The Color Pie Identity Project – Red

Editor’s Note: WordPress doesn’t like me. The fact that each time I try and write on here, it says my blog is being serviced. That and I spent all weekend fixing everyone else’s computer, this didn’t get posted until way later. It’s ok.

Part 4 of our 5 part series. Today’s color is all about how you feel on the inside, and wearing that on your sleeve.

Before Wizards started redistributing the abilities and philosophies of the colors, Red was see as two things, the “goblin” color and the one with the all the direct damage. Sure, Tempest block had “Sligh,” but that’s all the that color was seen as: quick starts and burn. After a while, it laid dormant until Onslaught block came around, where it demonstrated Red’s goblins, and burn.

But as a new tribal block looms over us in a few weeks, times have changed, kinda. While Red still has goblins and burn, in that Onslaught block, it’s identity started to be formed by Wizards. And that goblin tribe used some of Red’s “new” identity to create that explosive deck. Let’s take a look at what I mean.

Philosophy/Flavor

Red is the color of emotion. Well, emotion as in terms of, “You killed my father, prepare to die,” not the “That’s the saddest movie I’ve ever seen.” If you upset Red, Red rolls up its sleeves and want to “talk” to you outside. Luckily, Red has the ability to back up it’s big mouth. With burn and small, but effective creatures, Red can kill you quickly, and that’s just the way it likes it. It really puts new meaning into “Red under the collar.”

Quick aside: There’s some talk about Red’s emotion and Green’s instinct and how they’re different. With Green, instinct tells the creature to eat, to hunt, to protect its young, etc. In Red, it has the next level of consciousness where instead of following the “Flight or Fight” instinct, it’s a “Revenge” emotion. We can talk psychologically about this all day long, but in terms of Magic they’re close, but not the same, for flavor.

Red’s motto is typically, “Why do something tomorrow when you can do it today?” While that seems like a smart way to do things (Not procrastinating until the final day to write a paper, or a blog post per say), Red like to take things to extremes. By sacrificing something for the future, you can get it today. If I sacrifice this land, I can get more mana right now.

But Red doesn’t like destroying its own stuff, Red just likes destroying anything and everything physical. From lands, to artifacts, to creatures, it wants to smash; It’s fun, and exciting! But with the magical word, Red likes to mess around in a chaotic effect. Like Puck, it messes around with random effects, and not just opponent’s spells either, but with alot of spells.

How it deals with:

I’ll make these so that Red Goblins can understand them.

Artifacts – Smash!

Creatures – Burn!

Enchantments – Can’t touch this!

Lands –Destroy!

One of the interesting things that Red can deal with creatures is by temporary taking control of creatures (something that used to be Blue). Red uses emotion as a way of taking them over (Either by making them mad, or by frightening them.)

Relationship with:

Black – Black likes to get things done, but like everyone else sees Black as, goes too far. It uses the dark magic instead of trying to use an emotional appeal to convince things to do what it wants.

Blue – Blue thinks too much, spending too much time looking over all the details and not acting. Red thinks Blue needs to stop thinking too much with its head and more with its gut.

Green – Both of these colors like to smash with creatures, but Green doesn’t get mad enough for Red. Sure, they both like to destroy some of the same things, but not for the same reasons.

White – White sets too many rules, and not anyone have any fun. Red likes to have fun, with the chaos and the burning. White is like the mother, trying to control all her children.

Cards that demonstrate the color:

Creature – Skirk Prospector. This is the card that really fueled Goblin decks, but it shows Red perfectly. Who cares about tomorrow when you can win today.

Enchantment – Grip of Chaos for making everything random. It works so well, Wizards had to errata it before it came out otherwise the randomness wouldn’t stop.

Instant – Shock. It’s good.

Sorcery – Wildfire for destroying stuff and doing damage. It’s everything Red wants to be and is.

Life happens. I can’t sit on my computer every minute of the day. I have to sit at everyone else’s and fix their’s. Thanks for understanding.