9/13/13 Episode 52: Black

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater

Okay, I’m pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means! It’s time for another Drive to Work.

Okay. So today is Part III of a meta-series I’ve been doing for a while, on color. So the first time I did white, the second time I did blue, so if you know your color pie, today I am doing black.

Now black, I believe is somewhat misunderstood. So my goal today is to sort of talk about what’s black up to? Why does black do what black does?

Okay. So let’s—let’s get to the core of what black believes. So when you dig down deep, black believes that in life, nobody is looking out for you. Except you. That—you know, it is your responsibility to be the primary person that looks out for yourself. And that black just believes you can’t rely on anybody else. Nobody else has your back completely. Because in the end, they have—they’re going to care about themselves more than you care about you.

Which—which—black feels is fine. But that’s the way life should work. Each person is responsible for looking out for themselves. In that—look, that there’s nothing wrong with that. That that’s just the way life is. The way black sees it, the other colors all want to change the world and make the world somehow something different than what it is.

And black is like “I just recognize the world for what it is. Nobody—you—you have to look out for yourself, because it is nobody other—nobody else’s job but your own to look out for yourself. And like—look. You need to do that. You need to be the one that prioritizes yourself.

Now, part of that black says is, look. Black doesn’t put any limitations. Black is like “Life is hard. Life is really hard.” So any resource you have available, anything you are able to do, that is fair game. And anything somebody else can do is fair game. And—and—I think that black’s—black’s sort of opinion is, look. You know. It’s a rough, rough world. You know. Black—black doesn’t sugar-coat it. You know. It’s a rough world, you’ve got to look out for yourself, and you do what you can do.

Okay, so let’s—let’s look a little bit at what—how that plays out in black. So black says, “Okay. Whatever resource I have available, I will use. That I don’t have the luxury…” Black is like, “I don’t have the luxury of saying, “That’s off-limits.” You know. Now black for example looks at his enemies. You know. Black looks at white. And white, holy moly does white like to make up extra rules. You know. Like, life is hard. You know. You don’t need a set of laws telling you what you can do or can’t do. You don’t need a, you know, set of moralistic rules of what you can and can’t do.

And that black looks at that and just thinks white’s a fool. You know. Why—why would you make extra—life is so hard, why would you make extra restrictions for yourself? You know. And black looks at sort of all white’s rule-making and sees it as white just making thing to make them.

Like, you know, for example. Black’s take on morality is there is no such thing. Now remember, black is not immoral, black is amoral. Black does not believe in morality. Black is like, “Look, all you are doing is making your life difficult by making extra rules that there’s no proof exist.” And that black is like, “Look, you can say this is right or this is wrong, but really all you’re doing is just complicating life for yourself.” And black is like, “I—look. There are—there is no morality. You do what you need to do to survive.”

And that because of that, black is more than willing to, like—like for example. Black looks at death. And black says, “Death is a very powerful tool. Why would you not make use of that? Because it’s wrong? Like, what’s wrong mean?” You know. This is white—like, white realizes that if it just let everybody make use of these tools, you’d have a problem. So it outlaws them. Well, whatever. You know?

Black’s like “I don’t want to play by white’s rules. Fine. White make life harder for yourself. I’m not doing that.” And black—black says, “Look. There’s nothing wrong with making use of death.” Now the funny thing is green, green has a major problem with it. Green is like “Look, there is a natural order, do not disrupt the natural order.”

And black just—black doesn’t understand green at all. Black—black is like “Okay, green, explain this to me, green. Okay. So a cheetah hunts down a gazelle and eats it, that’s—that’s nature. But a man, you know, kills another man because he needs his stuff, and that—oh, that’s disrupting nature. How is that not nature? How is man killing man any different from cheetah killing antelope? They’re the same.” You know.

And black has great respect for the animal kingdom in the sense that “Look, animals get it, they look out for themselves.” You know. If you’re able to kill other things and eat it, then guess what? You’re top of the pile. If they can eat you, then you’re not.” And black is like “Hey, that’s fair.” Black feels it’s really fair. You know.

And so for example. It likes using death. It thinks death is a fine tool. Which it uses. You know. And it thinks the other colors are kind of idiots for not using it. Especially, you know, looking at white and green, it’s like, “Hey.” You know. “If something’s in my way, and a simple spell will just remove it, why would you not make use of that?” You know.

Black—black is very practical. You know. I think that black is—black is the one that says, “Look. Any advantage I have has to be used. Because if I don’t use it, someone else will use it. If I don’t take advantage of something, if I go ‘I’m not willing to use a death spell,” or something, then someone else will just use a death spell on it. And black is—is—(???), it’s just being practical. It’s like, “Look. I need to survive, these are the tools, I’m going to use the tools available to me.” You know.

So let’s look at discard. Discard’s the same kind of thing. So black—here’s black’s edge. Black’s like, “Okay. Let me understand this correctly. We are two planeswalkers fighting each other. And the major weapon, our weapons, are our minds.” You know. “Like if—for example, if two people were sword-fighting, would it be wrong for me to try to get the sword out of my opponent’s hand? Like is that somehow unfair in the sword fight? No! I’m having a—I’m having a battle, duel against another planeswalker, and his greatest weapon is his mind. That is his weapon. Well of course I’m going to go after it. I want to knock the sword out of his hand, you know, proverbially. Yeah I’m going to mess up his mind if I can. Because we’re fighting and it’s his weapon! Why wouldn’t I do that?” You know. 

And when you—like I said. Once again, it’s all about—other colors are sort of like “Well, that’s wrong.” “That’s wrong? No. That is not wrong, I’m trying to win, winning is correct. Because if I don’t win, someone just beat me. Listen. Someone else is going to take—take it easy on me? No. You know, I’m not going to be the fool that says, ‘Well, I’m going to follow by the rules,’ when some people aren’t going to follow by the rules. That’s just idiotic. Why would you—why would you follow rules when not everybody’s going to follow those rules?” You know.

And so black’s big thing is “Look, there are no rules. This whole idea that there are rules is the weak. The weak make rules to protect themselves.” You know. And, by the way, that drives black batty, is that white will do things that are not in its own best interest. That white will do things for the group and not itself. And black is—literally, black’s like “What are you doing?” You know.

Literally, by the way. Black thinks white is an idiot. Because black doesn’t understand white’s motivations at all. You know. As far—white is—is coddling the weak. Why would you coddle the weak? What—how is that possibly good for society at all? Why do you want the weak to survive? Let the strong survive. You know. The strong survive, then that’s who survives, we have better society if the strong survive. Okay. So black—it’ll do creature kill because it’s fine using death. No problem using death. And it uses discard because it’s smart! Go after the wizard’s brain.

Okay, so let’s look at some other stuff that black does. Okay, so. Not only is black willing to use death as a tool to kill things, but it also doesn’t think of death in the same way the other colors do. Other colors are like “Oh, it’s dead. Gone.” Black’s like “No no no no no no no. If you want to survive and do the best you can, you have to make use of every resource available. The dead are an excellent resource.”

In fact, black believes that one of the biggest problems with most of the colors is, it like just—it—maybe think of it this way. Is that there is good recycling to be done. That the other cards kind of just take things and toss them out. Black’s like “No no no. That’s still good.” And so black looks at death as just another resource. Why wouldn’t it make use of that resource? You know.

And I think—I think that black enjoys going through resources that are rich, that are—other people somehow believe that are unusable or won’t use. Because black is like “What? More for me. Oh, no one else wants to make use of the dead? Hey, more for me.” You know. And black is willing to raise the dead, animate the dead—like, the dead are a resource to black. 

And not making use of that resource is literally, you know, it’s like—(???) for black. Black is like, “Okay. We’re going to have a fight. And there is a weapon sitting there on the table. My opponent goes, ‘oh, no no. I won’t use that weapon.’ And I’m like “Well, I’ll use the weapon. Why wouldn’t…” You know. “What’s—why wouldn’t you use the weapon sitting in front of you? It’s right there.” Death’s a powerful tool. Why wouldn’t you use that?

And I think black has really come to embrace death because it is so powerful and so potent and no one else seems to want to touch it. I mean, green will touch it a little bit, white will touch it a little bit, but really it’s not something that other colors seem to be willing—you know, black’s like “Whatever. I’m more than willing to use it.”

Now likewise, the other thing black’s willing to do is, black says “I understand that in order to get things, sometimes there are costs associated with them.” For example, for example, let’s take card drawing. Blue gets to draw cards. Well, black—black hasn’t spent the time and energy, has focused there, so he knows he can’t just draw cards. But he’s figured out a spell where he can pay life to draw cards. 

Now, some people go “Well, that’s just worse than blue.” But black’s like “No no no no. That’s important. You know what? I understand—I’m willing to pay extra for it. Because I value it. You know what I’m saying? Because I—yeah, I spent some energy learning other things, and so I’m not focusing like blue is, so I don’t get to draw cards as well as blue. But you know what? I’ll pay a life to draw cards. That’s okay.” You know, black’s like “I—I’m willing to pay life to get creatures or pay additional costs to get things.” Because black’s like, “That’s the cost. That’s what it costs. Other people aren’t willing…”

As far as black is concerned, the other colors just aren’t realistic. You know. It’s kind of like, for example, you go—you go to the store. And you get some food. Okay? And, you know, the food you want and you need is just—“Oh, last week it cost four bucks, but now it costs five bucks.” And the other colors are like “Oh, five bucks, I’m not paying five bucks.” Black’s like “Yeah, I need it, I’ll pay five bucks.” You know. Black understands the value that you have to pay something to get something.

And black has no qualms with that. A lot of other colors are like “Well, I don’t want to—I don’t want to do spells if I have to pay something extra to get the spell.” And black is like, “No problem. You want a little bit of my life? Fine.” You know. And then black looks at what he’s getting. Black is careful, black doesn’t do it willy-nilly, but black is like “If I need something, I will get it.” You know.

 

And that—for example, black might get a creature that can’t block, because black’s like “Whatever, I’m not gonna block with it anyway. I’m going to attack with it. So I don’t care.” You know. Not a negative for me, I’m going to attack.” Or “Look, I know if I buy this I gotta attack with it because I’m not blocking with it. Fine. I got it.” You know. 

And then black is the one—black is the one most willing to wheel and deal, and to take what—whatever actually comes with it. Because black—black’s whole take on—black’s entire sort of attitude is that—be realistic. You have to look at what’s available, and you have to understand your own restrictions. You know. Now, part of that is black saying, you know, don’t add restrictions you don’t have, but once you understand your restrictions—look, if you need to pay something extra to get something, do it. You know.

And one of the things you’ll notice is, black can—black more than most colors can do most things, because if it’s willing to pay something extra for it, it can get them. You know. Now, I mean, there’s a few things black doesn’t do, we’ll get to that, but, you know, black is willing to take the efforts and the steps it needs to.

Okay. Now—close to this is what I call the “deal with the devil” cards. Black has a lot of these too. So what a deal with the devil card is, is it says, “Okay. I will take this card, knowing that there is a negative down the road. Aware that that’s going to happen, but I’m like ‘You know what? I—either I believe I can make use of it before I have to pay the cost, or—you know what? It’s good enough that I’m willing to pay the cost.” 

Now the interesting thing is, red and black both have these kind of spells, but philosophically they come from a completely different place. Red’s attitude is, you know, “Good thing up front? Bad thing down the road? Whatever. Good thing up front. Yay. Focus on my good thing up front.” Black is like “No no no. I understand. I understand.” Black—black does not walk in blindly. Red kind of walks in blindly. Red’s kind of like “Whatever, it’s not going to matter.”

You know. I used  to—I joke that red is not kind to future red. Red does not think about future red. You know. You know, future red wants to go, “Past red!” (laughs) But black—black thinks ahead. Black gets it. When—when there’s a repercussion to pay, black understands. And a lot of what I call the, you know, the deal with the devil is, black has a lot of enchantments and different things where like, I really get a good bonus up front. I really get something positive, and it’s kind of like “Well, this thing could burn you down the road.” And black is like, “I’m willing to take the risk.”

In fact, let’s talk about risk for a second. Because that’s a big part of black. Black understands that there’s—there are other colors that are like “Well, I don’t want to take excess risk.” And black is like “No no no no. No. Not taking excess risks, that’s the riskiest thing you can do. You know, I’ll take some risks. If I have a spell that’s going to help me most of the time, look, I can take that risk. I do it. Because, you know what? That gives me extra power, and that power’s going to win.”

So let’s talk power for a second, because power’s very much part of black. So each of the colors, I go “What does it want?” You know what black wants? Black wants power. So why? Why does black want power? Because black wants to do what it wants to do. Black wants no restrictions—black wants to live a life in which nothing is cut off from him. That it has the ability to do anything it wants. And the reason power’s such an important commodity is, “Hey. If you’re looking out for yourself, well, the number one factor to see how you’re doing is what power you have access to.” You know, the more power you have, the more you are able to do, and the more that you are able to get.

And so black says, “Look. If my goal is to look out for myself, I want the commodity that’s the most important commodity.” You know. And that is power to black. You know. Other colors see it differently, but black is like, you know, “Hey, it’s awesome to know things,” I think he respects that blue respects knowledge. But “Hey, what—what good is knowledge if you can’t use it effectively?”

So let’s talk its allies real quick. So the reason black loves blue is black appreciates blue’s love of knowledge. Black realizes that knowledge is very important. Another reason that black will pay life for drawing cards. Black understands the power of knowledge.

Now, once again, blue is in it for the knowledge. Black’s in it for the power that comes from knowledge. You know. And black looks at blue and he really respects—black likes the sneakiness of blue, he likes the underhandedness of blue. You know, he definitely likes how blue thinks a little bit outside the box, and that it’s willing to do things. You know. Black and blue are both willing to go after the mind. Because those are the two colors that get like, “That’s it, that’s the weapon.”

Oh, here’s another interesting difference between black and blue. Let’s look at milling. So both of them go after the opponent’s mind. But blue says, “Okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m just going to slowly wipe away your mind. So—it’s not painful, it just—you’re going to start forgetting things. And eventually I’ll defeat you, because I’ll mill away your library, and before you know it, oh, you don’t remember anything. You can’t fight me. You don’t—you don’t even know any spells.”

Black is like “No no no.” You know. He respects blue. But he’s like, “You are doing this wrong.” Black goes in, (click) plucks out the things that it needs to pluck out. “Oh, what’s causing me problems? (Pop) That spell’s causing me problems. Well, sorry, you don’t know that spell anymore.” And that’s—black tends to go after pinpoint stuff. You know. You know, extracts and lobotomies and that—black’s—the way black deals with the opponent’s sort of memory, if you will, is it says, you know, “I’m going to—like, a surgeon, go in and cut out the parts that are problematic.” You know. 

Where blue is a little more like—blue is a little less… savage. You know. Black is sort of like, ruthless. Blue is a little less ruthless. Blue’s kind of like, “I’ll make you forget.” And black is like, “Yeah, I’ll make you forget that.”

So black and red—what black sees in red is red is the one other color that gets like looking out for oneself. You know. That red understands that like, “Hey, hey, I gotta look out for me.” Now, red’s a little impulsive for black’s tastes, red’s a little… you know, red doesn’t think things through, which black doesn’t like, black thinks things through. I mean, black agrees with blue that like, “Look. You gotta—you gotta reason out what’s going on here.” You know.

Now black is much more willing to take risks. You know. Like, red takes risks. Black respects that, although black’s—black’s a little more careful when it is risk-taking than red. Red is kind of… red takes risks not because it’s thinking through the risks, but just, you know, it just takes them when it sees them, and it—red doesn’t think the ramifications where black does think the ramifications.

Okay. What other abilities does black do? The Diabolic Tutor. Or the Demonic Tutor for the old timers.  Tutoring. So, blue is—blue values knowledge, and so blue has a lot of tutoring and a lot of searching for things. Black is a little more specific. Black’s kind of like, “Okay, I’m willing to spend the extra—the extra mana or whatever because I want what I want.”

In fact, that’s a big—a big theme of black. Black’s high-maintenance. Black wants what it wants. You know. And black has thought long and hard about what it needs. You know. For example, this is—black is the one that sort of says, “Okay. Let me figure out what is the easiest route to victory.” You know. Now, the other colors will take other things into account. Like, you know, white will figure out the best route to victory, but, you know, not killing innocents, and, you know, white has a lot of other rules that it applies to itself.

And black’s like “No no no no. What is the easiest way to win? What…” You know, black is not looking for anything roundabout. Black is like “Literally, I want to defeat my opponent. Let’s cut to the heart. What’s the best way to win?” And so black, part of that is, black’s, tutoring is, “Why look for anything—why would I not get the best? Why am I looking for anything other than the absolute spell I need?”

And so black doesn’t do tons of tutoring. It does the one thing. It gets what it needs. And if it needs extra mana for that, fine, fine, fine. Whatever. That’s better for me.” You know. Blue understands that there—that there’s incremental value of knowledge, of that you don’t have raise your knowledge 100%, that you just keep (???) five percent, that’s good. You know. And blue understands that, like, all knowledge rises—all tides rise the boats. And that hey, if you keep getting little bits of knowledge here and there, the net gain is good. Where black is kind of like “If I’m going to do it, I’m going to go get what I need.”

Okay, other things is—okay, so black—not only is black willing to make sacrifices itself, it’s more than happy to sacrifice others. That’s another big thing of black, which is black feels like “Look. Part of my resource is everything else. So if I get people who are willing to come to my aid, well, they are fools.” You know what I mean. “They’re—they too are a resource.”

You know, like some colors might say “Oh, well if I get things to come help me then I—I owe it to those creatures to help them.” And black’s like “No. If I get these things to come to my aid, they are yet another resource. Everything is a resource.”

That—that might even be black’s mantra. Everything is a resource. Everything—anything that can be used should be used. And by black will be used. And so one of the things black will do is, it will have creatures that are like “Well, hey, if I need to get better, I might need to eat another creature. Well, there’s other creatures.” 

And mechanically one of the ways we separate black from white, by the way, is that white is more likely to sacrifice itself to help everybody else. Where black will sacrifice everybody else to help itself. So for example, in white you might do like a martyr, which is “sacrifice myself, all the other creatures get +1/+1. Ooh, that’s very white.” White is like “I will sacrifice myself for the good of the group.

And black is just the opposite. Like, “I’ll sacrifice all those other creatures so I’m way bigger.” You know. And that black’s creatures have that same sort of selfish quality. And the funny thing is, I think black kind of looks at the qualities that it likes in itself in creatures. It’s sort of like, “Hey, I want creatures that will look out for themselves.” You know. “I want creatures that will do whatever it takes to win.” You know. “I don’t want creatures that come with restrictions. I don’t want creatures that come with limitations in what they’re willing to do. (???) willing to do. You know, I’ll pay a cost for it, I’ll let them eat other things, whatever, they’re going to do what they’re going to do. You know.” And black is fine with that. Black has no qualms.

Like I said. Black definitely has this quality of the reality of the situation, which is “Look. Anything to win. Anything to win.” You know. Other colors say they’ll do whatever it takes to win, but they don’t mean it. Black actually—black means it. Black will in fact do what it takes to win.

Okay. Other things. So –N/-N effects. So N being a number. Like, you know, -1/-1, -2/-2. So one of the things is, black is willing to use death as a tool. And another tool that black has found very useful is disease. Disease is powerful. Disease is a very powerful tool. And black’s kind of attitude is “Oh, okay, hey, sure. You know. If—if disease will help me win…” And so black definitely has spells that weaken other things. Fatigue them and hurt them, and that—black has no qualms. 

Like I said. Nothing—the thing about black which is interesting is, like, every other color there’s a line that it draws in the sand. It is willing to do what it needs, but there’s some—there’s some line it won’t pass. You know. There’s some—there’s just something that says, “Okay, not gonna do that.” You know. And that black doesn’t have any of that—that limitation. Black is sort of like, “I’ll do what it takes to win, but—no buts, actually. I’ll do what it takes to win.”

And like disease is just yet another tool. Black’s willing to use disease. The reason that infect was—went in black, you know, one of the first two colors to get it is, poison is right up black’s alley. You know. It’s like, “I make a creature, you get in my way, I shrink your creature, I hit you, I poison you.” Black’s like “All good.” You know. Black gets it. Black has no problem using poison. 

Or even forget the Magic poison, just using poison in general. You know. Black’s sort of like “Oh yeah. I’ll poison you. I’ll…” You know. There’s nothing too underhanded for black. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to win. And if that involves poisoning your food or inflicting you with a disease, or… or whatever. Or raising your loved one to attack you—I don’t care. It’s all good.” All good to black.

Next. Let’s talk a little bit about black’s creature keywords. So black has intimidate—once upon it had fear, now it’s intimidate—black is more than willing—in fact, one of the things black looks for in its creatures is, black likes—I talk about how we in design like to have resonance. Black kind of likes that too. Black likes creatures that people are already afraid of. You know. 

And one of the reasons black really likes, you know, spiders and rats and snakes and bats and zombies and vampires is people are afraid of those things. Like for example, if I sent rats after you, well there’s a good chance that you’re already afraid of rats. Like, think about that. It’s like I send you a creature, and just the mere appearance of the creature already puts you at a disadvantage. Awesome.

So black definitely likes to take advantage. Like, black recognizes that a lot of people don’t like the creepy-crawly things, and so black just embraces that. Black’s like, “Oh, awesome. I’ll—I’m more than willing to take on all that stuff. The thing—the things that naturally scare you, hey, awesome, better for me, and black—black—that’s why black’s the one that does all those things, like the other colors are like “I don’t—I don’t know.” You know. “It seems creepy to me.” And, you know, where black’s like “Awesome, creepy’s good.”

So intimidate—right up black’s alley. Right? “I want creatures that scare you. Because I have a creature that you’re not willing to block, because it’s so frightening that you’re like ‘I’m not blocking it.” Awesome. Then I get to hit you. That’s a good thing to have.”

So deathtouch is—I mean, black is like, “I make use of death? Why wouldn’t my creatures make use of death? Death is good.” And that, you know, it’s more than happy to get creatures that are venomous or creatures that—you know, whatever, whatever. The more dangerous my creatures are, the better they are as creatures. And the—just, the more awesome. You know. Black—black has no problems just, you know, digging deep for its creatures to find things that are truly, you know, nightmare-inducing.

In fact, speaking of which, black also understands the value of psychological—psychological attack. You know. That black is the color that says, “I’m going to fight you in every—every avenue I can fight you. I will fight you physically, I will fight you mentally, I will fight you spiritually, I will fight you psychologically.” Whatever it takes to beat you, I am willing to do it.

And black will exploit psychological weakness. In fact, black will exploit any weakness. Black—black’s basic thing is “If I’m trying to beat you, and I find a weakness, you know, you know, if—for example, if I’m going to fight you, and I realize that you’re weak in the leg, I’ll go after the leg. Well why wouldn’t I do that if that’s a psychological fear? That’s—whatever. Whatever it is that is your weak link, I will go after that weak link. Because that is how I win. That is how I defeat you.”

Another part—regenerate is part of black, because black definitely very much embraces the—the space between death and life. Where, you know—now, be aware that regeneration in black is different than regeneration in green from a flavor standpoint. Regeneration in green is much like what I call a “Wolverine’s healing…” like, “You damaged me, but I heal so fast that I don’t die.”

Where black is like “No, no, I die, I just come back to life again.” You know, the regeneration means—this is why skeletons in black have regeneration. Like, “Kill them—oop, they come back.” Because they were dead already. What are you going to do to them, not much. They’ll come back together again.” 

And that regeneration is definitely like, black kind of like “Yeah, I will—I—I—I understand death.” Black has a good relationship with death. Black’s like, “Look, I will find creatures that kind of resist death. I’ll use the undead, I’ll use—you know, zombies, ghouls, vampires—whatever. All—all undead, good to black. Black likes it.”

Finally haste, which is one added more recently—I mean not more recently. A couple years. I mean, five years ago. Seven years ago. Actually, seven years ago.  Haste in black is that—while, while zombies are, you know, historically slow, although I guess there are—there are faster zombies these days.

Not that I’m a fan of fast zombies, by the way. As a quick side—quick side note, I—I think one of the most awesome things about zombies, and I think this was said by Robert Kirkman, the guy who does Walking Dead, who’s a—I’m a big fan of his writing. That what makes—the reasons zombies want to be slow is, one of the cool things about a zombie is, a zombie is a creature that the average person can go “Yeah, I can beat up a zombie. They’re slow, they’re dumb.” You know, you could—some element of them is already damaged. You know.

And what makes zombies scary isn’t that they’re fast, it’s that there’s just an endless number of them. It’s like “Yeah, yeah—I can take—I can take a zombie or two zombies or five zombies or…” But what number? At some point—at one point you can’t take them all. You will just get tired. That even the greatest fighter wears down eventually, and that zombies keep coming. You know. But that—I think part of that is the slow plodding thing is an important part of the zombies. 

Now that said, I don’t necessarily believe there needs to be fast zombies. But I do believe haste is important in that black has a lot of fast scary things. Black has a lot of creatures that like—you know, and another thing is, part of what haste represents is—so, we have summoning sickness. And the idea is, “I summon something to help me.” And there’s a little bit of disorientation is the idea. They’re like “Wow, where am I?” But black things—they’re so one-minded in their—in their sort of, just, you know, meanness that “Whatever. Oh, there’s things that…” You know. “Where am I? There’s things to eat? Ahh, I’m going to eat them.” You know. Black—black—black and red are willing to get creatures that are sort of so mindful in what they’re doing that they don’t—they don’t even notice they’re somewhere else. They’re just like, “Attack!” You know. And it’s a new place. “Aah!” Whatever. “Attack!” 

Another thing that black does is black is very good at—at taking other people’s things—like, Drain Life is what I’m thinking of. You know. Black is kind of like “Well, why just life gain? Why just gain life? You know what—you know what’s even better? Taking somebody else’s life.”

And then Drain Life—and lifelink, by the way, I forgot lifelink, speaking of creature abilities. Lifelink, by the way, started as essentially “Drain Life on a creature.” El-Hajjâj in Arabian Nights. And it was just like “Hey, just like Drain Life drains your opponent’s life, hey, this creature drains your opponent’s life.”

And that is funny, because lifelink—actually in Legends was Spirit Link. A lot of people started associating the lifelink ability with white. You know, because white was the center of life. But to me, flavor-wise, like black is like—it’s just Drain Life on a creature. Like, for every damage I do, I—you know, I suck life out of you. And—anyway, that feels very black to me.

And black definitely is the color that says, you know, “I will take whatever resources I can, and you know what? Hey. Every time I take stuff from my opponent, I have more and they have less.” Now, black is not king of stealing things. Although black will steal things out of the graveyard. I think that one of the things we try to do in Magic  is differentiate things. And so that blue will still your living things, and black will more often steal your dead things.

Black has tertiary stealing, or maybe it’s even secondary. But black steals a little bit. From the living. But the fact that black’s so good at stealing the dead and black’s so good at killing things, black wants to have your stuff, kill it, steal the dead. You know, that felt like very black.

So another thing that black can do is the way that black gets extra mana is it makes its—it can get swamps, and it can make its swamps produce more black mana. And in general, by the way, one of the things that you notice is, black is the color that most uses its own—like, it has the heaviest density of its mana symbols in its costs. Green is number two.

And the idea is that black kind of likes to encourage you to play more black. That black is the color that kind of says, “Hey,” you know, that tempts you. Like, you know, the way I always joke about it is, imagine black is trying to, like, you know, pitch itself to the—to the Magic users. “Hey, Magic user, come here. Oh look, we can kill creatures easily, and oh look, we can do discard, and…” Kind of lures you with things that it can do.

And then when you’re there, it’s like “Oh, well, for just a little more black you can have a Black Knight, or you can…” You know. Like, it just sort of—it does the soft sell, and at some point you’re like, “Oh, well my swamps produce more black mana? I should just play mono-black.”

And I like to think that black has the—has the best salesmanship. That like, it slowly lures you in, and maybe makes you want to play more black. And I always consider that kind of a fun—like, that’s kind of black’s nature, that black will like lure you in with some splash, and then before you know it you’re just playing mono-black, like “How’d I get here?”

Another thing that black does a lot of is—black is not king of token-making, I mean white and green are both better at token-making, but black is king of zombie-making, and so one of the things that happens is black gets to be #3 in token-making almost exclusively because it makes zombie tokens.

And that one of the things that I enjoy is that—and I did this in Innistrad is, I love the idea of a zombie horde. I talked about this earlier in that, like—what makes a zombie a zombie is not that there’s one zombie. It’s that there’s lots of zombies. And so  we really do like black, you know, taking advantage of creating the zombie horde. And so we get black cards that allow not just to get a single zombie usually, but multiple zombies. And that’s why that, you know, we definitely make cards that keep letting you get zombies, because we want to create the zombie horde. 

Okay. Now I’m not too far from work, so one last thing I wanted to talk about black is… what black likes to think is the smear campaign of the other four colors. That the other four colors want to paint black as, like, evil incarnate. And black says, “Okay, look.”

I mean, the thing about black is, black has a lot of qualities that I think if you kind of look from—take a step back. Like saying that—look, it’s important to look out for yourself. And that’s true. That it is—it is important to be—take some responsibility for your—what you need to do and look out for yourself.

And that certain qualities of black, like for example, capitalism is a lot like—look, anybody has a chance to become—to make what they want. You know. That it’s no one—no one is restricted from the ability to do that, and that each person, it’s up to themselves to do what they can do. You know.

The—carpe diem very much has a black quality to it, which is “Hey,” you know, I mean black is very merit-based. You know, in the sense that—black says, “Look, everybody has the right to do what they’re able to do.” You know.

Now, black—black takes it to a little more extreme than some colors, but I think that it’s very easy—I mean, one of the things is that the colors each have their own philosophical angle, and it is true that white’s sort of base philosophy is the closest to what I would call, you know, human philosophy. And that, you know, white’s the color that brings up morality, and white’s the color that talks about the good of the group, and—a lot of things that like we as a society believe, and that the whole concept of good and evil are built around.

So, look, it’s very understandable that—to view black as being evil. In the sense of “Look, of the five colors, which one is most stereotypical evil?” Black. Of course. A lot of the things that we sort of judge evil to be, black defines itself by. But the thing that’s important is, black has some qualities that aren’t inherently evil.

You know, the idea of looking out for oneself is not inherently evil. You know. Now, where black gets evil is, you know, in its, amorality, in its… willingness to do what it takes, black will go places other colors won’t go, and that—you know, there lies the path of evil in a lot of ways. So it’s not that I’m saying black isn’t evil in the sense that it can’t be evil.

But I don’t think that black is defined as solely being evil. I think black is defined as doing what it takes, and some of that are doing things that are defined as evil by—you know, by humans, which of course we are.

But I do think there are positive qualities in black, that I think it’s very easy to sort of see black as just all bad. And I don’t think black is all bad at all. I think black very much has an interesting handle on responsibility and very much, you know, appreciates the idea of merit and giving people opportunities, and that—you know, that comes at a cost, but I believe that’s a—I believe that to see black as just solely evil is painting black very much in white’s portrayal of black. You know. And that I think black has some redeeming qualities to it.

Anyway, that—oh, I see by my clock that I had a little extra traffic today. So you got a—a little more on black. I—I, like I said, I love all the colors, I think each of the colors has a very interesting sort of—defense of the world. And I think black—I mean, like I said, black—black pushes things a little bit, more so than maybe I personally would.

But I mean I respect that the core of what black’s trying to do, and, you know, black is consistent. Some of the other colors are—don’t have the focus that black does, and I feel that—I do appreciate kind of the bluntness of black. That I do know that when I—I, you know, roleplay, and I get to play black, that it’s fun. That black—black has a very clear mindset. Which is interesting to roleplay.

So anyway, that is all we have for today. So thank you for joining me on my talk on black. And look forward in the future for talks on red and green. Not next week, but coming. So anyway, that is all for today, because it’s time to go make some Magic.