is both blue and white. Tapping down creatures is blue and white. Artifact synergy is often blue and red. Enchantment synergy is mostly green and white. The most well defined things come down to blue counting cards and red dealing direct damage which i mentioned black also does. How do you design a card that specifically doesn't counter things? every non counter already does that.
I think atraxa is fine because she's got 4 keywords that fit into black and white and I consider proliferation to be mostly a blue and green mechanic even though it's in every color in some form. She doesn't have any ways to deal direct damage or haste or trample or menace so she is missing any red adjacent flavor. Im not trying to say it's impossible to make a card that lacks any aspect of one color, but I'm saying it's very limiting. Very difficult to make something mechanical unique and interesting that way. I think absence is a great way to take the idea for sure but to me it's like a song that is too long with too little rest, it's too much all at once and it doesn't have the room to let the absence of sounds contextualize it.
Well explained. I have never cared for four-coloured cards, and feel that the version „all but one Color“ is mostly covered by a Colors enemy pair. Rakdos, for example, already represents „everything but white“ in my opinion.
4 color can also be viewed as 2 color pairs combined. Each pair has mechanics that represent both sides simultaneously (especially in Ravnica). Two of those mechanics could be put on the same card. Likewise with creature types: an Ape Assassin, Bird Berserker, or Snake Samurai would demonstrate this well. 4 color's main problem is that it really needs mana fixing, but doesn't have access to it like 5- color decks do.
Nice examples bro
Really cool video! It helped me quantify why I’ve almost felt the most strongly about two-color magic cards, and why there are so many. I’m curious, what do you think are the most inspired and interesting of the four-color legendaries?
For me the 4 colours identities should be: Opression (green-less, the response of W, the obsession of control of U and the tiranny of B and R), Grotesque (white-less, chaos in body and mind without the order of W), Rebellion/Freedom (blue-less, freedom in all his form, W care for others, B selfishness, R emotional, G living), Awe/Wonder (black-less, the blinding light of W, understanding of U, expression of R and the natural wonders of G), Stoicism/Resilience (red-less, the protection of W and U, the persistence of B and the strenght of G)
Some of these choices are really odd. Why would Oppression include the color of freedom, spontaneity and choice, and not the color of "the natural order" and "fate"? Meanwhile Rebellion for some reason lacks the color of knowledge and study, rather than the color of order and society? Does red not being included in resilience imply that they lack the ability to make the meaningful change they try to institute?
@@Dieonceperday red can be the color of freedom but it's no it's only aspect, it is very aggresive, it can induce fear (can't block mechanics) and it's used by warlords. For rebel/freedom the biggest aspect of blue is control (over others?), W is che common colour of the good guys against the tyrants and oppressors, and rebels is a W tribe. I consider red-less a difensive combination, a lack of aggression so Stoicism: endure adversity and emerge untouched and unfazed so yes wubg would lack change. Resilience is synonymous of resistance/outlast not change.
@@umbertosambo6040 Except white is also the color of tyrants and oppressors, though. Religious Orthodoxy, and I mean, look at Elesh Norn. Green representing the natural order, the rule of the strong, and the power of fate make it way more pertinent to the themes of oppression than red, imo. If anything, being without green should be industry. Civilization unbound by concern for nature. Creativity, ambition, the pursuit of knowledge and creation, and the rule of man all flourish while the world withers away underfoot.
@@Dieonceperday I see wubr as such: W do x to an attacking or blocking creature, U tap/counter, B discard/duress and R oppression effect. I have taken this aspects of the colours and together seems to me to fit in the oppression theme, at the end of the day is arbitrary and subgetive, plus I would be displeased to tie a quadricolor identity to a colorless theme.
@@umbertosambo6040 So...they're oppression because of having control effects rather than anything to do with their actual colors? It feels quite clear that each color has within it the potential for tyranny, so linking that to just four of them is a bit odd. Why does lacking green somehow make everything else tyrannical?
After a couple of minutes thinking about what one can do for four color cards, I came up with this: use one pair of color's "theme" as the activator, and the other pair as the "Effect". For example, a card that when you cast an Instant or Sorcery, you put a 1/1 creature on the field, or put a +1/+1 counter on a creature; that would fit a Red/Blue/Green/White card.
Additionally, one could closer hone in on its identity by what the "pay either or" of two kinds of Mana; a mechanic that's been around a long time, and has been described as "using the edges of the color pie for identity rather than the whole slices"; as such cutting much of the fat of its identity in favor of two very narrow themes within larger themes.
One may even be able to build an "arc", where the four-colors groupings represent a nation with the missing color being a "Shared Taboo", but the nation is split into Two-Color factions that are each vying for power within their own nation even as war between the nations approaches... And to simplify things slightly, each of the factions within the nation would take one color from one side of the color wheel, and another color from the other. (For example, a Red/Blue/Green/White nation having a Red/Blue faction, a Green/White faction, a Blue/Green faction, and a Red/White faction... Or if you only want to have ten "factions" total to prevent doubling up, only bring out the Green/White and Red/Blue factions for that nation.)
One method that may not have been mentioned is utilising a cycle spread throughout multiple sets. Similar to the "one example from a plane", you could also lean into the mechanical emphasis of the set to distinguish each member of the cycle from each other. One could also use this as a way to explore the effect the multiversal invasion of the New Phyrexians had on the plane.
For example, Etali got compleated by Phyrexia, which give us the opportunity to see a Witch-Maw card version of Zacama as it tries to make up for the loss in its Red mana rep. Granted, the main issue with using Zacama is that her base card is sort of a Nayan 'keyword/colour rep soup' of abilities.
While I more or less agree that a strict four color card is more effort than it’s worth, this is exactly why I wish they would stop being cowards about partner.
While not being great cards mechanically, I think the nephilim were some of the best creature designs in MTG history. The art was fascinating to stare at.
Just today I was talking about how you were never going to make a video on four-color lol. But I still find this part of design extremely fascinating and while I agree with a lot of your points, I just can't help but feel there must be a way to make these work 😂
There will be and I have an idea of how I might tackle it, just not quite there yet
I would love to see your take on the 5 4 color combinations as defined by opposing the missing color. What forms that could take may be pretty interesting.
Aragorn as a multi-colour deck is cooperation , he utilises the many strengths of his allies to fight off a destructive power hungry force; a very black mana ideology. I would say that Chromanticore a five coloured creature is more befitting of the phrase "keyword soup" as Aragorn only uses one keyword in one of his effects.
I don't think you mentioned this in the video, but one of the main responses that Mark Rosewater gives when asked about the lack of 4-color cards is that it's hard to justify not doing 5 colors. You don't have to worry about the excluded color, you can fall back on past representations of 5 color, the card will do better as a standalone card (whereas a 4-color card mildly implies a cycle), and so on. 4-color cards *can* happen, but there has to be a good reason; 5-color cards can just happen.
I think a good way to make 4-color cards work is to put some of the colors on the card's mana cost and some on their abilities.
I like the way you described how the color pie works on real people. About how some people could just be 5% of a color but it is still part of them. Going with that analogy to real life, a person for example may not identify themself as an athlete but if they can play sports, that's still part of their identity.
This is already a thing with Kenrith, the Returned King. He identifies with white, but as High King of Eldraine, he has abilities that represent each court. Granted, his abilities are very similar to keyword soup, but this is a design space that could be refined and be applied to 4-color cards.
Imagine a card with a Selesnya mana cost. A person that finds balance in civilization and nature. On its rules text are two abilities: one red and one blue. The red ability is the manifestation of when this character leans too hard on their green side. It represents the raw and uncaring power of natural calamities. The blue ability is the extreme version of this character's white side. It represents the reliance on ingenuity to augment oneself with creations that could only be achieved through studying and practice.
There is an option, but it revolves around identifying what removing one of the colors from the equation creates. Like if you remove Black from the equation, what do White, Blue, Red and Green create without its influence and how do you establish what is essentially 5 new archetypes for that exist only in a medium or higher range deck, as all cards in that series would be 4 mana minimum and couldn't rely on colorless mana without betraying the theme. So then it becomes a matter of shifting the color balance as 4 different colors become 3+2x, 2+2x+2y, 1+2x+2y+2z, 2w+2x+2y+2z, 3w+2x+2y+2z and so on, and that bleeds into 5 different thematic directions that have to be considered.
One design space for the combination of WUBR is how it likes to fling spells and a focus on fire, ice, water, and lightning. My idea for a villain post-Nico would have been a archwizard that sacrificed his green mana for an artificial planeswalker spark, and would act as an overall neutral character, helping, hindering, or abstaining in events with the help of agents on differing planes. His focus could be summoning ice and meteorite golems, reducing color spell costs/channeling elements to create effects (cast a UW spell and make an ice token, cast a BR spell make a meteor token, etc.). It’d basically be the most wizard wizard to ever wizard and all specifically because wizards are seldom found in green, white is the runner up but has enough synergy with U as a spell-slinging/control color to fit thematically.
So four colors could actually focus on combining the qualities of specific color pairs it’s made up of! One WUBR card could focus on UW/BR while another on UR/BW interaction!
My view on 4 color is to ignore the missing color entirely and build the identity around two color pairs interacting.
(UB)(RG)
(BR)(GW)
(WR)(UG)
(WU)(BG)
(WB)(UR)
So instead of figuring out how 4 colors represent the absence of one, you figure out how two color pairs can interplay with one another.
With the Nephilim from Ravnica, however, I always liked the idea of them basically being plagues that left behind worlds devoid of the missing color.
Another way to define them using the arrangement of the Nephilim's mana costs is to take something the missing color would despise, the inner allied pair would support, and the outer pair would opppose inflicted on themselves but would inflict on others (or would criticize in others while being guilty of it themselves)
WUBR: Invasiveness
UBRG: Myopia
BRGW: Ignorance
RGWU: Immutability
GWUB: Passivity
Honestly that is a valid way to go about it
From my experience, this is more complex to do than you think... it would be a lot of work to identify what those factors are, and then it also begs the question then, what about "inner-outter" so instead of your UBRG why not (U(BR)G)? There is no real difference between the two sides, which also gives breathe to more questions on how to work it, as you could even do (BG)(UR) as well.
@@AdderMoray your second one is onto something, I go in depth on my own comment on something which touches further on this, in a possible way MTG can do this better.
@fenrirsilver6441 The answer to "why not X instead of Y" is simply "because we went with X." As long as you represent all ten combinations, which pairs shows up in which set of four is not only irrelevant, but serves to demonstrate how you can not only differentiate 4 colors from other 4 colors, but 4 colors from other permutations of themselves. Because, using UBRG again, An information hoarding biotruther fundamentalist (UB RG) is much different from a Mad Science Death Cultist (UG BR)
What a wonderful video. I do think there's space for four color planes, or atleast planes where one of the key colors is pressed in some way. Kaladesh was a great example of this, with red mana being especially frowned upon. Despite it being a realm of innovation it was heavily controlled innovation, with creativity being pushed towards standards of beauty and conformity rather than self expression. This idea of a plane by exclusion is explored pretty well in a few of the wedge and shards that exsist, and I'd like to highlight a few...
Grixus. Out of the five orginal shards, I think from a lore and mechanic standpoint that Grixus is the best defined by its mana. This is a realm without white or green mana, and thus it is a realm of death. A place where everything is endlessly recycled, where death itself has become a new form of life. Where everyone struggles against inevitable stagnation through any means possible.
Esper- Cold. Calculated. Orderly. Selfish. A realm of pure hierarchies and beauty. A place of complete structure and submission to the idea of a clockwork world. Another realm defined by absence where it's running out of resources and status is defined by how much of your own flesh you replace. The perfect encapsulation of blue, black, and white mana. I also think if we ever go back to alara that exalted is gonna be a keyword for esper. You're sending fodder forth to die, or sending forward your very best, most well equipped and perfect creature to destroy.
Abzan- Family. The tribe. Not just kw but forever. Defined by ancestors and deep roots, shelting all and accepting those who conform to their ideals. Towering living bastions of life in an unforgiving desert. This and the last wedge I'll discuss are even better defined in Dragons of Takir because each wedge LOST a color. Abzan lost acess to black mana, and with it ancestors as well as much of its sacerfice mechanics. What was once a clan defined by sacerficing the self for the greater whole only to live on as a spirit is now just a clan all about defense. About family. No one left behind and building soemthing that lasts now.
Temer- Intially I thought temper was pretty lame in khan's. Just a wandering group of animists governed by their harsh conditions. Cool asthetic but that's about it... Yet in dragons? In dragons they lost acess to blue and with it all of their spirituality. Their enlightemt was stripped away leaving only savagery and hunger. This retroactively made kg temper a lot more interesting to me, wandering families of shamanic nomads living in harmony with a savage environment.
I bring these allup because they are defined best by abscence, especially in the shift from khan's to dragons. I think the best way to really have a four colored set would be in edh, and to have it be a realm coping with the loss of one of its sources of mana. Entire sets could be around one of the four colors, with the fifth being presented as rare or requiring something extra to cast most of its spells. That said a few realms already stick out to me as places that naturally are lacking in a color of mana...
Zendikar: black mana. This is a realm where the land itself is brimming with life and sentience. It's quite hard for the color of death to fit in here, and if we ever go back again (again) it would be a great example of rare black mana being tied to crypts, tombs, and civilizations of ages past. Wastes could be reintroduced as well which black mana is slowly reintigrsting into itself.
Innastrad: White mana. The angels are mostly dead. Humanity continues to search for new faiths. And what goes bump in the night continues to grow stronger. Spirits could be shifted to blue black with occasional sowlshs of white, with humans becoming primarily green another color. It can be a realm without true order just people attempting to survive as it goes utterly mad from Emerkules influence.
Ravnica: Green. The whole plane is a city and despite everyone's best efforts the wild spaces fade entirely. Gruul is disbanded, recognized as nothing mroe than an obsolete guild with their work being picked up by others. With the import of food via omen paths golgori loose massive amounts of power, especially as the oceans under ravnica begin to flood their sewers. Simic becomes dominated by blue mana, seylensia a fanatical cult... Heck maybe we cna make it a wedge set as things break down utterly.
Amonkhet: blue mana. It's a giant deathpost apocolyptic death desert of people trying to find a new home. Blue mana should be scarce since there's a distinct lack of water. Green mana could be too, however I think thst may be going too far.
Kaldhiem: Red mana. After the burning of the world tree the gods related to fire were vilified. Even the use of fire was frowned upon and the whole plane entered a period of morning and reflection. Looking backwards nothing new is created, and the realm enters a period of stagnation where even war seems pointless. Could do a fun viking spy thriller set.
Questing beast is a 4 colour card that happens to be mono-green.
There's one major problem with true four color cards that people almost never mention: The problem of needing FOUR mana to even start playing the things. In most games, by the time you get to four mana, the game is almost over.
Solutions to that require fiddling with the mana cost symbols: Hybrid is one way to do it.
An "any mana except this color" casting cost is another. Then you add upsides if you have various mana types available. The problem with THAT is that it's almost that same as just having artifacts everywhere.
So personally I think it's at its best when it's joining two pairs of colors together. Like Ravnica team up cards where you have a White and Green guy teaming up with a Red and Blue guy, or whatever. Meld is also an obvious way to go with this. It doesn't really have to be good or show up often (the mechanic itself is inherently weak), but it does have to be *cool*. Has to stand out.
I forget where I saw this, but I heard different names for the 4 color combos based on the color that is lacking.
WUBR - Artifice
WUBG - Growth
WURG - Altruism
WBRG - Aggression
UBRG - Chaos
This is really demonstrated well with those 4 color commander precons. Atraxa proliferating, Ydris making everything cascade, and Breya being everything an artifact deck needs.
I really like the 4 color combos flavorfully because of this.
Mechanically, though, this really only works for commander or really cool one-offs like Atraxa, the Grand Unifier.
I think as time goes on we can get more robust definitions for these philosophies, and perhaps each will end up having multiple possible interpretations. Take Altruism, for example. Would we consider it through the lens of Naya+Bant, having the allied pair of green and white be the bridge between red and blue? Or would we think of it more as Temur+Jeskai and try to explore something there? Could this way of thinking even apply to color pairs and we think of it as Azorius+Gruul? Who knows.
Glad you touched on this topic, one of my favorites.
I don't think the complexity problem of 4 colour combinations can be fully solved, but there are two ways to make it a little easier for a specific faction or other entity:
- Taking only 1 aspect of each colour and using that instead of everything the colour represents. This would make it not as much more complicated as a two colour combination, as each colour usually brings 2-3 aspects, from which 1 or 2 might be dropped in a combination with other colours.
- Focussing on what colour the combination is lacking and instead of defining it by the combination of colours instead defining it by what it's opposing. Tho this might fall into the risk of being close to the combination of the two enemy colours of the missing colour.
This video has very high production value for the most surface level analysis. 4 color cards are defined by the absent color. From a weird "what does this casting cost say about the character?" perspective, it tells us what they eschew to differentiate them from 5 color cards. This video reflects a very shallow interpretation of the color pie and what it means in the wider context of Magic: the Gathering.
I have heard of / thought of a few ways to handle four color philosophy:
* Focus on the color they lack/oppose, basing philosophy around some of the elements of the other colors geared towards something fundamentally antithetical to the missing color
* A coming together of other philosophy combinations. Could be two pairs that don't share a color joining their philosophies or three pairs each sharing one central color (for instance, dimir, rakdos and golgari combining into one faction). The first presents a combination of viewpoint or variable viewpoint, while the second would have one color's philosophy at the root tainting or being tainted by the remaining three colors. It could also be a shard/wedge with an additional detail.
* Closeness to real human experience. As you pointed out, humans are usually the five colors, but at different weights. While up to two colors you get a very singular focused identity, as you grow out of that you need to start adding nuance to get your remaining factions, and this is an outgrowth of that.
In logic there's a statement that "something cannot be two things at the same time in the same way". A car can be green and blue but not simultaneously if referring to same piece of it, there'll be some parts which are blue and others green, no matter how thinly divided. I think this could support the approaches for four color philosophy, for instance often a character or card in magic will have a color not due to their way of thinking but due to their abilities or the kind of creature they are. So you could have, say, a fire elemental with an Abzan philosophy or a mardur mind mage.
Furthermore, there's hybrid mana, which could be a way to have four colors without really having the full weight of four colors. After all, hybrid mana's philosophy exists entirely within the intersect of philosophies, meaning its range is about as limited if nor more limited, than single color philosophy, making it still distinct. This is kind of how I've come to see myself, actually, someone with blue, red and Orzhov. Not white or black, but specifically orzhov as a hybrid, with neither my white-aligned or black-aligned values being something I see as distinct or separable. To me the promotion of the individual is the defense of the many and the good of my group my own interests and well-being. I am blue and red by nature, and and orzhov hybrid by philosophy, all four colors existing in me in a sense, but applying to different aspects of who I am.
Though I can see a fair amount of options to tackle it philosophy-wise, mechanically it's much more of a challenge. The main issue is that any set featuring heavily four colors would turn into a five color set instead, as I don't really see a way to make the mana work such that it wouldn't be extremely easy to move from four to five colors and just play whatever the best cards happen to be, making things far too homogenous. So far the only solution I've been able to identity is quite the clunky one, which is hard-ruling through card effects that you exclude a given color. I think companion might be an approach for this, but it would come with the challenge of balancing companion in a way that is useful but doesn't break the game as the previous iteration did.
I really like the first set of 4 color face commanders, the ones with atraxa, those focus on the things that unite all those colors, counters and keyword soup for atraxa, hug for the non black, aggression for the nonblue, artifacts for non green, which is good because green at the time was the artifact destroyer, black was the spend life to hurt people, etc, basically focus on the one thing that the color they aren't hates most and take it to the extreme
I think it’s really about giving things unique identities using your own example a red, blue, green, and white card could represent the creation without destruction giving it a unique identity which isn’t necessarily present in the current setting.
Others have already said this, but I feel like Quad-color really only holds relevance if we first talk about Penta-color, or "Full Pie". What does it _mean_ to be Full Pie? Is it the same as or one step removed from the Transcendence aspect of Colorless? Is it the full reality of human existence?
I think that only after we talk about Full Pie can we talk about Quad-color. What does it mean to be all but one color of mana? What philosophies can we identify within the 4 colors used? What does that say about the view towards the missing color? While I strongly believe DiceTry is uniquely equipped with the knowledge to begin such a discussion, I also won't deny that it'd be a lot of hard work.
An attempt to make the Uncolor idea of the Quads into something like shards:
Unblue: A world where knowledge isn't passed on. Where no-one strives to learn. The dominant creatures have no written language.
Mechanically, this could use exiling cards from the top of your library, to pay for abilities. Burning away your own memories as fuel.
Unred: A world where everyone follows rigid rules. Change is alien to them, perhaps there's even some cyclical nature to time there where every year is the same, over and over.
Mechanically: Various control effects. Maybe a keyword that combines Suspend with Traps, to go, eg: "{cost}: Exile this card from hand. If a creature enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, you may cast this spell." to signify their rigid laws.
Unwhite: A plane lacking order and stability. Political factions with wildly different beliefs constantly seizing and losing power. Incredible yet temporary creations of magic or science.
Mechanically: Maybe bring Vanishing back, to represent the temporary nature of things there.
Unblack: A word without death and ambition, filled with immortals that have grown lazy from having lived so long that they have little to do, nothing excites them any more.
Mechanically, they have a keyword that puts creatures back into your hand when they would be destroyed (Specifically destroyed, because this Shouldn't lead to sacrifice decks). Definitely not as good as indestructible, but you could give a lot of them etb or ltb triggers.
Ungreen: A world without natural growth. Filled with golems, and people/creatures that have been mutated through magic or science.
Mechanically: Artifact and Equipment based? Honestly, this is the one that's hardest for me to think of an idea.
Its funny bc every single time the opportunity presents itself in my deck building to play as many colors as possible. This typically just becomes negkect green for myself in most formats ive played some sort of jeskai black or mardu blue in irder to be as controling as possible while maintaining hand size and pressure for the opponent. But the mana base has to be available to accommodate this play style. Im excited that im able to play green this season with sultai white bring the current list im okaykng which is a mixture between the ramp decks bant control and golgari. the deck has served me well so far .
I think a great place for this to have cropped up would have been in the March of the Machine set earlier this year: Specifically in the Partner mechanic. Seeing dual and triple colors coming together to form a (sometimes tenuous) alliance... Else, yeah, if you really zoom out many of the characters represented in 4 colors are just amalgams or demi-gods in their own rite, not the types of characters or beings we would generally gravitate toward.
It makes sense to me that the wedges, shards, enemy and allied colors might come together for a common goal, but mechanically there's a great number of challenges to overcome.
As to the issue of word soup: I think that lends to a larger conversation around game design in the past couple years. Im firmly in the camp of "there's only power creep because they're out of ideas"
I think it's approach in the design exercise that helps here. In four color identities, it's not about what they have that defines them, but what is missing. What flaw does the lack of a color introduce? If they lack black, do they have no ambition? If the lack green, do they have no care for the natural? If they lack red, do they have no individuality? If they lack white, are they disorganized? If they lack blue, are they shortsighted? From a story and characterization standpoint I think this has a lot of depth that can be explored and give strong divisions between the factions.
But I agree the mechanical design points are more nuanced. Any limited environment based on Nephilim would end up being trying to just make five color soup each time and most likely have green as the strongest color with easiest access to fixing. It may have to be saved for a Masters type environment or limited to a story told with a set of commander decks.
I could see the combinations being given a broad stroke identity, like tokens, spell slinging, or interacts with exile and then fleshing out the factions to support those mechanics. Have a top level four color legend leader that does things like tripling the base mechanic, rare three color legendries with strong abilities that support an in identity ability, two color uncommons that provide minor support to an ability, and then mono color commons spread across those mechanics. Then you refine from there. Set your borders, then close in on the where the lines are drawn and where those lines blur. It sounds like a very fun challenge.
You could easily make a 4 color based set with
1. Treasure theme
2. Dual faced cards that are different colors/half and half cards.
3. Creatures that help support the mana issues.
I think you made a pretty good popint about why four color cards are so difficult to work. but I liked a couple examples of the four color cards you showed off. Aragorn kind of makes sense. he's clever and thoughtful, but capable of great strength and power. he's a ranger with experience in the wild, and he fights on the side of order. it makes sense the only color he lacks is black. but that's more a credit to how they adapted him from lotr. he's of course nor an original mtg character.
This video was exactly what i was looking for. What about a 5color video ?
What I'd want to see more in 4 color cards in the future, is strong effects that are relatively similar in the 4 colors, with a strong downside or condition that must be met representing the missing 5th color. If Aragorn had "Whenever an opponent plays a black spell, (sacrifice, discard, something else that might be devastating or at least limiting)" then we have something interesting. Attraxa (any version) having "opponent's creatures have haste" or (for "baby" attraxa) "whenever you proliferate, opponent may deal damage equal to proliferation to a creature, planeswalker, or player without a counter". For commander at least, this encourages people to build decks to either minimize the downsides, or maximize upsides while being aware of the costs.
Thematically the anti-missing-color-ness would do well to represent a core identity for the four color sets, as others have stated. WotC has been smart to avoid dipping into this because there are fundamental caps to how many distinct and interesting options that would fit these areas exist mechanically.
On mechanics, hybrid mana can salvage a lot of the fixing issues for limited, though it would be a hard design challenge to make cards that fit potentially several factions in distinct ways. The “if you paid {N}” effects from Shadowmoor (IIRC) would work well on that front. Kicker effects that show color pair merges work well.
I think a 5 color set that focused on a theme of stripping colors away, maybe with cards that give protection from a color, could have a 5 color hero and villian and some side characters that had a color or colors stripped. Say a character was caught in a trap that changed its color identity so you create an artifact that changes the color of a permanent, maybe you even make painters servant tier 0 lol. Then you can show different characters that were effected, maybe they get reduced to colorless or just mono colored. Best way I'd do it is a colorless or 5 color villian leading the charge over 4 color generals. Then pick 2 colors to have those generals be in common, that's your main villian colors, then mirror that design space with a hero some rebels and maybe a tri color faction.
I disagree on Aragorn, the Uniter. This card has become one of my recent favorites for Commander because I like the fact that he has access to almost all colors, but the lack of black is such an interesting choice. And the effects that it gives are strong but also fair, none of them go too far. But I do think the card lacks some distinction by itself, which is why I imposed another restriction on myself. The deck only runs gold cards, with the exception of the relevant talismans so that it has some ramp. I like it because this gives me more triggers on Aragorn, and the deck is a mix of gold charms and mostly legendary creatures, and I've never won the same way with it twice. The lack of black and mono-colored cards means it's not just a 5-color goodstuff pile and I can't play most of the best staples of the format. It's a ton of fun, and I like that it is 4 colors because I have to dig deep for playables (and I even have an ultra-jank version that is mostly Alara and Khans creatures, but is even better for low-power games).
This is basically a problem which EDH is pushing on the rest of Magic. You can't run colors in your deck if it isn't in your commander's color identity, so there's a desire for some 4-color legends to serve as commanders...so you can play those cards in your deck. The draft and mana fixing problems can be entirely sidestepped by providing a few 4-color commanders in preconstructed Commander products.
As a result, we are talking about a character story, not a faction.
I do agree that you lose some identity as you add more colors, but I also think this is an addressable issue. From my point of view, the "perfectly balanced" mindset as WotC envisioned it is a full WUBRG, so the design question you get from a 4-color is how a character got to being "almost perfect." The abilities should tell the story of the character--where they were and what they were doing. Take, for instance, Aragorn, the Uniter. The problem here is first that it's a Universes Beyond character which doesn't necessarily follow the MTG ideas of what a character should be, but the second problem is that the existing Aragorn cards followed a character arc, which you can only see if you look at all the Aragorn cards at once. You see none of the character arc Aragorn went on by reading the card in isolation. I can almost see the Blue Spell, Scry 2 ability because Aragorn once used a Palantir, and the Palantir of Orthanc's ability is Scry 2. The rest of his abilities make absolutely no sense from the character arc.
The way I would have done Aragorn, I would have used the oldschool Level Up ability, starting with a Ranger type (Reach, First Strike), to gaining Mentor, to when Aragorn and another creature attack, Scry 2. Yes, that's mostly a keyword soup, but it's a keyword soup which tries to tell the story of the character.
I find it better to depict 4-Colored entities as less of individual characters and moreso forces of nature that, like most other commentors have pointed out, act to deny the color they're missing a place in their respective ideals of a perfect world - each of the nephilim focus in on this ideal to great effect, and every character (except Aragorn, Saskia, and the Meletis brothers) are shown as clearly being above natural order to some extent.
Breya acts as a force of nature with complete disregard to nature (green mana) itself, seeking to convert everything into a metallic artifice world of perfection.
Omnath in its Locus of Creation form is a titanic mana elemental that pulls from all corners of Zendikar's world, defending the land from turmoil and desecration (black mana).
Atraxa is engineered to represent everything that New Phyrexia stands for, whom of which seek to destroy the freedom (red mana) of the other planes and assimilate all into one.
Yidris achieves a Force of Nature status by very literally wielding chaos itself to destroy the foundations of order (white mana) across the multiverse.
A Dune-Brood force of nature would likely seek to bring order in ruin to all things founded by human innovation (blue mana).
I like the idea for identity and philosophy of the 4 colors being about the failings and flaws of otherwise almost complete ideas. Being about the fatal missing components to philosphies that feel like they should work.
they could make it factions focused on extinguishing the odd one out. Take anti black for example, red to create units, green to buff them, white to protect them, blue to fend off danger- a life based set that opposes black. It could have exclusive anti mill cards, cards that reduce graveyard size or prevent resurrection. An anti red would be based on preventing direct damage, an anti blue would prevent library exploration, anti white pierces through barriers and taps creatures, anti green preys on enchantments and buffs.
I take the view that you can look at any given 4-colour arrangement and still get at least 5 Philosophies from it.
It's like with Shards and Wedges, the philosophies of a Quartet are defined by which subset of three colors the 4-color arrangement leans towards to avoid the fifth.
Hmm.. I definitely love 4 color combos. A huge fan in fact. I definitely understand the reasons why we can’t (most likely, but I’m still holding out hope) do more 4 colored cards. I feel that perhaps there is something to the idea of the cards being the *absence* of a color. Like blue. A WBRG card would have something to do with perhaps taking knowledge away from yourself or others in order to survive or something. Maybe reversing memory like putting cards back into your library from your hand? Some interesting designs I think would happen if we looked at it that way :)
One interesting way of looking at 4 colors combos is to look It as a 2 combos combination. For example, Dune could be seing as Rakdos combined with Selesnya hehe
Personally I think the color identities are a bit of a problem themselves.
By making colors lack certain fundamental properties like card draw or enchantment destruction, they make a game that is heavily balanced (in Standard anyway) by any particular cycle or overpowered individual card.
I think it was a good thing when red gained temporary card draw. Like exiling the top card of your deck, you can only use it this turn. It's essentially a red flavoring of a basic function.
I think more color identity should have been designed around a benefit and cost, risk vs reward, rather than just what it can do that other colors can't.
In this way the four color combinations could be made to stand out by how the different colors interact each other's weaknesses, by the means in which they implement things.
If for example card draw was a blue only mechanic and it was blue's main identity, then a lot of four color cards containing blue would just have card draw to fulfill the blue identity.
But if you look at different color's card draw mechanics with pros/cons you get red with temporary card draw (temporary), black with sacrifice creatures or life (sacrifice), green with having a lot of creatures or big creatures (have).
So when you combine them you could get temporarily sacrifice a creature for temporary card draw (temporary sacrifice), or sacrifice life to draw cards but pay less life for each creature you have (sacrifice or have).
But personally I think a big part of the problem is also just that it's hard to have the proper lands to cast creatures like that.
I hate that lands are IN your deck, it seems like such a dated design decision at this point.
It requires expensive unique lands or mana fixing artifacts or whatever, which means that a lot of people won't be able to play them.
So of course the color representations are sparse, they literally only work in sets that provide the tools to field them.
Could you please include the card arts you use for your backgrounds? Like a tile int he bottom right corner could work.
A lot of people pointed out the whole "antithesis" concept. That WUBR, for example, is more about being not-green than any of their individual colors. I'd just like to add that there doesn't have to be just one philosophy to each four-color combination. Strixhaven gave us (somewhat successful) variations on the enemy color combinations with pretty wild variations like between Boros and Lorehold. So I think you could build around four-colors by giving them *a* philosophy that doesn't need to be perfect and could be morphed to mean something else in another set/plane.
As for mechanics... yeah it's rough. I'd say you can build some four-color cards using hybrid mana to mitigate the mana base issue, but that's far from perfect. I'd love to see the design team take the risk with four-colors though.
I had an idea for an entire setting based around the sense that a 'four color' identity is somewhat neurotically evasive of one color - a place defined by cultures that frayed at the seams to avoid them. Amusingly enough, the idea for how to construct a card like this came about from Kaito of all people - he's a blue black ninja character, but he's hot-headed and impulsive, and it made me think: 'he's not UB in a way bound tightly together: his blue is closest to white, a sense of justice and order and progress, and his black is closest to red, a fiery passion to move forward for personal goals'.
From there I sort of framed the idea that an 'anti-green' faction would be 'green's opposite and allied color pairs bundling together to avoid it', and the ideas are broadly that the Boros and Dimir cards of the set would share mechanically syncretous ideas (creature evasion? effects on direct combat damage?) - and at the same time, a concept for what they'd be styled as came together. Namely - a secretive band of vigilante 'superheroes' with the twist that they willingly mind-wipe themselves into their new identities, all as part of evading the 'difficult realities of the world (which is what green represents here)'. That immediately led into a sort of 'modern psychological horror' motif to try and think of everyone else: the 'anti-black' faction being a prosperity/purity cult neurotically evasive of any form of selfishness with a heavy token theme (i.e. 'indistinguishable individuals'), the 'anti-red' faction being this nightmarishly byzantine perfectly orderly dystopian city suppressing self-expression with a mechanical emphasis on 'never letting go of resources (like red often does)', and so on and so forth.
It'd ultimately probably feel a decent bit like how New Capenna was built, though with actually functional two color pairs since it's just bundling an ally and enemy pair together.
Mechanically 4 color has the massive problem of "well thats just going to develop into a 5 color deck". Philosophically though, I find 4 color fascinating. The big question with 4 color isn't going to be "what do these muddy 4 colors represent?", no the real question is "what is it that these colors lack?". A question I recall you yourself asking many times when going over the 3-colors, though it becomes even more pronounced in 4. I started thinking about 4 color when another question dawned on me: "If we have planes represented by 3 colors, then what would a plane without Black mana be like?". The answer I realized, is that it would be overwhelming. White and green dominating the world with red and blue having to bow to their whims. Its people's sense of self would be destroyed and all would be done for the sake of the whole. Creativity stiffed, passions and learning quashed for the sake of maintaining tradition and order. A world without Black wouldn't be a world without selfish horrors Black is well known for, it would be a world without rebels, a world without hope. 4-color planes are truly planes defined by what is missing, what pains the world. The thing it's starving for and needs desperately if it is to last.
But isn't red traditionally the color of rebellion (even the Phyrexians couldn't remove that aspect from it, Urbrask being the major rebel within the Praetors siding with the native Mirrodins) and mass destruction (of the cards that wipe out everything including lands only exist in red)? why would white and green be dominant? Worldfire, Apocalypse, Bearer of Heaven and Obliterate are all in Red mana with the only other one being colorless (worldslayer). Red is the one willing to push things far enough that it will glass the plane to reset everything back to zero if it means the downfall of a tyrant. Every other color removes everything *but* lands, Red removes the lands as well.
Black isn't the color of rebellion, it's the color of treachery, of ambition, of sacrificing others, of death and decay (hence why it naturally pairs with green as it's the cycle of life and death, growth and decay).
So yeah it makes no sense that missing black would result in that world, in fact it would be a world missing *red* that results in that. A world missing in black means that red becomes 'a rebel without a cause', there's no ambition behind it they are just rebelling because that is what they do.
A world missing red is the one in stagnation, there is no free thinkers, nobody to question the order of things, nobody with the passions to rebel against the status quo.
@@luketfer Black is the color of selfishness by nature and it's direct opposites on the color chart in mtg are white and green, the colors of tradition, society, and nature. Red's nature is that of passion and strong emotion, which is why it's right next to Black. Selfishness has it's place in a world, as with it missing traditionalism and nature get to run wild with a "give yourself up for the whole" mentality. Passions and freedoms become quashed in a world without even so much as the good parts of selfishness. Studies and intelligence become restricted without the pursuit of the selfs knowledge, replaced instead with the doctrines of the ruling society. To denote Black as simply the evil parts of it you ignore the value of the individual, of rebellion, and it's ability to challenge the overwhelming light of an unchecked and dominate white and green. I highly recommend both looking at the color pie of mtg and watching this channel if you want to understand the whole nature of the game's philosophy.
I have went through all the possible color combinations and tried to think of one word or two words that fit them. And when I came to the four color combinations, the following words are what I came up with.
Not White: Raw Power Not Blue: Combat Oriented Not Black: Unity Not Red: Resources Not Green: Efficiency/Versatility
"Rant"? You do yourself a disservice by characterizing this video as a rant. Your points are well thought-out, and they have been coherently expressed. Even though this video is clearly not be the be-all and end-all on the matter, your ideas are certainly too clearly stated as to merit the pejorative label of rant.
Haha, yeah perhaps you're right. I suppose I don't do opinion videos too often so it felt like one, but I really appreciate this comment.
I like when it’s 1, 2, or 5 colors. That’s when it’s best
I agree that a set with four-color factions would be disastrous. I do however love the idea of four-color cards, and think they should be made sparsely as their design is difficult to pull off. When they are made, though, I hope that the cards are completely unique as Aragorn and Atraxa, Grand Unifier are terribly boring cards even if they have good mechanical advantages.
I don't like building 4 color commander decks, I just don't find it fun. However, I was theorizing a way to make a commander set around 4 colored factions. This is what I was able to come up with:
No-White: Unfair gameplay, win the game by losing the game, and benefits for not having many creatures on your battlefield.
No-Blue: Stops you from drawing some cards or interacting during your opponents turns, but you get massive game-winning threats.
No-Black: Giving your opponents life, creatures, and cards, very few strings attached. Win the game by giving away everything you own.
No-Red: Slow the game down, win after a huge number of turns have past, stop combats from happening.
No-Green: Limit everyone's resources. Instead of ramping, you hinder mana generation, for both you and your opponents. Tax your opponents and make the game harder to play. Win through small margins like being able to afford a 3/3 instead of a 1/1.
Definitely would only work in a pre-con style set though. And most of these might not be the most fun to play against...
I actually design custom four-color cards by defining their identity through the one color they lack or oppose - either by having the other four emulate it within the confines of their own color space, or by having them oppose or set themselves apart from it. Here's an example for the former:
*Break the Shard* (from my blue-less four color "War for Ardu" custom set)
Legendary Instant [M] 1BRGW
Choose one or more -
• Return up to three creatures you control to their owners’ hands. (white emulating blue)
• Draw two cards and you lose 2 life. (black emulating blue)
• Mill 4, then return target card from your graveyard to your hand. (green emulating blue)
• Creatures your opponents control can’t block until the beginning of your next end step. (red emulating blue)
If we look at Yidris, that card only makes sense on that chaos is the opposite of order; white. However, when compared to cards like Maelstrom Wanderer, it still feels like its missing something else. Red is cascade, green is trample, but blue and black don't seem to be represented at all.
No wonder I suck at magic, I'm not having philosophical debates over the colors I'm using.
Nowadays, the only way you see a "FOUR COLOR COMMANDER DECK" is the opponent is making use of two different commanders that have partner. While this answers the "too many colors on one card" issue it presents an interesting conundrum. Four color cards are definitely in a weird place. But WotC is happy to give us more five color cards, even if they do not embody half the colors rounded up or down. Kinda surprised you didn't look at Najeela or Kenrith as they are of the handful of cards that do things with all the colors but is only a single color. Good video.
Imagine a new type of mana for example "cannot be paid with an island"
Hmm I have never those of that, really lean into the color that is missing as almost opposition
I would like to see WotC attempt to make a set of 4 color factions where different ideologies within the faction can be represented with hybrid mana costs (ex. a version of Yore Tiller mana could be U-R-W/B).
From a thematic perspective, this could open 4 color combinations to be defined by three things: the dominant dual color, the color they lack as well as a conflict/balance point (the hybrid mana) within the faction. Using U-R-W/B, there could be a faction that prefers to augment themselves using new and creative technology, magic or some other unnatural means (to represent the lack of green and a focus on blue/red). The choice of W vs B could be the choice to use this knowledge to benefit society (ex. lifelink, protection from X/shield counters, -1/-0 counters, etc.) or to benefit the individual (ex. deathtouch, removal of protection, -0/-1 counters, etc.). While this would lead to some tricolors being represented more than once in a set (the split of UR-WB, UG-B/R, WR-B/G, WG-U/R and WU-B/G would have Sultai and Naya show up twice), this can be used to focus on the combination through the eyes of the dual color. For example, Naya from a WR standpoint could lean towards order (through unity) and passion leading to growth, strength and the protection of nature/home/etc. vs Naya from WG perspective could skew towards harmony with the natural world, but can be wild and destructive if the need arises. There are several ways that they could play around with each sub-faction and how the dual colors react without the influence of one color or changed after going through the filter of another.
As far as mechanics, the hybrid mana could be used to limit what mechanics each card has active at any time (ex. "if W was paid, [card] gets [lifelink/insert white card effect]", "if B was paid, [card] gets [deathtouch/insert black card effect]). Alternatively, this could open up the option to use cards like the Khans/Dragons enchantments from Tarkir (let's call it "balance/conflict") to allow specific effects to be activated for each permanent. I will admit that internal color balance (i.e. too much blue and white mana representation as shown in my example for a split) could be an issue if it's not planned properly and not split between 2 sets, but I believe it could be done.
I definitely agree that the current use of 4 colors can get muddy (as it's being combined on one layer), but we can have several awesome options if we adjust it at 3 different layers (much like paint with the concepts of color/hue, value/luminosity and saturation/chroma).
Seems like most people here think along the same lines I have on this, which is to say, defining these 4 color pairings to be the antithesis of the color they lack. I'd like to propose some ideas for what this might look like, and suggest that the design team is already thinking along these lines, and has for a while.
Imagine for example, a world without Red. You'd have order, community, life and death, growth and knowledge, but no passion, creativity, individuality. In this way, Atraxa, and the phyrexians in general, represent this ideal, all except for Urabrask, who, fittingly, is red.
Now, imagine a world without green. You'd have a world without the rules of nature, an artificial landscape that arises from machinery and pollution at nature's expense. For that we have Breya, who I don't know nearly as much about, but she does do stuff with artifacts.
How about anti-blue? A world devoid of logic or reason. That's pretty easy, you'd end up with brutal warfare and mindless monsters locked in the thrill of combat. Pretty much sounds like Saskia to me.
Anti-white? A world without unity or tradition. The unstable mind of Yidris and the power of the maelstrom... well alright, that one's kind of a stretch. Really seems like you'd want something more flavorful than a cascade commander. I mean, I guess it's supposed to be chaotic, but really, those decks are fairly consistent.
Anti-black? A world free of amorality, but also from ambition. Sounds utopia. Gay dads who give everyone free stuff and are nice to everyone sounds perfect for that.
personally think the best way to implement 4 color would be with things like partner(or parner with, since partner got busted) where its more than just one card, but the pair combined philosophically could share a goal. an example of a dimir and boros partner pairing would be say, an informant from inside the villain of the sets organization feeding information to a friend working in the opposing faction. or something along those lines.
*Wizards of the Coast randomly making card 4 colors cause its cool*
*guy who is deeply into darksouls lore:*
As a Commander player, I only have 1 answer. More 2 color partners and a few 3 colors ones as well. At least 6 of my decks are 4 colors, which all work pretty well. But they would likely not find a home in other formats.
Other's are already mentioning it but I always thought the 4 color combos are mostly meant to be defined by their missing color rather than trying to form a unique identity from their combination. Such as "Breya, Etherium Shaper" leaning into an artifact heavy theme as the antithesis of green aka "nature."
A good way to overcome this problem is perhaps by focusing on the history of such faction and how they were introduced to those colors. By starting with a mono or dual color faction and slowly introducing the new colors over decades the mechanics and resulting philosophy should be unique to that faction and reflect on their history with those colors.
I am very happy that there are very few 4-color commanders and even think they should reduce the amount of 5-color commanders, especially if they follow a more broad strategy, as it leads to more "good-stuff" commanders filled with staples rather than unique decks with interesting strategies. Having a clear color identity is what makes commander deck-building fun to me.
Fun fact: there are less 4 color cards than any single combination. There are 29 Abzan cards for example, and only 13 four color.
This fact is what set me on the path to make this video. I felt there had to be a reason why it was the least represented pair in the game.
As others are saying, emphasizing what is lacking seems the only way to forge a distinct identity in the four colour combinations. Makes it interesting that the creature type associated with it are Nephilim; I don't know what role they play in the lore, but the name literally means "Fallen Ones", and it might point to how they have "fallen" from a hollistic view that incorporates all five colours in perfect harmony, and instead are now thrown out of balance by a key factor they now lack. Like i said, no idea if that gels with the lore of nephilim in Ravnica, but an interesting idea that could be followed up on if they wanted to revive the idea in other projects.
4-color seems more limited than 2 or 3, but there's still some fun ideas in there if approached from the opposite direction (as in, going from 5 down to 4 instead of 1 up to 4). Like, 5-color comes with the implication of immense power and the closest anything in MTG can come to perfection. From that angle, taking away one color still leaves much of that power, but with a gap in its nature that makes it...off in some way. Making that flaw what makes a 4-color group distinct could have interesting results.
My take away is that a 4-colour faction set would have to based around soometing like the Nephilem, eldredge primordial elementals from the dawn of time when the colours of mana first began to separate and establish themselves. Each of these primordials -- for lack of a better term -- would have to embody an unifying concept for the four colours comprising it, but cannot be applied to the fifth absent colour. They would also have to comand unique versions of all lesser combinations of their colours. Let's use Omnath as an example. Omnath represents creation (RGWU), all subsequent lesser colour combinations belonging to Omnath would then have to reprisent diferent aspects of creation. With each aspect under creation being distinct from the corresponding combinations serving the other primordials. This would mean different incarnations of the same combination would exist. The Bant (GWU) searving creation (RGWU) would be distinct from the Bant searving order (GWUB). This would be similar to how Boros is different from Lorehold despite both being the RW combination.
As for the mana issue, it could be mitigated somewhat by utilizing hybrid mana for added flexibility.
To pull this concept off would require a considerable undertaking, but I do think the developers of Magic could pull it off. They have a vast library of cards built up from Magic's long history to draw inspiration from. Given enough time, trial & error, the developers would certainly conjure up enough unique mechanics and colour combination relationships to build a truly fascinating set. It could evan redifine how we see colour combinations as there would then be two sides to every tri colour, three sides to ever dual colour and four sides to every mono colour.
I think Aragorn the Uniter is a good example of flavorful use of four colors. United all the lands except the swamps of Mordor, the evil of Sauron. He gives an advantage for playing all four colors. But I agree that he’s underpowered and most of his focus is from the lore.
From a flavor standpoint I think Wizards could pull some Eldrazi mana vacuum shenanigans on a plane, make cards that interact with each other uniquely by how the one missing color throws off the balance of the plane. For black as an example, the plane could be overgrown, disorganized, stagnant, the prevalent sentient beings are immortal or have replaced significant portions of their cancerous bodies with plant matter and are a sort of hive mind similar to slivers. Lacking red you could have a cold sterile world with purpose built/bred creatures of odd semi organic shape language. A lack of white could make a plane chaotic, unhinged, mutated flora and fauna actively destroying themselves and each other with no rhyme or reason except to evolve, consume, recreate, and adapt. A few examples I could think of for this sort of situation. We all know that a plane without mana dies, but what if somehow only the one color was siphoned away, or never existed to begin with, how would the other colors act upon the plane?
I somewhat disagree because in my DnD world I’m working on, my factions are all four-colored factions. The W/B/G/U is a brotherhood who gave into the call of the masses, protects their citizens and/or allies, and the worst of them hunt down traitors and criminals who have escaped their punishments. The other factions work like this too. I just took the first color and had the other 3 colors be affected by that first color. Mechanic wise I see the struggle, but no leader really it all four mana, instead their four leaders who work together to keep order or discord in the factions as they are intended to.
I had a passing idea for a cycle of legends that have a 2 color casting cost, basic abilities that match them, an activated ability with hybrid mana of 2 other colors, and etb abilities that match those.
That is one way to go about it for sure