2/13/15 Episode 200: Black/Red

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater

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

Okay. Today is Part Three in an ongoing mega-series on the color pairs. So I’ve done white/blue, I’ve done blue/black, and today it’s black/red’s turn. So… in these podcasts, what I do is I want to talk about what the colors are, how they relate to each other, how they’re different from each other, and sort of when you mix them together, what do you get?

So let’s talk black and red. Okay. So black. Black wants power through opportunity. What that means real quickly is, black wants absolute power. Black wants the ability to control everything, and the way that black does that is it is willing to do whatever it takes. Black believes that the other colors have boundaries that they—self-created boundaries. That other colors just won’t do things because they decide it’s not okay to do them. But black says, “That’s weakness.” That the key to getting what you want is being willing to take whatever opportunities you need. There’s nothing off-limits for black. Black is willing to do literally anything.

Red, on the other hand, red seeks freedom through action! Red follows its heart. Red wants to do what it wants to do. Red has impulses it needs to follow. And so what red ultimately wants is the ability to do what it wants. To have total freedom. To not be restricted in any way. And the way that red achieves this goal is through action. It does things. That it doesn’t sit passively by. Red believes that if you want something, if you work for it, you can achieve it.

So now what happens when you mix these two together—so the key to understanding the similarities of a color is looking to the shared enemy. So the shared enemy of red and black is white. So white is all about the community. About looking out for the good of the group. White believes that you have to do what’s best for everybody. Even people you don’t know. White wants to take the action that will help the most number of people.

So white looks at red and black and says, these two both function out of selfishness. Black out of immoral selfishness, because black just does things that are wrong. There is right and there is wrong and black just does immoral things.

No black, by the way, black believes that it is amoral, not immoral, because black doesn’t believe in morality. That as far as black is concerned, that’s a creation of white. That white created this system for its rules, white was trying to pamper the meek. And to do that, it made a whole bunch of rules that made it harder for other people to try to take power. But black sees it for what it is.

But anyway, so black, as far as white is concerned, is immorally selfish. Red is chaotically selfish. Because red follows its heart. It follows its emotions. Well those are pretty self-centered. What are you feeling? If I’m angry, I’ll get in a fight. If I’m happy, I’ll go do something fun. If I’m sad I’ll cry. And white’s like, “Well, if you’re angry and you hit somebody, that’s not okay! You’re hurting somebody else. You can’t do that.” And white sees red as just breaking rules chaotically.

Now the difference between black and red as far as white is concerned is black is malicious about it and red is not. Although red is just as dangerous as black. If I kill you out of a fit of anger vs. I kill you because I’m plotting to kill you, ahh, you’re dead. What does it matter? Both are equally harmful.

So the thing where black and red tend to overlie is it plays into some of white’s issues, although I’ll show the positive side of it. Red and black both have the following belief, this is where they overlap, which is, I know what is better for me than everybody else. I have a vantage point that nobody else has. I feel what I feel, I know what I know, I think what I think, and I understand me better than I understand anybody else.

Black’s whole attitude is, the reason I have to look out for myself is everybody should look out for themselves. No one else has your interest at heart. Why not take the person who has the most invested interest in your well-being to look after you? And that is you.

Red is like, well, I just get these strong impulses that tell me what to do. And they come from within me. That’s where they come from. As far as red is concerned, your body and your psyche and your mind, it creates loud messages of what you should and should not be doing. And that red is just like, you want to live life? Your body is telling you what to do. You have instincts and impulses. And if you just follow them, that’s the way you can be happy. And so black and red definitely overlap in the sense of coming from a place of looking out for one’s interests.

Now, that doesn’t mean they can’t look out for others. Red for example can be horribly loyal. Red very much can take actions that are for somebody else. Like if red has a loved one, red might risk its life for its loved one. Red might put its own welfare at risk to help somebody else.

Now, it’s not going to do that for an absolute stranger like white would. White’s idea is, if you see someone in danger, it doesn’t even matter if you know them or don’t know them. You’re supposed to help them. Where red is like, “Well, I’ll help my loved ones. I’ll help the people I care about. I’m not necessarily going to risk my life for people I don’t know.” Red’s not prioritizing other people over itself if it doesn’t have some invested emotional interest in them.

Black on the other hand, black also believes that—black thinks that whatever you do should be in your own best interest. That doesn’t mean you can’t help other people. Now, it can’t be contrary to your interests. But sometimes helping other people is in your interest. And there’s reasons why helping other people will fundamentally long-term help you.

So black and red aren’t necessarily against helping other people. But they’re against helping other people unless there’s something in it for them, essentially. Either there’s an emotional connection for red, or there’s something to be gained for black.

And when you get these two colors together, so in Ravnica you have the Rakdos, which is sort of thrill-seeking sociopaths almost. One of the things that we do when we do the guilds is, we kind of really push to the extreme the colors to really play up what they are. Black/red—whenever people ask me about pop culture characters, one of my favorite black/red characters is the Joker.

And the perfect example of the Joker is that he really has his own agenda of his that he’s trying to get across, but he is trying to just (???) chaos. That one of the greatest scenes from The Dark Knight is he steals all the mob’s money and then he burns it. He burns it. No black character burns all the money. But a red character—so he’s just a force of chaos.

But Joker is very selfish and has an agenda, and very much has a black component to him. But he’s a nice mix of black and red. That he seeks power, but he also on some level seeks some chaos, and that he uses a lot of what he has to accomplish the goal that he wants.

And he is somebody who very much wants to get society to acknowledge that they are as chaotic as it is. That he sees—in some ways, the Joker looks at society and says, “You are lying to yourself. Let me open your eyes.”

So when black and red get together, what black sees in red is the drive to do what one needs for oneself. And red looks at black, and black is just willing to do what it takes. And the two of them kind of have some admiration for each other. That they definitely appreciate that.

Like one of the things that I find very interesting is that when you look at allied colors, it’s not that each color does exactly what the other one does, but they get it. That black looks at red, and black gets what red is up to. Black gets why red does what red does. And red looks at black and understands what black is up to.

Now, there are differences. And the way I always talk about the differences is look at the allied colors. The other ally of each color. So red’s other ally is green, black’s other ally is blue. So what is the blue/green conflict? Nature/nurture conflict. Blue believes that you can change and become whatever you want to be. Green believes you were born to be the way you are.

So this is a fundamental difference between black and red, which is black leans toward blue. Black believes that you can change things. In fact, that’s very fundamental to how black functions. Black is a very big proponent of free will. That you are able to do whatever you want to do.

Red, on the other hand, with green as an ally, definitely believes a little more in predetermination. More in you are the way you are. The emotions you feel. You didn’t choose those emotions. You were born with those emotions. And so where the conflict of black/red comes in is definitely this feeling of the role you play, both in society and for yourself, of are you marching to the beat of your own drummer or do you sort of have a role that you fill? And black definitely believes the first and red believes more of the second.

Okay. So let’s get into some mechanical applications of the colors. So first off, one of the things that black and red have in common is, both of them are more than willing to use destruction. Neither one of them has any qualms like white. I mean, white occasionally uses violence, but white has to justify it. You cannot just use violence to use violence. Black and red have no problem there.

For example, both of them, if there’s a creature and the creature causes a problem, they’re willing to destroy the creature. Now they do it differently, black has Murder-type effects that destroy target creature, it also has –N/-N, that’s representing using disease. So black tends to use death and disease. Those are black’s two major go-tos as far as hurting others.

Black also will hurt the player by doing life loss. It can do Drain Life effects. So black is definitely willing to hurt things. Sometimes it’s damage, sometimes it’s lifeloss, sometimes it’s –N/-N. Black can use whatever it needs to hurt.

Red is a little more—of the five colors, red is the least diverse in what it does. Red for example makes great use of direct damage. Red is like, “I’m angry, I can make Fireballs and Lightning Bolts and I can just smack you.”

Now red’s problem is, its damage depends upon tangibility of what it’s going after. Meaning it wants to blow it up. Well, it can throw fireballs at a creature, it can Shatter an artifact, it can torch a land, but enchantments, they’re not really there. It’s really hard for red to deal with that. That’s one of red’s weaknesses. Because it can’t really—it wants to strangle it. It wants to put its hands around it. It wants to physically destroy it, crush it. And you can’t do that with enchantments.

Black, meanwhile, black is using death and disease. So black is really good at killing living things. It can kill creatures. It can kill planeswalkers. It can kill land. If it’s living, black can deal with it. But if it’s not living, like artifacts or enchantments, black has a little more trouble in destroying it. Now, black has another answer that we’ll get to, but black really is good at destroying living things. Death being a really, really big part of black.

And once again. Black looks at death as being a very powerful tool that everybody else seems, “Oh, that’s taboo.” There’s no taboo. Does it win? Does it help me… if I have an enemy, and I use this tool, and then my enemy… if I can stop them, well that’s pretty effective. That’s pretty effective. If I use death to kill you, well, your creature’s not going to come harm me anymore, now is it?

Now, both colors also have mass removal. White has like Wrath of God, it destroys everything. The one thing that red and black will do is they will destroy some lower bound of things. Red does direct damage with like a Pyroclasm-like effect. Do two to everything or three to everything or four to everything. Which allows bigger things to survive. Black might have stuff like Infest, where it’s -1/-1 or -2/-2. Both of them do effects where they can wipe the smaller things on the board.

The other thing about black and red is black and red definitely both have no problem using emotions negatively, if you will. Of trying to draw negative emotions out of the opponent. Both of them for example are very willing to use fear as a tool. Black for example says, You know what? There are things that naturally make people uncomfortable. If I make use of those things, they’re harder to fight against. If I attack you with something that you’re inherently already afraid of, it’s just that much harder to beat me. So I’m going to make use of snake and spiders and zombies and just creepy-crawly things. That I’m going to make use of things that are just intimidating because they’re scary.

Red, likewise, also is fine with intimidation. Both of them obviously have the intimidate keyword. That red is (???). Red also has spells like Panic and things that keep creatures from blocking because it spooks them. And that both red and black are fine of using negative emotions and pulling them out of the opponent.

Red because it really just believes in the power of emotion, and black because, eh, whatever. I’m willing to do whatever I need to do. Other colors might think that’s wrong, that it’s inappropriate to do that. Black and red don’t have that problem.

In general, black and red have a sense of a little bit of a ruthlessness to them. Where they’re kind of willing to do what it takes. Now, red has some boundaries that black does not have. Black is kind of the color with the least amount of boundaries. But red is probably the second least amount of boundaries.

And the other big thing is, red doesn’t tend to think ahead, meaning it acts in the moment. So a lot of times red does things that if it stopped to think about it wouldn’t have done, or maybe after the fact it feels bad about. But it still does them. Red is super impulsive.

And so when I talk about the difference between red and black, it’s the difference between first-degree murder and manslaughter. So if you go to a court of law and you’re in the United States, first-degree murder means I wanted to kill somebody, I planned to do it, I thought about it, I executed the things I needed to do, and then I killed them. Cold-blooded, killed them. Him or her. Or they.

Manslaughter is, in the heat of the moment, I got angry or upset, or just I… it was never my intention to kill the person. It just kind of happened. We got in a fight, or… something happened that got out of control, and that the person got killed.

Now like I said before. As far as white is concerned, killing is killing. But there is a difference between black and red in that black is premeditated and red tends to not… red doesn’t think that far out. If red kills something, it’s because in the moment it did it, not because it thought about doing it.

Okay. Besides intimidate, the other keyword that black and red share is haste. So the idea is, red and black in some ways are the most driven colors in that they very much have an agenda. Like, red will summon some creatures that are sort of just gung-ho and attacking. They so much want to attack that it doesn’t matter where they are. They’re not disoriented. It’s like, “Ahh, I’m attacking! Ahh!” A lot of little goblins sometimes are like that.

Black also tends to have things that are just, they’re kind of the creepy-crawly stuff that’s just like, “Ehh, I’m just attacking. I’m a zombie.” Or whatever. “I’m not swayed by where I am. I’m just going to keep attacking whatever it is. And that nothing will sway me.” Actually, we don’t put a lot of haste on zombies because haste implies speed that zombies don’t have.

I guess haste in black though is just sort of a mindless willingness to do what needs to be done without… there’s no conscience to slow you down. Red is caught up, its character and its creatures are caught up in the heat of the moment, where black just—it doesn’t care on some level. To reflect kind of the colors.

Okay. Another thing both [colors] do is both of them are the two biggest colors of sacrifice. Black, because black is willing to do whatever it takes, black’s whole attitude is, if I need to sacrifice something to get something else, do I want something else? It’s like, “If you sacrifice a creature, you can have this thing you want.” “Okay, no problem.”

As far as black is concerned, everything it has is a resource that it can use. There’s no moral qualms. It’s not like sacrificing another creature gives black a moment’s loss of sleep. Black is like, “I need what I need, this thing will serve me, if its sacrifice helps me, hey so be it.”

Red tends to sacrifice creatures less. It will. A lot of  red sacrificing creatures is stuff like “I’m throwing it at you,” and like, well, hey, you flew for the turn but now squash.

And I mean—red, like I said. Red is willing to make sacrifices too. But it’s a little less calculated as black. Red also more often will sacrifice land or artifacts. That some of the stuff that you sacrifice is not necessarily stuff that’s living, where black is more likely just to sacrifice creatures. But they are the two colors that do the most sacrificing, and often when we build Limited archetypes it’s very common that we’ll put sacrifice a theme between black and red.

 

Next, black has discard. So—well, actually, maybe another way to think of it is, red has what we call “rummaging” or “red looting,” and what rummaging is, is you get to discard a card and then draw a card. So that is red’s means by which to get cards. The way red gets cards is red doesn’t get card advantage. It’ll do rummaging, Winds of Change, it’s sort of like, “I get cards, but I don’t go up in the number of cards I get.”

And often it’s throwing things away to get other things. That red impulsively goes, “I don’t need this! I’d rather not have this, let me get that.” Red doesn’t—red throws away things before it even knows what it’s going to get. Where blue, for example, gets cards and then decides after it gets the cards what needs to go.

So black, when it wants to get cards, black—one of the theories of black is, “Whatever I need to do to get the things I want, it’s okay if I spend extra costs. That’s okay.” Getting cards is important. If I have to pay life to do that, I will do that.

Blue—see, card drawing is so important to blue, that blue dedicates a lot of its time to trying to understand how to draw cards. And thus it can do it without any drawback. But black wants access to more things. So one of the things black does is black has access to things that aren’t as cheap as other colors, but it can do them at a cost.

So red’s card drawing isn’t going up in cards, where black is, but it comes at an additional cost. Now, to turn it on its ear, the other way black gets its card advantage is it can make the opponent discard. Like I said before, it has trouble with artifacts and enchantments, but one of the things black believes is we’re fighting a battle. It’s a mental battle. Well, one of the ways I can win a mental battle is just to attack you mentally. If you’re using your mind as a weapon, well, why can’t I go after your weapon? And so black has no problem messing with other people’s minds.

Blue is the only other color willing to go there. The other colors are a little more skittish about it. But red does have rummaging, which occasionally can target. So sometimes you can target the opponent. And Winds of Change affects everybody. So red just has the ability to make the opponent discard and draw new cards. Which isn’t quite the same as black, but there’s a little bit of overlapping discard there.

Okay. Another thing that red gets to do is red can steal control of creatures for a turn. But only for a turn. The idea of red is, I can inflame emotions inside temporarily to sort of act passionately or act emotionally, so that at some point you come to and you realize what you’ve done. But I can sort of get you on my side in a moment of emotional fury where I play up your emotions and then manipulate you a little bit, and then for at least a turn I get you.

Black can steal things just a little tiny bit. It’s tertiary in creature stealing. Blue normally steals things permanently, red steals them temporarily, black is the color that after blue can steal things permanently, but it doesn’t do it nearly as much as blue.

The one thing black can do is it can animate cards out of the graveyard. And so black stealing is more like, “Oh, I kill your thing, and then once I kill it I steal it.” And so red and black both have means by which to steal, but it’s very flavorful based on what they are.

Once again—that’s another thing, I talk about black using death as a weapon. Black also believes—most [colors] believe, oh, once you’ve died that’s a sacred thing. You’re put in the ground. You’re worshipped as a dead person. Black’s like, no, you’re not done yet.  And black is more than happy to use the dead. Most other color feel like that’s wrong. Black’s like, “There is no wrong.” And so black makes good use of the dead.

As far as the graveyard, by the way, black gets creatures out of the graveyard. Raise Dead-like effects. And red, we let red get sorceries out of the graveyard. Every once in a blue moon we’ll let it get an instant or sorcery out of the graveyard.

It’s not something red does a lot. One of our tricks is, when we go to—like there’s certain themes we go to a lot. Graveyard being one of them. And so every color has a few things it gets to do out of the graveyard in sets in which the graveyard’s important.

And red’s little thing is—well, two things. One is it can get sorceries out, sometimes instants and sorceries. Usually it’s sorceries. The other thing is, black tends to have zombies that can come back out of the graveyard. You kill it, it just gets back up. Either zombies or skeletons or undead things that are kind of—you can’t kill.

Red, its version of this is the phoenix. Red has a creature, it’s a bird made of fire, that you can destroy, and then out of its ashes it can be reborn. And since it’s a creature made out of fire, and it has this sort of explosive quality. It really felt red. It’s something going way, way back that we gave to red. So both black and red do have creatures that come back from the graveyard. Black’s tend to be zombies, red’s tend to be phoenixes.

Red also has occasionally done direct damage spells, Hammer of Bogardan being probably the most famous one. But occasionally it has spells that under some condition you can get the spell back from the graveyard. So that you can keep casting the same direct damage spell over and over again.

Okay. Next—so one of the things red and black used to do that recently has changed is for a long time, red and black were the two colors where power on average was greater than toughness. And what happened was that there are two color pairs that are very similar. White and green, and black and red. And we spent some time trying to separate black and red a little bit.

So one of the reasons we recently did this, it happened about a year ago, or more than a year ago. You guys have seen it about a year ago. Is we’ve started making black a little bit more about toughness. And a little less about power. And we said, “You know what? Black would have some creepy-crawly things that are hard to kill.” That it’s okay for black to have a 1/5 or a 2/5, that we’re starting to make some black stuff.

Now, it’s not that black can’t have high power/low toughness, it has some of that, but not as much as it used to. That’s more—red’s the color that does it consistently, and black’s the color that kind of does it every once in a while, but it’s getting more toughness than it used to.

Now, when you get to auras, and you get to like boosting effects, black and red still are the most aggressive there. That we tend to have auras, that black and red tend to boost power more than they boost toughness. And same when you see effects that affect power and toughness. Usually if it’s an instant, or it’s an aura, that red and black tend to affect power more than they affect toughness. And that’s still true.

Another thing that they will both do is, I’ll say “+N/-N,” we used to call it Flowstone. The name of it in the Rath cycle, Tempest cycle. So what that means is, it’s plus some amount, minus some amount. And black and red both do that as auras, more black than red as auras. But red will often, definitely red will do it on creatures as an activated cost, where like I’m a 4/4 but I can become a 6/2 or something like that.

So both of them are definitely willing to—it’s like I said, one of the overlaps of black and red is the idea of, I’m willing to get advantage knowing that there is some downside. Red does not think that through. The reason red does it is red is like, “I want power I want it now,” and it’s just not thinking of the ramifications. So the reason red occasionally will get that is it’s not thinking it through, and that it’s a drawback that red’s just not taking into account. Black, on the other hand, black’s like, “I understand that there’s a drawback, I accept that willingly. And so I take the advantage knowing what the drawback is.”

So black and red a lot of time overlap there, the difference philosophically is, red isn’t up-front accepting it. It just kind of, it wants what it wants, and so it takes the weaknesses because that’s what comes along with it. But it’s not planning it through. Where black understands the weaknesses and accepts the weaknesses.

Okay. So I’ve talked about both of them. Black and red destroy land. Planeswalkers, by the way, black straight-out can destroy planeswalkers. Literally can destroy target planeswalker. Red doesn’t technically destroy planeswalkers, because it doesn’t destroy things, but it does do direct damage, and there’s a rule built in with planeswalkers that any damage dealt to a player can be redirected to a planeswalker. So for all intents and purposes, you can use direct damage to kill planeswalkers. You can just redirect it.

So black and red are the two colors that have the easiest time killing planeswalkers because they don’t need to have creatures to attack the planeswalker to kill it. White, green, and blue have to attack. Black and red don’t. They have other means to kill planeswalkers other than attacking. Now, they can attack, it’s not that they don’t have that ability, but they have other means to do it.

So I’m almost to work here. Sort of the wrap-up here is that black and red are definitely the colors that are willing to push boundaries a little more. They’re the ones that are willing to take risks. They are the two… now the funny thing is, like I said. Red takes risks because it doesn’t think through the consequences, and black takes risks because they’re calculated risks it’s willing to take.

So it’s funny how they overlap on cards, but the thought process of how you get there is very, very different. That when red does something, it’s not that it really thought through the whole ramifications of what it’s doing. Whereas black did. But a lot of the tools are similar. That’s one of the places black/red overlaps.

Now, by the way, a lot of times, it’s very easy to just look to the Rakdos and just see kind of the most negative version of black/red, which is like the thrill-seeking sociopaths. More negative. I think the positive part about it is, the positive part of black is the idea of somebody who believes in merit. That says, I believe that I can make myself better, and that the key—this is a little bit of blue’s influence on black, but black very much believes that it’s within—like I said, black believes that it has the freedom to make the choices that it wants to make. And black believes that its life is set up to choices it’s allowed to make. Like black’s very big on free will. Black’s very big on believing that “I am the navigator of my own destiny. I guide where I am going.”

And that red, red’s passion—I mean, a lot of times in the game we show anger and it being out of control, but passion is not just a lack of control. Passion is creating a sense of energy. I mean, I’m a very red person. That I’m passionate! And I have a lot of energy! And I care, and I love what I do, and that comes from the red part of me. That is not in any way to me a negative thing. It’s a very powerful thing and a positive thing in that red embraces what it’s doing with all its heart and soul.

And if you take black, it really believes it gets to guide its own future, and red that just commits to everything, and put those together, and it’s a very driven person. On the positive side, you can get somebody who really wants to set the path and choose to do something, and is empowered to do it. That black/red—it’s very, very easy to see—a lot of people want to look at white and see it’s the goody two-shoes color, and look at black and red and go, “Ooh, those must be bad colors.”

And the reality is, no. Every color has a good quality and a bad quality to it. That rules for the sake of rules can get in just as much bad territory as some of the stuff that black or red will do. And that there is a black/red character who’s someone who very much wants to set their own future and is passionate to do it. And I think that can be a very positive black/red character.

So, to wrap this up here… how are we doing today? We’re doing pretty good. I think that the final thought on black and red is that black and red are the colors that really reach for the stars. That they’re the colors that believe—they’re the colors that believe in committing to what you’re doing. Into—like, once again, black believes that anything is possible. So black always explores, “What do I need to do to get what I want?”

Red, meanwhile—I believe at its core, red has an optimistic streak. I believe red is very optimistic. In that red wants to believe that if you follow your emotions, if you’re true to your heart, then good things will happen. Red believes… red wants to be happy. Red wants to live a full life. Red wants to die on its deathbed and go, “That was a good life.” I think black wants to die on its deathbed and go, “I have it all. I have it all!”

But I think when you get those two together, that there’s a very powerful—these are the two colors that are very motivated. And very much want to do what it takes to get things done. There’s a dangerous side there, they’re the two colors that will do what it takes, well, they’ll do what it takes. But there  also is a very—I don't know, a very compelling side, a sort of quality that is neat. And while white cannot see black/red as anything other than just pure chaotic evil, I think there’s a lot of fun stuff in black/red that isn’t that. So I think there’s a whole side to see.

Anyway, that is black/red. For those that are unaware, I’m going to be doing ten of these. This is number three. From time to time I’ll do them. I’m going to run through all the ally colors, then I’m going to run through all the enemy colors.

And my hope is to give you a little better sense of what the colors are and how they think. Like I think of the colors as being almost personalities. That’s why I love writing dialogue for them. Because they very much have sort of a… they have motives. They have, like when you’re talking about writing characters, what characters need is they have to want something. And they have to have some sort of philosophy that drives what they want.

And the colors in Magic do that. They very much have a philosophy, and so it is fun to explore. One of the things I really love about doing all the color pie stuff is I just love exploring sort of what the colors want and what they represent, and anyway. I find that neat.

So thank you very much for joining me, but I have parked my car. So you all know what that means, it means it’s the end of my drive to work. And instead of talking Magic, it’s time for me to be making Magic. I’ll talk to you guys soon. Thanks for joining me.