Sit down at any Friday Night Magic and you will hear players talk about their "Boros" deck or their "Simic" build. If you are newer to the game, it can sound like a secret language. It is actually simple: each of the ten possible two colour combinations has a name, and once you know them you can describe a deck in a single word.
First, the colour wheel
Magic has five colours, always written in this order: White (W), Blue (U), Black (B), Red (R) and Green (G). Blue uses U because B is taken by Black. Players often shorten a deck to its letters, so a White and Blue deck is "WU" or "UW".
The five colours sit in a circle in that same order. Colours next to each other on the wheel are allies and tend to share goals. Colours across the wheel from each other are enemies, with clashing philosophies, which often makes for the most interesting combinations.
New to the game altogether? Start with our beginner's guide to the basic rules.
Where the names come from
Most of the names come from the ten guilds of Ravnica, a city plane Magic has visited many times since 2005. Each guild is built around one colour pair, and the guild names stuck so well that players use them for any deck in those colours, whatever set the cards come from.
The five ally pairs
| Colours | Name | What it likes to do |
|---|---|---|
| White Blue (WU) | Azorius | Law and order. Control decks with counterspells, removal and flyers, or tempo decks that tax and tap down opponents. |
| Blue Black (UB) | Dimir | Spies and secrets. Card draw, milling the opponent's library, sneaky unblockable threats and grindy control. |
| Black Red (BR) | Rakdos | Chaos and carnage. Aggressive creatures, sacrifice effects and burning your opponent's life total down fast. |
| Red Green (RG) | Gruul | Smash first, ask questions later. Big, efficient creatures with trample and haste, backed by a little burn. |
| Green White (GW) | Selesnya | Strength in numbers. Wide boards of tokens, +1/+1 counters, anthems and life gain. |
The five enemy pairs
| Colours | Name | What it likes to do |
|---|---|---|
| White Black (WB) | Orzhov | Wealth and influence. Draining life, recurring creatures from the graveyard and grinding out value. |
| Blue Red (UR) | Izzet | Mad science. Instants and sorceries, spell copying, prowess creatures and big flashy turns. |
| Black Green (BG) | Golgari | Life from death. Using the graveyard as a resource, recursion, sacrifice and solid removal. |
| Red White (RW) | Boros | The army. Fast, aggressive creatures, equipment and combat tricks that end the game early. |
| Green Blue (GU) | Simic | Growth and evolution. Ramp, card draw, +1/+1 counters and creatures that keep getting bigger. |
Bonus: the Strixhaven college names
The Strixhaven set introduced five magic colleges, one for each enemy pair. You will sometimes hear these used instead of the guild names, especially for decks built around Strixhaven cards:
- Silverquill: White Black, the college of eloquence
- Prismari: Blue Red, the college of elemental arts
- Witherbloom: Black Green, the college of life and death
- Lorehold: Red White, the college of history
- Quandrix: Green Blue, the college of mathematics
A quick memory trick
If the names will not stick, link each one to its colours:
- Boros is Red White, like a fire engine with white stripes.
- Golgari is Black Green, like rot and moss on a forest floor.
- Izzet is Blue Red, like lightning crackling in a laboratory.
- Simic is Green Blue, like life growing in the ocean.
What about three or more colours?
Three colour combinations have their own names too, such as Esper, Jund, Naya, Mardu and Temur, taken from the shards of Alara and the clans of Tarkir. That is a guide for another day.
Build your next two colour deck with us
Every single we list is tagged by mana colour, including Multicolour, so it is easy to find cards for your favourite pair. Browse our singles, filter by colour, and when the new deck is ready, take it along to your local game store and tell everyone it is Gruul. They will know exactly what you mean.