GB's Mechanical Color Pie

General forum

Posted on May 10, 2020, 11:47 p.m. by ZendikariWol

What all is in Green/Black's color pie, other than graveyard stuff?? Just curious because it's all that seems to come up in BG.

ZendikariWol says... #2

Is there really no new space to be pushed into here? All graveyards and counters, forever?

May 11, 2020 2:19 a.m.

dbpunk says... #3

I mean, they have tried some things.

  1. Deathtouch tribal (Vraska, for example)

  2. Toughness matters (Sapling of Colfenor)

May 11, 2020 5:31 a.m.

Caerwyn says... #4

Going to move this thread also, and since you were curious as to the last move, figured I'd tell you why. Your previous thread was primarily focused on the generation of a custom set and had no relation to the format you put it in.

This one does have a relationship to the format you put it in, but its primary purpose is not the creation of new cards, but rather an inquisition on what Green/Black could accomplish. An academic discussion of what a particular slice of the Color Pie could do is a "General" topic. (It would be card creation if you asked "can you help me make GB cards; but that's not what you're doing here).

To respond substantively with your post, I think TypicalTimmy's first post hit the nail on the head, but I have one major gripe with their response (though it would be more accurate to say my grievance is with Wizards for their card design).

Ravnica dominates the discussion of what two-colored pairs can do, I think often to the detriment of the pairing. I feel a lot of card design and discussion thereof looks at what the specific Ravnica guild did, then ends the conversation there. Boros, for example, famously suffers from this problem--the Boros guild is very aggressive, and RW cards overwhelmingly are printed to favor an aggressive style (even though both colors are also famous for Stax and Group Slug themes).

I think Golgari has been done a similar disservice--across all planes, BG tends to follow the death-rebirth theme. However, there are a number of different other combinations one could use.

Let's look at what Wizards said the underlying philosophy of each Color is (scroll down in this link to find Wizards' published Color Pie).

Green gives us:

  1. Instinct; natural decisions.
  2. Interdependence; natural survival.
  3. Naive.
  4. Growth.
  5. Nature.

Black gives us:

  1. Parasitism; Selfishness at the Expense of Others.
  2. Amorality; Selfishness above all else.
  3. Selfishness.
  4. Omnipotence.
  5. Paranoia.

Normally, Wizards combines the Parasitism of Black with Green's Nature fixation, giving us a cycle of Natural growth born from Parasitism on the dead. But think of what else we could do?

Amorality combined with Instinct? That gives us hunters like the corrupted Garruk--someone who only seeks to destroy others thus prove himself the strongest.

Paranoia and Growth? Regenerate is a mechanic that fits this bill pretty well--after all, Regenerate is predicated on being paranoid your creature is going to die, thus you need to take the preemptive step of activating the regenerative ability, preparing to regrow it rather than have it be killed.

Growth, Omnipotence, and Paranoia? You could probably make a new mechanic that is akin to Monstrosity, but has a downside Black-inspired downside.

There's a lot of design space out there to explore with the color pairing; Wizards, however, tends to play it very safe when printing new multicolored cards.

May 11, 2020 10:46 a.m.

Caerwyn says... #5

This thread was moved to a more appropriate forum (auto-generated comment)

May 11, 2020 10:47 a.m.

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