Color System

Five colors define the strategic identities of the game. Each color is a philosophy first with an elemental flavor layered on top. Philosophy drives mechanics, not flavor — abilities belong to a color because of its worldview, not its elemental theme. Red gets burn because it's impulsive and destructive, not because "fire = red."

Color Philosophies (Detailed)

Each color follows the pattern "Goal through Means" (inspired by MTG's color pie framework).

White — Peace through Structure

White wants a world where everyone cooperates and looks out for one another. It believes the path to peace is structure: laws, religion, community, moral codes. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. White spreads strength among many so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Strengths: Organization, division of power, making small pieces work together, long-term strategic thinking. Weaknesses: Inflexible, slow to adapt, disregards individual power, drive for order can become oppression.

Blue — Perfection through Knowledge

Blue believes every individual is born a blank slate with the potential to become anything. The point of life is figuring out what you could achieve and acquiring the education, experience, and tools to get there. Information is the ultimate resource — you must first understand your potential, then track down the means to reach it.

Strengths: Information gathering, patience and planning, adaptability through knowledge, affinity for technology. Weaknesses: Overthinking and analysis paralysis, emotional detachment, slow to act, intellectual arrogance.

Black — Power through Opportunity

Black sees a world of haves and have-nots and is determined to be among the haves. The key to success is the willingness to seize any opportunity, no matter the cost. Black is amoral, not evil — it doesn't believe in the concept of morality, seeing it as a construct the weak use to constrain the strong. Being influenced by black's philosophy doesn't inherently mean committing evil acts; pragmatic ambition and self-reliance are sources of good.

Strengths: Willingness to do whatever it takes, pragmatism, self-reliance, understanding of power dynamics. Weaknesses: Isolation (selfishness drives away allies), paranoia, short-sighted about relationships, self-destructive tendencies.

Red — Freedom through Action

Red believes life should be lived by following your heart, acting on impulse, and refusing to let anything constrain self-expression. Red is the most emotionally honest color — when happy, laugh; when sad, cry; when angry, punch somebody. It follows its passions wherever they lead and lives entirely in the present moment. Chaos is a side effect of freedom, not the goal.

Strengths: Speed and decisiveness, passion and intensity, unpredictability, emotional authenticity. Weaknesses: Impulsiveness, lack of endurance, short-term thinking, vulnerability to restraint and lockdown.

Green — Growth through Acceptance

Green sees the world as already having everything right — nature is the most powerful, peaceful, and elegant force that exists. The key to life is understanding your place within the natural order and accepting it. Every creature has a role, every ecosystem has a balance, and the greatest wisdom is recognizing that the answers are already there.

Strengths: Raw power (largest and most efficient creatures), inevitability (constant growth), resilience and endurance, connection to fundamental natural forces. Weaknesses: Resistance to change and innovation, over-reliance on brute force, anti-intellectualism, fatalism.

Color Conflicts

Enemy Pairs

Each pair of non-adjacent colors represents a fundamental philosophical conflict.

Allied Pairs

Each pair of adjacent colors shares philosophical common ground.

Color Weaknesses

Every color has defined weaknesses that matter as much as its strengths. Mechanics should respect these — a color should not easily cover its weaknesses without paying a premium or relying on another color. Each weakness flows directly from the color's philosophy.

White — Cannot generate card advantage efficiently

White spreads power across the group rather than concentrating it. It doesn't hoard resources or dig for specific answers — it trusts that the community provides what's needed. Drawing extra cards is an inherently selfish, individualistic act (taking more than your share), which conflicts with white's philosophy of equality and shared sacrifice. White's strength is making each piece count, not accumulating more pieces than the opponent.

Blue — Cannot deal direct damage or remove resolved threats cheaply

Blue acts through knowledge, preparation, and prevention — not brute force. Countering a spell before it resolves is blue's strength because it represents foresight and preparation. But once something is on the battlefield, blue lacks the raw aggression to destroy it outright. Blue outsmarts problems (bounce, tap, transform), it doesn't overpower them. Direct damage requires the kind of visceral, emotional force that blue's philosophy explicitly rejects.

Black — Cannot destroy artifacts or enchantments

Black's power is over living things — it kills, corrupts, drains, and exploits creatures because it understands ambition, fear, and mortality. Artifacts and enchantments are inanimate concepts and constructs with no life force to extinguish, no will to corrupt, and no fear to exploit. Black has no philosophical leverage over things that aren't alive. This forces black to rely on allies (or pay a steep premium) for dealing with equipment and persistent effects.

Red — Cannot sustain long games or handle enchantments

Red lives in the present moment and commits fully to immediate action. It doesn't plan for the future, build infrastructure, or stockpile resources. This makes red explosive in the early game but increasingly desperate as the game goes long — red literally runs out of steam because sustained effort requires the patience and discipline it philosophically rejects. Enchantments represent persistent, structured effects (rules, ongoing states) — exactly the kind of enduring order that red's philosophy opposes but cannot dismantle through brute force alone.

Green — Cannot handle problems that require finesse over force

Green's answer to everything is "be bigger." It trusts that raw natural power will overcome any obstacle, and it has no interest in clever tricks, indirect solutions, or surgical precision. When a problem can't be solved by overwhelming it with size and strength — a flying creature, a combo that doesn't care about board presence, a spell on the stack — green is philosophically unwilling and mechanically unable to respond with subtlety. Green destroys the unnatural (artifacts, enchantments) but struggles with threats that require timing, manipulation, or non-combat interaction.

Color in Deckbuilding

• No hard color restrictions. Any color can appear in any deck.
• Organic constraints emerge from costs: a card costing 2R + 3 any demands Red-heavy energy.
• Synergy effects reward focus: "All Red units gain Rush" incentivizes committing to a color.
• Max 4 copies of any card per deck by default. Powerful cards can carry a printed Limit restriction (Limit 1, Limit 2, or Limit 3) that overrides the default.
• Effects can be shared across colors but cost more or less depending on alignment (burn is cheaper in Red, healing is cheaper in White/Green).

Multi-Color Cards

Cards can belong to two or more colors. A multi-color card requires specific energy from each of its colors to play (e.g., a Red/Blue Pirate might cost 1R + 1U + 2 any). Multi-color cards can access abilities from both colors, often at a better rate than a single-color card splashing outside its identity. The tradeoff is a stricter energy commitment -- your Energy Zone needs to provide multiple colors.

When energized, a multi-color card generates 1 energy of either of its colors (chosen when exhausted, not when energized).

Color Keywords

Initial keyword abilities organized by primary color. Keywords can appear in other colors at a higher cost.

Red

• Rush -- the unit is allowed to attack the turn it is played
• Burn X -- attack only. When this unit attacks, deal X damage to the defending player regardless of combat outcome
• First Strike -- this unit deals damage before the defender in combat. If it kills the enemy before they strike back, it takes no damage. Works on both attack and defense

Green

• Conduit -- counts as 2 energy when energized in the Energy Zone
• Overkill -- excess combat damage to a blocker carries through to the defending player
• Reach -- can block Flying units. Purely defensive counter to Flying
• Recoil X -- when this unit blocks, deal X damage to the attacking player regardless of combat outcome. Defensive mirror of Burn
• Drain X -- attack only. When this unit attacks and deals damage, gain X life. Sustain mechanic shared equally with Black

Blue

• Bounce -- returns a target card to its owner's hand
• Exhaust -- target unit becomes exhausted and does not ready next turn
• Foresight -- look at the top X cards of any library; may rearrange

White

• Guard / Taunt -- must be blocked/attacked before the player
• Shield -- prevents the next X damage to a target
• Reveal -- flip a set card face-up, exposing it. Reveal cards can carry additional effects (type declaration for +1 life, bounce the revealed card, increase its cost, etc.)
• Heal -- restore life to player or toughness to unit

Black

• Drain X -- attack only. When this unit attacks and deals damage, gain X life. Sustain mechanic shared equally with Green
• Sacrifice -- destroy one of your own cards to trigger a powerful effect
• Revive -- play a card from your graveyard (paying its cost)
• Gravebound -- this card always stays in the graveyard when the graveyard is reshuffled into the library (mandatory, not optional)
• Curse -- equip a debuff to an enemy unit or player
• Self-infliction -- pay life as an additional cost for powerful effects or undercosted stats (trade health for tempo/power)

Universal Keywords

• Flying -- can only be blocked by units with Flying or Reach. No primary color -- placed thematically. Budget: floor((Might-1)/2)
• Hunter -- when this unit attacks, it may target an enemy unit instead of a player. The targeted unit must fight it. Guard units still intercept (Hunter does not bypass Guard). Available in all colors at equal cost.
• Endure -- the first time this unit would be destroyed by damage each turn, it survives with 1 Endurance and becomes exhausted instead. Available in all colors at equal cost. Most common in Green and Black.

Cross-Color Keywords

Any keyword can appear on a card of any color, but it costs more budget points outside its primary color. A Green unit with Rush pays a premium compared to a Red unit with Rush. Hunter is an exception — it costs the same in every color.