u/Fantastic_Puppeter

[Cross-posted from r/mtg]

Hi all,

You may have seen MtG Goldfish's series of videos where they play the best decks in Standard from about 30 years of MtG. For reference: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtLlcD-b2JREDlEaVExp8_xnVHK6_sKiz

I got curious whether this showed that any colors or color-combinations were inherently more powerful than others.

DISCLAIMER: The sample is the sample. That is, I assume that MtG Goldfish's list of the "best decks" indeed represents the best decks in Standard over time. Certainly this can be challenged, and a more-thourought analysis using hundreds of decks of the Top 8 of multiple tournaments could provide much better insights.

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Methodology:

• For the 60 decks selected by MtG Goldfish, I noted which color.s are in the deck
• Mainboard-only. If a color is present *only* in the side-board, it does not count
• Phyrexian mana does not count as colored if there is no land (or mana-rock / mana-dork) to get the colored mana. I recall a deck with Phyrexian-Red but no way to produce red mana => the deck is counted as not having red
• Same for split-color mana If a spell can be cast with either Blue or White and the deck only produces White, then I do not count Blue for that deck.
• Almost-all decks have some Artifacts / colorless spells, bu no deck is 100% Colorless. So I exclude Colorless as a category.
• I may very well have made mistakes.

SECOND DISCLAIMER: My comments below likely contain both great insights and great foolishness, esp. as I have not followed MtG for the 30 years of its existence and have no clue how WotC thinks about balancing the colors over time. That's why the post is flaired "Discussion".

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Of the 60 decks:

• 39 contain Black
• 32 contain Red
• 32 contain Green
• 27 contain White
• 25 contain Blue

We see Black as the most popular color, with Blue a distant last. Please note that several of the early decks (eg, with true dual lands and the powerful mana-rocks) only splash G or U for a single ou couple of spells (Regrowth, Demonic Tutor, etc.).

Black has good removal, fast mana, hand-disruption, good creatures and even utility cards (eg, Necro, Tutors). I am not surprised to see a lot of Black. In competitive setting, Life is a resource (you can win with 1 HP) and Black makes use of that resource better than all other colors.

Red is the obvious Aggro color. Again, not a surprise.

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Now for the actual decks

Mono-colored

• Mono-White -- 1
• Mono-Blue -- 2
• Mono-Black -- 2
• Mono-Red -- 2
• Mono-Green -- 0

7 mono-colored decks out of 60, with Green never having a leading deck.

Two-Colors

• Azorius: Blue/White -- 0
• Boros: Red/White -- 0
• Dimir: Black/Blue -- 5
• Golgari: Black/Green -- 2
• Gruul: Green/Red -- 3
• Izzet: Blue/Red -- 3
• Orzhov: Black/White -- 2
• Rakdos: Black/Red -- 5
• Selesnya: Green/White -- 3
• Simic: Blue/Green -- 1

24 decks in total, a little less than half of the 60.

With 5 decks each, Rakdos (BR) and Dimir (BU) lead the pack. Black is present in 14 (~60%) of the decks.

As mentioned above,Black provides flexibility and then the question is whether to go more aggro with Red or more towards control / mid-range with Blue.

The zero-score of Azorius (UW) comes as a surprise, though maybe it just shows that Control strategies need support from another color to really be viable (EDIT: I made a typo in my spreadsheet. Caw Blade was Azorius. Still only one deck.)

I cannot really explain the zero-score of Boros (RW). Can this combination not balance the removal / control of White with the aggression of Red?

Three-Colors -- "Friends"

• Bant: Blue/Green/White -- 3
• Esper: White/Black/Blue -- 1
• Grixis: Black/Blue/Red -- 1
• Jund: Black/Green/Red -- 4
• Naya: Green/Red/White -- 1

Out of 10 decks, Jund (BGR) leads with 4 decks, followed by Bant (UGW, 3 decks).

Again we notice that Black + Red is inherently powerful: fully half of the 10 decks have both B and R.

Three-Colors -- "Ennemies"

• Abzan: Black/Green/White -- 3
• Jeskai: Blue/Red/White -- 1
• Mardu: Black/Red/White -- 3
• Sultai: Black/Blue/Green -- 2
• Temur: Blue/Green/Red -- 1

With 3 Mardu (BRW) decks, I think the conclusion is established: Black + Red is the foundational color combo for competitive decks.

Jeskai (URW), which challenges Azorius as the Control colors, only has one deck.

Four-colors

• 4C No-Blue -- 4
• 4C No-Red -- 1
• 4C No-Black -- 0
• 4C No-White -- 0
• 4C No-Green -- 0

Not sure what to make of that honestly. I would have thought that Blue be a great color to splash in many decks (card-draw, counters), but this appears false.

Five-Colors

• Five-Color -- 4

As mentioned above, easier to pull with the earlier decks.

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I hope you find this interesting, even if I made errors or mistakes.

I was stuck in mid-Diamond with my usual deck and, in desperation, I took out an old deck of mine.

I **flew** through Diamond 2 and Diamond 1 with a 70+% win rate.

Best rank at #576 Mythic.

Deck list ? The basic Mono-White Lifegain deck below, with Seam Rips.

https://mtga.untapped.gg/constructed/standard/decks/215/mono-white-lifegain/AAQAAQAC6Q2mkTIACZmTAYjtDLjRApitHOvABLYKLftT4pcOARSIBQA