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2%%Zero-context examples are not allowed on wiki pages: all such examples have been commented out. Please add some context before uncommenting them.
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4%%Sub-tropes should not be bulleted under their supertrope, which makes looking them up needlessly difficult. Please list them alphabetically in the main list. Thank you!
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7Each color of magic in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' is associated with a whole philosophy about life, particular goals, and a particular set of magical strategies for winning the game. They're often informally talked about as though they were individual characters. Generally, each color is also associated with an "iconic creature" -- a creature type that shows up once each set as a very large rare creature -- and a "characteristic creature" -- a creature type that shows up multiple times each set as several smaller common creatures.
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9Each color has two "allies" and two "enemies", producing a five-way balance - White is allied with Green and Blue and opposed to Black and Red, Green is allied with Red and White and opposed to Blue and Black, Red is allied with Black and Green and opposed to White and Blue, Black is allied with Blue and Red and opposed to Green and White, and Blue is allied with White and Black and opposed to Red and Green.
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11Despite this, cards sometimes have effects that work with their enemy colors or against their ally colors, and there's no rule that actual ''characters'' must always be allies or enemies in-story based on their color alignment, or be allies within their own color for that matter.
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15[[foldercontrol]]
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17[[folder:Shared tropes]]
18* BlackAndWhiteInsanity: Played straight, despite the presence of three other colors. Fundamentally, each color is an ideology -- a single unified philosophy that sees the world in a certain way, and is simply incapable of comprehending that there are other ways of looking at the world. Each color is a double-edged blade: it leans hard into what it can do, but there are also things it could never contemplate because they contrast with the color's ideology. As a really simple example, White is a MartialPacifist: ''it never attacks without a very good reason'', even when doing so is in its best interest. Or, if it does, it uses EquivalentExchange to give benefit to the owner of the erstwhile threat, even when doing so is ''against'' its best interest. Why? Because White is about fairness -- [[LawfulStupid no matter what]].
19* CastCalculus: Each color's role in the color pie can be easily visualized by comparing it to the role of a character of that color in various cast dynamics, as can be seen through the other examples in this section.
20* CastOfPersonifications: In some of Mark Rosewater's editorials, in which he interviews the colors, they get this treatment.
21* ElementalPowers: Besides philosophy and personality, the colors and their magic tend to be associated with elements as well. Generally, White gets control over {{light|EmUp}}; Blue has [[BlowYouAway air]], [[AnIcePerson ice]] and [[MakingASplash water]]; Black has [[CastingAShadow darkness]]; Red has [[DishingOutDirt earth]], [[MagmaMan lava]], [[PlayingWithFire fire]] and [[ShockAndAwe lightning]]; Green has [[GreenMeansNatural wood and plants]]; [[PoisonousPerson poison]] is shared between Black and Green; and [[TakenForGranite petrification]] is shared between Green and White. However, these aren't necessarily set in stone, such as Red getting access to ice-related spells during the Kamigawa arc and Green generally getting a good number of wind spells for the purpose of [[AntiAir knocking flying creatures from the air]].
22* FourPhilosophyEnsemble: White is an Optimist (with a focus on order), Blue is a Cynic/Realist, Black is a Cynic/Apathetic, Red is another Optimist (with a focus on freedom), and Green is an Apathetic/Realist.
23* FreudianExcuse: Each color has a particular thing that it values, and which forms the foundation of its identity both in terms of flavor and mechanics.
24* GrayAndGrayMorality:
25** While individual characters and conflicts may be good and evil outright, on a cosmic scale the colors of mana all have different valid points and horrible habits alike and their conflict is a truly ideological one rather than a moral one. While White and Green are easy to stereotype as "good" and Black (and sometimes Red, especially in earlier sets) as "evil", all five colors can produce both heroes and villains. Though this is {{Downplayed}} in that even in modern sets, usually the majority of White cards will depict pleasant and benevolent things and the majority of Black cards will depict unpleasant and malevolent things.
26** The difference is that the concept of defined morality itself is associated with White and disbelief in it is associated with Black, so White villains tend to be [[KnightTemplar Knights Templar]] and White heroes {{Ideal Hero}}es, while Black villains tend to be [[CardCarryingVillain Card-Carrying Villains]] and Black heroes [[KnightInSourArmor Knights in Sour Armor]].
27* GrayingMorality: While Wizards has struggled to make the conflict between Black and White not too... well, [[BlackAndWhiteMorality black and white]], they have had no such problem adding nuance to the conflict between Red and White. Early cards tended to portray it as [[KnightInShiningArmor Knights in Shining Armor]] vs TheHorde, with Red rarely getting to showcase its traits of empathy and imagination. Nowadays, the dynamic has shifted, with the canon now also containing a number of [[OrderIsNotGood tyrannical White-aligned villains]] fighting against [[RedIsHeroic Red-aligned]] [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeVillified revolutionaries]].
28* MirroringFactions: As diametrically opposed as enemy colors may be, there is more overlap between them than any would like to admit. And bear in mind that cards don't have to be mono-colored; they can also be any combination of two or more. Enemy-pair two-colored cards are almost as common as ally-pair ones, and any more complex combinations will include some enemy colors by definition. (Three-colored cards are the most common multi-colors after two-colored ones, followed by the extra special five-colored cards. There are only a handful of four-colored cards, since it's hard for Creative to come up with a theme for them.)
29** White and Black both frequently engage in {{Realpolitik}}, and have a firm belief that [[WellIntentionedExtremist the ends justify the means]] and that strict hierarchy is a desirable state of affairs. Tribalism is a nasty habit associated with the White/Black combination, as the communalism of White meets the self-interest of Black. Both are associated with [[CastFromMoney finance and commerce]], and share the Cleric and Knight classes, along with Vampires on many worlds.
30** Blue and Red are both focused on new ideas and revel in change for change's sake. They both have an intense curiosity and a propensity for obsession. This is reflected in their making the most use of DiscardAndDraw mechanics out of the five colors, although Blue will usually pick-and-choose more carefully than Red. They are also the two colors most heavily associated with technological innovation and tinkering, as well as artwork and performance. They tend to share the Wizard, Artificer, and Pirate classes, as well as the [[OurGeniesAreDifferent djinn and efreet]].
31** Black and Green share a sense of ruthlessness, as Black is the color of amorality and Green is the color of [[GreenMeansNatural natural instinct]]. Both are willing to deal with threats ''immediately'', and share a "survival of the fittest" mentality. Of all the enemy colors, they probably share the most creature types, including Treefolk, Fungi, Insects, Spiders, Trolls, Worms, and Gorgons. [[OurElvesAreDifferent Black-aligned Elves]] have even increasingly become a thing.
32** Red and White both have an intense sense of justice and tend to see the world in moral absolutes. They are both quick to act out against a perceived injustice and are likely to do so via ThePowerOfFriendship. They're also the two colors most associated with the Soldier and Warrior classes, as well as [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwarves]].
33** Green and Blue prefer to look at the big picture when considering their options. Both also tend to act cautiously, with measured and deliberate actions, up to and including implementing an AlienNonInterferenceClause. Recently, Green has also been borrowing some of Blue's [[MakingASplash water theming]], leading to them sharing creature types like Merfolk and Crocodiles.
34** Allied colors, however, [[InvertedTrope do have their differences]]:
35*** White is more genuinely concerned with community and rigidity than Blue is. Blue sees more value in the individual, and is more comfortable with secrecy and deceit.
36*** Blue often sees Black as a viciously distrusting color that favors the ends over the means. Black also dislikes Blue's excess subtlety, as well as learning and transmission of knowledge for its own sake.
37*** Black views Red as a bit too chaotic and emotional, compared to Black not letting such impede its pursuit of its goals. Red dislikes Black's aversion to [[ThePowerOfLove having close-knit bonds with others to the point of favoring loved ones over oneself]].
38*** Red puts more value than Green in proactivity and favors loved ones over life it barely knows of. Green distrusts Red's shortsightedness and acceptance of sudden change.
39*** Green doesn't like White's values of civilization, namely potential for dogmatic thought and notable bureaucracy. White doesn't value Green's potential brashness and use of instinct, things that heed to no ethics.
40* RecurringElement: Each color is associated with an "iconic creature" -- a creature type that shows up once each set as a very large, rare creature -- and with a "characteristic creature" -- a creature type that shows up multiple times each set as several smaller common creatures -- which tend to appear rarely or not at all in other colors. Though sometimes the exact creatures will be changed due to block constraints, with archons being White's iconic creature in the Theros block, where angels are absent.
41** Iconic creatures:
42*** White: Angels.[[note]]{{Kirin}} are used in Asian-themed planes where angels wouldn't fit in thematically, and Archons more sporadically in settings like Eldraine and Theros. Lammasu are also officially an alternative, but not used due to fan unpopularity.[[/note]]
43*** Blue: Sphinxes.
44*** Black: Demons.
45*** Red: Dragons.
46*** Green: Hydras.
47** Characteristic races:
48*** White: Humans, [[CatFolk Leonin]], and Kor. [[note]]This one is still, according to WordOfGod, subject to change, given that [[HumansAreAverage humans are only slightly more common in White than they are in the other colors]], and Kor and Leonin are not StandardFantasyRaces that new players are likely to be familiar with.[[/note]][[invoked]]
49*** Blue: Merfolk and Vedalken.
50*** Black: Vampires and Zombies.
51*** Red: Goblins, [[LizardFolk Viashino]], and Dwarves
52*** Green: Elves.
53** Characteristic spellcasters:[[note]]Considerably more flexible than the others, as Wizards maintain a consistent presence in all colors, and Shamans have appeared in Green and Clerics in Black. The idea of sorting spellcaster creature types this way is relatively recent, and Warlock only started being a type in ''Throne of Eldraine''.[[/note]]
54*** White: Clerics
55*** Blue: Wizards
56*** Black: Warlocks
57*** Red: Shamans
58*** Green: Druids
59* RedOniBlueOni: The two eponymous colors tend to fall pretty cleanly along these lines, while White, Black and Green are more varied:
60** White makes an effort to keep a StiffUpperLip, but makes no bones about going on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge when its sensibilities are offended.
61** Black is more than happy to play TheHedonist and enjoy life's pleasures to the fullest, but when the chips are down and its ManipulativeBastard side comes out, that same emotion is rarely anywhere to be found.
62** Green is InHarmonyWithNature, but that doesn't mean it won't get emotional when given the chance to enact GaiasVengeance.
63* {{Terraforming}}: Pretty much ''every'' color has some cards that do this, as gameplay requires players to draw land cards, which are the source of the mana needed to pay for summoning creatures, playing sorceries, etc.
64[[/folder]]
65
66[[folder:White]]
67[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/white_mana_7199.png]]
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69White's philosophy can be summarized as "peace through structure". It seeks to create a {{Utopia}} free of poverty and suffering... and will destroy TheEvilsOfFreeWill if it needs to. White mana is drawn from plains.\
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71White is the color of [[LightEmUp light]], law, and [[HolyHandGrenade holy magic]]. It specializes in various forms of healing and protection (such as gaining life, preventing damage, and boosting creatures' toughness scores), efficient small creatures that reinforce each other, and abilities that dictate the flow of combat. White is chivalrous: rather than kill directly, it prefers to disable non-combative foes with spells like [[http://magiccards.info/som/en/2.html Arrest]], [[https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/125/pacifism Pacifism]], and [[http://magiccards.info/arc/en/3.html Oblivion Ring]], but has no qualms about killing creatures that have struck first, as seen in cards like [[http://magiccards.info/m10/en/8.html Divine Verdict]] and [[http://magiccards.info/10e/en/8.html Ballista Squad]]. When pushed, White engages in MutualDisadvantage, giving you something in return for taking something away, or resorts to mass destruction to wipe the slate clean equally. Learn more about White [[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr57 here]] and [[http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/7 here.]]
72----
73* AbsoluteXenophobe: White can become this in theory. See Fantastic Racism and All The Other Reindeer below.
74* ActionInitiative: One of the keywords that White is known for is ''First Strike'' which represents the creature having enough [[SuperReflexes speed or skill]] to hit the target it is battling (whether it is blocking or being blocked) before they have a chance to strike back: if the creature's power is higher than the target's toughness, the creature takes no damage whatsoever...if it isn't, then the creature they were battling kills them. Fittingly enough, White also has the ''Double Strike'' keyword which applies ''First Strike'' and '''then''' regular damage to the target it's battling (or it can hit your opponent twice if not blocked).
75* AllLovingHero: White, in spite of all the [[ANaziByAnyOtherName ways]] [[TautologicalTemplar its]] [[OmnicidalManiac philosophy]] [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill can]] [[MoralSociopathy go]] [[ReligionOfEvil horribly]] [[LightIsNotGood wrong]], still manages to produce more than its fair share of these.
76* AllTheOtherReindeer: White is the color of conformity, and doesn't care for those that are different unless they try to fit in.
77* AntiHeroSubstitute: The Archons, essentially. They function as White's iconic creatures when Angels don't seem appropriate, and emphasize White's more negative aspects.
78* AntiMagic: Is tied with Green for second-most creatures with the Ward Keyword after Blue.
79* ApocalypseHow: Armageddon, Wrath of God, Balance, Final Judgment. While such outright killing is generally outside White's philosophy, these effects are acceptable because they create order by forcing the whole battlefield to restart from a blank (or relatively even) state.
80* ApocalypseWow: [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83339 Wrath Of God]] is one of the most iconic cards in Magic, partially because of its effect ("Destroy all creatures. They can't be regenerated.") and partially because of its artwork (a giant white sun crashing into the earth and obliterating EVERYTHING).
81* {{Arcadia}}: White's basic land cards are plains, which often depict expansive grasslands and sometime cities and towns surrounded by farmlands.
82* ArtEvolution: The original White mana symbol was [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mtgsalvation_gamepedia/images/a/a1/White_mana_symbols.png rather asymmetrical and unrefined (the one on the right)]]. Compare it to the current version, which appeared circa the ''Mirage'' block.
83* AwesomenessIsAForce: Shown on [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=48074 Awe Strike]]. Like Blue's [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3099 Awesome Presence]], it's a serious take on the idea of Pure Awesomeness.
84* BackFromTheDead: It doesn't get it as much as Green or Black, but resurrection is a minor part of White's arsenal.
85* BadassBureaucrat: Being the color of order, it is no surprise that a lot of creatures with the Advisor class will be White.
86* BadassBystander: White is currently tied with Green for having the most Citizen-class creatures[[note]]24.2% out of 33 cards single-color, and 12.1% having ''both'' colors as of this writing[[/note]].
87* BadassPreacher: White currently has the highest number of Cleric-class creatures.
88* BareFistedMonk: A lot of creatures with the Monk class will be White.
89* BirdPeople: White is the colour with the highest amount of birds, and as such nearly all sapient avian races in the game's history are oriented towards White. They're usually called aven, and most are six-limbed with separate wings and arms (although the [[http://magiccards.info/ktk/en/20.html aven of Tarkir]] use the same limbs as both arms and wings). Most look like generic hawks or eagles, but other White aven have resembled [[http://magiccards.info/c13/en/2.html owls]] or [[http://magiccards.info/cns/en/82.html ravens]] instead.
90* BlackAndWhiteInsanity: Why White characters sometimes go KnightTemplar. It's the colour that least recognizes moral complexity.
91* CallToAgriculture: Most of white's [[{{Terraforming}} land-retrieving]] spells are flavored as being agriculture related, as well as many cards that create [[HyperactiveMetabolism Food tokens]].
92** In addition, cards like the infamous [[https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/841/swords-to-plowshares Swords to Plowshares]] weaponizes this trope, calling an enemy creature to agriculture ''so strongly'' that they [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere leave the fight entirely]].[[invoked]]
93* CatsAreMean: Cats as a creature type have appeared in all five colors, but primarily in White, and secondarily in Green.
94* CombatMedic: White is both the color of healing and armies, so this is a very common variety of creature for it.
95* CoolHorse: Tied with Green for having the second-most Horse-type creatures in the game, next to both Blue and Black.
96* CreativeSterility: More severely than any other color. White is the color of rigid dogmatism, and has little use for randomness, gambles, or idle pondering. Mechanically, it is the weakest color in terms of card drawing ''[[WeaksauceWeakness by a lot]]'', opting instead to re-use smaller creatures after they die or repeatedly pump out [[WeHaveReserves wave after wave]] of nondescript but numerous [[{{Mooks}} token creatures]] to scale into the late game.
97* DeaderThanDead: Some rare White abilities can exile creatures making them impossible to be resurrected.
98* DishingOutDirt: Not as much as Red and Green, but it's still there. White's version uses dust, sand, salt, marble, or [[TakenForGranite petrification]].
99* ElementalPowers: This isn't as prominent as with other colors, but White magic is generally associated with controlling [[DishingOutDirt stone]] (often through petrification) and {{light|EmUp}}.
100* TheEvilsOfFreeWill: White’s two enemy colors, Red and Black, are strongly associated with individual freedom and self determination. They are also associated with demons and dragons. White draws a direct line between the two.
101* {{Flight}}: Shared with blue. White gets a lot of fliers in the form of regular birds, as well as getting the majority of aven (bird-people) and griffin creatures.
102* FeatheredFiend: A common archetype for White’s many bird creatures, either as mindless raptors or actual villains and including large flocks of smaller birds, colossal rocs and villainous bird people such as [[http://mtg.gamepedia.com/Kirtar Lieutenant Kirtar]].
103* TheFettered: Comes with the territory of law and order.
104* ForGreatJustice: White does occasionally single out targets instead of [[RocksFallEverybodyDies killing everyone]], but usually only against those who are guilty (for example, by dealing damage or getting into combat).
105* TheFundamentalist: Along with the KnightTemplar, this is one of White's negative aspects. The flavor text on [[http://magiccards.info/10e/en/53.html True Believer]] exemplifies this aspect of White:
106-->''So great is his certainty that mere facts cannot shake it.''
107* GreatDetective: Given its emphasis on order and justice, White is currently the color with the second-most Detective-class creatures in the game.
108* HealingHands: As does Green, White gets a number of healing abilities. White tends to focus more on using these abilities to keep its creatures alive or to gain life for itself, while Green leans more towards protecting its creatures while also pumping the said creatures. Fittingly enough, next to Black, White has creatures with the ''[[LifeDrain Lifelink]]'' keyword in significant numbers.
109* HeroicSacrifice: White's focus on community over individuals makes it a fan of this trope.
110* HolyHandGrenade: Pretty much all direct damage or removal spells White gets are flavored this way, especially the ones that do [[OmnicidalManiac mass removal]].
111* HumanoidAbomination: Opposed to Black's own [[EldritchAbomination eldritch things]], as part of their motif of opposition. Angels, especially in later settings like Zendikar and Bant, are portrayed as alien to mortal races and quite detached (being manifestations of pure White mana). Archons are essentially [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Nazgûl]] that are [[KnightTemplar extremist]] instead of immoral.
112* IdealHero: When white is a hero, it fits the traditional archetype of the upstanding, admirable and moral hero fairly well.
113* TheJuggernaut: As a whole, White has the most creatures with the ''Indestructible'' keyword[[note]]36.1% out of 206 cards as of this writing[[/note]]; these creatures can be extremely difficult to put down as soon as they hit the field because they cannot be killed as the result of battle, and they cannot be killed using 'destroy' effects...they'll even shrug off death by ''Deathtouch''. There ''are'' ways to get them off the field; they can still be affected by -1/-1 counters, and they can still be affected by effects that do not outright say 'destroy' (being sacrificed or banished does not count as being destroyed).
114* {{Kirin}}: [[https://scryfall.com/search?q=t%3Akirin&order=name&as=grid&unique=cards Kirins]] are used in planes inspired by Asian cultures -- such as Kamigawa, Tarkir and Shenmeng -- as a replacement for angels in the "large, rare mono-colored creature" spot; they always have flying and tend to be depicted as omens and messengers who herald the birth, death or arrival of important people.
115* KnightTemplar: Along with KnightInShiningArmor.
116* KnightInShiningArmor: While the class has come in a variety of colors, particularly in ''Thrones of Eldraine'', a lot of Knights will be White; this includes other similar creature classes like [[ThePaladin Paladins]], Crusader, or [[TheCavalry Cavalry]].
117* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: {{Enforced}}. White has numerous enchantments that prevent interference or otherwise limit opponents' options in combat.
118* LightIsGood: Although lately its more [[KnightTemplar negative aspects]] have been more prevalent, in order to keep the balance with the number of protagonists/villains in other colours, White used to be portrayed as the go-to heroic color for a while, and is still often perceived as this. The primary planeswalker of white, Gideon Jura, seems to be this trope incarnate.
119* LightIsNotGood: While White is pretty consistent in regards to OrderVsChaos (Order, of course), it's fallen on different ends of the BlackAndWhiteMorality divide through ''Magic'''s history. It's probably the second most common color for villains behind black. On the other hand, when White characters are good they are [[HeroicSacrifice really]] [[AllLovingHero good]].
120* LightEmUp: White gets a lot of spells centered on manipulating light, often as blinding bursts or burning beams.
121* {{Lunacy}}: White uses moonlight from time to time, with the most prominent being Innistrad's [[CrystalDragonJesus church of Avacyn]], who was explicitly said to derive her power from the plane's mysterious moon.
122* MoralSociopathy: At its worst; White is always moral, but being an enemy of Red, the colour of emotions, and an ally of Blue, the color of logic, means that, at its purest, White has little empathy. Indeed, some pure White creatures, like Angels, sometimes appear rather robotic, following their duties at the expense of everything else.
123* MrFixit: Despite being behind both blue and red in terms of general artifact synergies, white has the honor of being the color that's best at specifically [[RagnarokProofing protecting]] artifacts or retrieving them from the graveyard.
124* {{Mummy}}: Despite all prior "mummy-esque" creatures being Black, the [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Anointed]] of Amonkhet are associated with White mana, due to their servile nature and central place in local religion.
125* ANaziByAnyOtherName: White, being the colour of order, can be this at its worst.
126* TheNeedsOfTheMany: White will often ask one or few to sacrifice a great deal for even a small improvement for many more.
127* NiceMice: While rats are associated with Black, mice are associated with White.
128* NoCureForEvil: Averted with White characters that are evil, although curiously most White villains so far didn't have an explicit specialization in healing magic.
129* NoSell: The Circle of Protection cards basically block all damage from a particular color.
130* OmnicidalManiac: The infamous [[https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Wrath_effect Wrath effect spells]], of which the vast majority are White. Several cards like Magus of the Disk show that this goes deep in White's ideology as well; ultimate order is death, after all.
131* OurAngelsAreDifferent: They are medium-sized to large flying creatures, almost always female, are generally treated as living manifestations of their home planes' white mana, and have been White's iconic large creature since [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=270 Serra Angel]] in Alpha. They are almost always considered divine in some form or another, and in some planes (most notably Innistrad and the Alaran shard of Bant) are outright worshipped by mortals.
132* OurArchonsAreDifferent: Archons are one of White's iconic races, usually showing up whenever angels can't, like in the [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek-inspired]] ''Theros'' block. Usually taking the form of [[HumanoidAbomination mysterious humanoid]] figures riding winged steeds, they represent White's more [[LightIsNotGood malevolent]] traits, [[KnightTemplar such as vicious justice and oppression]]. Indeed, in the aforementioned Theros they are the last remnants of a tyrannical empire that sprawled the entire plane.
133* OurGargoylesRock: White is the color most associated with the Gargoyle creature type. Many gargoyles have a mechanic that renders them unable to attack until a certain condition is met, alluding to their protective natures.
134* OurGhostsAreDifferent: While the creature type has run the gamut of every color, White currently has the most Spirit-type creatures in the game.
135* ThePaladin: Up until the creature class was absorbed into the Knight class for simplicity's sake, White would've had a lot of Paladins.
136* {{Pegasus}}: An uncommon White creature type. They became especially prominent in the Greek mythology-inspired Theros block, where they're prized as steeds by soldiers and heroes.
137* ThePowerOfFriendship: With Green and, sometimes, Red.
138* ThePowerOfTheSun: The Sun serves as White’s mana symbol. Some cards use it more literally, with the light the spell is manipulating being explicitly sunlight. Sun deities across the multiverse are almost always at least partly White.
139* {{Pride}}: One of this color's main issues. It is the color of zealotry, and White can have a hard time accepting it is wrong.
140* PurpleIsTheNewBlack: {{Inverted| Trope}} in a couple of ways. Many White spells and their artwork are shown as light yellow. However, some White cards have artwork that shows their spells as purple (most notable with the Zubera cycle of Kamigawa, where the [[http://magiccards.info/chk/en/45.html White-aligned Zubera]] has purple mana orbs around it while the [[http://magiccards.info/chk/en/101.html Black aligned-Zubera]] has [[{{Irony}} white]] ones), which [[FridgeBrilliance makes sense]] since violet light is the most intense light in the visible spectrum.[[invoked]]
141* {{Ranger}}: White has the second-most creatures with the Ranger class next to Green.
142* RocksFallEverybodyDies: White prefers to delay any threat, but when it decides to kill something, then it kills ''everything''.
143* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: While secondary to Black in this regard, White has the second-largest number of Noble-class creatures in the game; the entire class runs the gamut of everyone in the monarchy, including kings and queens.
144* RulesLawyer: White ''is'' the color of bureaucracy, so of course White has the most bureaucracy. A number of white cards restrict what players can and can't do, like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=136291 Rule of Law]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=159308 Moat]].
145* QuantityVsQuality: White has this sentiment in its relationship to Green, being the Quantity side of the equation. White prefers the ZergRush of hundreds of weaker creatures.
146* SaltSolution: As a mineral with a sparkling white color and holy connotations, salt appears in some white spells like [[https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/39/saltblast Saltblast]].
147* SandBlaster: When White manifests earth-related powers, it tends to revolve around sand and deserts.
148* {{Samurai}}: In any given Kamigawa block, the Samurai creature class will often take the place of Knights. In the Bushido-era (the Kamigawa of millennia past), Samurai would have had the ''Bushido'' keyword in which they get a stat-boost whenever they block or are blocked[[note]]For calculation purposes, a samurai with ''Bushido 1'' gets +1/+1 until the end of the turn if they block a creature or they get blocked[[/note]]. Nowadays, and as of the Neon Dynasty era (the Kamigawa of the present), [[ThePowerOfFriendship the Samurai give buffs to allies that attack alone]].
149* ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: White is the color of Law, so it likes there to be rules, but it has no problem applying its rule magic unevenly. For instance, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=417578 Authority of the Consuls]] exempts your creatures from coming in tapped.
150* SheduAndLammasu: Lammasu is an ''exceptionally'' rare (at time of writing only [[https://scryfall.com/search?q=t%3Alammasu two have been printed]]) creature type found exclusively in white.
151* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Looked at from an outsider's perspective, the conflict between White and Black could be said to boil down to this.
152* SoldierVsWarrior: The Soldier to Red and Green's Warrior, especially considering that the Soldier creature class is heavily associated with White.
153* SoulPower: The WhiteMagic variety, focusing on Einherjar-like manifest of (at least [[LightIsGood benevolent]]-[[LightIsNotGood looking]]) spirits and ancestor worship. [[http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/planeswalkers-guide-khans-tarkir-part-1-2014-09-03 Tarkir's Jeskai]] actually refer to it as "soulfire".
154* StarPower: Occasionally, White’s light spells use starlight as their power source.
155* StoneWall: White has a long history of tough creatures with low power. In general, White's playstyle also falls into this trope -- White has a lot of token generation, and its theme of teamwork manifests through White stalling out the opponent, amassing a huge army, and crushing them in a ZergRush or winning through [[WeHaveReserves attrition]].
156* SuperPersistentPredator: Manifests somewhat in that a large number of White creatures have the ''Vigilance'' keyword, which means that they do not tap after attacking; this means that they're still capable of blocking ''after'' they attack.
157* TechnicalPacifist: White prefers to disable enemies non-lethally. Unless you really piss it off.
158* {{Teleportation}}: Besides Blue, White has a number of cards with the ''Phase Out'' keyword.
159* {{Unicorn}}: An uncommon White creature type, although a minority is green. Most are the standard horse-with-a-horn type, although a [[http://magiccards.info/mr/en/350.html zebra unicorn]] has also been printed. In-lore they’re generally associated with purity and good, and are often hunted for their horns.
160* WhiteMagic: Very much so. White's desire to protect means it has a lot of defensive and healing magic.
161* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: White currently has the most Rebel-type creatures in the game[[note]]77.2% out of 57 cards as of this writing[[/note]].
162* ZergRush: A favored tactic for White, especially if you managed to get a lot of Soldier or Rebel-type creatures on the field.
163[[/folder]]
164
165[[folder:Blue]]
166[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blue_mana_3630.png]]
167
168Blue believes in "perfection through knowledge". It believes in the BlankSlate, and employs education and technology to create a world where everyone can keep growing and adapting. However, when the stakes are high, it can be indecisive. Blue mana is drawn from islands.\
169\
170Blue is the color of knowledge, illusion, and mental magic. Its specialties are {{counterspell}}s, {{Eureka Moment}}s via drawing cards, and delaying your opponent by forcing them to replay or redraw the same cards, or skipping phases or whole turns. Because of its careful, analytical approach, blue is often reactive, and rarely rushes directly into the fray. Accordingly, its creatures tend to sacrifice brute force in favor of abilities like flying that allow them to gain an advantage in other ways. Because blue has traditionally had many of the most powerful cards, it has gained an unfavorable reputation in some circles, as satirized by [[http://cardboard-crack.com/tagged/blue this set of comic strips]]. Learn more about Blue [[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr84 here]] and [[http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/13 here.]]
171----
172* AboveGoodAndEvil: Being Blue often involves ignoring conventional morality in pursuit of perfection.
173* AnIcePerson: Not quite as common as water, but Blue regularly gets ice spells. The said ice spells tend to involve HarmlessFreezing that locks down target permanent(s).
174* AntiMagic: Blue has the most ways to counter spells, and to make something immune to being affected by opponents' spells. Fittingly enough, they also have a lot of cards with the ''Hexproof'' and ''Ward'' keywords; the former allows creatures to outright NoSell effects, the latter forces your opponent to pay a cost (usually either with mana or a card in hand) to affect that creature or else it gets negated.
175* AwesomenessIsAForce: Awesome Presence seems to display this.
176* BadassBureaucrat: Considering the amount of smarts needed to be one, it is no surprise that a lot of Advisor-class creatures will be Blue, second only to White in the number of Advisors.
177* BareFistedMonk: While the class is more heavily associated with Green and White, a good number of Monks will also be Blue, especially among the Jeskai on Tarkir (and to a lesser extent during ''Adventures in the Forgotten Realms'').
178* BlankSlate: Blue believes everyone is born as this.
179* BlowYouAway: Together with Green, Blue gets a lot of air-manipulating spells. However, Blue uses wind and air for a greater variety of purposes, and has access to effects that specifically buff airborne (i.e., flying) creatures, while Green, for the most part, uses wind only for AntiAir spells.
180* BlueMeansCold: Most of the spells associated with ice are blue.
181* BlueMeansSmartOne: The blue mana is seen as using wit and intelligence - whether that's as a GuileHero, InformationBroker, using AntiMagic to negate critical pieces of an opponent's plan, being a ScienceHero, or just generally attacking where an opponent cannot defend.
182* CleverCrows: The other most common type of bird to find on blue cards. Corvid [[BirdPeople Aven]] are less common than owl-like ones, but when they appear they tend to also be Blue.
183* CoolHorse: Currently tied with Black in having the most Horse-type creatures in the game.
184* CrazyPrepared: A Blue deck with a focus on counterspells and/or draw power almost has to be this by design.
185* CreativeSterility: One of Blue's weaknesses is that it may find the answer to any situation via research, but it lacks the ability to imagine new solutions and, in extreme cases, is incapable of strategizing.
186* DifficultButAwesome: Blue's countermagic is known to be difficult to grasp by new players, as they lack sufficient MetaGame knowledge to understand what threats are worth expending the counterspell on, and is often their first introduction to the concept of the stack. Mastering this is usually key to successfully using a blue deck, since otherwise its creatures and removal are relatively unimpressive.
187* DittoFighter: Blue has access to shape-shifters that function as this.
188* ElementalPowers: Contrary to Red, who uses elements in explosive, destructive ways, Blue tends to favor "colder" or "slower" elements, mainly to hinder its opponents and/or stall the battle. It's particularly associated with [[MakingASplash water]], [[AnIcePerson ice]] and [[BlowYouAway air]].
189* ExtraOreDinary: Blue is, alongside Red, the default color of {{Magitek}}, after all. It’s no surprise that Blue gets a lot of metal-related magic. Such magic is usually reflected as some form of artifact support.
190* EnlightenmentSuperpower: Being the color of thought, willpower and introspection, Blue gets more than its fair share of this.
191* EvilGenius: A blue villain is generally this.
192* EvilutionaryBiologist: Blue at its worst, especially when mixed with Green.
193* FeatheredSerpent: While snakes as a whole are generally green, Ixalan and Alara are both home to mystical Blue-aligned coatls.
194* FishPeople: How merfolk are portrayed in recent sets, to avoid the “how can they fight land-based enemies when they don’t have legs” issue.
195* {{Flight}}: Shared with white. Blue's flying creatures tend to be air elementals, [[TheOwlKnowingOne owls]], drakes and sphinxes.
196* ForScience: Progress for progress' sake is often the only motivation Blue needs or wants.
197* FragileSpeedster: Blue creatures, if they aren't a SquishyWizard or StoneWall, tend to have low toughness for their cost but have some sort of evasive advantage like flying or being straight-up unblockable.
198* FrankensteinsMonster: While zombies have traditionally been in Black's portion of the color pie, Innistrad introduced this kind of zombie for Blue, which fits because those zombies are created by {{Mad Scientist}}s.
199* GadgeteerGenius: Blue is the color that interacts with artifacts the most.
200* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: Because many Blue creatures are aquatic, in the early days, many of them had the keyword islandhome, which meant they couldn't attack the defending player unless he or she controlled an island, and died if its controller didn't. It was very unpopular (to the point of even losing its status as a keyword), and development has since put more emphasis onto fun than logic.
201* GiantEnemyCrab: The [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=t%3Acrab&v=card&s=cname Crab]] creature type is exclusively Blue, as is typical for large sea monster-type creatures.
202* GreatDetective: While the creature type has run the gamut of all five colors since the crossover with ''[[Series/DoctorWho Dr. Who]]'', and especially as of ''Murders at Karlov Manor'', you'll find a lot of Detective-class creatures in Blue. This is a given considering that detective work often requires a lot of brain power to solve cases.
203* GuileHero: While the other colors focus on neutralizing threats, Blue has a number of ways to take them for itself. The simplest example is the mere ''existence'' of {{counterspell}}s. If a Blue opponent has left mana untapped at the end of their turn, the wise player knows their next spell can be blown away and must figure out how to trick the Blue player into wasting their counterspell on something unimportant. (Meanwhile, the Blue player is just bluffing and has only land in their hand.)
204* HeelFaceBrainwashing: Blue is #1 at stealing opponents' creatures, and this is how it's usually achieved.
205* HollywoodCyborg: Blue has far-and-away the largest number of colored artifacts, which are usually flavored this way.
206* IShallTauntYou: Given the tactical uses of taunting an enemy, it would be fitting that Blue has the second-most cards with the ''Goad'' effect.
207* KrakenAndLeviathan: Blue gets some efficient creatures at the high end of the scale, but it isn't known for its mana acceleration, and leviathans in particular typically come with very inconvenient disadvantages.
208** Krakens and Leviathans are distinct creatures types: Leviathans are huge whale- and serpent-like beasts (and not limited to water -- [[FlyingSeafoodSpecial nearly a third are airborne]]), and Krakens are much more varied in appearance, resembling cephalopods but often blending in crustacean and vertebrate limbs and body plans.
209** An interesting note is that the krakens of Zendikar are stated to embody willpower and self-determination, most living in isolation and spending their lives exploring, pondering and contemplating the world, which generally fits Blue's philosophy better than "mindless destructive monstrosity".
210** Outside of the actual Kraken and Leviathan creature types, Blue also gets things like absolutely ''gigantic'' [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Colossal+Whale whales]] and the legendary octopus [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Lorthos%2C+the+Tidemaker Lorthos, the Tidemaker]]. Also, while most serpent creatures (mixes in various amounts of snakes and long-bodied fish) are fairly sedate in size, some are easily as big as true krakens and leviathans.
211* LackOfEmpathy: The darker side of Blue can be sociopathic; while other colors can at least grasp sadism or extremist insanity, Blue at its worst just doesn't give a damn about anyone.
212* LiterallyShatteredLives: Blue's freezing is not always [[HarmlessFreezing harmless]]; some cards like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=121228 Frozen Solid]] can get the frozen creature killed if something hits them.
213* MadScientist: What happens when Blue goes off the rails.
214* MakingASplash: Water is the element most associated with Blue, whose mana symbol is a water droplet. Blue gets a lot of water-based spells, in addition to a great many water elementals and aquatic monsters. Increasingly, this is shared with Green, though the latter tends to focus more on water's life-sustaining properties and is based more on freshwater.
215* {{Magitek}}: Blue is the color of technology and, given [[MagicalUnderpinningsOfReality the nature of the multiverse]], this pretty much comes with the territory.
216* MasterOfIllusion: Being associated with mind and the elements of water and air (which can distort light and create all sorts of illusions, like mirage), Blue naturally has a lot of effects flavored as illusions. Illusion creatures are often very powerful, but have drawbacks that reflect their unreality. Some return to their owner's hand after each fight, and some die instantly if any spell or ability even ''targets'' them.
217* MindProbe: One of Blue's specialties is looking at the opponent's hand (which is flavored as this).
218* MindRape: Blue's milling ability is often flavored as erasing memories. But, because it goes for the deck rather than the hand, it's gentler than Black's MindRape.
219* TheMole: [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=15168 This]] [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=159749 combo]].
220* MrImagination: While Blue characters often have issues engaging in genuinely creative and original thought, imagination is also a theme that Blue likes to explore in some settings, particularly when it's paired with Red.
221* MurderInc / ArmyOfThievesAndWhores: While the class has run through every spectrum of the Color Pie, you're very likely to find creatures of the Rogue Class in Blue. That being said, Blue currently and fittingly has the most creatures of the {{Pirate}} class.
222* MyRulesAreNotYourRules: Blue is the only color that can consistently interact with spells on the stack. It's a bit jarring to many players, as most interactions happen with permanents already on the battlefield.
223* {{Ninja}}: Besides Black, Blue has the most creatures with the Ninja class among them.
224* NoSell: Counterspell and its legacy. When a player's spell is countered, throwing the card away is a common response.
225* NurtureOverNature: As far as Blue is concerned, you can be anything you want.
226* OceanAwe: Blue's basic land cards are Islands where it mostly depicts islands surrounded by water, [[CityOnTheWater Cities on the Water]], {{Floating Continent}}s with waterfalls, harbors, and the likes.
227* OurDragonsAreDifferent: While true dragons are chiefly Red-aligned, Blue gets the majority of the Drakes, smaller and less powerful relatives of dragons with animalistic intellects and two legs and two wings rather than four and two. Wyverns appear as a rare subset of the drake creature type, with the distinction seeming to be that wyverns walk on their hindlegs like birds, rather than walking batlike on all fours.
228* OurGeniesAreDifferent: Djinn are traditionally a blue creature type, although they do show up in other colors. On most planes they are supernatural beings and spirits of the air, and may or may not come with FogFeet. They featured most prominently on the planes of Rabiah (where they were inspired by the original myths more than by modern depictions) and Tarkir (where they are mortal flesh-and-blood beings resembling humanoids with horns and light blue skin, although they can still fly).
229* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Blue has the second-most Spirit-type creatures in the game.
230* OurHomunculiAreDifferent: Homunculi are a creature type found almost exclusively in blue. They are diminutive [[AlchemyIsMagic alchemically]]-[[ArtificialHuman created]] humanoids with one eye. They tend to be fragile and have mechanics that encourage you to [[NoOSHACompliance play fast and loose]] [[HumanResources with their survival]].
231* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: Blue's characteristic small creature. Used to be the regular, fish-tailed kind, but due to confusion as to how they were supposed to fight on land they were changed in later sets to humanoid FishPeople.
232* OurSirensAreDifferent: Sirens are an blue-aligned [[BirdPeople avian]] humanoid creature type found on Theros and Ixalan. Many of them use MindManipulation or ForcedSleep-themed mechanics.
233* OurZombiesAreDifferent: In the Innistrad blocks, Blue gets zombie creatures in the form of stitched-together Frankenstein-style abominations.
234** While rarer, other worlds such as Grixis are also home to blue-aligned [[OurLichesAreDifferent liches]].
235* TheOwlKnowingOne:
236** Owls are almost exclusively associated with Blue, and have card effects relating to drawing and looking at cards (in flavor, the card deck is meant to represent the player's mind) and to casting spells (generally by making it cheaper for you to do so, by rewarding you for doing so, or by impairing your opponent's ability to do so).
237** Aven, the game's BirdPeople, normally resemble generic humanoid raptors. Blue aven, however -- and in particular ones associated with magic or wisdom in some form -- tend to resemble owls instead.
238* ThePerfectionist: Blue's philosophy considers personal perfection to be the ultimate goal, so this is a major theme.
239* ThePhilosopher: Blue is constantly seeking new information and is willing to go great lengths to find the answer for any question.
240* PowerOfTheVoid: Unlike Black, Blue's void tends to be the "actual vacuum" variety. It usually involves aether in some way and is reflected on card as returning stuffs to their owners' hands or libraries.
241* ProudScholarRace: The overriding theme of most Blue's sentient creature types, with the Vedalken being the clearest example (their [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is being hyper-meticulous [[SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic Wizards]], [[GadgeteerGenius Artificers]], and [[BadassBureaucrat Advisors]].)
242%%* {{Pride}}: Blue goes up and down the ScaleOfScientificSins with gusto.
243* PsychicPowers: Many of Blue’s effects are flavored with {{telepathy}} or [[MindOverMatter telekinesis]]. Most of these effects mess with (either the caster's or the opponents') hands and/or libraries.
244* RiddlingSphinx: Blue's iconic creature, showing up as rare, powerful cards once per set. Many get mechanics thematically related to riddles and guessing. [[http://magiccards.info/lg/en/199.html Petra Sphinx]] and [[http://magiccards.info/cmd/en/42.html Conundrum Sphinx]], for instance, have players guess the top card of their libraries, putting it in their hand if they guess right and in their graveyard if they guess wrong, while [[http://magiccards.info/di/en/114.html Isperia the Inscrutable]] rewards you if you can correctly guess a card in your opponent's hand.
245* RousseauWasRight: Its philosophy is based on tabula rasa.
246* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Blue currently trails behind White in third place with regards to having the most Noble-class creatures in the game.
247* ScienceHero: At its best, contrasting green's NatureHero.
248* SeaMonster: Blue gets a lot of large, sea-going monsters -- the Kraken, Leviathan, Serpent and Whale creature types are overwhelmingly Blue -- largely due to its basic land being islands making it the color most associated with the sea. Notably, they tend to be absurdly huge and little more than ravening predators, despite Blue being based on anything but brute force.
249* SeaSerpents: Serpents are a creature type dedicated to this sort of beasts, and distinct from regular snakes. The vast majority are marine, but they can be found in swamps, lakes or rivers, typically in planes were seas aren't present -- the Myth/EgyptianMythology-inspired plane of Amonkhet, for instance, has serpents living in the mighty Luxa River. Notable examples of serpents include the lionfish-like [[https://scryfall.com/card/m20/61/frilled-sea-serpent Frilled Sea Serpent]], the classic [[https://scryfall.com/card/me4/60/sea-serpent Sea Serpent]] and [[https://scryfall.com/card/m10/70/serpent-of-the-endless-sea Serpent of the Endless Sea]], which gets bigger and stronger the more Island lands you control.
250* ShockAndAwe: Blue occasionally gets electricity-related effects (though obviously not as often as red), often dealing specifically with brain activity ([[https://scryfall.com/card/ddj/13/brainstorm Brainstorm]]), weather manipulation ([[https://scryfall.com/card/hml/21/aether-storm Aether Storm]]), or electronics ([[https://scryfall.com/card/neo/78/short-circuit Short Circuit]]).
251* {{Sloth}}: In the sense of LackOfEmpathy.
252* TheSociopath: At its worst. Blue is more prone to this due to being the color least concerned with emotions.
253* TheSpock: Blue's focus on rationality, logic, and emotional detachment frequently leads Blue characters to play this role. The primary blue planeswalker Jace Beleren is this, probably more so than any other.
254* SmugSnake: Blue villains tend to hit this ''way'' harder than other colors, from [[Literature/OdysseyCycle Ambassador Laquatus]] to [[Literature/KamigawaCycle the Soratami]] to [[Literature/RavnicaCycle Zomaj Hauc]]...
255* SupernaturalMartialArts: Thanks to the above-mentioned [[EnlightenmentSuperpower Enlightenment Superpowers]].
256* TechnicianVersusPerformer: Blue and Red share an affinity for both art and technology. However, while Blue prefers to plan its projects in advance, Red generally executes ideas as soon as it gets them.
257* {{Technopath}}: Same as ExtraOreDinary above.
258* TimeMaster: Blue has more power over time than any other color, and is the king of taking extra turns.
259* {{Teleportation}}: Blue has a lot of cards with the ''Phase Out'' keyword; cards with this ability are exiled temporarily, and then re-summoned to the field.
260* TheUnfettered: Actually more so than any other color: even Black tends to have empathy (even if twisted into sadism), but Blue is completely divorced from such "petty" emotions.
261* UltimateBlacksmith: Since Blue is the color that deals most heavily with Artifacts, it barely edges out Red in the number of Artificers it has.
262* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Shapeshifters are, outside of [[CrapsaccharineWorld Lorwyn/Shadowmoor]], almost exclusively Blue.
263* WeakButSkilled: Even with the help of its beloved artifacts, Blue has way less raw damage potential than any other color. It has also, in the past, bordered on a GameBreaker.[[invoked]]
264[[/folder]]
265
266[[folder:Black]]
267[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/black_mana_837.png]]
268
269Black's concerns are best summed up as as "power through opportunity". Black sees itself as the only realist, TheAntiNihilist in a world full of [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids Silly Idealists]], and makes itself TheSocialDarwinist both to get ahead and simply to keep itself safe. Black's idea of hierarchy is that whoever has the most power makes the rules. Black mana is drawn from swamps.\
270\
271Black is the color of death, ambition, and ruthlessness. Its goal is power, no matter the cost -- Black will do anything to win, even if it means sacrificing its own creatures or HitPoints to power its spells. Black specializes in death and decay; its power over death makes it excellent at both killing creatures and [[{{Necromancer}} raising them from the dead to fight again]]. It's also the best color at attacking the opponent's hand through MindRape-styled discard effects, and offers Faustian bargains of powerful creatures and effects that match or exceed other colors' specialties, if you don't mind [[PowerAtAPrice paying for the difference with something other than mana]]. Learn more about Black [[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr109 here]] and [[http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/9 here.]]
272----
273* AboveGoodAndEvil: Being Black means abandoning morality in the pursuit of power. This leads to amorality and moral relativism, putting it into conflict with White's moral absolutism.
274* TheAntiNihilist: In contrast to the other colors, Black doesn't concern itself with changing the world for the better, but rather it encourages people to make the best out of their lives in a world that can't be improved.
275* ApeShallNeverKillApe: A lot of black creature removal will destroy a creature, but only if it isn't black. Not that black actually cares about its own -- it's just that black creatures are often impervious to the insanity, horror and disease it uses to do its work. Alternatively, the black mages who devise such spells take steps to ensure nobody will be able to use the spell against them.
276* AristocratsAreEvil: Subverted in that Black is not necessarily evil by itself; it ''does'' however, have the most creatures with the Noble class.
277* BadassPreacher: May also overlap a bit with CorruptChurch, but Black currently has the second-largest number of Cleric-class creatures.
278* BatOutOfHell: Unlike most natural animals, which fall under the domain of green, bats are exclusively black. They also tend to be huge and monstrous creatures of the Dire Bat type, such as [[http://magiccards.info/gp/en/102.html Blind Hunter]] or [[http://magiccards.info/roe/en/111.html Gloomhunter]].
279* TheBerserker: Black trails behind Red in second place with regards to having Berserker-class creatures.
280* BigCreepyCrawlies: Shares the insect creature type with Green. Black's bugs tend to become stronger as creatures die out, fitting with Black's domain of decay.
281* BlackKnight: As a foil to White's KnightInShiningArmor, Black currently ranks second behind White for having the most Knight-class creatures in the game.
282* BlackMagic: Utilizes this very often, naturally.
283* BloodMagic: In keeping with Black's CastFromHitPoints shtick. When your iconic race is [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampires]], it's kind of a given, really.
284* BodyHorror: Anything with "[[CastFromHitpoints Pay X life]]..." in it, anything Yawgmoth does, a lot of the black auras.
285* {{Brainwashed}}: Originally an artifact ability, Black gained the ability to control an opponent's entire turn.
286* ByronicHero: What black may be when it steps into the light.
287* CameBackWrong: Stealing creatures from other players graveyards, often with some extra [[CameBackStrong toys to play with]], is a favorite trick of Black.
288* CastFromHitPoints: Every color gets some, but it's Black's specialty.
289* CastingAShadow: Shadow magic is one of the mainstays of Black spells, alongside necromancy and mind control. Black uses darkness and shadows for all sorts of purposes -- removal, evasion, buffing creatures, etc.
290* ColdBloodedTorture: Black is more than willing to use this, usually taking the form of discard effects.
291* CombatPragmatist: A more mundane application of Black's philosophy, there are more than a few effects that temporarily reduce power or toughness that are flavored as simple "hit below the belt" type maneuvers.
292* CoolHorse: Overlaps with HellishHorse, but Black is tied with Blue in having the Horse-type creatures in the game.
293* {{Curse}}: As of the first Innistrad block, Curses are a specific type of Enchantment that inflicts detrimental effects upon a player. While the card type has run the gamut of all the colors to varying degrees, and they reappear from time to time in different blocks, Black currently has the largest number of Curse-type Enchantments in the game.
294* DarkIsEvil: {{Downplayed}}. While Black is not always evil, it is the color most commonly associated with dark magic.
295* DarkIsNotEvil: While Black has many villains in its name, and is inherently ruthless, it has also some positive traits and several characters to embody them such as Xantcha, Chainer, Toshiro Umezawa, Vraska, Yahenni, Nashi et cetera.
296* DealWithTheDevil: Yawgmoth's Bargain, Necropotence, Greed, Contract From Below, and so on.
297* DemBones: A type of Black undead not quite as common as zombies, and likewise not limited to humans.
298* {{Determinator}}: Ambition plus [[TheUnfettered willingness to do anything it takes to win]] plus ScrewDestiny results in a colour that will probably rip the universe to pieces before it ever gives up. Fittingly, the virtue of the Black-aligned court in Eldraine is Persistence.
299* DiscardAndDraw: While not always literal (and some cards ''do'' allow you to draw), but being that Black is not afraid to pay any price for power, sometimes the price in question requires you to discard a card from your own hand.
300* DysfunctionJunction: Black-aligned leaders and organizations are almost always willing to overlook a sordid past, for [[TheAtoner better]] or for [[DevilInPlainSight worse]].
301* EldritchAbomination: Usually under the creature type "Horror" and "Nightmare".
302* ElementalPowers: Perhaps less so than any other color, but Black nevertheless maintains an association with {{poison|ousPerson}}, and occasionally [[ExtraOreDinary metals such as gold]].
303* EquivalentExchange: Shown on many cards, in particular those like Sign In Blood. Black as a whole tends to recycle resources, such as making zombies out of deceased creatures. The cost is usually paid using your own life points, by discarding a card from your hand, or by sacrificing a particular thing on the field (usually creatures).
304* EvilCannotComprehendGood: An arguable example, but "personifying" Black in certain Wizards articles suggests that Black honestly cannot believe that anyone thinks differently than it does, defending its amorality with AtLeastIAdmitIt. White seems especially hypocritical to Black because Black is certain that nothing could ''really'' be that dedicated to altruism.
305* EvilIsNotAToy: Black's habit of summoning big creatures with big drawbacks can cost inexperienced players a game.
306* EvilIsSterile: Black is rather inept at creating things out of nothing, fitting its view of life as a zero-sum game.
307* EvilTwin: With White. Which is which tends to vary between decks and stories but Black is more often the evil one.
308* EvilVersusOblivion: If there are multiple villain factions of different colors in a given block, Black will usually be the one that falls closest to "[[OmnicidalManiac Oblivion]]". Conversely, Black tends to like opposing particularly [[StrawNihilist nihilistic]] or [[TautologicalTemplar deranged]] [[LightIsNotGood White]]-aligned beings.
309* ExtraOreDinary: Black occasionally manifests some power over gold, especially in Ravnica and Theros. This is rather fitting since Black is also associated with {{Greed}}.
310* TheFairFolk: Many Faerie cards are Black-aligned, representing stories of fae who are mischievous to the point of being dangerous and malicious.
311* FesteringFungus: Black is the second most common color for the [[MushroomMan Fungus]] creature type (behind Green), and has many more noncreature cards representing parasitic infections.
312* {{Greed}}: Greed is in fact a card, and Black’s philosophy is very conductive to desiring more of the tangible and intangible. Also, Black is the second color after Red to have the most cards that generate Treasure tokens.
313* TheGrotesque: Black is a color associated with outcasts and surviving against the odds. Sympathetic black characters and factions (like Old Tarkir's [[OurOrcsAreDifferent orcish Krumar]] and Kamigawa's [[RatMen Nezumi]]) tend to emphasize this part, along with strong FamilyOfChoice vibes.
314* HeelFaceTurn: If a coalition of differently-colored characters is present, the Black one is the likeliest to have pulled one off to join the good guys.
315* {{Hellfire}}: Often shows up as [[TechnicolorFire blue or purple]] flames on Black cards.
316* HealingFactor: Up until the keyword was removed from the evergreen status, Black had the most creatures with the ''Regenerate'' keyword, which basically made it such that if the creature were to die the next turn, it would instead survive. This keyword has long since been retired in favor of an effect that basically reads: "This creature is Indestructible until the end of the turn."
317* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Black's willingness to use things other than mana (most often [[CastFromHitPoints life]]) to pay for its spells can easily come back to bite it.
318* HumanResources: Quite literally, as black has many cards that convert creatures into Treasure tokens.
319* ImmortalitySeeker: Ironically, many Black-aligned characters are terrified of their own mortality and will use [[TheDarkArts any means necessary]] to stave off death... [[OurLichesAreDifferent or at least remain active and conscious indefinitely]].
320* ItsAllAboutMe: Black at its purest focuses on self-empowerment at the expense of all else.
321* JackOfAllStats: While White and Green have the best creatures and Red and Blue have the best spells, Black is the most balanced color in both aspects, though this [[CastFromHitPoints also has its price]]. In fact, Black is probably the most versatile color in the game, with access to efficient creatures of all sizes, card draw, mana acceleration, and removal (both targeted and mass). The only thing Black can be said to be explicitly ''bad'' at (as opposed to merely [[AlwaysSecondBest not the best]] or only [[PowerAtAPrice good at conditionally]]) is [[PhlebotinumProofRobot destroying non-creature artifacts]], which it [[WeaksauceWeakness can't do at all]].
322* LegacySeeker: Of all the colors, black is the one most fixated on being remembered and leaving its mark on the world. Contrast to green, which loves to remind it that WeAllDieSomeday, and [[TheFatalist so too will our achievements]].
323* LifeDrain: Going with Black's knack for vampiric creatures, it sports several sources of ''Lifelink'' to keep its health up so it almost always has some life to pay. Many of Black's healing spells and abilities also come at the expense of the opponent's creatures or life total.
324* LivingDream: Black is the traditional home of the Nightmare creature type, representing horrors and monsters generated by the fears and subconscious of intelligent beings.
325* LivingShadow: Black is the home of the Shade creature type (although if you want to get pedantic, as a type of TheUndead the "living" part is less than accurate.)
326* {{Lobotomy}}: Black's ability to look through a library and exile specific cards gets this flavor, being usually depicted as Black unsubtly and damagingly rooting through an opponent’s mind for information. Though as described in MindRape, Black normally does this to cards in the hand, as demonstrated with cards like [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=602622 Duress]].
327* MakeThemRot: Quite a few black characters have this power, perhaps unsurprisingly. It is usually manifested in cards as ''Deathtouch'' or similar abilities. Another way to interpret this is that Black has a number of cards that force opponents to sacrifice their own creatures.
328* MasterOfNone: Black can play just about any role in a deck, but it doesn't really specialize in much aside from having the best creature removal. The [[PowerAtAPrice additional costs]] for some of its more powerful cards can add up and lead to untimely defeats if not worked around carefully.
329* MindRape: Any "discard" card or "cap" effect. Flavored as being far harsher than Blue's LaserGuidedAmnesia because it goes for the hand rather than the library.
330* MurderInc / ArmyOfThievesAndWhores: Black currently has the most creatures with the Rogue class in the game. They also currently have the most creatures with the Assassin class (in fact, non-Black Assassins are quite rare). It also has the third-highest number of creatures with the {{Pirate}} class, and is the primary color for the now rarely-used Mercenary class.
331* {{Necromancer}}: Besides a number of necromancers as creatures, Black itself is heavily based on necromancy, with many of its spells and creatures being based on reanimating corpses and summoning the dead. This includes black planeswalker Liliana Vess.
332* {{Ninja}}: Besides Rogues and Assassins, a lot of Ninjas in Kamigawa will be Black. They'll usually come with their own trademark skill ''Ninjutsu'' wherein if a creature you control is able to make an attack without getting blocked, you can pay a mana cost to return it to your hand to summon a Ninja in its place and attacking.
333* NominalHero: Black may help you, if you make it worth its while.
334* NonHumanUndead: Black is rife with undead creatures, and not all of them are human, such as zombie [[http://magiccards.info/ju/en/61.html dwarves]], skeletal [[http://magiccards.info/ala/en/118.html lizardmen]] and [[http://magiccards.info/shm/en/59.html elementals]], and [[https://magiccards.info/c14/en/151.html insect shades]].
335* NoSell: Black is the color of death, corruption, and fear, so its abilities usually fail against other black creatures who are already dead or corrupt, or artifact creatures who were never alive to begin with. These quirks are typically observed on older cards -- more recent black removal abilities are more indiscriminate.
336* NurtureOverNature: Like Blue, Black believes in the ''tabula rasa'', and that anyone can become anything they choose. At its noblest, it promotes [[http://luigifan18.deviantart.com/art/Self-Sufficiency-193043248 the ideal of self-sufficiency]], with power being a means towards that goal.
337* OneHitKill: Black has the highest number of "destroy target creature" cards, such as the recurring favorites [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=416900 Murder]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=226560 Doom Blade]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=425885 Bone Splinters]].
338* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Black's iconic large creature, in gameplay they require a cost to maintain or they will impose a downside to their player. In-lore, they are generally considered to be living manifestations of their home planes' black mana, and are almost always male.
339* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Among it various undead creature types, Black has access to a number of noncorporeal ones, including [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=t%3AWraith&v=scan&s=cname wraiths]] (the rarest type, seemingly associated with swamplands), [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=t%3AShade&s=cname&v=scan&p=2 shades]] (generally represented as {{living shadow}}s) and [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=t%3Aspecter&v=scan&s=cname specters]] (almost always hooded and mounted, usually on giant flying serpents but occasionally on things like giant hornets or giant flying skulls). In addition, Black is currently third in the number of Spirit-type creatures it has, beaten out by Blue in second place, followed by White.
340* OurGhoulsAreCreepier: They're nowadays typed as zombies, but maintain a semi-stable identity as Zombie cards that require you to or reward you for sending creatures to the graveyard or removing them from there, symbolizing ghouls feeding upon the dead.
341* OurLichesAreDifferent: Liches in Magic are always at least partially black (usually black/blue) and fall under the Zombie creature type. How and where they fit into the lore depends on the plane, but they tend to cleave pretty close to the classic model regardless.
342* OurOrcsAreDifferent: On worlds like Tarkir and Ixalan, orcs appear more in black than in red. For what it's worth, they lean toward the ''Blizzard'' [[DarkIsNotEvil end of the presentation scale]]; their association with black mana reflects more their nature as hardscrabble [[CombatPragmatist Combat Pragmatists]] than any kind of metaphysical corruption.
343* OurVampiresAreDifferent: One of Black’s two characteristic creatures, they get bonuses when creatures are sent to the graveyard, representing their thirst for blood and death. Nonhuman vampires have been known to exist.
344* OurZombiesAreDifferent: One of Black’s two characteristic creatures, they are mindless undead used as minions by powerful Black creatures. Theoretically, any creature can become a zombie.
345* PoisonousPerson: Shared with Green. Black's poisons tend to be of the "assassin" or "vile pollution" flavors. They manifest as giving -1/-1 counters or a temporary stat reduction, which, if strong enough, can cause even ''Indestructible'' creatures to die. Black also currently has the most cards that can inflict Poison Counters upon your enemy - [[InstantWinCondition as soon as a player has 10 Poison Counters on them, they instantly lose the game regardless of how many life points they still have]].
346* PowerOfTheVoid: See the cards Damnation and Doom Blade. In contrast to Blue's, Black's void tends to be of the UnrealisticBlackHole variety.
347* PollutedWasteland: When Black gets land destruction, it's usually this.
348* PowerAtAPrice: Black's signature trait is strong cards with an additional cost, whether it be discarding cards, paying life, or sacrificing creatures.
349* PragmaticHero: Given that Black is ''always'' pragmatic, its heroic characters fall into this trope.
350* PsychicPowers: Mostly used for MindRape.
351* RaisingTheSteaks: The ever-pragmatic Black does not limit itself to raising intelligent beings as undead when animals will do just as well. Skeletal [[http://magiccards.info/roe/en/127.html wurms]], [[http://magiccards.info/po/en/34.html snakes]] and [[http://magiccards.info/ths/en/202.html griffins]], zombie [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Dross+Crocodile crocodiles]], [[http://magiccards.info/on/en/126.html vultures]] and [[https://scryfall.com/card/ons/143 cats]], vampiric [[http://magiccards.info/arc/en/99.html dragons]]...
352* RatMen: An occasional variation on Black’s rats. The most notable example would be Kamigawa’s Nezumi, a race of rat man ninjas who usually live in swamps or on the outskirts of human cities, which they often raid, and some of whose shamans can summon and control swarms of insects, tying into this trope's association with vermin. Other cards, such as [[http://magiccards.info/od/en/130.html Dirty Wererat]], have also been printed showing humanoid rats.
353* ReligionOfEvil: Many black cards, while not always [[DarkIsNotEvil evil]], certainly look the part.
354* TheSacredDarkness: While Black is often about corruption, it also represents death and decay, the end of the natural cycle responsible for getting rid of the old and making room for the new. This makes it necessary to make a natural plane stable (Alara could afford its absence in some shards due to the unique nature of the plane).
355* {{Samurai}}: Not as prominent as White and Red, but Black is no slouch with regards to having Samurai-class creatures in that it is the third-most abundant color for Samurai.
356* ScaryScorpions: Unlike most "regular" animals, which tend to be Green, scorpions are almost exclusively Black. They usually get ''Deathtouch'' (meaning they always destroy any creature they deal any damage to, so long as they are not ''Indestructible'') or some way to weaken enemy creatures.
357* ScrewDestiny: Its primary conflict with Green, which believes YouCantFightFate.
358* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Black, being the color of {{Greed}} and [[AmbitionIsEvil Ambition]], has a clear association with commerce and capitalism. Fittingly enough, Black has a lot of cards that generate Treasure tokens.
359* SnakesAreSinister: Black, being the color of death, as well as a PoisonousPerson, has the second-largest number of Snake-type creatures after Green, followed closely by Blue in third place.
360* SoulPower: The BlackMagic variety, focusing on ghosts, haunting and summoning the spirits of the dead. Black is pretty much the king of returning creatures from the graveyard.
361* SwampsAreEvil: Black draws power from the festering decay of swampland, and while in theory Black -- and its lands and creatures -- is not actively evil so much as amoral, in practice Black's swamps remain festering pits of fungus and disease, crawling with oversized insects and the undead, and generally very unfriendly places to outsiders.
362* SwarmOfRats: Many Black rat cards play to this trope, with their power determined by how many other rat cards are in play, whether other copies of their own card or rats in general. There’s also the card [[http://magiccards.info/5dn/en/58.html Relentless Rats]], which breaks Magic’s normal four-card maximum for creature cards and allows you to have any number of copies of it in play.
363* ThenLetMeBeEvil: Once again, while not always "evil" as such, Black tends to have this kind of relationship with the other colors, particularly White.
364* TerrorHero: Black is particularly known for the ''Menace'' keyword, an evasion ability that makes it such that the creature holding it can only be blocked by two or more creatures.
365* TouchOfDeath: The ''Deathtouch'' keyword is very heavily associated with Black; creatures with this keyword always do enough damage to kill whatever creature they do battle with...given that many of them have low power and toughness, it could very easily result in [[TakingYouWithMe a mutual kill]] (assuming of course they aren't ''Indestructible'').
366* TheUnfettered: As part of the opposite of white, where white establishes concepts of "right" and "wrong", black [[AboveGoodAndEvil rejects]] those notions in its quest for power.
367* UriahGambit: "Sacrifice a creature" effects, along with creatures with disabilities that hurt you.
368* WhatIsEvil: Black is the color mostly inclined towards moral relativism.
369* WitchClassic: Black is the color most associated with the Hag and Warlock creature types.
370* YouDirtyRat: Unlike most natural animals that fall under Green, rats are an exclusively Black creature type. Flavor-wise they tend to be associated with disease, filth, infiltration and coming in swarms. Many have their strength determined by the number of rat cards you have in play.
371* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: Black has the second most Rebel-type creatures in the game[[note]]10.5% out of 57 cards as of this writing[[/note]].
372* ZombieApocalypse: Black's standard creature tokens are 2/2 Zombies. While relatively small, Black has a number of ways to flood the board with large numbers of them. Exemplified with [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=262669 its namesake card]].
373[[/folder]]
374
375[[folder:Red]]
376[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2277114-red_mana_4489.png]]
377
378Red cares about "freedom through action". TheUnfettered and TheMcCoy, Red is not intrinsically malicious; mostly it wants to be left alone to do whatever it wants, and is the color of love and creativity. But since ''Magic: The Gathering'' is a game about fighting, its violent and fiery side frequently comes to the fore. Red mana is drawn from mountains.\
379\
380Red is the color of chaos, passion, and emotion. It's aligned with the elements of [[PlayingWithFire fire]], [[DishingOutDirt earth]], and [[ShockAndAwe lightning]], and it specializes in direct damage and the destruction of all things material. Red lives in the moment and rarely considers the future consequences of its actions; this theme is frequently shown through powerful but temporary advantages such as [[http://magiccards.info/10e/en/242.html Threaten]] and [[http://magiccards.info/m10/en/125.html Ball Lightning]], with creatures that aren't always quite controllable once they hit the field, and with excessive bursts of mana or effects that destroy your lands in return for immediate power. Red is designed to play aggressively and win quickly, and is in danger of stalling out if it can't keep tempo. Red's reliance on spells that deal with fire and lightning have lead to the perception that red is not as diverse as the other colors, as satirized [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=burning%20cinder%20fury%20of%20crimson%20chaos%20fire here.]] Learn more about Red [[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr133 here]] and [[http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/15 here.]]
381----
382* ActionInitiative: Being a fervent believer that TheRedOnesGoFaster, Red is the only other color than White that has the ''First Strike'' and ''Double Strike'' keywords in large numbers; although in this case, it likely represents hitting the enemy first through speed alone than with SuperReflexes.
383* AllLovingHero: Red is just as capable of creating this kind of character as White, given its direct association with empathy and love.
384* AnIcePerson: While this element is often more associated with Blue, Red gets some ice spells, for the purpose of [[KillItWithIce freezing things to death]], to be more specific.
385* ApocalypseHow: Obliterate, Decree Of Annihilation, Disaster Radius. Also, Apocalypse, which removes everything on the field from the game.
386* ArmorPiercingAttack: While the mechanic is more associated with green, red has been getting a growing number of creatures with the ''Trample'' keyword.
387* AttackAttackAttack: Red has the majority of creatures with the "cannot block" and "attacks each turn if able" abilities, and a variety of other effects like [[http://magiccards.info/roe/en/157.html Lust for War]] that force creatures to charge recklessly into battle. Mono-red decks also have a tendency to "race" with the opponent -- attacking with their creatures to reduce their opponent's life faster than their opponent can do to them, without concern for blocking.
388* BadassBystander: While the class is more closely associated with White and Green, Red has the second-most Citizen-class creatures.
389* BarbarianHero: Red currently has the most creatures with the Barbarian class in their type.
390* TheBard: Red currently as the second-most Bard-class creatures, beaten out only by Green.
391* BeYourself: Red is the color of unbridled self-expression.
392* TheBerserker: Being the color of passion and rage, it should be no surprise that a lot of Berserkers will be Red.
393* BigfootSasquatchAndYeti: Red is the primary home of the Yeti creature type.
394* BloodMagic: Used in various ways in flavour, though in the cards almost exclusively to deal damage or to control creatures (or both).
395* BreathWeapon: "Firebreathing" is a common ability where you spend red mana to temporarily pump up a creature's power. Naturally, red dragons are the most fire-prone.
396* CastingAShadow: Red is the color with the most (read: practically all) darkness-related spells after Black, such as Vicious Shadows, Shadowstorm and Shifting Shadows.
397* ConfusionFu: Red's chaotic aspect makes it fairly unpredictable and quite handy for an IndyPloy.
398* {{Curse}}: Being a color associated with Wrath, Red has the second-most Curse-type Enchantments in the game after black.
399* DiscardAndDraw: Red cards that allow the player to draw more cards tend to have the cost of discarding cards in the player's hand. While Blue has this ability as well, they also go in different order: Red discards first and then draws, while Blue does the opposite. (Additionally, Blue also has a ton of plain old "Draw more cards", which Red ''never'' has.)
400* DishingOutDirt: Along with Green, Red has lots of earth- and stone-based magic. Red tends to focus more on the destructive and geological aspects of the earth, often utilizing the "crushing rocks and earthquake" variety of earth power to deal damage or destroy lands. More recently, Red's "crushing rocks and earthquake" kind of earth power has become associated with making creatures unable to block.
401* DragonRider: Many of Red's warriors and knights are depicted riding dragons.
402* DontThinkFeel: Part of its opposition to Blue. In fact, over-thinking and second-guessing yourself can be a serious flaw when playing Red.
403* ElementalPersonalities: Red Mana is associated with both the element of fire and with strong emotions. Regardless of whether the emotion of the moment is anger, hilarity, love or grief, Red characters feel it strongly, vividly and suddenly, but will be quick to shift to another as the situation changes.
404* ElementalPowers: Red is by far the color most invested in them, as the aggressive manipulation of raw elements -- especially [[DishingOutDirt earth]], {{magma|Man}}, [[PlayingWithFire fire]] and [[ShockAndAwe lightning]] -- fits quite nicely with its blunt, direct philosophy.
405* ElementalEmbodiment: While you're just as likely to find them in ''all'' the colors, Red currently has the most Elemental-type creatures.
406* TheEmpath: As the color of emotions and sensations, many red characters are deeply empathetic. On the flipside, this also makes red the color of the AgonyBeam.
407* EnergyWeapon: Although White has domain over light, some red spells involve piercing the enemies with beams of light, most notably [[http://magiccards.info/cmd/en/116.html Cleansing Beam]].
408* EntropyAndChaosMagic: Being the color of chaos and random destruction, Red gets a lot of this.
409* EternalEngine: Red has a lot of aesthetic focus on industry and manufacturing (particularly [[ExtraOreDinary metallurgy]]), particularly on worlds like [[ArtDeco Capenna]] and [[SolarPunk Kaladesh]].
410* EquivalentExchange: Not as bad as Black, but sometimes Red has cards that require you to discard a card from your hand as an extra cost to play the spell...sometimes to draw more cards, or to create Treasure tokens.
411* ExtraOreDinary: Red also has a love for artifacts, especially equipment. Blue and Red are, together, widely viewed as '''the''' artifact colors. Naturally, Red gets a lot of artifact support effects flavored as manipulation of metals. This comes to the fore as of the ''Ixalan'' block, when Red consistently has ''the'' most cards that generate Treasure tokens, artifact tokens that act as single-use lands that generate ''any'' mana in exchange for sacrificing it.
412* FireIsRed: Though, to be fair, as in most other spells, red spells don't necessarily have the same color as the color itself, and some fire spell artwork has apropriate orange or gold flames.
413* ForTheEvulz: Red doesn't tend to do plans, so at its worst it often produces motiveless evil. Red villains are more likely to be evil, destructive, or sadistic just because it's fun than black ones.
414* GadgeteerGenius: Oddly, Red has been sharing this trope with Blue for a while now. Unlike Green, Red sees technology as one more way to express its creative vision and, as a result, is actually just behind Blue for number of cards that (positively) interact with artifacts, though it has more of a theme around rockets, demolitions, explosions, weapons, armor and furnaces than Blue. These themes are particularly prominent with the renegades of Kaladesh and the Izzet League.
415* GlassCannon: In contrast to White's StoneWall tactics, Red creatures either have high power and low toughness or ways to buff only their power to make creatures this. Mono-red decks generally focus on putting down early hard-hitting creatures or creatures with ''Haste'' (so they can attack right away) and attacking away at the opponent into submission before they can set up their defenses or field their bigger creatures, and finishing the game with direct damage. The moment they run out of steam, have their army taken out, and/or can't reliably damage the opponent any more is often the moment they lose.
416* GreatBallsOfFire: ''Blaze'' and ''Fireball'' are the best examples.
417* GripingAboutGremlins: The gremlins of [[{{Steampunk}} Kaladesh]] are overwhelmingly Red in color. Resembling six-legged aardvarks with blue-tipped snouts, they're essentially animals and feed off of aether, with their feeding being an important part of Kaladesh's natural cycles. Problem is, most of Kaladesh's technology runs on aether, which combined with the gremlins' tendency to use their acidic saliva to bore a way to their meals has made them the scourge of the plane. Reflecting this, they tend to have artifact-destruction abilities or be empowered by energy counters. Their young are called grubs, and are [[http://magiccards.info/kld/en/138.html very cute]].
418* HavingABlast: Red is very fond of making things blow up, and its magic reflects this.
419* {{Hellfire}}: In a sense. Red, and sometimes Black, has the ability to turn its spells and creatures colorless. This allows it to get around White's protection ability, and is flavored as a sort of [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=2728 ghostly flame]].
420* TheHorde: In early sets especially, Red was the go-to color for typically barbaric and monstrous fantasy races like Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Giants, Cyclopes and Trolls in addition to human bandits and [[BarbarianTribe barbarians]], with [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwarves]] being the only typically good fantasy characters associated with Red in this era. All of these types except Trolls (who are now associated with Green) are still primarily red, but tend to have more nuance now.
421* HotBlooded: Red characters are frequently this, due to Red being the color of emotion, feeling, and acting now and thinking never.
422* IShallTauntYou: Red currently has the most cards with the ''Goad'' keyword, which basically forces creatures to attack something other than the player.
423* KillItWithFire: Cards such as [[http://magiccards.info/ia/en/194.html Incinerate]], [[http://magiccards.info/be/en/142.html Disintegrate]], and [[http://magiccards.info/in/en/164.html Scorching Lava]] prevent the burnt creature from regenerating, representing the flavor of burning the body to prevent it from healing. Some go the extra mile and exile the creature instead of putting it in the graveyard, making it so burnt that necromancy cannot reform it.
424* KillItWithIce: Snow cards notwithstanding, Red ''does'' have access to ice-themed spells like ''[[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=503750 Frost Bite]]'' and ''[[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=50285 Frostwielder]]''.
425* LaResistance: Red is associated with revolutions and the Rebel creature type.
426* LightEmUp: Kind of. Red does have access to light-based spells... which usually involves dealing damage using a [[EnergyWeapon laser-like beam]].
427* LizardFolk: A lot of Viashino tend to be Red, or at least use red mana; [[DraconicHumanoid they're descended from Dragons]] and very well-known for being LeanAndMean.
428* LuckBasedMission: A lot of red effects are random, be it based on coin flips, choosing targets at random, or being reliant on the top few cards of the library.
429%%* {{Lust}}
430* MadArtist: Red is the color of imagination and unrestricted self-expression. That often results in characters going completely off the deep end while following their muse.
431* MagmaMan: Red already has fire and the geological aspect of earth under its belt, so it's quite natural that effects flavored as control over lava are also Red. Somewhat strangely, these effects don't tend to deal more damage than just plain fire.
432* MakeSomeNoise: It's not touched on terribly often, but Red holds the vast majority of sound-based spells and abilities, from battle-cries to honest-to-goodness sonic attacks.
433* MakingASplash: Very rarely, in the form of a [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=14653 torrential flood]].
434* TheMcCoy: A common part for Red characters. Red is very much centered on following your gut and doing what feels right. If something’s the right thing to do, then never you mind conventions and potential consequences, that’s what you should do.
435* MrImagination: You may note that red is the only color not listed as suffering from some form of CreativeSterility. Red never lacks for new ideas; not necessarily ''good'' ones (that's what [[TheSpock blue]] is for), but in terms of raw frenetic creativity, no color can even approach red.
436* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Officially Red’s large iconic creature, although they have been known to show up in other colors, so it’s not a perfect fit.
437* OurGeniesAreDifferent: Those genies themed specifically around the efreet of Arabic folklore have usually gone to Red rather than Blue. Besides Rabiah’s Emberwilde djinn (who had also set up their own caliphate in Wildfire, a plane dominated by flames and molten lava), there is also a dedicated [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=t%3Aefreet&s=cname&v=scan&p=1 Efreet]] creature type. Efreet are generally depicted as spirits of fire, although the efreet of Tarkir are instead depicted as tall, flesh-and-blood humanoids with black and red skin and three horns on their heads.
438* OurGiantsAreBigger: Red currently boasts the most Giant-type creatures in the game.
439* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: Every set brings a new take on goblins, though you can usually count on them being self-destructively insane little buggers.
440** One thing goblins are pointedly ''not'', however, is AlwaysChaoticEvil. Indeed, many of Magics most beloved heroes have been goblins.
441* OurKoboldsAreDifferent: Kobolds are an ''extremely'' rare Red creature type, distinguished by frequently being free to summon, but have little to no inherent utility once you've done so. They are native to only one plane (Dominaria) and can be found only in Kher Ridge near Yavimaya.
442* OurManticoresAreSpinier: Manticores are a predominantly Red creature type, generally resembling lions with human faces, batlike wings (birdlike for the Mercadian manticores), scorpion tails and mouths with [[MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily far too many teeth]]. The manticores of the Myth/EgyptianMythology-inspired plane of Amonkhet break from the pattern, instead resembling tigers with scorpion tails and with their lower legs covered with black, spiked natural armor.
443* OurOrcsAreDifferent: While they are commonly black in certain Planes like Tarkir, you're much more likely to find Orcs in Red as they are more commonly found in this color overall.
444* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: While the creature type is slightly more aligned with Green, Red has roughly equal numbers of werewolf-type creatures.
445* ThePhoenix: Phoenixes -- represented both as red-gold eagle-like birds with a fire motif and as birds made of living flame -- have appeared in numerous sets as midsized Red creatures, always with ability to return to your hand or the battlefield from the graveyard either for free, for a mana cost or when certain conditions are met.
446* {{Pirate}}: Red has the second-most number of creatures of this class.
447* PlayingWithFire: Red’s most iconic element, with Red's mana symbol being a fireball and all. Fire-based magic is a mainstay of Red cards, involving both fire elementals and fire-based spells, usually centered on indiscriminately burning Red’s problems until they aren’t problems anymore. This is what red planeswalker Chandra Nalaar is most known for.
448* ThePowerOfHate: Hate, like all emotions, is Red in nature. Since it's a lot easier to fit in hate in a game based around creatures fighting, it shows a lot more often than, say, ThePowerOfLove.
449* ThePowerOfLove: Love, like all emotions, is Red in nature. Unfortunately, given that love is nigh impossible to mechanically manifest in a game about combat, such cases are almost exclusive to flavor. [[http://dougbeyermtg.tumblr.com/post/150405253149/in-the-abstract-one-of-reds-specialties-is WotC staff considered it a lovely change of pace when they managed to hammer out such a card]].
450* RandomEffectSpell: Red's cards have the largest amount of random chance associated with them, usually in the form of random discards, or basing its effects from cards off the top of your deck. Some cards even involve coin flips and die rolls to determine outcomes.
451* RaptorAttack: Even before the onset of dinosaurs as a dedicated creature type, raptors have had a tendency to align to Red before other colors, with a minority in Green. Early (pre-Ixalan) raptors have been of the common, featherless ''Film/JurassicPark'' type, while Ixalan raptors, like all Ixalan dinosaurs, have extensive feathery dots (not necessarily ''accurate'' feathers, but feathers nonetheless). Regardless of skin covering, raptors have been consistently portrayed as hyperaggressive, dangerous and ferocious predators, appearing as both solitary and pack hunters. Most have mechanics allowing them to attack as soon as they enter the battlefield, while many Ixalan raptors have the Enrage mechanic, which activates bonus actions when opponents deal them damage.
452* RedIsHeroic: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] originally, but increasingly PlayedStraight. While the earliest cards mostly characterizes Red as [[{{Sadist}} openly sadistic]] and [[GenericDoomsdayVillain almost mindlessly violent]], decades of CharacterDevelopment have showcased the color's more likeable qualities, like spontaneity, sociability, and independence. Today, many of the game's flagship heroes are aligned primarily to Red mana.
453* RedOnesGoFaster: Red cards and decks tend to move quickly and are generally faster than the other colors, laying on the aggression with cheap followers while the other colors are still setting up their board. Red also has ''Haste'' as its most familiar keyword.
454* SaltTheEarth: Red has the most spells invested in land destruction, up to and including [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74623 Sowing Salt]].
455* {{Samurai}}: While the class in the Kamigawa block is more heavily associated with White, Red currently has the second-most Samurai-class creatures in the game.
456* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Since Red never respects laws, its heroic characters fall into this trope.
457* ShockAndAwe: Red gets a lot of lightning-based spells (and some creatures, like [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=%21Ball+lightning&v=card&s=cname Ball Lightning]]). Again, this is, for the most part, straightforward direct damage.
458* SoldierVsWarrior: The Warrior to White's Soldier. While you ''do'' get a number of them in White, Red has the most Warrior-class creatures thus far.
459* StarPower: Most notably in the infamous [[http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/cmd13/5Ig5mu73tz_EN.jpg Starstorm]]. Goes well with LightEmUp.
460* SmarterThanYouLook: Red is often stereotyped as DumbMuscle, with a tendency to [[DidntThinkThisThrough not think things through]] and a playstyle that lends itself to AttackAttackAttack type strategies. However, it is also the color associated with [[IndyPloy Indy Ploys]] and TheSparkOfGenius and, in the hands of a particularly creative player, can be quite tricky.
461* StuffBlowingUp: If it's not creatures being burned to a crisp, a lot of Red's spells do damage depicted by a large explosion. Red's many artifact destruction abilities also depict objects being destroyed in dramatic fashion.
462* SuicidalOverconfidence: Common in Red's flavor text, particularly with [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent goblins]].
463* SuperSpeed: Follows from Red's emphasis on freedom. Seen on cards such as Burst Of Speed and Accelerate. This manifests somewhat in having creatures having the ''Haste'', ''First Strike'', and ''Double Strike'' keywords in large numbers.
464* TakingYouWithMe: Red has quite a few creatures that deal damage to themselves or their controller to get rid of something else. Sometimes, it involves self-sacrifice on the part of that creature; such creatures tend to be goblins, which in-universe aren't exactly known for their intelligence.
465* TechnicianVersusPerformer: An iconic Blue-Red conflict. The two colors share a love of [[PowerOfCreation creativity]], be it artistic or technological. How they choose to ''implement it'' tends to be the bone of contention.
466* TerrorHero: Besides Black, Red has the most creatures with the ''Menace'' keyword.
467* ThirstyDesert: Especially in ''Arabian Nights''.
468* TheTrickster: A theme that has been seeing more and more focus recently, Red has a number of off-beat combat tricks that correspond to its pronounced sense of humor.
469* {{Technopath}}: Same as ExtraOreDinary above.
470* TimeMaster: Used to enable a DesperationAttack, when you need ''just one more shot'' at hitting the enemy. Red has had a few spells that manipulate time, ending foes' turns early or taking another turn [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique at the cost of]] [[LastDitchMove losing the game]] when the end of the next turn rolls around. If taking an extra turn at a certain cost is too powerful for Blue alone, then the spell is part Red, often with some additional Red element like coin-flipping.
471* UltimateBlacksmith: Red deals a lot with artifacts, and so it trails slightly behind Blue in the number of Artificers it has.
472* TheUnfettered: Red will feel what it wants to feel and act how it wants to act.
473* VolcanoLair: Red's basic land cards are often depicted as erupting volcanos or red mountains.
474* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: Red runs at two settings: "hit it fast" and "hit it faster".
475* {{Wrath}}: As should be obvious by now, Red's most pronounced flaw is its tendency to produce bloodthirsty zealots, not to mention that it has plenty of {{Curse}}-type Enchantments which can be inflicted upon enemies.
476* ZergRush: Being Red creatures themselves, Goblins tend to be weak, but ''very'' cheap, and so it's very possible to build a Goblin deck with this on mind.
477[[/folder]]
478
479[[folder:Green]]
480[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/green_mana_2903.png]]
481
482Green is concerned with "acceptance through growth". It believes that all living things have a place and a path; YouCantFightFate, and trying to do so is the height of folly. This results in an opposition to technology and anything else "unnatural". Green mana is drawn from forests.\
483\
484Green is the color of life, [[GreenMeansNatural nature]], and tradition. Thanks to its mastery of life and growth, Green is the best color at creating swarms of token creatures, and its creatures tend to be bigger than those of other colors for the same cost, especially at the higher end of the scale: for the first year of the game, it had ''the'' biggest creature in existence, though that office has mostly gone to blue or colorless creatures since. Green also has the ability to boost the size of its creatures, both temporarily and permanently, and is the best color at generating extra mana in the long term, often by playing additional lands. It has become the second-best color at card drawing, representing a growth of the mind to match the body. Green magic is rarely subtle and often relies on brute force -- while it's perfectly willing to destroy the opponent's artifacts, enchantments, and lands, Green's preferred means of dealing with opposing creatures is to outmatch them in combat [[IncrediblyLamePun as nature intended]]. Learn more about Green [[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr43 here]] and [[http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/11 here.]]
485----
486* AntiAir: Many. Very many. Air denial is one of Green's signature traits. Good examples include cards that deal damage to flying creatures alone (like [[https://scryfall.com/card/10e/270/hurricane Hurricane]]), creatures with the keyword reach, which can block flyers without themselves having flying (like [[https://scryfall.com/card/m19/183/giant-spider Giant Spider]]), creature removals that only attack flyers (like [[https://scryfall.com/card/m19/193/plummet Plummet]]), cards that damage players with flying creatures (like [[https://scryfall.com/card/pcy/135/wing-storm Wing Storm]]), cards that remove the flying keyword from creatures (like [[https://scryfall.com/card/jud/108/canopy-claws Canopy Claws]]), and cards that do a combination of these things at once (like [[https://scryfall.com/card/c18/36/whiptongue-hydra Whiptongue Hydra]]).
487* AntiCavalry: Appears on Trip Wire. Antiquated by the static ability Horsemanship disappearing.
488* AntiMagic: A lot of enchantment removal appears on green cards. ''Hexproof'', which protects from targeting effects, is also seen most commonly on green creatures. Fittingly enough, Green is also tied with White for second most creatures with the ''Ward'' keyword.
489* AppealToTradition: Basically the gist of Green's rhetoric outside of "nature". Green is the colour most focused on the past, most focused on retaining the status quo, and as such it can get pretty damn obsessed over tradition, as many characters have learned the hard way.
490* ArmorPiercingAttack: One of the keywords that Green is particularly known for is ''Trample'', which makes it such that whenever a creature with high power deals more damage than the blocking creature's toughness, the difference is inflicted upon the enemy's life. Fittingly enough, creatures with this keyword [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever tend to be pretty powerful to begin with]].
491* AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: One of Green's trademarks is the absurdly large creature, whether large to begin with or magically pumped up that way.
492* BadassBystander: Green is currently tied with White for having the most Citizen-class creatures[[note]]24.2% out of 33 cards single-color, and 12.1% having ''both'' colors as of this writing[[/note]].
493* TheBard: As of ''Adventures in the Forgotten Realms'', Bards are a recent addition and are classified as Green creatures.
494* BareFistedMonk: They were made a legit creature type as of the first Kamigawa block, and have long since been outstripped by White, but there's still a lot of Monks that are Green.
495* BasiliskAndCockatrice: They are separate creature types, with basilisks being more strongly aligned to Green and also more common. Faithfully to their original mythological portrayal, cockatrices are depicted as birdlike creatures with snakelike tails and necks, while basilisks are shown as many-legged lizards or snakes, sometimes with horns. They all have the keyword ''Deathtouch'', meaning they instantly destroy any creature they deal damage to, or the ability to destroy any creature that they block or that blocks them, representing their deadly petrifying gaze.
496* BigCreepyCrawlies: Shared with Black. Green is very fond of absurdly large monsters (see AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever) and arthropods are not excluded.
497* TheBeastmaster: One of Green's iconic powers, though the kind of beasts in question [[FriendToAllLivingThings may]] [[FluffyTamer vary]]. Examples include [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=191064 Master of the Wild Hunt]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=140194 Wren's Run Packmaster]], and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=152728 Wolf-Skull Shaman]]. Mechanically, Green is hands-down the best color when it comes to buffing or otherwise supporting creatures.
498* BlowYouAway: Although air is more Blue's domain, [[WindIsGreen Green wind spells]] like [[https://scryfall.com/card/10e/270/hurricane Hurricane]], [[https://scryfall.com/card/gvl/25/windstorm Windstorm]] and [[https://scryfall.com/card/ths/178/shredding-winds Shredding Winds]] are common. Green, in general, uses wind only to [[AntiAir knock flying things out of the sky]], though.
499* BornUnlucky: This and BornLucky are how Green justifies SocialDarwinism -- if you’ve been born with bad genes, then your bad luck and/or death is just natural selection.
500* CatsAreMean: Cats as a creature type have appeared in all five colors, but primarily in White, and secondarily in Green.
501* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Enhancing a creature's "natural" powers is firmly in Green's wheelhouse.
502* CoolHorse: Tied with White for having the second-most Horse-type creatures in the game, next to both Blue and Black.
503* CreativeSterility: Sometimes shared with White and (more rarely) Blue, Green genuinely cannot fathom something it has not experienced first-hand in the past.
504* DeathWorld: What evil Green powers, such as the Green Phyrexians, ultimately seek to turn the lands they take over into--savage wildernesses full of ferocious monsters constantly preying on one another, where there is no law but the law of the jungle and no order but the food chain.
505* DishingOutDirt: Used to create more lands, or [[ThatsNoMoon animate the ones Green already has]]. Compared to Red's, Green's earth-based spells and effects are far more likely to be of the "[[MotherNature life-bearing, motherly Earth]]" flavor.
506* DontThinkFeel: Part of its opposition to Blue; Green strategies are often about pure smashing, with little in the way of trickery or manipulation.
507* DumbIsGood: Taken to an extreme, Green opposes the concept of sapience itself.
508* ElementalPowers: Green typically focuses on organic natural elements -- [[GreenThumb plants]], [[DishingOutDirt earth]] and [[PoisonousPerson poison]] all show up in its roster, and [[BlowYouAway air and wind]] play a major role in its propensity for AntiAir.
509* ElementalEmbodiment: Unsurprisingly for a color representing nature, Green has the second-most Elemental-type creatures.
510* EnchantedForest: The basic Green land is forests, and coupled with Green's love of giant monsters and the untamed wilderness, this trope is definitely in play.
511* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Green is the domain of dangerous, hostile places like forests and jungles.
512* EvilLuddite: Green is opposed to advanced science, technology, industry and any altering of the world from its natural state on general principles, and this tends to move it into villainous territory when it takes it too far. In the more recent artifact-focused Kaladesh block, however, Green-aligned characters went the "let's make technology work in harmony with nature" route instead, with elvish "lifecrafters" designing their creations to mimic plants and animals.
513* EvilReactionary: Green can be this when its focus on tradition and on shunning change is taken too far.
514* EvilutionaryBiologist: Green at its worst and most obsessed with survival of the fittest can become this, especially when mixed with Blue.
515* TheFairFolk: [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness The first published Faerie cards were green]], but now there are more of them in Black and (especially) in Blue than in Green. Green does still get the majority of the mischievous woodland-dwelling Ouphes (the creature type for wingless fey creatures such as brownies and green men).
516* TheFatalist: As the color of natural order, Green can be too focused on predestination at its worst.
517* FesteringFungus: Fungus creature cards are almost always green, and tend to have abilities focusing on growth, regeneration and the creation of hordes of smaller fungus creatures. Some of them reward you in some manner for putting creatures in the graveyard, representing fungi feeding off of death and decay.
518* FragileSpeedster: The classic "green weenie" deck involves getting as many creatures out on the field as possible as quickly as possible. It's important to win quickly, because if your opponent manages to stave off your ZergRush, you're in for a world of hurt.
519* GaiasLament: Green's gripes with Blue and Black are often visually represented by pristine wilderness being overtaken by [[IndustrializedEvil technology]] or [[TheCorruption decay]].
520* GaiasVengeance: Green's specialty, since its philosophy makes it opposed to anything artificial, and it tends to be quite good at destroying what it perceives as unnatural, such as artifacts or enchantments.
521** Numerous Green spells and instants are themed around the destruction of unnatural artifice, such as [[https://scryfall.com/card/m14/165/bramblecrush Bramblecrush]] and [[https://scryfall.com/card/lrw/234/rootgrapple Rootgrapple]] (which destroy any noncreature permanent) and the classic card [[https://scryfall.com/card/m19/190/naturalize Naturalize]] (which can destroy any artifact or enchantment in play), symbolizing the destruction of encroaching civilization.
522** The Gaea's Avenger variant also comes into play fairly often, such as with the planeswalker Garruk Wildspeaker or with the card [[https://scryfall.com/card/atq/33/gaeas-avenger Gaea's Avenger]].
523* GatheringSteam: Overlapping with its status as a MightyGlacier, Green tends to be slower but its creatures tend to be more powerful; however, given enough time and lands, and Green can overwhelm most opponents.
524* GeneticMemory: A frequent concept in Green cards, most notably [[https://scryfall.com/card/avr/173/descendants-path Descendant's Path]].
525* GiantSpider: Spiders are, like most animals, overwhelmingly Green. They almost always get Reach -- the ability to block other creatures as if they had Flying -- symbolizing flying creatures (which here can be anything from birds to griffins and dragons) getting caught in their webs (or the spider just pulling them from the sky). Notable spiders include the often-reprinted [[https://scryfall.com/card/akh/166/giant-spider Giant Spider]], as well as the gigantic gloomwidows of Shadowmoor and Innistrad.
526* GoodOldWays: Tradition is one of the things that Green represents.
527* GreatDetective: Of all five colors, Green is third in place for the most number of Detective-class creatures in the game.
528* GreenMeansNatural: The colour green is tied to nature. Its mana is drawn from the power of forests, it is the colour with the most efficient creatures, and it's hostile to artifacts and enchantments because they're seen as unnatural. Philosophically, it values letting nature take its course, survival of the fittest, and instinct.
529* GreenThumb: Druids always have abilities that either generate mana or improve the use and number of your lands. Common Green spells pull lands right out of your deck and into your hand or onto the field. These are often flavored as the manipulation of plants.
530* HealingFactor: Up until it was retired, Green was the runner-up for most creatures with the ''Regenerate'' keyword.
531* HealingHands: Green shares the ability to gain life with White. Green tends more to use such abilities to protect its creatures and pump them, while White leans more towards gaining life for itself.
532* HungryJungle: A common tropical spin on Green’s forests, as a natural result of Green’s love of untamed wilds, its profusion of ravenous monsters and gigantic insects, and its hatred of technology and skill in breaking it down.
533* InHarmonyWithNature:
534** Many Green healing and card-drawing spells are depicted this way. Green believes that enlightenment doesn’t come from trying to impress your philosophy on the world, but on accepting that the world works fine as it is and learning to listen to it.
535** In the CastOfPersonifications blog entries, Green points out that it's the only color who wouldn't wave its hands and make its enemy colors disappear completely if it were able to, since it recognizes that all five colors have a part to play in the balance of nature, even if the others, especially Blue and Black, need to be reined in from time to time.
536* TheJuggernaut: After White, Green has a lot of creatures with the ''Indestructible'' keyword...and being that Green is the king of giant monsters...
537* LuddWasRight: Green has a lot of cards for destroying artifacts and enchantments.
538* MakeMyMonsterGrow: One of Green's favorite abilities is to increase the power and toughness of its creatures.
539* MakingASplash: Green seems to be gaining more water-based spells lately, such as the ability to control fog (which is technically composed of water droplets) and its newfound association with [[FishPeople merfolk]] in Ixalan. This makes sense, as water is vital for life (which is Green's domain). To contrast Green against Blue, Blue's water-related effects tend to focus on saltwater, while Green's tend to focus on freshwater and water's life-sustaining properties.
540* MightyGlacier: The general playstyle of mono-green decks, if not focused on "green weenies" detailed above, are "ramp decks" which often involve devoting their first few turns to getting as many lands into play as possible so they can summon their big creatures a few turns earlier than normal. They may be vulnerable and lack defenses in the early game, but once they fully utilize their wealth of mana later on, there is little stopping them.
541* MightMakesRight: A common Green-associated philosophy. This also ties into Green's unique method of creature removal -- fight effects forcibly cause creatures to do damage to each other without needing to go into combat or declare a block, and green creatures are often strong and tough enough to emerge victorious.
542* MotherNature: In its more positive, nurturing depictions.
543* MushroomMan: The Fungus creature type is a strongly Green-aligned one, and as such the game’s various humanoid and intelligent mushroom creatures, such as the Thallids, have been exclusively Green.
544* NatureEqualsPlants: Green is strongly associated with Nature, but mostly as forests and plants as opposed to the other elements of nature represented by the other colors.
545* NatureHero: In contrast to Blue's ScienceHero.
546* NatureIsNotNice: There are many cards that reflect the life-giving and nurturing face of Mother Nature. There are also many cards that reflect Mother Nature's brutality. Green planeswalker Nissa Revane, anyone?
547* NatureVsNurture: Takes nature's side, obviously. Green believes your nature and destiny are dictated by your genes/fate/God/whatever.
548* NoCureForEvil: Averted. Like in White, some Green characters with healing powers can be evil.
549* NoSell: More recent Green creatures like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=435334 Carnage Tyrant]] have been printed with the "can't be countered" ability, letting them comfortably play their big beaters without need to worry about Blue having a response.
550* OurCentaursAreDifferent: Centaurs are a traditionally green creature type, and while mostly fairly standard there are some unusual variations. Gruul centaurs from Ravnica, for instance, have large antlers, as did some Dominarian centaurs from the Ice Age, while [[http://magiccards.info/pc/en/139.html other Dominarian centaurs]] have the heads and lower bodies of antelopes. They’re also a major race in Theros, where they’re divided between the civilized Lagonna Band and the barbaric, aggressive Pheres Band, and where they chiefly worship Nylea, the God of the hunt, and Pharika, the God of poisons and medicine.
551* OurElvesAreDifferent: Green’s characteristic humanoid creature, they usually fit the High Elves (if mixed with White) or Wood Elves types pretty well, but the horned, goat-hooved and extremely xenophobic elves of Lorwyn are much closer to TheFairFolk.
552* OurGiantsAreBigger: Giants are more associated with Red, but given Green belief in MightMakesRight, it currently has the second-most Giant-type creatures in the game.
553* OurHydrasAreDifferent: Hydras are Green's iconic creatures. Most are quadrupedal, but some have only two limbs. [[HydraProblem Many have mechanics themed around increasing their strength when they're dealt damage, symbolizing new heads growing from the stumps of severed ones]].
554** The hydras native to Dominaria and Rath are Red- rather than Green-aligned, and live in mountains and volcanic badlands; as these were the first hydra cards printed in real life, [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness this is an artifact from before the Hydra creature type settled into its current identity]].
555** Several hydras, such as [[https://scryfall.com/card/ktk/136/hooded-hydra those from Tarkir]] and [[https://scryfall.com/card/akh/172/honored-hydra those]] [[https://scryfall.com/card/hou/130/ramunap-hydra from]] Amonkhet, are snakelike to the point of explicitly having cobra hoods and heads, and are typed as both Snakes and Hydras.
556** Ravnica is home to [[https://scryfall.com/card/rav/218/phytohydra phytohydras]], serpentine [[ManEatingPlant carnivorous plants]] that only grow back more and more energetically the more they're cut back.
557** In the ''Theros'' block, the planeswalker Elspeth Tirel has to fight [[https://scryfall.com/card/ths/172/polukranos-world-eater Polukranos]], a hydra that is dubbed the World Eater with very little apparent hyperbole, which used to lair in the realm of the gods before literally falling to earth as a result of a battle between two deities.
558* OurNymphsAreDifferent: Dryads are reclusive forest dwellers and wardens of nature, usually appearing as humanoid women with pointed ears and sometimes green skin and hair. Other times they're out-and-out {{Plant Person}}s. [[https://scryfall.com/card/por/193/willow-dryad Some believe them to be the dreams of trees]].
559** On Ravnica they're strongly associated with the Selesnya Conclave, the guild responsible for maintaining the plane's green spaces. The founder of the Conclave, Mat'Selesnya, was formed from the fusion of multiple dryads, and the guild's current leader, Trostani, is a group of three conjoined dryads acting as Mat'Selesnya's "face".
560** On Theros, nymphs exist as a separate creature type and are divinely-created servants of the gods. All dryads found on Theros, notably, are typed as both nymphs and dryads and serve Nylea, the goddess of the hunt and the wilderness. Theros is the only plane so far to feature other types of nymphs for the other colors -- alseids for White, naiads for Blue, lampads for Black and oreads for Red.
561* OurTrollsAreDifferent: Most cards of the Troll type will be green. Before it was eventually removed, all Trolls had the ''[[HealingFactor Regenerate]]'' keyword.
562* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Green currently has the most creatures of the Werewolf type in the game, many of them playing around with the Day/Night cycle as per the legend, transforming depending on whether it is currently day or night on the field.
563* PlantPerson: Both Dryads and Treefolk are Green creature types.
564* PoisonousPerson: Delivered by all sorts of venomous critters. Green, in contrast to Black, favors naturally occurring venom over the unnatural pollution that characterizes Black poisons. It is also has the second-most cards that generate [[InstantWinCondition Poison Counters]].
565* ThePowerOfFriendship: Along with White and Red, Green is quite focused on interpersonal connections and bonds.
566* PrehistoricMonster: Green currently has the most Dinosaur-type creatures in the game, followed in second place by Red.
567* PunyEarthlings: Green is big on the idea that no one person, civilization, or species can be truly significant in the grand scheme of things, and green characters have been known to make [[BreakingSpeech Breaking Speeches]] about the futility of [[LegacySeeker trying to be remembered]] in the face of the grand TimeAbyss of history.
568* {{Ranger}}: Just as with archers, a lot of Ranger-class creatures will be Green.
569* RhinoRampage: Rhinos are a predominantly Green creature type. Rhino cards often get the ''[[ArmorPiercingAttack Trample]]'' keyword, and occasionally an ability limiting the other player's ability to block them.
570* QuantityVsQuality: Green has this sentiment in its relationship to White, being the Quality side of the equation, which shows in its penchant for unleashing the AttackOfThe50FootWhatever upon enemies.
571* ScaryScorpions: While scorpions are more heavily aligned with black, you're just as likely to get scorpions in Green too...sometimes in Green ''and'' Black.
572* ScienceIsBad: Green's philosophy, leading to Green getting a lot of anti-artifact spells.
573* ScrewballSquirrel: Squirrels are a green creature type, and tend to be portrayed rather humorously (although they become [[LethalJokeCharacter more and more of a genuine threat as they get more cards]].)
574* SnakesAreSinister: Snakes tend to be heavily aligned with Green, but given Green's propensity for the AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever, expect to see [[TheGreatSerpent giant snakes]] too.
575* TheSocialDarwinist: At its worst.
576* SoldierVsWarrior: While the dynamic is mostly with Red, Green can also be the Warrior to White, especially since it has the second-largest number of Warrior-class creatures.
577* SuperStrength: Green has many terrifyingly large creatures, following from its emphasis on growth. It also has a lot of spells that boost power and toughness, often to a greater degree than other colors.
578* SuperPersistentPredator: Besides White, Green has a lot of creatures with ''Vigilance'' in large numbers.
579* {{Terraforming}}: Every other color does this to a limited extent, but Green is particularly known for this as it has a lot of cards that revolve around putting out more lands, whether it's allowing you to play a second land on your turn, or straight-up searching them out from your deck and putting them into your hand or the field (the latter of which will usually have those lands tapped), but this helps in the long run given that Green's propensity for bringing out the AttackOfThe50FootWhatever requires you to have ''a lot'' of lands.
580* TheGreatSerpent: Given Green's propensity for the AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever, it's no surprise that you'd be seeing giant snakes...but Green is a color heavily associated with Wurms, a gigantic species of reptile with a serpentine body and a dragon's head.
581* TrainingFromHell: It's not unusual for Green creatures to be permanently toughened up by getting hurt first.
582* {{Treants}}:
583** [[https://magiccards.info/query?q=t%3Atreefolk&v=scan&s=cname Treefolk]] are a staple type of large Green creatures. For the most part fairly standard examples, they usually appear as reclusive forest dwellers and wardens of the wild, often on good terms with the local elves. Some planes have their own variations:
584*** In Lorwyn, the treefolk are the most ancient and long-lived of the intelligent races, and are viewed with great respect by their younger neighbors. They reproduce by spreading large amounts of seeds that grow into regular trees, some of which eventually awaken into new treefolk. They differ in size, physical and magical abilities and role in treefolk society based on the species of tree they resemble -- for instance, oak treefolk are the largest and strongest of their kind, black poplars are healers and rowans are magicians. They're also the only species on the plane to be on generally decent terms with Lorwyn's highly xenophobic elves.
585*** In Lorwyn's dark mirror Shadowmoor, the treefolk become warped, skeletal mockeries of their old selves, often only barely humanoid and highly aggressive towards other beings.
586*** In the GothicHorror-inspired plane of Innistrad, most treefolk creatures are nothing like humanoid, appearing as little more than aggressive, mobile trees with woody, fanged slashes for mouths, but traditionally humanoid treefolk show up the ''Shadows over Innistrad'' block. Regardless of their form, some bits of flavor imply they're technically trees [[DemonicPossession possessed by spirits]]. Innistrad is also home to the only spirit treefolk in the game so far, [[http://magiccards.info/avr/en/207.html Yew Spirit]].
587*** In the underworld of Theros, the Black Oak of Odunos -- despite its typing as a Treefolk -- is less "a zombified tree" and more "a tree made of zombies".
588** Outside of true treefolk, Green-aligned {{elemental|Embodiment}}s such as [[https://scryfall.com/card/dtk/179 Conifer Strider]] and [[https://scryfall.com/card/dom/187/verdant-force Verdant Force]] commonly appear as towering humanoid trees or agglomerations of plant matter. They often exist as protectors of forests and other wild places against advancing civilization, whether they arise spontaneously for this role or are purposefully created out of preexisting plantlife by powerful entities.
589* ThatsNoMoon: Green is in love with the idea of land animation.
590* TouchOfDeath: Being that Green is a PoisonousPerson, it is the only other color than Black that has creatures with ''Deathtouch'' in significant numbers.
591* VillainousGlutton: One of Green's greatest sins is its tendency to overindulge. After all, Green follows instinct, and indulgence is nothing if not instinctual. Particularly prominent with Green Phyrexians.
592* WhenTreesAttack: Aggressive plants of various types are a staple of Green.
593** The Treefolk, Dryad and Plant creature types, while not inherently hostile or homicidal in the lore, are usually represented this way due to the game's focus on battling. Some elementals also end up in this area.
594** There are various creatures and spells -- such as [[https://scryfall.com/card/m11/163/awakener-druid Awakener Druid]], [[https://scryfall.com/card/gvl/22/rude-awakening Rude Awakening]] and [[https://scryfall.com/card/som/123/liege-of-the-tangle Liege of the Tangle]][[note]] the Tangle is the forest part of Mirrodin, full of living copper trees[[/note]] -- that, while not walking trees themselves, can turn lands you control into vengeful armies of creatures that can curbstomp dragons and {{eldritch abomination}}s. While any land can be turned into this, the Green nature of these cards generally implies the animation of forests.
595** [[https://scryfall.com/card/uma/251/stirring-wildwood Stirring Wildwood]], in which the entire frakking ''forest'' snatches your pteranodon rider out of the air and smashes it into the dirt. Unlike other such cards, it does not need an outside trigger to do this, but can "awaken" itself of its own accord.
596* YouCantFightFate: The belief that we all have a destiny to follow and a set place in the natural order is a core tenet of Green's philosophy and, as such, a major point of contention for both Blue and Black, which firmly believe you can become anything you want.
597* ZergRush: Gets in on this with Elves, with quite a few cards that either buff Elves or make Elf Tokens. Thallids too, given that a good number of them are capable of creating Saprolings.
598[[/folder]]

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