Editing Magic: The Gathering (section)

==Colors of Magic==
[[Image:Magic Card Back.jpg|thumb|The back of a Magic card. It features the trademarked pentagram of the colors. The pentagram is set up in such a way that colors that have parts of their philosophies in common ('ally colors') are adjacent to each other, whereas colors that oppose each other ('enemy colors') are positioned opposite of each other.]]
As well as having different types of cards, the game of Magic has five different colors to choose from when building a deck. It is important to have the appropriate type of land for the color of magic that you are playing with, since no basic land except a mountain can produce red mana, which is needed to play red spells. Certain effects are associated with certain colors, and only rarely if ever appear in the others -  this is to ensure that the colors feel different to play, and that there is a point of having different colors in the first place. For a more thorough examination of the colors of ''Magic'' and their relationships with each other see [[Color Pie]].

*'''White''' - This is the mostly [[Paladin|goody-two-shoes]] or zealously genocidal, censorious and totalitarian (be it communist, or possibly other types of extreme) of the color pie, white often prevents damage to creatures and restore life to players. It excels with instant, sorceries, and enchantments that get rid off opposing creatures, with one of their main schticks being that they remove creatures from the game rather than sending them to the graveyard. They also have a tendency to have powerful creature-enchantments to buff their creatures or prevent their opponents' creatures from attacking or blocking. It is most notable for having the most non-damage boardwipes in the game. Among its older cards are cards that create life-gain win conditions.  It has a general philosophy of having a large amount of small creatures instead of a few big ones. Fitting this, White contains most of the cards that interact positively with equipment, generally by tutoring it. White embodies law, order, community, healing, and light. White is the color most like and yet completely different from Black, both being absolute for entirely different reasons. The symbol for White is a sun. The white lands are plains. White's characters are either heroic and otherwise benevolent individuals such as [[Ajani Goldmane]], [[Elspeth Tirel]] and Commodore Guff, or fanatical assholes like Konda and [[Elesh Norn]]. 

*'''Blue''' - Blue is the color of logic, thought, observation, prescience, and arcane magic. It is the best color at things like countermagic, drawing cards, and [[Just As Planned|using minor trickery to be a general pain in the butt]]. These things make blue the most effective color when used on its own, and the most hated by other players because blue played right will keep them from doing anything with their counter cards and will never run out of them, and blue players have a tendency to complain when WotC tries to do something to balance the counter spells. Thankfully, blue's creatures tend to the least effective at killing the opponent, in terms of strength and abilities, and blue also lacks the ability to deal with things if it can't counter them. Of course, Blue makes up for that by having the most cards that allow you take control of an opponent's creature (All the colors have some, having the most in the following order: Blue, Red, Black, Green, and White with exactly 1). Blue has many cards that interact with artifacts, and this combines with Blue's weak (at least combat-wise) creatures to encourage it to use artifact creatures, which generally focus on combat. Blue is generally the opposite of Red, similar to reason and emotion, and likewise have elements of each other. Thus, the two will generally make the most scientific and steampunk decks when put together. Blue concerns itself with such things as logic, water, science, knowledge, divination, time, and air. The Blue symbol is a drop of water. The Blue lands are islands. Blue's most foremost Planeswalkers include [[Jace Beleren]], [[Tezzeret]] and [[Bo Levar]].

*'''Black''' - Black is the more diabolical of the colors, in brooding desire for any of the following, not necessarily exclusive of each other: independence in an oppressive world, inordinate wealth, immortality, godhood, control of others, vengeance, veneration of evil, world conquest, by any means. It is the color of self-interest, individuality, moral relativism, and devil's bargains. It often has the ability to emulate other colors to a lesser degree... for a cost. The more powerful black creatures sometimes turn on their player. It also contains lots of abilities that require sacrificing creatures, forcing the opponent to sacrifice creatures, killing opposing creatures, and the best discard abilities. As an inherently materialistic color, Black lacks any significant artifact or enchantment kill. Black contains such things as sickness, destruction, necromancy, death, murder, blood rituals, assassination, crime, torture, darkness, and [[FATAL|corruption]]. A skull is the symbol for Black. The black lands are swamps. Black is the color most like and yet completely different from White, both being absolute for entirely different reasons. Fitting this, Black and White have many cards that are mirrors of each other, starting from the original set's Black Knight and White Knight. Black has spawned many infamous Planeswalkers such as Leshrac, the Walker of the Night; Tevesh Szat, the Doom of Fools; [[Liliana Vess]] and [[Nicol Bolas]] (well he's actually multi-colored, but the center of his shard is black), the Eternal Serpent and (ex)Lord of the Blind Eternities. In addition, it has a few heroic characters such as [[Sorin Markov]] and Toshiro Umezawa, proving that it is not inherently evil.

*'''Red''' - Red is the color of passion, freedom, and [[rage]], though that last bit's mostly because Magic as a game revolves around conflict. Red contains some of the more self-destructive cards of the colors, but the power of the effects usually make up for it. Many of Red's spells focus on directly damaging the opponent, which players call "burn spells", and in fact it's completely viable to run a Red deck with no creatures and just burn spells. Red is generally the opposite of Blue, similar to emotion and reason, and likewise have elements of each other. Thus, the two generally make the most scientific decks and steampunk decks when put together. The domain of Red is such things as speed, destruction, fire, angry mobs (green and white have a fair and smaller share of these), lightning, dragons, and recklessness. Red's symbol is a ball of fire. The red land is a mountain. Some of Red's most famous Planeswalkers are [[Jaya Ballard]], Lord Windgrace of Urborg and [[Chandra Nalaar]].

*'''Green''' - Green associates itself with [[Druid|nature and the cycle of life]], growth, exploration of the wilds, and brute strength. It usually has the most powerful and straight-forward creatures, which also have the best ratio of power and toughness for the mana cost. Green contains cards that can increase the strength of your creatures, cards that give you more mana more quickly and give you access to the other colors of mana, and cards that let you create and profit from large numbers of small creatures or small numbers of very large creatures. Green is the least common color run on its own because it needs to use small easy to kill creatures to [[get shit done]], but is commonly put in other decks as a side color. The Green symbol is a tree. The green land is a forest. Green's famous Planeswalkers include [[Garruk Wildspeaker]], [[Nissa Revane]], Kristina of the Woods and [[Freyalise]].

*'''Colorless''' - Colourless (Grey) mana is composed of two things: non magic-artificial creations including some robots and laser cannons, and [[Eldrazi|Cthuhloids]].  Mana of any color can be used for colorless mana costs. This is useful to ease the stress of colored mana requirements in multicoloured decks, and making cards that can fit in decks of any color - Artifacts and Artifact Creatures are usually colorless. Instant and Sorcery effects are virtually never colorless with only 8 printed, all from [[Zendikar]].  Artificial creatures cannot become Planeswalkers (but this does not stop them from trying to become them, as Memnarch has demonstrated), but they can inherit or obtain the power somehow: [[Karn]] the silver [[golem]] is as far as known the only one to have done so. The only other colorless planeswalker is [[Ugin]], who's basically Magic Buddha because he's so enlightened that he's transcended the five colors.
**As of Battle for Zendikar, colorless has its own land type, which is Waste, and its own symbol, which is a grey four-pointed star. This specifically-colorless mana is used primarily for the [[Eldrazi]], which are the freaky babies of Cthulu and Galactus. The Eldrazi are so ancient that they precede the planes and color itself. Yeah, that's right, they're older than even the game and fluff itself can even comprehend.

It is possible to build decks that are a mix of more than one color - in fact there are many spells that require anything from two to five different colors of mana to play. It is however not advisable to have more than 3 colours in a single deck unless you know what you are doing, since it'll begin to become a problem to get access to all the different colours of mana you need during play. This means you'll be left with a hand full of cards you can't play, and a table full of lands you have no use for - not a good position to be in. The full extreme of this is to have all five colors in your deck, which is something referred to as [[WUBRG]] (after the letters for each color). Unless (and even when) you know exactly what you're doing and built a deck around the concept, WUBRG is very difficult to play.