Design Theory: Relax Color Pie Restrictions
Thesis
Color pie restrictions promote diversity of strategy and identity between colors, but they also restrict strategic options for building competitive decks. Competitive magic would be more strategically diverse and interesting if hard restrictions were relaxed to soft restrictions. The benefit would outweigh the cost.
Introduction
One of most common feedback I get when designing my custom cards for cube is "But that doesn't fit within that colors identity!!!!". It's clear many people are afraid to think outside the box on this issue and regurgitate arguments given by magic designers on the colors identity. What they fail to realize is color pie restrictions has shifted a lot throughout magic's 25+ year history, and there's no reason to think that it won't shift more. Pushing boundaries and questioning old standards is essential to a keep the game evolving.
I'm confident that the motivations that led designers to make changes like give red and green access to card advantage, will further push them to soften color pie restrictions as time goes on.
By opening up card advantage to multiple colors, they unlocked many more combinations of decks that could be interactive over a longer game. Before, you only had the option of grinding with very specific color combinations. All decks without blue or black were countered in a very specific way which could lead to monotonous deck building and gameplay.
Playing against any permutation of green white or red? Wraths/creature removal/life gain, you win.
If answers like those in a given format were powerful enough, you simply could not play those colors. There were no counter measures. Go under the opponent, combo them quick, and if you can't do that, get a new deck.
Planeswalkers and cards like experimental frenzy changed that equation and diversified it.
Even in the middle of me writing this article, Mark Rosewater spoiled a card for commander 19 where they gave black the ability to deal with enchantments! It's clear the trend is towards soft restrictions.. I think they should push it more!
Legacy
Currently, there are a few fundamental axis of interaction that very few colors have the ability to interact on. The effect is subtle in standard, but it's huge in eternal formats. These axis are the opponent's hand and the stack.
Despite being fundamental to the game, only 1!! color has the ability to interact with either of them.
Currently only black has the ability to interact with the opponents hand, and only blue has the ability to interact with the stack. This is a huge mistake in my eyes. As cards get more and more powerful and formats get faster and faster, the resolution of those spells can often mean game over, no matter what you are trying to do yourself.
Color pie restrictions forces interactive decks into playing either blue or black as their base color (In legacy, even black is often not enough unless you have a strong proactive element as well).
By putting a few "off-color" eternal playable ways to interact with the stack at instant speed, you diversify what decks can be built at little cost to flavor. This should matter more and more as time goes on as eternal formats invariably get more powerful.
Some examples off the top off my head (not literally recommending these, but sharing an idea of how to not lose flavour)
RG; Brain Punch
Deal 2 damage to target opponent , that player discards 1 card at random.
If you control a creature with four or more power, that player discards 2 cards at random instead.
3WW Tale of Courage Enchantment
Flash, Fading 3
Name a spell, spells with the chosen name cannot resolve.
You may exile two legendary cards from your hand instead of paying tale of courages
mana cost.
4WWG Equality Instant
Each player sacrifices all non-land permanents they control, exiles all other spells on the stack, then exiles their graveyard.
If it is before the start of your second turn, exile a green and a white card from your hand, if you do, you may cast this card without paying it's mana cost.
Cycle 3
G/B (Hybrid) Cursed Elf Creature Zombie Elf
Reveal a Zombie or a Shaman from your hand: Sacrifice cursed elf, target opponent reveals their hand, you may discard a non-creature card from their hand. You may only sacrifice at sorcery speed.
1/1
Standard
While the effect of color pie restrictions is less pronounced in standard, the consequences on format health can be just as severe. In eternal formats a lot of the game play is between linear decks that aren't interested in interaction.. So, the limited functions of each color is less important for strategic diversity.
In standard, the vast majority of decks need to interact. A color being unable to answer a permanent can mean the color is entirely pushed out of the meta-game.
Grixis in current standard is a perfect example. 3! popular colors are unable to answer one of the most relevant permanent types (enchantments) outside of a 6 mana card (Ugin).
This ended up being a death sentence for a very fun deck (NICOL BOLAS TRIBAL!!!!), simply because it could not answer an experimental frenzy, a wilderness reclamation or a search for azcanta. If a slightly subpar answer to enchantments were printed in these colors, grixis would have had a legit shot to compete with esper for metagame share.
There's a very good reason all colors can deal with creatures. How miserable would magic be if only 2 of them could interact with the most important permanent type? This effect is less pronounced for less pervasive permanents but it's still there.
Psionic blast was one of the most egregious color pie breakings in early magic history, but in my opinion, that card printed today would be amazing for deck diversity!! And the card is totally on flavour for blue from a lore perspective.
Blue as a base is generally the color least interested in winning via damage in the early-mid game, such that taking 2 damage to cast a spell would be a very real draw back. However, if planeswalkers were dominating the format, blue would now have a slightly inefficient way of dealing with SOME of them. It would also mean that aggressive decks would have some interest in splashing blue, for an otherwise powerful effect for them. They wouldn't play much blue, since the rest of the color isn't useful to them, but deck builders would now have a reason to CONSIDER splashing blue, depending on how the format shapes up. This leads to diversity, without changing the colors identity.
Knowing you have an unlikely, inefficient out is such a more enjoyable psychological state to be in, then knowing you are drawing dead the second a spell resolves.
R&D won't know for sure what cards and permanent types are the most relevant, so by diversifying the answers across a variety of colors, it acts as deck diversity safety valve in case one type of threat ends up being too good.
If each color has a color break or two, it keeps their roll the same, but gives them more options in different metagames.
Color pie restrictions promote diversity of strategy and identity between colors, but they also restrict strategic options for building competitive decks. Competitive magic would be more strategically diverse and interesting if hard restrictions were relaxed to soft restrictions. The benefit would outweigh the cost.
Introduction
One of most common feedback I get when designing my custom cards for cube is "But that doesn't fit within that colors identity!!!!". It's clear many people are afraid to think outside the box on this issue and regurgitate arguments given by magic designers on the colors identity. What they fail to realize is color pie restrictions has shifted a lot throughout magic's 25+ year history, and there's no reason to think that it won't shift more. Pushing boundaries and questioning old standards is essential to a keep the game evolving.
I'm confident that the motivations that led designers to make changes like give red and green access to card advantage, will further push them to soften color pie restrictions as time goes on.
By opening up card advantage to multiple colors, they unlocked many more combinations of decks that could be interactive over a longer game. Before, you only had the option of grinding with very specific color combinations. All decks without blue or black were countered in a very specific way which could lead to monotonous deck building and gameplay.
Playing against any permutation of green white or red? Wraths/creature removal/life gain, you win.
If answers like those in a given format were powerful enough, you simply could not play those colors. There were no counter measures. Go under the opponent, combo them quick, and if you can't do that, get a new deck.
Planeswalkers and cards like experimental frenzy changed that equation and diversified it.
Even in the middle of me writing this article, Mark Rosewater spoiled a card for commander 19 where they gave black the ability to deal with enchantments! It's clear the trend is towards soft restrictions.. I think they should push it more!
Legacy
Currently, there are a few fundamental axis of interaction that very few colors have the ability to interact on. The effect is subtle in standard, but it's huge in eternal formats. These axis are the opponent's hand and the stack.
Despite being fundamental to the game, only 1!! color has the ability to interact with either of them.
Currently only black has the ability to interact with the opponents hand, and only blue has the ability to interact with the stack. This is a huge mistake in my eyes. As cards get more and more powerful and formats get faster and faster, the resolution of those spells can often mean game over, no matter what you are trying to do yourself.
Color pie restrictions forces interactive decks into playing either blue or black as their base color (In legacy, even black is often not enough unless you have a strong proactive element as well).
By putting a few "off-color" eternal playable ways to interact with the stack at instant speed, you diversify what decks can be built at little cost to flavor. This should matter more and more as time goes on as eternal formats invariably get more powerful.
Some examples off the top off my head (not literally recommending these, but sharing an idea of how to not lose flavour)
RG; Brain Punch
Deal 2 damage to target opponent , that player discards 1 card at random.
If you control a creature with four or more power, that player discards 2 cards at random instead.
3WW Tale of Courage Enchantment
Flash, Fading 3
Name a spell, spells with the chosen name cannot resolve.
You may exile two legendary cards from your hand instead of paying tale of courages
mana cost.
4WWG Equality Instant
Each player sacrifices all non-land permanents they control, exiles all other spells on the stack, then exiles their graveyard.
If it is before the start of your second turn, exile a green and a white card from your hand, if you do, you may cast this card without paying it's mana cost.
Cycle 3
G/B (Hybrid) Cursed Elf Creature Zombie Elf
Reveal a Zombie or a Shaman from your hand: Sacrifice cursed elf, target opponent reveals their hand, you may discard a non-creature card from their hand. You may only sacrifice at sorcery speed.
1/1
Standard
While the effect of color pie restrictions is less pronounced in standard, the consequences on format health can be just as severe. In eternal formats a lot of the game play is between linear decks that aren't interested in interaction.. So, the limited functions of each color is less important for strategic diversity.
In standard, the vast majority of decks need to interact. A color being unable to answer a permanent can mean the color is entirely pushed out of the meta-game.
Grixis in current standard is a perfect example. 3! popular colors are unable to answer one of the most relevant permanent types (enchantments) outside of a 6 mana card (Ugin).
This ended up being a death sentence for a very fun deck (NICOL BOLAS TRIBAL!!!!), simply because it could not answer an experimental frenzy, a wilderness reclamation or a search for azcanta. If a slightly subpar answer to enchantments were printed in these colors, grixis would have had a legit shot to compete with esper for metagame share.
There's a very good reason all colors can deal with creatures. How miserable would magic be if only 2 of them could interact with the most important permanent type? This effect is less pronounced for less pervasive permanents but it's still there.
Psionic blast was one of the most egregious color pie breakings in early magic history, but in my opinion, that card printed today would be amazing for deck diversity!! And the card is totally on flavour for blue from a lore perspective.
Blue as a base is generally the color least interested in winning via damage in the early-mid game, such that taking 2 damage to cast a spell would be a very real draw back. However, if planeswalkers were dominating the format, blue would now have a slightly inefficient way of dealing with SOME of them. It would also mean that aggressive decks would have some interest in splashing blue, for an otherwise powerful effect for them. They wouldn't play much blue, since the rest of the color isn't useful to them, but deck builders would now have a reason to CONSIDER splashing blue, depending on how the format shapes up. This leads to diversity, without changing the colors identity.
Knowing you have an unlikely, inefficient out is such a more enjoyable psychological state to be in, then knowing you are drawing dead the second a spell resolves.
R&D won't know for sure what cards and permanent types are the most relevant, so by diversifying the answers across a variety of colors, it acts as deck diversity safety valve in case one type of threat ends up being too good.
If each color has a color break or two, it keeps their roll the same, but gives them more options in different metagames.
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