I like tricolor. Making two color creatures is easy for me, as I could just pass in two creature types that, say, could be in that color combination plus one extra. Or, I could just use one of those creature types.

For some completely irrational reason, I want to design a set of tricolor creatures that just use subtypes that have the three colors be more important to them than the other two.

I am not going to use Scouts or Warriors because I'm planning on making a four-color set using those colors.

Here's what I have so far.


??? Monk (fox, elephant, or rhino, but the latter two don't make sense)

??? Soldier (possibly dwarves or gnomes)

??? Advisor (tie between fairy, vedalken, and bird)

Naga ??? (literally have no idea, best guess ninja)

Horror Rogue

Orc Knight

Troll Shaman

Elemental ??? (not using scout, need that for 4-color cycle)

Cat Nomad

Elf Cleric



EDIT: changed things because I don't like Shaman in .

My top pick for would be Spider. Patient, cunning, reaching. Blacka nd green spiders are common, but blue might require sentient spiderfolk.
Wait- I misunderstood. THe "???" means you're looking for a class to pair with it.
Scout seems like it would have been the best class. Wizard is weird in green. Shaman is weird in blue. Mercenary maybe? Tough one.

could be spirits too. Mind, spirits go in any color for any reason.

for soldier is a little odd. While there are a suprisingly large number of blue soldiers, that number comes as surprise for a reason. I'd shift soldier to and ditch nomad.

could be rebels maybe? I'm clutching at straws here.

class could be berserker. Barbarian if you like classes that make no sense.

has just that one class alone available. I can't move soldiers to even if I wanted to, and besides, I personally think blue soldiers actually make sense. Soldier seems like a creature type that wins over other factions through the combination of large numbers and higher technology or strategy. Red is capable of employing trickery and hordes. White has strategy and large numbers. Blue just basically are soldiers with fewer numbers but higher tech. Green wouldn't like organized warfare, and black would find a large horde of intelligent people a liability.

has so many biological subtypes available to it, but barely any sociological subtypes. My (very far) guess would be to use Ninja, and have them be flavored as incredibly fit, and absolutely professional. But that's a stretch and I hate doing that.

Spirits going in any color is the reason why I don't want to use them.

I think WotC would have to invent a new subtype for this. The closest I can get with this is Scout (used too much in white) and Mutant (biological subtype).

Berserker and Barbarian? Alright. Seems too villainous though.

Berserker maybe, but it'd be fine. Barbarian though, plenty of heroic barbarian tribes out there in fiction land.

Fox work in bant. Rhino's have history there as well. Elves and Merfolk also all have history in all three colors, but you might have those used elsewhere.

Dwarves could work for Jeskai, but even though blue makes flavorful sense (mechanics and industry), it just feel weird. Gnomes are artifact race on magic.

Any of your esper options would be fine. Fairy is probably the weakest.

For sultai how do you feel about druid? Assassin?

I think Jund barbarians is sound

Rebels would work in Temur, druid could as well. Spellshaper, doesn't have much color identity but covers "a bunch of different kind of spell casters". Mystic, Pirate, Archer. If alchemist wasn't a defunct type I'd suggest that. Coward?

Jeskai could be artificer. Those are the craftsman colors and they all have heavy artifact interaction.

I like fox and elephant for Bant colors. They're both wild animals with an intellectual bent. Foxes have a history in white, but I feel like elephants fit the color better. The downside to elephants is that they aren't ever small.

I don't think barbarian or berserker are villainous. Berserkers only kill when they're angry (granted they get angry in order to kill...) so really, aren't they kinder than soldiers and such? But really, being emotional about it doesn't make them any more evil than anybody else. And barbarians are literally a cultural group. It makes it reductivist for them to all be evil, and I've never felt i barbarian jived with the other profession-based classes.

Archer might be your best bet for . Ranged attacks, anti-flying and uh, wind powers?

vampires.

Vampires - trivia: there's actually more blue Vampire non-planeswalker cards than white.
Also, Orcs are considered to be very cowardly in Dominaria, so it would actually be cool if there ends up being a lot of them that learn how to use white mana.

The Berserker class is mostly "oh I charge right into fight and kill as many things as possible so my allies can also kill lots of things". There's also, in other media, the concept of Berserkers in science fiction, being self-replicating ships that are hell-bent on destroying all life in the universe. I can't really find a way to get out of this mind trap other than using elements that the Rebel subtype has.

The Barbarian class is supplanted by Warriors and Berserkers.

Artificer is mechanically linked too much for my tastes. It's like the Enchantress subtype. I also find Nomad more fitting than soldier for and honestly, those two combinations aren't important for me.

Archers are going to need a long printing history that outright avoids if I'll put them in .

Whenever I see red druids, I find it to be really weird and not fitting of the color or the subtype. But, druids would also need a long altered printing history before I would put them in any color combination. They're also highly prevalent in which means that I can't put them in Sultai. Assassins don't work in green or blue.

Minotaur used to be an option for Jeskai but when Theros came out that's no longer the case.

Yes, but none of those vampires are mono-, while we're getting mono- vampires in Ixalan. It also makes sense thematically.

If you're going purely by print history your screwed. Tricolor requires bleeds here an there.

Why would white connect to cowardice?

I believe barbarian is still a supported creature type.

How did theros make jeskai minotaurs not a thing?

You seem to have a lot of rules you didn't share.

- I'm going by print history. If Vampires are going to become relevant in then maybe I'd change the card to Vampire Knight.
- Theros ended up making minotaurs very numerous in , and even more so in Amonkhet. Check out Pitiless Vizier.
- Well, there could be cowards that want peace and could try to achieve this through diplomacy, for example. That's well within the range of .
- Well considering the tie between Barbarian and Berserker, it's starting to become a game of "who can be more justified in this color combination". Honestly though, I'd go for either print history or whatever's more numerous.

I'd like WotC to print more Ninjas that aren't mechanically linked. They're the closest I have to a class.

Yeah that print history is going to hurt, cause only 2 block have really put an effort into tri color creature types.

But it didn't undo past cards, so why does more black mean no jeskai?

The only printed coward however is red. The only card to reference the type is red. I mean the trait could go in any color honestly, i just found it odd that to you white meant cowardice.

Don't expect more ninjas for a while.

If you want to fit any race (and, to a lesser extent: class) into three or more colors, you're gonna need to do some stretching. This isn't a bad thing, really, since it allows you a new perspective on those races, classes and color combinations. Don't focus too much on print history when doing things like this. It's a guideline, not a restriction. Vampires weren't Red until they were.

Rhox, rhino people, could easily be the bant tribe.

Loxodon (elephants) could be abzhan since they are generally green and white, and a few were in Khans.

Dragons are Jund already.

Of course classes, not races, would be harder.

The solution for this would be take a two color tribe that splashes easily into the third and just stretch it.

Red/White/X could be soldiers, RUW could be Wizards or Advisors, WBX could be Knights, Temur or Jund shamans. You could be cute and do UWX as cowards

To match what you want, I think you can go Rhox for bant, dwarves for jeskai, aven for esper, troll wizard (also could be berserker, or you could un-retcon the guys who made the chain veil and do ARTIFICERS), Elementals could be classless, or do druids, or even allies.

Mystic, Nomad, and Rebel are all viable, if retired options.
And if you want to get weird, there's always Monger.

Mystic sounds like a great creature type. Since the boundaries between the magical classes are kind of vague, you have to justify it somehow though. There's plenty of space to carve out of the Wizard type. Scryers and fortunetellers could be printed as Mystics from now on and I'd be happy.
Nomad is a lifestyle descriptor. I don't think it works as a class any better than "settler". If not living in one location is important enough to warrant a creature type, then settling down should be too. And if it were, it would be important enough to put onto every town-dwelling humanoid printed going forward. And it's not. Working backwards from that we can tell that Nomad is a lame typing.
Rebel's tends to overlap with things (sometimes that's an asset, sometimes not). THe real problem though is that it's not supported. Cards that clearly should be rebels don't have the type.

Mystics were a weird semi-faith based occultist thing that had no doctrine or dogma to define as 'cleric' which by rights feels like it demands an organisation.

And yet every damn Kor alive should have that DAMN TYPE.
WHY ARE THEY SOLDIERS?! (I'm going to go shout into the uncaring void for a while)

Yeah, don't get me started there either. Kaladesh had a whole shipload of fail for their damned revolution plotline.
Not least because the 'sympathetic' heroes were effectively anarchists.

As an anarchist, I resent the idea that the rebels of Kaladesh in any way, shape or form represent that movement/ideology.

The Aether Revolt folks didn't want an abolition of government structures, they didn't (explicitly) wanted to move in a more community-focused direction, they had no interest in removing hierarchies, etc. All they wanted was a less oppressive government.

The idea that the government was oppressive in and of itself was part of why their movement was stupid. Because the world was a legitimately shiny happy place. They wanted a removal of basically all strictures to allow them to act however they damn well pleased.

I decided that I don't like Shaman in , so I solved the problem for .

Oh, something interesting that could be used as flavor text for a Berserker:

If a soldier survives the berserk state, it imparts emotional deadness and vulnerability to explosive rage to his psychology and permanent hyperarousal to his physiology — hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans. My clinical experience with Vietnam combat veterans prompts me to place the berserk state at the heart of their most severe psychological and psychophysiological injuries.

-Johnathan Shay

So, it would be interesting to see PTSD-filled berserkers in MtG, as that would make a more accurate portrayal of the source material without being boring.

Berserker's Curse
Enchantment - Aura Curse
When a creature enchanted player controls dies, that player puts the top 5 cards of their library into their graveyard.
If a soldier survives the berserk state, it imparts emotional deadness and vulnerability to explosive rage to his psychology, and permanent hyperarousal to his physiology - hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans.

Granted, berserkers as we know them are largely a fiction.