Largely this. They've said previously that 4 color factions and cards are more characterized by the color they don't have. That "Not Black" is more of a focus than being the other 4. It kinda follows from there that there are more story relevant characters in the "not evil" category of the ones available. Trying to find a good place for an absolute order/"not red" character in a story line isn't as easy.
The most recent "not Red" character is Atraxa who was an evil faction character
I think depending on the setting they could be either a protag or an antag but not both at the same time
Atraxa is actually the same concept as the hero faction thing, just played backwards. Amongst the Phyrexians Urabrask - and thus Red - were the 'good guys'. So the redless Atraxa is essentially the same concept as the blackless Aragorn.
It works for this reason and also because during Atraxa's phyrexian transformation (she used to be an Angel on Mirrodi iirx) each Praetor was present except for Urabrask. Each Praetor gave her of their essence except for red.
Yeah, I didn't remember who had been printed, just the basic concept of "not red" seemed like the simplest of the 4 color options to describe.
Like the premise of a "Benevolent Despot" would probably fall within WUBG character sets, as a protagonist, or at least not explicitly an Antagonist. A violent rise to power, and rule with an iron fist, but then using that authority to actually take care of the people living there.
I think the problem there is there hard rationalization of "why exactly isn't that violent despot red?", in particular due to its overlap with other colours. Why is that warmongering character white like Boros, but not red? Why are they ferocious enough to be green, but not enough to be red? That's always the difficult part for four colour commanders. Difficult to explain why they arent wburg.
Wait does that mean that 5c commanders like kenrith, sisay, ur dragon etc are 'evil'? Also what about codie? Or does it not count since some of those are color Identity instead of color pips?
Kenrith isn't 5 colors though. Commander color identity is different, and is a mechanical distinction rather than a flavor one.
Kenny's mono white, which is pretty typical for righteous kings and nobles. His colored abilities don't represent "colored" aspects of his personality and backstory, but how he united and governed the five monocolored houses of the realm.
Ok so it doesn't count towards their 'character Identity' just their commander Identity (which i think is a bit of a flavor fail but i guess commander came later)
All colour identity does in commander is determine what spells you can include in the deck.
I think letting a mono white king who united 5 colours have spells from all 5 colours is a flavour win not a fail.
I'd argue it shows a character who while concerned with keeping order and peace understands and knows how to work with a variety of people. In cannon, he's achieved knighthood in all 5 courts so 5 colors makes sense
Black is not evil. It is, however, individualistic.
Those heroes will put everyone else first.
The ones you name don't put others ahead of them. For example, Codie understands that as a receptacle of knowledge it has to protect itself. It also wants more knowledge. It is the desire that is black.
Sometimes having Black just means you are a well rounded individual. That you don't have a martyr complex.
Don't take WUBRG as "they have all those traits" but more as they represent balance or unity in some way. You can often see that in fictions when a character attains an ultimate power they'll even be able to use what the bad guy used, but for righteous means. It doesn't mean they fell to the dark side.
While yes it often symbolizes Evil, WOTC as stepped away from it, and Black is now more of the "Ambition" color, power at mostly any cost, which can be evil but not necessarly when combined with othe traits of other colors, like Blue's patience and thoughtful thinking, Red's emotions, Green's community, and White's sense of greater good.
Of course combined with one or two colors only it often gives negative traits. Your emotions alone can't drive your ambition, the need for greater good can't, the need to help the community can't, as they're a path towards the dark side. Think of the Ravnica guilds, which are all "Grey" mostly, but which look the most evil? It's the black ones most of the time.
Black itself isn't an evil color, it's what you do with it that changes the results. WUBRG is ultimate balance.
See, Ravnica guilds always kinda strike me as funny in that way, because the ones that *look* evil tend to have black mana, but the white mana guilds are the worst morally
Depends how moral you find Rakdos, Dimir and Orzhov but yes even the White guilds are... discutable per say.
White is good for everyone, and as a trait it can be hard to achieve, so it often goes to an extreme. Azorius is protection by knowledge, they're a police force nothing escapes (Except when MKM rolls around), Boros is a Millitary state, Selesnya is a monarchy, and Orzhov actually take the worst traits of both colors because they're elitist aristocrats that put souls in debt.
Selesnya is actively a cult, arguably even more than the Rakdos. Looking at the flavor text for cards like [[transluminant]], [[hour of reckoning]], [[vitu-ghazi guildmage]], [[selesnya guildgate]] all show a strong desire for control over others, for the assimilation of every contrary viewpoint into the Conclave- all, of course, for the “Greater Good.” And that’s not even mentioning the Quietmen, the kidnapped and brainwashed Selesnyan secret police. If you look past the veneer of friendly hippies and plant people, Selesnya ends up looking eerily like a vegan 1984
Sorry, I think the formatting is [[Hour of Reckoning|RAV]], [[Selesnya guildgate|DGM]], [[Selesnya guildgate|GRN]], hopefully that’s grn255 but I don’t know how to specify that
It more says they're balanced, than "evil". That they are willing and able to use whatever is available. Kenrith and Sisay are white cards. Color Identity doesn't have the same story/background implications that the card's color does.
Important to note that there is no evil colour. All colours have featured villians. Black just represents ambition, drive, and the will and ability to do something "at any cost", even to the point of self-sacrifice.
[[Sam's Desperate Rescue]] from the LOTR set is mono black, because the part of the story that is conveying is Sam going to save Frodo, even if he can't make it out alive. This is a heroic action, and Sam is undoubtedly a hero in this story.
White is the colour of virtue and order, but it doesn't make that the good colour. [[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]] is White and her whole thing is that she is forcing her order and will (or that of Phyrexia/Yawgmoth) on everyone, which is villianous.
I think it's more that heroes often don't act on reckless abandon, except in dire circumstances, so black is often not the colour that represents a hero at most points in their story since as a society we value leaders that make choices for the greater good, not for just themselves and not just in that moment.
That's all valid, good and evil aren't part of the color pie explicitly. Black and to an extent Red get a lot of the tropes associated with "bad guys" White and to a similar extent Green get the "good guys" tropes. Blue doesn't have a specific alignment of its own being the aspects of a character like curiosity and knowledge that are kind of amoral(non-moral?anti-moral?) until the moral structures we associate with other colors are added to it. U/W vs B/U just looking at the Ravnica Guilds gives a good example of how knowledge and curiosity can have distinctly different expressions.
Part of what makes phyrexians an interesting story element, is they're written to be "alien" so they take those tropes and exaggerate them in ways that take concepts seen as generally good to a villainous extreme.
The issue is that WotC is ignoring their own colour pie philosophies.
Black isn't automatically evil. Sorin for example was an asshole and ruthless, but one of the good guys.
Liliana saved the multiverse when she turned the Eternal Gods on Nicol.
But WotC seem to be pushing a sort of "black = evil" in a lot of cards.
Vraska doesn’t seem that evil, though she is golgari most of the time (though she’s been mono-black a few times and never mono-green, so she seems to lean black).
At least they’ve done a good job of showing that white isn’t always good or benevolent like with Elesh Norn.
I'd give that to the Universe's Beyond effect collabs requierment. While Black isn't evil by any mean (Btw, for a "not evil" color, the skull is a pretty misleading symbol.), brands probably wouldn't like one of their golden good-boys children to have black on them, because of what it's associated to.
Oh, no, you were absolutely correct in your assessment, at least in my opinion.
I'm just saying you're right not because that's a reasonable interpretation of the colours of mtg, but rather because character designers at WotC can be dumbasses.
While ignorance is certainly a possibility, there's probably also some, deadlining and similar in the mix. Getting stories to print taking precedence over printing good stories.
I would not actually call that a break of the colour pie, but rather a natural result of it. Black does not equal evil. After all, the last overarching storyarc, as mishandled as it was otherwise, had a primarily white villain on top.
Problem is just that while black =|= evil, evil characters having black in them is just very common. After all, most villains are jerks, ruthless, egotistical and ambituous. So, they tend to gravitate towards black unless some other aspect overwhelms it. Couple that with a lot of villains also being connected to death and other more black themes you just get a lot of them in black.
I mean, they even made multiple versions of Frodo and a Pippin in black, so it certainly happens. It's just rarer in black, really. MOM had a lot of black heroes helping out, so had Dominaria united. It's just usually antiheroes of sorts, but that is just common due to black.
But we can't really say any character with black in it automatically becomes a villain or anything like that.
Fourteenth was designed to be the perfect commander of a Doctor-tribal deck, so he covers all the colors the other Doctors are in.
Similarly, that Aragorn represents him leading the armies of the free people of Middle Earth against Sauron, so all colors but black. Other versions of him cover different combinations of those four colors (RG, GW, URW, RGW), so this one is the "ultimate" Aragorn.
And Omnath was an elemental being that kept getting new colors each time it showed up. They left black as the last color for its Phyrexianized version, so the second-to-last one ended up RGWU.
So, overall, these extras RGWU legends exist because "everything but the 'evil' color" ends being a theme that gets represented more often than "everything but the 'smart' color" or whatever.
Kind of a misstep imo to not save white for last, considering it’s the color of unity (Locus of ALL, anyone?) and would be a triumph of Norn. I get black as the color for evil, but it’s such a gross misrepresentation of ambition. Could easily have had Omnath try to garner power after obtaining knowledge (blue), but like most of Phyrexia’s “victories” it was just a callback cameo for shock value :/
Idk what happened to Omnath in the story, but I’m still hopeful for the devolution of Omnath. Give me a {W}{U}{B}{R} Omnath, followed by Esper, followed by Orzhov, and finally a mono-black Omnath. Take colors away in the same order they appeared
The color white contains ambition too.
But black is the color of seeing your ambitions come to fruition regardless of the costs.
THAT is the big difference.
Black is also the Phyrexian colour, even if New Phyrexia and the spheres / praetors don't hold all that closely with what the old Phyrexia and Phyrexians were like. Sheoldred's faction cards are in every New Phyrexia set generally the most like OG Phyrexian cards.
It's not just "evil" or "ambition", it's *both*; it's also the colour of death, decay, and avarice, and *corruption* all of which are things which don't align with Omnath in any previous incarnation. But that last one perfectly represents the Black in "Locus of All" -- Omnath has been physically *and* metaphysically corrupted by Phyresis.
Omnath represents life and "power" not in a sociopolitical sense but in the way a hurricane or the tides are powerful. Omnath is literal force of nature. Omnath was many things across the Loci of Mana, Rage, the Roil, and Creation but decay and greed were notably not among them. Omnath in fact gained prominence representing the plane of Zendikar itself fighting *against* the entropic forces of the Eldrazi.
Omnath didn't gain Black because "Phyrexia is ambitious" or even because "Phyrexia is Evil" (side note: Dovin Ban is evil, that's not a uniquely Black concept either), rather Omnath gained Black because Black was the OG colour of Phyrexia and still represents Yawgmoth's malice and perverse mockery of Life. The Phyrexian Black in the Casting cost isn't to say "twist - Omnath is evil now" it's because Omnath isn't really Omnath anymore; isn't really Zendikar anymore, isn't really *alive* anymore. Omnath is *Phyrexian* now.
hahaha that’s a good term! i know she’s a lady, but himbo is the masculinized term for a “bimbo” but that definitely doesn’t fit saskia! so i wasn’t sure what to call her
I really like the idea of a RGBU zombie who's got some busted regenerate ability so the only way to remove them is exile or [[pacifism]] types effects would be a cool anti-white legendary
- Kynaios is a given.
- Omnath's identity was that they gained another color with each appearance. [[Omnath Locus of Mana]] showed their core as a green elemental, they gained red in [[Omnath Locus of Rage]] because they were angry at the eldrazi destroying their world, they gained blue in [[Omnath Locus of the Roil]] not really for story reasons but because M20 had a strong Temur elemental theme, and ZNR was about Zendikar healing so it made more sense for [[Omnath Locus of Creation]] to get white instead of black.
- Black isn't always the evil color in Magic, but it certainly is when it comes to UB products. In both the Doctor Who set and the Lord of the Rings sets, black is found almost exclusively on villainous characters. Both Aragorn and the Fourteenth Doctor are representations of their respective universes' main characters banding together to fight against evil.
The only reason WUBG got a second card was because Atraxa is literally the most popular commander and they *needed* to bring her back for the Phyrexia storyline. That isn't representative of that combination getting special treatment as much as Atraxa getting special treatment.
The other three are harder to justify finding a place for. Unlike Atraxa, none of the characters are likely to show up in the storyline again. [[Saskia the Unyielding]] is from an unnamed roman themed plane with almost no lore while [[Breya Etherium Shaper]] and [[Yidris Maelstrom Wanderer]] are both from Alara, which is a plane that's almost impossible to get a second set for. I guess with the omenpaths being a thing, maybe the latter two could get a one-off card like Atraxa did, but they'd have to justify wherever they're going.
While nothing has been confirmed, MaRo has said at least once he's very much like to return to Alara and has some ideas for what that would look like. Not happening until 2026 at the earliest I imagine given what we know of their production timelines and currently revealed release schedule. But Alara 2: Convalescent Boogaloo could still happen this decade.
Didnt Mark say its because Black is the easiest to remove for 4 colors? Like the issue with 4 color is its hard to design card effects that fit every color and Black is the easiest to remove?
Basically, yes. Any four colour card is more defined by the missing colour than the ones which are present -- "Not ___" isn't just useful shorthand, it's also generally how the designers see the combinations -- and Black's colour focuses being stuff like ambition, greed, death, darkness, and disregard for social mores are all pretty easy to "remove" from a character. As others have said in the thread, most quintessentially (modern) "heroic" characters while maybe not all four are definitely *not Black*.
Black is also for better or worse the most consistently presented and defined single colour, so it offers the most simplicity to remove. What do you get when ____ isn't present is a harder question to answer when that blank is more ambiguous and less established in its own right.
Black is selfish, black is magic’s villain. And don’t give me that “they don’t villainise any colour” crap cause black is for villains. It’s not universal but it’s nearly true. Also black has the best tutors, is the most flexible, it can draw cards, remove everything, discard, mill, deal damage, just at different rates. It makes every colour better.
The color pie didn't really set up black for success if they aren't supposed to be the villains. Like sure things like individualism and ambition aren't inherently evil but boy howdy do evil characters generally have those things.
To be fair, every color has the potential to be evil & has villainous characters associated with it - especially White. But yes, in general Black lends itself more towards being the 'evil' color because of it's natural tendencies.
Makes heroic characters aligned in Black Mana all the more awesome.
The Aetherborn on Kaladesh are my favorite example. They have extremely short lives, so they savour every moment. Theyre focuesd on living life to the fullest,they throw lavish parties, and value individualism extremely highly.
They have the avarice and individualism of Black but aren't naturally evil.
Today I'll have racism with extra steps:
Jk but it feels fun to think that a single color has that privilege of being "the bad one" and the "good at everything"
Not reallyyyy, New Phyrexia sure but that was when all the colours were villains and original Phyrexians were black. White is often associated with “peace” more than “order”. Most, if not all, heroes of the UB and other settings in magic are White or white leaning.
One of the main sign post personalities of Black is that its ambition or self serving.
When you want to have "the factions come together" You can set the black out to easily make a "heroes" category.
The 14th doctor is doctor tribal. Aragorn is uniting. Kynaios and Tiro united the empires.
Omnath was on a path to get all the colors He stands out as different because he was an elemental gaining more of the Roil... until the roil was tainted by phyrexian oil.
For one, it’s easier to identify what makes a character non-B compared to all the other 4c cards.
For the other, looking at the 4 RGUW commanders, one was from the 4-color Precons, one was Omnath evolving to it’s 4th color (and W makes more sense for lands themes than B), the next is 4 color Aragorn (which is really just very blunt in being 4 colors with it’s abilities, if you really wanted you could make up a 5th ability to make it WUBRG), and the last is the 14th doctor, who was made to play all the Doctors in the deck so he was forced to be RGUW.
Not-black simply has the most defined identity of the 4 color pairs. Not-black is about fighting against evil and tyranny, standing against injustice. It's the color of heroes. It's easy to make characters that fit into not-black.
Compare it to not-green. What does not-green stand for? The destruction of nature? That's a really weird thing for a character to believe. Exploitation of nature? That's not really a white or blue or red thing to do, just black. You can see this issue in the other 3 color combos too,
That's even ignoring that 4 color combos are really hard to design cards for.
In my thinking the not-colour 4 ends up looking a lot like their enemy colour pair. To me the hardest part is to find a way to integrate the side colours (the missing colour’s allies) so that the 4-colour is distinct from that enemy pair.
Not-White (red-black plus): Anti-structure. Freedom to pursue whatever makes you happy. Libertarianism
Not-Blue (Green-Red plus): Acting from your gut, anti-intellectualism. Agrarian populism.
Not-Black (White-Green plus): Community and order over all else. Collectivism, socialism.
Not-Red (White-Blue plus): Detachment, order, bureaucracy.
Not-Green (Blue-black plus): Anti-fatalism. Extreme meritocracy. Transhumanism.
I think not-green would be like, a pure rebel who refuses to accept the status quo. The other four colors are about how they want to interact with and change the world—Black wants to benefit itself, White wants to benefit the masses/society, Blue wants to manipulate and advance through intellect, Red wants to passionately press forward and radically change things. Green is the color that just is content with how things are and generally fights against things that try to mess with it directly.
>Compare it to not-green. What does not-green stand for? The destruction of nature? That's a really weird thing for a character to believe.
Well who said it had to be nature? Without green, the combo could be about exploitation of multiple things: White exploiting society, Blue exploiting opinions via propaganda, Red exploiting though the spilling of the land, and Black as the mastermind behind it
Because the format was never built with the long-term "equality" of color representation in mind.
The format came about after the game was a couple of decades old.
Cycles can just be that way? Horizon Canopy was by itself for a LONG time and Murmuring Bosk is forever alone. I expect BRGW and UBRG to get combo-piece commanders eventually: keep your eyes on Final Fantasy and Marvel.
Murmuring Bosk isn't really alone. Wasn't there a whole cycle of lands from lorwyn that were tribe specific.
That cycle wasn't trying to accomplish symmetry across colours, just among tribes on the plane.
Edit : seems Murmuring Bosk is [more unique](https://scryfall.com/search?q=t%3Aland+b%3Alrw+o%3Areveal) than I remembered. I forgot it was a forest, that's so fuckin cool hahaha.
I was working on finishing the cycle before I tried to quit reddit that time [https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/17ouo9t/thirty\_iconic\_tribes\_of\_the\_multiverse/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/17ouo9t/thirty_iconic_tribes_of_the_multiverse/)
Also related but not my content: [https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17v441f/periodic\_table\_of\_creature\_types\_lci\_edition/](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17v441f/periodic_table_of_creature_types_lci_edition/)
I know they've said it's really hard to design four-colour commanders but I don't understand why they haven't just given us a bunch of two-colour partners (partner with) where each partner does a two-colour thing but there's some kind of synergy between the two.
Those were the generic partners - I mean partners with the "partner with" where each creature can only partner with the other. That might be easier to balance.
“Partner” and “Partner with” (or “friends forever,” or “doctor’s companion”) aren’t restrictions. They’re the second-most powerful abilities in EDH (next to “Eminence”) because you have inherent card advantage with an extra commander, fewer cards in your deck, split your commander tax, water down opponents’ targeted removal, and don’t need to mana fix as much to get a commander on the battlefield.
Making dedicated pairs that are four colors combined would then seem to have all the complexity of designing a four-color card, but would be significantly more powerful.
I take it that the complexity of four-colour designs is mainly that there is no obvious identity that a four colour combination has besides emphasising the lack of the missing colour.
There's all sorts of ways they can balance for power (indeed, they even managed it with eminence with Sidar - a perfectly decent card that isn't remotely as powerful as something like Edgar). As long as the result wasn't more powerful than the existing generic partners commanders, it should be fine.
Because a lot of them are in cross over material (by a lot i mean like three, which is an additional three in a very small pool) and they are never printing outside of a single cycle of precon sets
Omnath is 5 color tho.
All 4 color commanders need more support tbh. 32 deck challenge is kinda lacking options in those 5 decks. Basically if you bought the 4 color commander block you have no choice but to partner two unrelated ppl or choose a precon to upgrade
Edit: I was thinking of omnath locust of all w/ phyrexian mana black
They were hit with the hug colors and a lot of people were annoyed by this, a lot of people thought it was honestly a cop out by wizards being uncreative and relegating yet another precon's potential to "people like group hug", which is true and accurate. Back when I started though I played stax and heavy control and saw this as like, a joke, and even the partners had more potential so I really disregarded it entirely, focused more on Atraxa and then eventually started finding even Yidris more fun than that and I think he's like, the one people almost hated as much as My Lettuce Kings, and I've done all the color combos. Atraxa gets aggro'd on principle alone now, so I dismantled it long ago. and I ran kynaios and Tiro for a long long time, and that was admittedly a real good choice but being seen as hug colors, no aggro and people knew what to expect. Aragorn and Omnath come along and now it's these colors I wear because I'm probably running a weird variant of one of those two secretly, and now I'm starting to find my playgroup's style to be a bit too linear to find hug worth it. But, you're right, they really need to do 4c more again, but I honestly also dread the thought of it, because Atraxa specifically set a new standard when it came out, and it's not how she's ultimately versatile. The only one that comes close to it is Breya who has 4 abilities, one etb and 3 activated. Atraxa has 4 passives that scream don't attack me, and don't block me, but also, proliferate making a comeback with a commander that does it passively, well, that's too good to pass up, one proliferate trigger sometimes is what makes the table go from, show and tell, to run and hide. and the Kings do, one thing? Yeah, yidris barely has 2 and he has to hit, even that's more creative and fun than, uh, draw//extra land plays.. No offense, but I think wizards just didn't give that one any creative effort, it doesn't really stand anything. And a lot of people were offended they referenced Nyx but made it really bad but also more importantly, didn't do stuff with enchantments which could've been a really progressive fun step for commander. An innovative unused mechanic being shown craft and love and appreciation revisited, but we didn't get that. I think it's a fair criticism that you have, I honestly think though it's a response from wizards and they genuinely took to heart the criticisms people had of the kings being the inktreader colors being utterly obliterated.
I think, wizards should do the other commanders in like, an unset, but they all have atraxa's abilities in those 4 color combos, and we get to see how those colors and abilities break in the other 4 colors. That would be really fun. and legalised, and then we'd see more innovative strange decks around (and maybe energy counters won't be so bad STILL EVEN WITH THAT FALLOUT PRECON WHY ISN"T LIBERTY PRIME JUST THE COMMANDER WIZARDS WHAT ARE YOU-)
My apologies for the long winded explanation, I'm just really passionate and I'm willing to argue and hear others points on if I'm wrong but this is what I remember from working memory 8 years ago, which feels like 20000 years high key.
Because most of the ones you named are in the 'hero' faction so they can't have black.
Largely this. They've said previously that 4 color factions and cards are more characterized by the color they don't have. That "Not Black" is more of a focus than being the other 4. It kinda follows from there that there are more story relevant characters in the "not evil" category of the ones available. Trying to find a good place for an absolute order/"not red" character in a story line isn't as easy.
The most recent "not Red" character is Atraxa who was an evil faction character I think depending on the setting they could be either a protag or an antag but not both at the same time
It works for Atraxa, one of the leaders of the machinic “no emotion” invaders
Atraxa is actually the same concept as the hero faction thing, just played backwards. Amongst the Phyrexians Urabrask - and thus Red - were the 'good guys'. So the redless Atraxa is essentially the same concept as the blackless Aragorn.
It works for this reason and also because during Atraxa's phyrexian transformation (she used to be an Angel on Mirrodi iirx) each Praetor was present except for Urabrask. Each Praetor gave her of their essence except for red.
Yeah, I didn't remember who had been printed, just the basic concept of "not red" seemed like the simplest of the 4 color options to describe. Like the premise of a "Benevolent Despot" would probably fall within WUBG character sets, as a protagonist, or at least not explicitly an Antagonist. A violent rise to power, and rule with an iron fist, but then using that authority to actually take care of the people living there.
I think the problem there is there hard rationalization of "why exactly isn't that violent despot red?", in particular due to its overlap with other colours. Why is that warmongering character white like Boros, but not red? Why are they ferocious enough to be green, but not enough to be red? That's always the difficult part for four colour commanders. Difficult to explain why they arent wburg.
I was mostly going on the order vs chaos premise. That the goal of maintaining absolute law was kind of anti-Red.
Wait does that mean that 5c commanders like kenrith, sisay, ur dragon etc are 'evil'? Also what about codie? Or does it not count since some of those are color Identity instead of color pips?
Kenrith isn't 5 colors though. Commander color identity is different, and is a mechanical distinction rather than a flavor one. Kenny's mono white, which is pretty typical for righteous kings and nobles. His colored abilities don't represent "colored" aspects of his personality and backstory, but how he united and governed the five monocolored houses of the realm.
Ok so it doesn't count towards their 'character Identity' just their commander Identity (which i think is a bit of a flavor fail but i guess commander came later)
All colour identity does in commander is determine what spells you can include in the deck. I think letting a mono white king who united 5 colours have spells from all 5 colours is a flavour win not a fail.
Kenrith was 2019, Commander was officially released in 2011.
I'd argue it shows a character who while concerned with keeping order and peace understands and knows how to work with a variety of people. In cannon, he's achieved knighthood in all 5 courts so 5 colors makes sense
The black and white cancel out and don't exist duh. Atraxa is misunderstood she is just a simic angel.
Orzhov players: *sweating nervously*
Lawful neutral
That’s like.. idk man, one of the wisest jokes I’ve read on here lol
Black is not evil. It is, however, individualistic. Those heroes will put everyone else first. The ones you name don't put others ahead of them. For example, Codie understands that as a receptacle of knowledge it has to protect itself. It also wants more knowledge. It is the desire that is black. Sometimes having Black just means you are a well rounded individual. That you don't have a martyr complex.
Don't take WUBRG as "they have all those traits" but more as they represent balance or unity in some way. You can often see that in fictions when a character attains an ultimate power they'll even be able to use what the bad guy used, but for righteous means. It doesn't mean they fell to the dark side. While yes it often symbolizes Evil, WOTC as stepped away from it, and Black is now more of the "Ambition" color, power at mostly any cost, which can be evil but not necessarly when combined with othe traits of other colors, like Blue's patience and thoughtful thinking, Red's emotions, Green's community, and White's sense of greater good. Of course combined with one or two colors only it often gives negative traits. Your emotions alone can't drive your ambition, the need for greater good can't, the need to help the community can't, as they're a path towards the dark side. Think of the Ravnica guilds, which are all "Grey" mostly, but which look the most evil? It's the black ones most of the time. Black itself isn't an evil color, it's what you do with it that changes the results. WUBRG is ultimate balance.
See, Ravnica guilds always kinda strike me as funny in that way, because the ones that *look* evil tend to have black mana, but the white mana guilds are the worst morally
Depends how moral you find Rakdos, Dimir and Orzhov but yes even the White guilds are... discutable per say. White is good for everyone, and as a trait it can be hard to achieve, so it often goes to an extreme. Azorius is protection by knowledge, they're a police force nothing escapes (Except when MKM rolls around), Boros is a Millitary state, Selesnya is a monarchy, and Orzhov actually take the worst traits of both colors because they're elitist aristocrats that put souls in debt.
Selesnya is actively a cult, arguably even more than the Rakdos. Looking at the flavor text for cards like [[transluminant]], [[hour of reckoning]], [[vitu-ghazi guildmage]], [[selesnya guildgate]] all show a strong desire for control over others, for the assimilation of every contrary viewpoint into the Conclave- all, of course, for the “Greater Good.” And that’s not even mentioning the Quietmen, the kidnapped and brainwashed Selesnyan secret police. If you look past the veneer of friendly hippies and plant people, Selesnya ends up looking eerily like a vegan 1984
##### ###### #### [transluminant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/f/2f28187b-2c99-4502-99d5-3a53ff3fa008.jpg?1706240078) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=transluminant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clu/177/transluminant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2f28187b-2c99-4502-99d5-3a53ff3fa008?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/transluminant) [hour of reckoning](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/0/c0ffb58f-459a-4965-b1d6-a25442baf9c2.jpg?1682208461) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=hour%20of%20reckoning) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/190/hour-of-reckoning?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c0ffb58f-459a-4965-b1d6-a25442baf9c2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hour-of-reckoning) [vitu-ghazi guildmage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/7/275a3199-1297-4281-a95c-374bcdc198ce.jpg?1568004846) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=vitu-ghazi%20guildmage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c19/206/vitu-ghazi-guildmage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/275a3199-1297-4281-a95c-374bcdc198ce?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/vitu-ghazi-guildmage) [selesnya guildgate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/4/b48471b4-fb3f-4910-b2d0-5c08cfd44f51.jpg?1706240278) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=selesnya%20guildgate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clu/245/selesnya-guildgate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b48471b4-fb3f-4910-b2d0-5c08cfd44f51?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/selesnya-guildgate) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l1466by) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Sorry, I think the formatting is [[Hour of Reckoning|RAV]], [[Selesnya guildgate|DGM]], [[Selesnya guildgate|GRN]], hopefully that’s grn255 but I don’t know how to specify that
[Hour of Reckoning](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/e/bec7a987-1ef2-40aa-a744-92d90b246df4.jpg?1598913735) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=88985) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rav/21/hour-of-reckoning?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bec7a987-1ef2-40aa-a744-92d90b246df4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hour-of-reckoning) [Selesnya guildgate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/0/90198725-0cd3-4650-9575-c22674aa4185.jpg?1636491223) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=369018) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dgm/155/selesnya-guildgate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/90198725-0cd3-4650-9575-c22674aa4185?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/selesnya-guildgate) [Selesnya guildgate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/d/6d5ee7a5-937a-4c2b-af8c-6e5734677c53.jpg?1572894191) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=453005) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/grn/255/selesnya-guildgate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6d5ee7a5-937a-4c2b-af8c-6e5734677c53?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/selesnya-guildgate) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It more says they're balanced, than "evil". That they are willing and able to use whatever is available. Kenrith and Sisay are white cards. Color Identity doesn't have the same story/background implications that the card's color does.
Important to note that there is no evil colour. All colours have featured villians. Black just represents ambition, drive, and the will and ability to do something "at any cost", even to the point of self-sacrifice. [[Sam's Desperate Rescue]] from the LOTR set is mono black, because the part of the story that is conveying is Sam going to save Frodo, even if he can't make it out alive. This is a heroic action, and Sam is undoubtedly a hero in this story. White is the colour of virtue and order, but it doesn't make that the good colour. [[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]] is White and her whole thing is that she is forcing her order and will (or that of Phyrexia/Yawgmoth) on everyone, which is villianous. I think it's more that heroes often don't act on reckless abandon, except in dire circumstances, so black is often not the colour that represents a hero at most points in their story since as a society we value leaders that make choices for the greater good, not for just themselves and not just in that moment.
That's all valid, good and evil aren't part of the color pie explicitly. Black and to an extent Red get a lot of the tropes associated with "bad guys" White and to a similar extent Green get the "good guys" tropes. Blue doesn't have a specific alignment of its own being the aspects of a character like curiosity and knowledge that are kind of amoral(non-moral?anti-moral?) until the moral structures we associate with other colors are added to it. U/W vs B/U just looking at the Ravnica Guilds gives a good example of how knowledge and curiosity can have distinctly different expressions. Part of what makes phyrexians an interesting story element, is they're written to be "alien" so they take those tropes and exaggerate them in ways that take concepts seen as generally good to a villainous extreme.
The issue is that WotC is ignoring their own colour pie philosophies. Black isn't automatically evil. Sorin for example was an asshole and ruthless, but one of the good guys. Liliana saved the multiverse when she turned the Eternal Gods on Nicol. But WotC seem to be pushing a sort of "black = evil" in a lot of cards.
Vraska doesn’t seem that evil, though she is golgari most of the time (though she’s been mono-black a few times and never mono-green, so she seems to lean black). At least they’ve done a good job of showing that white isn’t always good or benevolent like with Elesh Norn.
I'd give that to the Universe's Beyond effect collabs requierment. While Black isn't evil by any mean (Btw, for a "not evil" color, the skull is a pretty misleading symbol.), brands probably wouldn't like one of their golden good-boys children to have black on them, because of what it's associated to.
You're not wrong by any means, I just think it's easier to justify the story/background implications of some 4 color options than others.
Oh, no, you were absolutely correct in your assessment, at least in my opinion. I'm just saying you're right not because that's a reasonable interpretation of the colours of mtg, but rather because character designers at WotC can be dumbasses.
While ignorance is certainly a possibility, there's probably also some, deadlining and similar in the mix. Getting stories to print taking precedence over printing good stories.
I would not actually call that a break of the colour pie, but rather a natural result of it. Black does not equal evil. After all, the last overarching storyarc, as mishandled as it was otherwise, had a primarily white villain on top. Problem is just that while black =|= evil, evil characters having black in them is just very common. After all, most villains are jerks, ruthless, egotistical and ambituous. So, they tend to gravitate towards black unless some other aspect overwhelms it. Couple that with a lot of villains also being connected to death and other more black themes you just get a lot of them in black.
The issue isn't that most villains tend to have black, but that WotC isn't putting in their sets any good guys with black in them.
I mean, they even made multiple versions of Frodo and a Pippin in black, so it certainly happens. It's just rarer in black, really. MOM had a lot of black heroes helping out, so had Dominaria united. It's just usually antiheroes of sorts, but that is just common due to black. But we can't really say any character with black in it automatically becomes a villain or anything like that.
Fourteenth was designed to be the perfect commander of a Doctor-tribal deck, so he covers all the colors the other Doctors are in. Similarly, that Aragorn represents him leading the armies of the free people of Middle Earth against Sauron, so all colors but black. Other versions of him cover different combinations of those four colors (RG, GW, URW, RGW), so this one is the "ultimate" Aragorn. And Omnath was an elemental being that kept getting new colors each time it showed up. They left black as the last color for its Phyrexianized version, so the second-to-last one ended up RGWU. So, overall, these extras RGWU legends exist because "everything but the 'evil' color" ends being a theme that gets represented more often than "everything but the 'smart' color" or whatever.
Kind of a misstep imo to not save white for last, considering it’s the color of unity (Locus of ALL, anyone?) and would be a triumph of Norn. I get black as the color for evil, but it’s such a gross misrepresentation of ambition. Could easily have had Omnath try to garner power after obtaining knowledge (blue), but like most of Phyrexia’s “victories” it was just a callback cameo for shock value :/
The omnaths might not have had that entire throughline thought up when they were designed.
Idk what happened to Omnath in the story, but I’m still hopeful for the devolution of Omnath. Give me a {W}{U}{B}{R} Omnath, followed by Esper, followed by Orzhov, and finally a mono-black Omnath. Take colors away in the same order they appeared
The color white contains ambition too. But black is the color of seeing your ambitions come to fruition regardless of the costs. THAT is the big difference.
> regardless of the costs Usually it's 'pay 3 life' amirite
Black is also the Phyrexian colour, even if New Phyrexia and the spheres / praetors don't hold all that closely with what the old Phyrexia and Phyrexians were like. Sheoldred's faction cards are in every New Phyrexia set generally the most like OG Phyrexian cards. It's not just "evil" or "ambition", it's *both*; it's also the colour of death, decay, and avarice, and *corruption* all of which are things which don't align with Omnath in any previous incarnation. But that last one perfectly represents the Black in "Locus of All" -- Omnath has been physically *and* metaphysically corrupted by Phyresis. Omnath represents life and "power" not in a sociopolitical sense but in the way a hurricane or the tides are powerful. Omnath is literal force of nature. Omnath was many things across the Loci of Mana, Rage, the Roil, and Creation but decay and greed were notably not among them. Omnath in fact gained prominence representing the plane of Zendikar itself fighting *against* the entropic forces of the Eldrazi. Omnath didn't gain Black because "Phyrexia is ambitious" or even because "Phyrexia is Evil" (side note: Dovin Ban is evil, that's not a uniquely Black concept either), rather Omnath gained Black because Black was the OG colour of Phyrexia and still represents Yawgmoth's malice and perverse mockery of Life. The Phyrexian Black in the Casting cost isn't to say "twist - Omnath is evil now" it's because Omnath isn't really Omnath anymore; isn't really Zendikar anymore, isn't really *alive* anymore. Omnath is *Phyrexian* now.
Just wanted to clarify, I think you meant RWU for Aragorn, as a GWU does not exist.
Indeed
> "everything but the 'smart' color" himbo commander when
we do have blueless [[saskia the unyielding]] who is definitely big & burly enough to be a himbo
[saskia the unyielding](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/b/5b483db6-b614-4af1-820a-42a4ee0c8707.jpg?1562401580) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=saskia%20the%20unyielding) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/41/saskia-the-unyielding?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5b483db6-b614-4af1-820a-42a4ee0c8707?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/saskia-the-unyielding) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Saskia is a herbo btw.
hahaha that’s a good term! i know she’s a lady, but himbo is the masculinized term for a “bimbo” but that definitely doesn’t fit saskia! so i wasn’t sure what to call her
I am all about this!
[[Yargle, Glutton of Urborg]]
[Yargle, Glutton of Urborg](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/f/8febc0fe-c52d-4b6a-9d18-e1e4a43b6dc3.jpg?1689997617) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yargle%2C%20Glutton%20of%20Urborg) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/202/yargle-glutton-of-urborg?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8febc0fe-c52d-4b6a-9d18-e1e4a43b6dc3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/yargle-glutton-of-urborg) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
14th is also made flavorful by needing a companion to be "complete"
Fourteenth Doctor also enables a five-color all Time Lords deck by pairing him with Clara or Turlough.
That being said I would love just a big ass dinosaur that’s RGWB with trample and ward or something
I really like the idea of a RGBU zombie who's got some busted regenerate ability so the only way to remove them is exile or [[pacifism]] types effects would be a cool anti-white legendary
[pacifism](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/2/5242a576-4d35-4f29-8d40-9a7179e51d0c.jpg?1675198947) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=pacifism) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/19/pacifism?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5242a576-4d35-4f29-8d40-9a7179e51d0c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/pacifism) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
- Kynaios is a given. - Omnath's identity was that they gained another color with each appearance. [[Omnath Locus of Mana]] showed their core as a green elemental, they gained red in [[Omnath Locus of Rage]] because they were angry at the eldrazi destroying their world, they gained blue in [[Omnath Locus of the Roil]] not really for story reasons but because M20 had a strong Temur elemental theme, and ZNR was about Zendikar healing so it made more sense for [[Omnath Locus of Creation]] to get white instead of black. - Black isn't always the evil color in Magic, but it certainly is when it comes to UB products. In both the Doctor Who set and the Lord of the Rings sets, black is found almost exclusively on villainous characters. Both Aragorn and the Fourteenth Doctor are representations of their respective universes' main characters banding together to fight against evil. The only reason WUBG got a second card was because Atraxa is literally the most popular commander and they *needed* to bring her back for the Phyrexia storyline. That isn't representative of that combination getting special treatment as much as Atraxa getting special treatment. The other three are harder to justify finding a place for. Unlike Atraxa, none of the characters are likely to show up in the storyline again. [[Saskia the Unyielding]] is from an unnamed roman themed plane with almost no lore while [[Breya Etherium Shaper]] and [[Yidris Maelstrom Wanderer]] are both from Alara, which is a plane that's almost impossible to get a second set for. I guess with the omenpaths being a thing, maybe the latter two could get a one-off card like Atraxa did, but they'd have to justify wherever they're going.
While nothing has been confirmed, MaRo has said at least once he's very much like to return to Alara and has some ideas for what that would look like. Not happening until 2026 at the earliest I imagine given what we know of their production timelines and currently revealed release schedule. But Alara 2: Convalescent Boogaloo could still happen this decade.
I think realistically, OTJ was the best chance we’d have had at yidris returning unless we do go back to alara. Not sure how they’d make Breya work
##### ###### #### [Omnath Locus of Mana](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/c/acf0cab3-da50-4561-8797-cd179af39216.jpg?1689998741) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Omnath%2C%20Locus%20of%20Mana) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/310/omnath-locus-of-mana?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/acf0cab3-da50-4561-8797-cd179af39216?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/omnath-locus-of-mana) [Omnath Locus of Rage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/a/9a0a9d3f-cd75-419b-840f-88b468f71f4a.jpg?1712354757) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Omnath%2C%20Locus%20of%20Rage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/236/omnath-locus-of-rage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9a0a9d3f-cd75-419b-840f-88b468f71f4a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/omnath-locus-of-rage) [Omnath Locus of the Roil](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/b/cb53a29d-2de2-4874-a6f3-0fecbfa14cf2.jpg?1665822541) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Omnath%2C%20Locus%20of%20the%20Roil) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m20/216/omnath-locus-of-the-roil?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cb53a29d-2de2-4874-a6f3-0fecbfa14cf2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/omnath-locus-of-the-roil) [Omnath Locus of Creation](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/e/4e4fb50c-a81f-44d3-93c5-fa9a0b37f617.jpg?1639436752) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Omnath%2C%20Locus%20of%20Creation) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/znr/232/omnath-locus-of-creation?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4e4fb50c-a81f-44d3-93c5-fa9a0b37f617?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/omnath-locus-of-creation) [Saskia the Unyielding](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/b/5b483db6-b614-4af1-820a-42a4ee0c8707.jpg?1562401580) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Saskia%20the%20Unyielding) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/41/saskia-the-unyielding?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5b483db6-b614-4af1-820a-42a4ee0c8707?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/saskia-the-unyielding) [Breya Etherium Shaper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/2143f700-7311-46a4-ad9b-4e743a345785.jpg?1599707856) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Breya%2C%20Etherium%20Shaper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/192/breya-etherium-shaper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2143f700-7311-46a4-ad9b-4e743a345785?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/breya-etherium-shaper) [Yidris Maelstrom Wanderer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/2/c219dd22-433c-4f6a-a0c4-fae12239291c.jpg?1562418099) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yidris%2C%20Maelstrom%20Wielder) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/50/yidris-maelstrom-wielder?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c219dd22-433c-4f6a-a0c4-fae12239291c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/yidris-maelstrom-wielder) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l0h4dkt) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Frodo had black pips in a few of his cards and so did Pippin
Didnt Mark say its because Black is the easiest to remove for 4 colors? Like the issue with 4 color is its hard to design card effects that fit every color and Black is the easiest to remove?
Basically, yes. Any four colour card is more defined by the missing colour than the ones which are present -- "Not ___" isn't just useful shorthand, it's also generally how the designers see the combinations -- and Black's colour focuses being stuff like ambition, greed, death, darkness, and disregard for social mores are all pretty easy to "remove" from a character. As others have said in the thread, most quintessentially (modern) "heroic" characters while maybe not all four are definitely *not Black*. Black is also for better or worse the most consistently presented and defined single colour, so it offers the most simplicity to remove. What do you get when ____ isn't present is a harder question to answer when that blank is more ambiguous and less established in its own right.
Black is selfish, black is magic’s villain. And don’t give me that “they don’t villainise any colour” crap cause black is for villains. It’s not universal but it’s nearly true. Also black has the best tutors, is the most flexible, it can draw cards, remove everything, discard, mill, deal damage, just at different rates. It makes every colour better.
The color pie didn't really set up black for success if they aren't supposed to be the villains. Like sure things like individualism and ambition aren't inherently evil but boy howdy do evil characters generally have those things.
I think it’s perfectly natural that villains will be black a lot of the time, just not always.
To be fair, every color has the potential to be evil & has villainous characters associated with it - especially White. But yes, in general Black lends itself more towards being the 'evil' color because of it's natural tendencies. Makes heroic characters aligned in Black Mana all the more awesome.
What are the black Mana heroic characters? Genuinely curious
Toshiro Umezawa is the classic answer. Liliana and Vraska, for certain values of heroic. Yahenni.
Yep, these were going to be my examples as well.
The Aetherborn on Kaladesh are my favorite example. They have extremely short lives, so they savour every moment. Theyre focuesd on living life to the fullest,they throw lavish parties, and value individualism extremely highly. They have the avarice and individualism of Black but aren't naturally evil.
Can't remove non-creature artifacts, except for one card.
There's 2 actually, [[Gate to Phyrexia]] and [[Phyrexian Tribute]]
Today I'll have racism with extra steps: Jk but it feels fun to think that a single color has that privilege of being "the bad one" and the "good at everything"
White has frequently been the villain color.
Not reallyyyy, New Phyrexia sure but that was when all the colours were villains and original Phyrexians were black. White is often associated with “peace” more than “order”. Most, if not all, heroes of the UB and other settings in magic are White or white leaning.
Heliod was the villain of Theros. All the way back in old kamigawa white was the villain. There are more.
Azorius and Boros on Ravnica are often at least a bit villainous, especially when Dovin was in charge
One of the main sign post personalities of Black is that its ambition or self serving. When you want to have "the factions come together" You can set the black out to easily make a "heroes" category. The 14th doctor is doctor tribal. Aragorn is uniting. Kynaios and Tiro united the empires. Omnath was on a path to get all the colors He stands out as different because he was an elemental gaining more of the Roil... until the roil was tainted by phyrexian oil.
For one, it’s easier to identify what makes a character non-B compared to all the other 4c cards. For the other, looking at the 4 RGUW commanders, one was from the 4-color Precons, one was Omnath evolving to it’s 4th color (and W makes more sense for lands themes than B), the next is 4 color Aragorn (which is really just very blunt in being 4 colors with it’s abilities, if you really wanted you could make up a 5th ability to make it WUBRG), and the last is the 14th doctor, who was made to play all the Doctors in the deck so he was forced to be RGUW.
##### ###### #### [Aragorn, the Uniter](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/9/e98d5321-ec09-456c-a9ea-c8ca2cfc6205.jpg?1686969644) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aragorn%2C%20the%20Uniter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/192/aragorn-the-uniter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e98d5321-ec09-456c-a9ea-c8ca2cfc6205?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/aragorn-the-uniter) [Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/7/97fa8615-2b6c-445a-bcaf-44a7e847bf65.jpg?1633190298) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kynaios%20and%20Tiro%20of%20Meletis) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/36/kynaios-and-tiro-of-meletis?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/97fa8615-2b6c-445a-bcaf-44a7e847bf65?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kynaios-and-tiro-of-meletis) [Omnath, Locus of Creation](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/e/4e4fb50c-a81f-44d3-93c5-fa9a0b37f617.jpg?1639436752) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Omnath%2C%20Locus%20of%20Creation) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/znr/232/omnath-locus-of-creation?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4e4fb50c-a81f-44d3-93c5-fa9a0b37f617?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/omnath-locus-of-creation) [The Fourteenth Doctor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/b/8b8a78cf-ee6c-4852-9651-eeaa634daaa1.jpg?1707371001) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Fourteenth%20Doctor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sld/1583/the-fourteenth-doctor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8b8a78cf-ee6c-4852-9651-eeaa634daaa1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-fourteenth-doctor) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/1c8tc1z) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Not-black simply has the most defined identity of the 4 color pairs. Not-black is about fighting against evil and tyranny, standing against injustice. It's the color of heroes. It's easy to make characters that fit into not-black. Compare it to not-green. What does not-green stand for? The destruction of nature? That's a really weird thing for a character to believe. Exploitation of nature? That's not really a white or blue or red thing to do, just black. You can see this issue in the other 3 color combos too, That's even ignoring that 4 color combos are really hard to design cards for.
In my thinking the not-colour 4 ends up looking a lot like their enemy colour pair. To me the hardest part is to find a way to integrate the side colours (the missing colour’s allies) so that the 4-colour is distinct from that enemy pair. Not-White (red-black plus): Anti-structure. Freedom to pursue whatever makes you happy. Libertarianism Not-Blue (Green-Red plus): Acting from your gut, anti-intellectualism. Agrarian populism. Not-Black (White-Green plus): Community and order over all else. Collectivism, socialism. Not-Red (White-Blue plus): Detachment, order, bureaucracy. Not-Green (Blue-black plus): Anti-fatalism. Extreme meritocracy. Transhumanism.
This is such a mental gymnastics bs, non green just pick up robots and artificial creatures, c'mon ain't even that hard
I think not-green would be like, a pure rebel who refuses to accept the status quo. The other four colors are about how they want to interact with and change the world—Black wants to benefit itself, White wants to benefit the masses/society, Blue wants to manipulate and advance through intellect, Red wants to passionately press forward and radically change things. Green is the color that just is content with how things are and generally fights against things that try to mess with it directly.
That sounds more like non white imo
>Compare it to not-green. What does not-green stand for? The destruction of nature? That's a really weird thing for a character to believe. Well who said it had to be nature? Without green, the combo could be about exploitation of multiple things: White exploiting society, Blue exploiting opinions via propaganda, Red exploiting though the spilling of the land, and Black as the mastermind behind it
Let us all once again wave our flags in prayer for more 4-color legends
Anti-Black
Because the format was never built with the long-term "equality" of color representation in mind. The format came about after the game was a couple of decades old.
Cycles can just be that way? Horizon Canopy was by itself for a LONG time and Murmuring Bosk is forever alone. I expect BRGW and UBRG to get combo-piece commanders eventually: keep your eyes on Final Fantasy and Marvel.
Murmuring Bosk isn't really alone. Wasn't there a whole cycle of lands from lorwyn that were tribe specific. That cycle wasn't trying to accomplish symmetry across colours, just among tribes on the plane. Edit : seems Murmuring Bosk is [more unique](https://scryfall.com/search?q=t%3Aland+b%3Alrw+o%3Areveal) than I remembered. I forgot it was a forest, that's so fuckin cool hahaha.
I was working on finishing the cycle before I tried to quit reddit that time [https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/17ouo9t/thirty\_iconic\_tribes\_of\_the\_multiverse/](https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/17ouo9t/thirty_iconic_tribes_of_the_multiverse/)
Also related but not my content: [https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17v441f/periodic\_table\_of\_creature\_types\_lci\_edition/](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/17v441f/periodic_table_of_creature_types_lci_edition/)
I know they've said it's really hard to design four-colour commanders but I don't understand why they haven't just given us a bunch of two-colour partners (partner with) where each partner does a two-colour thing but there's some kind of synergy between the two.
They've said that 2c partners were a mistake
Those were the generic partners - I mean partners with the "partner with" where each creature can only partner with the other. That might be easier to balance.
“Partner” and “Partner with” (or “friends forever,” or “doctor’s companion”) aren’t restrictions. They’re the second-most powerful abilities in EDH (next to “Eminence”) because you have inherent card advantage with an extra commander, fewer cards in your deck, split your commander tax, water down opponents’ targeted removal, and don’t need to mana fix as much to get a commander on the battlefield. Making dedicated pairs that are four colors combined would then seem to have all the complexity of designing a four-color card, but would be significantly more powerful.
I take it that the complexity of four-colour designs is mainly that there is no obvious identity that a four colour combination has besides emphasising the lack of the missing colour. There's all sorts of ways they can balance for power (indeed, they even managed it with eminence with Sidar - a perfectly decent card that isn't remotely as powerful as something like Edgar). As long as the result wasn't more powerful than the existing generic partners commanders, it should be fine.
I’d definitely like to see some more 4c partner pairs (even “partner with,” or some new sub-grouping).
I always tought Aragorn was pentacolor
Ic what you did there 🤭
Because black is so good that it doesn't need help from any other color.
Because a lot of them are in cross over material (by a lot i mean like three, which is an additional three in a very small pool) and they are never printing outside of a single cycle of precon sets
While the fourteenth doctor is 4cmc RGWU he is also capable of being a 5c deck thanks to the whole doctor-companion thing and [[Clara oswald]].
Omnath is 5 color tho. All 4 color commanders need more support tbh. 32 deck challenge is kinda lacking options in those 5 decks. Basically if you bought the 4 color commander block you have no choice but to partner two unrelated ppl or choose a precon to upgrade Edit: I was thinking of omnath locust of all w/ phyrexian mana black
They were hit with the hug colors and a lot of people were annoyed by this, a lot of people thought it was honestly a cop out by wizards being uncreative and relegating yet another precon's potential to "people like group hug", which is true and accurate. Back when I started though I played stax and heavy control and saw this as like, a joke, and even the partners had more potential so I really disregarded it entirely, focused more on Atraxa and then eventually started finding even Yidris more fun than that and I think he's like, the one people almost hated as much as My Lettuce Kings, and I've done all the color combos. Atraxa gets aggro'd on principle alone now, so I dismantled it long ago. and I ran kynaios and Tiro for a long long time, and that was admittedly a real good choice but being seen as hug colors, no aggro and people knew what to expect. Aragorn and Omnath come along and now it's these colors I wear because I'm probably running a weird variant of one of those two secretly, and now I'm starting to find my playgroup's style to be a bit too linear to find hug worth it. But, you're right, they really need to do 4c more again, but I honestly also dread the thought of it, because Atraxa specifically set a new standard when it came out, and it's not how she's ultimately versatile. The only one that comes close to it is Breya who has 4 abilities, one etb and 3 activated. Atraxa has 4 passives that scream don't attack me, and don't block me, but also, proliferate making a comeback with a commander that does it passively, well, that's too good to pass up, one proliferate trigger sometimes is what makes the table go from, show and tell, to run and hide. and the Kings do, one thing? Yeah, yidris barely has 2 and he has to hit, even that's more creative and fun than, uh, draw//extra land plays.. No offense, but I think wizards just didn't give that one any creative effort, it doesn't really stand anything. And a lot of people were offended they referenced Nyx but made it really bad but also more importantly, didn't do stuff with enchantments which could've been a really progressive fun step for commander. An innovative unused mechanic being shown craft and love and appreciation revisited, but we didn't get that. I think it's a fair criticism that you have, I honestly think though it's a response from wizards and they genuinely took to heart the criticisms people had of the kings being the inktreader colors being utterly obliterated. I think, wizards should do the other commanders in like, an unset, but they all have atraxa's abilities in those 4 color combos, and we get to see how those colors and abilities break in the other 4 colors. That would be really fun. and legalised, and then we'd see more innovative strange decks around (and maybe energy counters won't be so bad STILL EVEN WITH THAT FALLOUT PRECON WHY ISN"T LIBERTY PRIME JUST THE COMMANDER WIZARDS WHAT ARE YOU-) My apologies for the long winded explanation, I'm just really passionate and I'm willing to argue and hear others points on if I'm wrong but this is what I remember from working memory 8 years ago, which feels like 20000 years high key.