What is the Color Pie in Magic The Gathering? Answered

Every card in Magic: The Gathering belongs to at least one of five colors. Some cards can draw from multiple colors, or even have qualities of all five. Each color represents different aspects of mana, which also relate to the abilities that a card can hold. Cards that combine multiple colors together can also contain abilities from each color.

When building a multi-colored deck, you might wonder which colors are compatible or work together the best. While a number of deck ideas can work with the right cards, the color pie helps players see which colors are compatible, and which ones need a lot of work to go together.

Related: The 10 best Precon Commander decks in Magic the Gathering

What does the Color Pie look like?

The Color Pie puts compatible colors together while having opposing colors far away from the initial color. For example, red is compatible with black and green, while the blue and white colors are farther away from red’s position on the wheel.

With the Color Pie, you can see for yourself which colors would be a great combination, or which colors might not be a great combination. This is why multi-color decks are often black-blue, or white-blue, red-green, or green-white. Tri-color decks are usually taking a close group of three, such as black-blue-white or black-red-green.

That doesn’t mean that other colors won’t work well together. You can see blue-red decks (known as Izzet) along with black-white decks. The Ravnica set introduced many dual color combinations that went against the Color Pie’s recommendations. Having multi-color decks is always a difficult balance, but sometimes there will be cards that make a format work, depending on what you’re trying to do.

Think of the Color Pie as a guideline rather than a hard rule. There will always be exceptions and combinations that draw from different colors. But if you are starting out as a Magic: The Gathering player, the Color Pie helps you decide which colors would be a great fit, and let you tinker around. As you get more experience, you might learn of other cards that would benefit your playstyle, and get other mana sources to make it happen.