One shade
In the most typical environments, decks with a single shade usually are not aggressive in tournaments (resulting from the truth that you are settling for the highest ten cohesive playing cards in a shade as a substitute of two units of the highest 5 in two colours. The distinction in energy stage between the highest 1-5 and the highest 6-10 might be huge and sport deciding. The opposite colours additionally make up for every others weaknesses). However they do exist, particularly in older codecs the place consistency is required to win in a few turns and the place you will have such a big pool of highly effective playing cards to choose from, and are then known as “Mono X”. For completeness sake, mono shade tribes have been included right here regardless that they’re unlikely to be labeled as such.
- Mono white, Ardenvale (kingdom on Eldraine), Auriok (human tribe on Mirrodin)
Mono blue, Vantress (kingdom on Eldraine), Neurok (human tribe on Mirrodin)
Mono black, Locthwain (kingdom on Eldraine), Moriok (human tribe on Mirrodin)
Mono purple, Embereth (kingdom on Eldraine), Vulshok (human tribe on Mirrodin)
Mono inexperienced, Garenbrig (kingdom on Eldraine), Sylvok (human tribe on Mirrodin)
Two colours
They’re normally referred with the names of the guilds of Ravnica. For the reason that guilds had been launched (and particularly now that we have returned) the colour pairs have grow to be frequent names for duo-color decks. Each allied and enemy shade pairs are frequent to see, though allied extra so (resulting from larger deck cohesion).
Allied colours
Enemy colours
Three colours
The primary of those are the shards of Alara. They jive effectively as a result of they offer two units of allied colours every. The much less generally used are the wedges, which contain two enemy shade mixtures: they’re derived from the dragons of Planar Chaos, the volver cycle from Apocalypse, 5 clans from Khans of Tarkir, or extra not too long ago the triomes of Ikoria. Having just one allied shade pair (the 2 enemies of a single shade shall be allied) limits deck cohesion, making their use rare, though this clearly varies because the meta modifications.
Word that if one of many colors just isn’t significantly current within the deck, for instance there’s solely a single card of a given shade, you might even see a two shade title with a 3rd listed as a “splash.”
Allied colours
Enemy colours
Pink + white + black = Mardu (clan on Tarkir), Savai (Ikoria triome), Oros (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Dega (from Degavolver)- Inexperienced + blue + purple = Temur (clan on Tarkir), Ketria (Ikoria triome), Intet (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Ceta (from Cetavolver)
- White + black + inexperienced = Abzan (clan on Tarkir), Indatha (Ikoria triome), Teneb (dragon from Planar Chaos) Necra (from Necravolver), Junk quotation, or Doran quotation
- Blue + Pink + White = Jeskai (clan on Tarkir), Raugrin (Ikoria triome), Numot (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Raka (from Rakavolver)
- Black + inexperienced + blue = Sultai (clan on Tarkir), Zagoth (Ikoria triome), Vorosh (dragon from Planar Chaos) or Ana (from Anavolver)
Casual usages:
- Pink + white + black = Borzhov
- Pink + white + blue = USA/American/Patriot
(though observe that Workforce America is definitely black + blue + inexperienced) - Pink + inexperienced + blue = Grizzet
(though it is normally Simic splashing purple)
As well as, it is particularly frequent for purple + blue + inexperienced and black + blue + inexperienced to be known as by their abbreviations — “RUG” and “BUG” — as a result of these are names which are straightforward to recollect and pronounce, regardless that these usually are not the correct shade orders.
4 colours
Most decks would not have 4 full colours. As with three shade enemies, in the event that they attain this many colours, it is a shard with a splash of one other shade. So that you’re extra prone to see one thing like “American splash black” as a substitute of “Yore”, and these days merely “4 shade” is rising in reputation.
Names for four-color identities come from one among two sources:
The 4 color identities’ names are:
- Blue + black + purple + inexperienced = Glint-Eye, or Chaos, or Non-white
- Black + purple + inexperienced + white = Dune (or Dune-Brood), or Aggression, or Non-blue
- Pink + inexperienced + white + blue = Ink-Treader, or Altruism, or Non-black
- Inexperienced + white + blue + black = Witch (or Witch-Maw), or Development, or Non-red
- White + blue + black + purple = Yore (or Yore-Tiller), or Artifice, or Non-green
Often, some casual usages of 4 shade decks, particularly when it includes a typical three shade deck with a splash of a fourth, shall be to incorporate some sort of pun or different indicator to a longtime title. For instance, taking a Jund (Pink, Inexperienced, and Black) deck and including Blue can be extra prone to make it one thing like “Moist Jund” than it will be Glint-Eye or Chaos. Or if solely splashing Blue for a single card may make it “Moist Jund”, that’s Moist Jund that’s barely much less moist than Moist Jund. Comparable puns might be made for Darkish Jeskai (Blue, Pink, and White including Black) and I may envision one thing alongside these traces for a splash like Dim Jeskai (Blue, Pink, and White splashing Black) though admittedly I’ve by no means seen it within the wild.
5 colours
Decks with all 5 colours normally revolve round a single combo that they hope to drag off. It takes a variety of mana fixing and an enormous quantity of playtesting to get a dependable 5 shade deck. For that reason, you do not typically discover them in tournaments. You discover them typically in Commander (giving the participant entry to each card ever, enormously growing the facility stage of the deck) and in ability challenges the place a participant simply tries to give you a loopy deck concept to see if he could make it work. Clearly there’s just one 5 shade deck, it makes use of all 5:
Typically, 4 shade decks may even be known as Rainbow simply because they’ve so many colours.
No colours
Typically, significantly in codecs with a really massive card pool, you may see colorless decks as effectively. The most typical title for these is a reference to the previous card body for artifact playing cards:
-
Mono brown (to not be confused with BrownTown which is a draft deck leaning closely on minotaurs) -
Some newer colorless decks have come to be known as “Diamond” decks in reference to the diamond-like new image for colorless mana
