The 5 schools of dealing death

There are five colors and one non-color in MTG, each of them have their own signature tactic to deal damage to the other players. This week I thought I'll tell you a bit about these.

White is what I call an educational deck, and with that I mean that they have a lot of cards that teaches other cards abilities, such as Captain of the Watch that gives all soldier creatures +1/+1 and Vigilance as long as it is in play. White is also the most protective of all decks, using enchantments and abilities to keep their creatures alive as long as possible.

Blue is a controlling color, trying to control the game with things like Counterspell or to control the other player with Telepathy and can even control the other players creatures with Mind Control. A popular tactic to win as blue is through "milling", where you force the other player to discard cards from his/her library until they have no cards left. It has a lot of cards like Archive Trap.

Red is a direct damage type of deck, trying to deal damage directly to the player with the use of sorceries, instants and abilities. Even the creatures often have ways of doing direct damage on the opponent, as with Anaba Shaman. Popular cards in red are Banefire, Chandra's Outrage and Comet Storm.

Green is the brute force kind of deck, using massive creatures boosted by nature to deal raw damage, using abilities like Trample and doesn't care if someone stands in the way. Baloth Woodtrasher is a common "footsoldier" (the kind of creatures you have a lot of in the deck), and it isn't uncommon to see green creatures with a lot of power, often well over 10. To pay for these expensive creatures, green also have the easiest way of finding mana, with cards like Llanowar Elves being the norm in most green decks. Enhanced by cards like Overwhelming Stampede the opponent is soon reduced to a distant memory.

Black has a deevious style, enhanced by death itself. Zombies that doesn't really die, Vampires that leaches life from the opponent and nasty sorceries and instants that kills on sight. Common are the cards that lets you play creatures from your graveyard, such as Aphetto Vulture and cards that leaches life from your opponent or his/her creatures, such as Drain Life. It is not rare to see the player sacrifice from his own life to make his forces stronger, but this is made up for by the power his forces gets from this. A prime example is Carrion Howler that can be boosted several times, if its toughness is increased by another card, but for each boost, you lose 1 life yourself.

Uncolored have been popular lately and are almost always artifacts. These can be a mix of the tactics of all colors, none of them or everything in between, but the thing that makes them unique is that you don't pay any specifik color of mana to play them.