Except for blue of course.
The white one, Healing Salve, is very weak, it has later been replaced by a strictly better card.
The red (Lightning Bolt), green (Giant Growth) and black (Dark Ritual) are very solid cards and were seen in most decks of their respective colors in the early days of Magic, would be a bit too powerful today.
The blue one, Ancestral Recall, is part of the "power 9": the 9 most famous, overpowered and expensive Magic cards. It didn't make it past the ironically called "unlimited" edition.
I don't think those three are super comparable; Dark Ritual is much stronger than Lighting Bolt, which is much stronger than Giant Growth. Dark Ritual has purposely not been printed in a "standard legal" set since 1999; it's not legal in the Modern format (cards printed in standard sets since 2003), only in formats that allow cards from any time period. Lighting Bolt is legal in Modern, with its last standard printing being in 2010, although the head designer has indicated that they wouldn't print it in a standard set now. Giant Growth was printed in a standard legal set just last year, meaning it's still currently legal to play in the Standard format (roughly speaking, cards printed in standard sets in the past two calendar years).
It's interesting to note that when the ability to produce a lot of quick mana with a sorcery was shifted to Red, two of them (Seething Song and Rite of Flame) also got banned (in Modern).
Interestingly even the third most powerful boon is powerful enough to be a multi-format all star.
The last two of course... are not.
But don't forget all of the other broken stuff blue had from the start: timewalk and timetwister, to name two.
We old people used to joke that the most powerful card printed of all item was "island".
Blue's color identity is just 'being really good at Magic' it seems
And that's a bit tongue in cheek, but in all seriousness blue is the color of mind tricks and the hacker mentality, so it makes sense blue prefers manipulating game state in ways other colors just won't think of doing, and unfortunately the game's designers grossly underestimated just how powerful "manipulating game state" is.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/rules-and-fo...
Three of the six cards (still) banned in standard are Green and two of them (Oko and Once Upon a Time) are also banned in Modern.
Blue is still the strongest color in Legacy and Vintage I think, even if the last few sets had a huge impact.
Also, Oko and Uro are also blue.
True, and as you say UG is a powerful combination, which is also kind of a new thing for me.
Those bans are a pain in the ass. They do it to hamstring the OP decks, which I understand and applaud, because nothing sucks more than having to play 4 copies of the same deck in one event. But then, because a bunch of us are using the same cards in our goofy rogue decks, these decks are also screwed and that ends up reducing diversity also. E.g. the ban of Fires of Invention has just screwed up my RW Giants deck. I mean, it's a Giants deck. About the only thing that made it viable at all was Fires.
- Teferi
White is really bad at destroying stuff directly unless it's artifacts or enchantments. It can destroy or tap lands, but typically ALL lands (2WW Armageddon). It's self-centered and when it affects enemies it's usually by placing rules, laws, constraints (Pacifism; cannot uptap; etc). Mass effects of various kinds are a common theme.
Blue doesn't deal with combat buffs. It would rather change the rules and make them irrelevant.
Black, I would say it's more about decay, death and atrophy than outright destruction. It's the worst anti-artifact, anti-enchantment color in the game and can affect them only indirectly. Black has very few buffs, it's a very negative color. Win at all costs!
Red can't affect enchantments. Like fire, it often burns (sacrifices) something to keep going. It can't last long.
Green is exceptionally bad at destruction and dealing damage. Its boons are often individual in contrast to white's, which is morel like a jungle than a society. Very early M:tg had cards like Stormseeker, they are notably absent in modern M:tg.
One of best ways to realize how much negative space there is in M:tg is to play Shandalar, the ancient RPG set in the world of Magic. You will see very many off-color cards.
White also has a thing for destroying creatures engaged in combat, which is both an extension of its rulesetting ("fighting is against the rules, and if you break the rules, you die") and its preference for pacifism (enforcing non-violence via harsh punishments). White is also the only color besides Blue that gets counterspells, typically with a taxing condition (e.g. "counter target spell unless its controller pays {2}"). White, like any responsible government, collects taxes after all.
> Green is exceptionally bad at destruction and dealing damage. Its boons are often individual in contrast to white's, which is morel like a jungle than a society. Very early M:tg had cards like Stormseeker, they are notably absent in modern M:tg.
And when Green does get to deal damage, it's through creatures. It gets straight-up buffs such as good ol' Giant Growth, plus effects where creatures get to deal damage to targets equal to their power (nicknamed "one-sided fight", after the "fight" keyword where two creatures damage each other equal to their power).
[1] https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/185815973623/does-r-d-...
White is opposite red and black, giving it the gap of high-risk play. White cannot make opportunities, but must straightforwardly initiate combat and exploit superior layouts on the battlefield. Both red and black have many useful instant spells which give them options that white doesn't have. The Ravnica guild is Rakdos, which is oriented around riskily playing an entire hand quickly, and also around destroying everything except enchantments.
Blue is opposite green and red, and indeed blue is missing the useful buffs in green and (to a lesser extent) in red. Blue is also missing the overlap between green and red, which is direct destruction of lands and artifacts. Blue represents not just knowledge, but abandoning nature in favor of libraries and cities; green and red remind blue of the power of wild nature. The Ravnica guild is Gruul, which is oriented around putting +1/+1 buffs onto friendly creatures.
Black does have more of a win-at-all-costs feeling than other colors, sacrificing library, battlefield, hand, and even graveyard for victory. Opposite white and green, black lacks health buffs and turn-over-turn permanent growth, and isn't rewarded for having a healthy zoo. The white+green Ravnica guild, Selesnya, is oriented around giving discounts for new creatures by tapping existing creatures, and making copies of creatures.
Red is across from white and blue. Like you say, enchantments are a bit of a puzzle for red. White uses enchantments to defend and protect, while blue uses them to surprise and misdirect; red has no way to deal with or emulate this. The Ravnica guild is Azorius, oriented around spells which change their behavior depending on when and how they are played.
Finally, green is across from blue and black. Blue and black have in common a willingness to sacrifice capability and knowledge in exchange for power. Green is gradual and lacks ways to trade away the library or sacrifice creatures. And the final guild, Dimir, is oriented around sacrificing cards to search the library; later, it expanded to also include sacrificing (both!) libraries directly.
I'm honestly kind of amazed at how well-designed all of this is. I suppose that surviving the test of time does imply some sort of quality design, but this is remarkable.
I'm amazed more people don't copy the idea (rather than straight-up ripping off the colors). M:tg is so interesting because of how well-defined colors are. Because they're defined, colors truly have a personality, and - crucially - play different.
For a straight ripoff check Master of Magic too. Very cheap on GOG. It's a Civilization 1 clone with tech tree/progression replaced by spells! Complete with common/uncommon/rare/very rare tiers. The system is so inspired by Magic colors it hurts. But incidentally, it's brilliant! In normal Civ games, tech tree is super boring because of many filler steps and boring +1 bonuses. Even otherwise great Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri suffers from this. But because each step in discrete (each step is a spell!), you get something concrete each time you complete research. The game also has extensive city build-up and a combat system that inspired Heroes of Might and Magic serries. The game has many design and balance flaws, and without the unofficial Insecticide patch by kyrub (who deserves eternal praise) it's extremely buggy. But they did something very, very right as game developers keep trying to clone Master of Magic. The game doesn't care much for balance, but more for very flashy and ambitious ideas.
Another accidental bit of brilliance came from memory limitation. Computers at the time didn't have enough RAM to support large maps. So instead they made 2 planes connected by magical towers. Very heavily guarded. The other plane has unique minerals, 4 unique races, magic roads that are instant travel, very magic everything (2x magic node output too). In late game, hell often breaks loose when POWERFUL computer civilizations emerge. You can also try to break into it early and loot it, but it's very risky.
Yes, you're all quite right. The word often associated with blue's style of play is "control", and in tabletop card games, control is about restricting what your opponent can do. Control often doesn't directly remove creatures from the battlefield (like red and black can do), or buff your creatures (like white and green), but instead directly removes your opponent's ability to introduce cards to play.
Counterspell is possibly the iconic blue technique. I found this article [0] a really interesting writeup of the mechanism design.
There is interestingly one other style closely associated with blue, called "bouncing". [1] While black tends to be able to permanently remove blockers, i.e. to the graveyard, blue's skill is in temporarily removing blockers back to the hand or library. In addition to being able to decisively change the course of a battle, bouncing can also provide control over several turns, because bounces prevent blue's opponents from being able to set up a proper offensive line, and force opponents to waste mana on fielding units that will be bounced. This latter requirement is analogous to how counterspell forces opponents to waste mana on casting spells that will be fizzled.
[0] https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/c...
White represents not dying, both by preventing damage and by healing damage. White wins by having more health than their opponents, and outlasting them in battle.
Blue represents drawing the right card, mostly by drawing a lot of cards. Blue wins by controlling spells and hands. (When the article says "knowledge", note that the MTG deck in play is called "the library"!)
Black represents destruction. Black wins by controlling battlefields and removing blockers.
Red represents opportunities in the current moment and the random possibility of change. Red wins by playing on offensive tempo (the "upswing") and attacking vulnerable targets with instant abilities. ("Tempo" here is not quite as in music; it means playing cards turn after turn with a reliable ramping up in cost and effectiveness.)
Green represents growth and the potential for planning. Green wins by playing on defensive tempo (the "downswing") and tilting the battlefield in their favor over many turns.
Ideally, this system of categorizing by color works because there aren't any big strategies to winning that aren't color-aligned. "Milling", the strategy of deliberately destroying your opponent's library, is closely tied to blue and black, which are all about libraries and destruction. Keeping a "zoo", a battlefield full of mid-range on-tempo creatures, is closely tied to red and green, which are the two colors tied to tempo.
[0] https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Color