(Diabolic TutorDiabolic Tutor | Mark Winters)

Each color in Magic has its own strengths and weaknesses. This is one of the first things you learn about the game when you start and is what keeps most people playing for years.

Broadly speaking, you know what a “blue deck” can do and what it can’t. When they have untapped mana, you have to be careful not to get countered. If you have permanents that grow over time, you have to prepare for them to be returned to your hand.

You have to keep an eye on their hand size to ensure they don’t draw their whole deck by turn four. Or mill you out!

Similarly, if someone is playing Boros (red and white), you can expect a board-spanning conflict where they’ll attempt to win with martial superiority. Expect token generation, life gain, equipment, and pinging. All the wonders of white and red brought together.

So what if you threw all that to the wayside and did the exact opposite of what each color lends itself to?

What Is Playing “Out Of Type?”

The neat thing about the Magic color pie is that, despite the fact each color has its strengths, it’s rare a mechanic is completely devoid from a color.

For instance, countering is the domain of blue decks. But there are cards in other colors which either counter a card or cause a similar effect. Tibalt’s TrickeryTibalt’s Trickery is perhaps the most famous (or infamous) of such an example, but there are certainly others.

Certainly, there aren’t enough non-blue counters to have any other color reasonably claim to be a true competitor. The same is true with life gain in white or mana production in green. Each color has its competencies and its deficiencies.

But isn’t it interesting that other colors can flirt with mechanics normally seen as foreign to them? And does that not necessitate the exploration of such an idea?

A Quick Disclaimer

While it certainly wouldn’t be competitive - and I would argue it goes against common wisdom as well - there’s a certain joy to purposefully avoiding the strengths of the color you’re playing. It gives an emphasis to cards that aren’t traditionally given the time of day and completely overhauls how you interact with the game.

While you can certainly play out of type of a multicolored deck, the theme is most clear with a monocolored, which means you’re limiting yourself quite heavily by doing this.

So in order to exemplify how this might work, I wanted to choose what I feel is the most flexible of the colors: black.

What Black Does Well in Magic

When I think of black in Magic, I think of needless sacrifice.

Your cards? Don’t need them.

Your creatures? Expendable.

Your life? The only one that matters is the last.

But crucially, all of these sacrifices give massive benefits to the one making them. Whether life gain or card draw or token creation, black excels at spending one resource to make another. And then, of course, spending that new resource to create yet another.

That removal also extends to opponents’ boards! Primarily creature removal, but no one excels at clearing a board quite like black.

Other colors might have “damage”“damage” or “board“board or “bounce“bounce. But it’s black that can do it cheaply, repeatedly, and at scale.

As in, there are so many black creature removal spells that the fact Commander limits cards to a single copy per deck is functionally meaningless.

Finding Cards

While I don’t think of this as one of my first associations with black, I would be remiss not to mention its tutors. When it comes to building engines or putting together combos, few colors have the means to actually find what they need like black does.

Further, while red is the home of impulse draw and blue has traditional drawing, black has access to more than tutors. With some surveilling and draw-discard, black can go through its library faster than most colors if not simply choose which cards to acquire.

It also has fantastic graveyard retrieval, bringing cards back for a second casting. Or, knowing black, out for the first time since it got discarded initially.

This can even extend to opponents’ cards, taking them from the battlefield and turning them against their former master.

In Summary

Black decks excel at hurting everyone. They hurt you, they hurt your opponents, they hurt the people temporarily aligning themselves with you.

Life totals are a suggestion, and the graveyard is a second hand. Creatures are a resource to be spent ruthlessly and without consideration.

But What If…

… You Play a Black Deck Where You Jealously Keep Your Permanents Safe?

Of all the colors, black is the one that plays the most fast and loose with its permanents. And hand. And life.

So to play against type in black, it’s a rather straightforward methodology. Instead of sacrificing your creatures and discarding your hand, minimize the damage dealt to you.

Play a game where more than just the last life matters.

Protect Your Permanents

Luckily - and somewhat surprisingly - black excels at this!

While black lacks many keywords such as hexproof in abundance, or protection from colors, it has quite a few ways to protect its creatures.

Offer ImmortalityOffer Immortality is a great demonstration of this on two fronts. The first is the direct indestructibility it grants. While not exceedingly common, black has a fair number of ways to impose temporary protections on its permanents.

But the mindgames start with granting your creatures deathtouch.

Assuming your opponents aren’t running a traditional black deck which sacrifices its creatures readily, they'll often be reluctant to sacrifice their creatures. Sure, a token deck might swarm you or an aggro deck might not have the patience to avoid deathtouch. But in a fair number of cases, opponents will hesitate to attack if they know you can give your creatures deathtouch, which has the pleasant effect of keeping your creatures safe!

And if that doesn’t work, just threaten your opponents. If you set up a series of enchantments to destroy their creatures or bring back yours, suddenly it becomes a lot less appealing to destroy your creatures.

All without having to get your hands dirty.

Environmentally Sustainable Mana Production

Though it should be mentioned that sacrificing permanents is more of a symptom than the disease. Black decks sacrifice their creatures to achieve an end, whether that be damage, life gain, or mana. So perhaps instead of focusing on protecting your creatures, you focus on overhauling mana production?

The fact that green is the monarch of mana means nothing to the industrious black deck. While you can certainly invest in a Phyrexian AltarPhyrexian Altar and commit a Dark RitualDark Ritual to sit awash in your ill-gotten currency, those are your creatures!

How cruel could you be to sacrifice them for, what, temporary gains? You aren’t even holding onto mana between phases unless you’ve opted for a “very“very

Think sustainably! There are means for you to access additional mana that leaves your creatures unharmed.

Aside from the somewhat comical adherence to protecting your permanents, leaving your creatures alive and well has the benefits of… having a board full of creatures!

Many of black’s strongest creatures come with a cadre of negatives to offset their positives. Whether “costing“costing on the field or literally causing you to “lose“lose if not dealt with, black often incentivizes you to cycle through creatures.

Resist the temptation.

Choke the Stars With Life

Black has some quite strong “life“life often accompanied or preceded by damage dealt, but not always. Aside from the flat benefit of gaining life and reducing your chance of losing the game, black can synergize its life gain with damage dealing in order to have a legitimate win condition from this.

Now, this would involve direct damage which isn’t exactly playing “against” black’s color typing. But hey, we’re doing the best we can with what we got. The goal is to win, so unless you want to play alternative win conditions, this is your best bet!

When to Do This

There are many ways to play Magic, and some are more likely to lead to victory than others. Commander damage, poison counters, alternative win conditions - all are valid and even can be competitive!

This is not one such strategy.

But if you felt you were struggling to connect to black decks or the monotony of the same Game Changers was boring you, try to see what you can come up with when you push the bounds of the color pie. You might just find that building a deck out of type shines a whole new light on a color.