Hello awesome Commander and multiplayer aficionados! Wow do I have a fun article for you! Today I am going to rank the five colors for your current environment of your favorite format! Each color does different things, and you'll see my views on the colors might differ from yours. For today's consideration, we won't be looking at multicolored identity stuff or colorless backbones you might add to cover weaknesses, like Sol Ring and Arcane Signet for ramp as one example.

How Would You Rank the Colors of Magic in Multiplayer?

Here's what I want you to do. Are you familiar with the multiplayer format called Star Magic? This has five players, each one builds a deck of one color. You cannot run hosers like Gloom or Karma. Again, no cards with multiple identities or artifacts/lands that are colorless. Just build one Commander/multiplayer oriented deck in Star Magic, and then play each other. In actual Star Magic you sit in Color Wheel order and then you can win with your friends (the allied colors) but those two friends are enemies (enemy colors), so up to two players can win. However, for our purposes, you can skip that and just see which colors win the most. You might be surprised. And then you can swap players to ensure that the biggest winners weren't a result of a skilled player, but the color itself.

Play Star Magic and then come back and tell me that my color wheel isn't broken because my results will reflect monocolored play without colorless stuff in your lands and artifacts. Ready!

Let's look at my colors in order from worst to best!!!

5. Red

Ah yes, Red. Red is very strong in duels and 20-life formats but less so when dialing it up against multiple foes. 40-life games are where Red's strengths become weaknesses. Because of how weak it is, many Five Color players would reduce Red to the minimum allowed in the format. As one example.

Red's Strengths

Red has some great things it brings to the table. First of all, it's the best at artifact removal, from the instant double exiling of Into the Core or everyone else's artifacts like Vandalblast, to a great creature answer in the form of damage from burn like Blasphemous Act and the classic Earthquake for grounded dorks and players too. It's also the best color at removing lands like Stone Rain and Pillage. It's nasty. It often can do many of those three in one sweeper like Jokulhaups, but that's not really nice. It also has Chaos Warp to answer anything with a weakness.

Red has the ability to work very well with artifacts and is very friendly with them on its side of the board, ideally Goblin Welder to sacrifice for recurring another artifact. Now in Star Magic our Red deck cannot recur things like Spine of Ish Sah or drop and sac Ichor Wellspring for purposes of showing the color's value, but in normal Commander decks it does well. Red also loves ramp in the form of Treasures, like classics such as Dockside Extortionist and Spellslinger lover Storm-Kiln Artist. This also loves Equipment and tutors and finding them like Godo, Bandit Warlord.

Next Red is one of the best in aggro colors and token making. Token making is better at multiplayer since you can make them over time and swing at multiple people or after one falls. Then you have the ability to go fast with dorks coming out of the gate too. It's also the color of one of the best evergreen keywords in multiplayer called haste, and enablers like Fervor and Hammer of Purphoros are great since you can be the first to smash after mass removal to or to get a faster kill with your Commander by a turn.

How about the greatness of Red with Spellslinger brews like with Guttersnipe or Young Pyromancer?

So, Red has many good things going for it, it's the best and most consistent at removing artifacts and lands, it's strong at creature and planeswalker kill with burn, it loves making Treasures, it's fast, it goes wide fast and it's strong with the loving of its own artifacts.

Red's Weaknesses

Now let's turn to Red's weaknesses! First of all, its burn, which is pretty unique to Red, like Lightning Bolt and Fireball are great in duels or 20 life, but against multiple people or 40 life or both, burn is less powerful. Then your aggro is better at 20 life or duels. Where are Red classics like Jackal Pup here?

How about the two new ways for Red to "draw" cards? Let's look! Red first discards and then draws, so it's called "Rummaging" by the community. That's card equity, not card draw, like Cathartic Reunion. Now, that's not bad. I'd rather have rummaging than nothing, and it has added value in graveyard matters stuff like Goblin Welder. What about exiling the top cards of your library and then playing them in a limited window called "Impulsive" after Act on Impulse. Sure, that's nice too, and some faster decks would prefer that to the rummaging, like decks that can cast all three like cheaper dorks and tokens, but normally most would prefer not having the weakness of exiling your stuff that you cannot then play, like your combo piece. It's also not card "draw".

Red's ability to make mana from instants/sorceries after color shifting over Dark Rituals are bonkers in duels in many ways, but outside of Storm not that strong in multiplayer decks. Red does have countermagic in anti-Blue stuff like Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast, but at multiplayer they are pretty limited. It's also the color of Relentless Assault and extra turns with twists like Final Fortune, but they need to be better to get to Blue's extra turn taking that does everything for one more mana. It also has the worst Tutor in Gamble.

So, that's why Red is the worst color of them all!!!

4. Green

Now let's turn to the next color, Green. From here on up, every color can win pretty easily on its own with no other colors or colorless by leaning into it's strengths and what it brings to the table. It's hard for Red to win in multiplayer since its strengths like aggro, burn, Rituals and card draw are great in duels or even 20 life formats but rough in your typical 40-life Commander multiplayer. But from Green on up there are many classic paths to take to win easily, and they are all here on out on a plateau together.

Green's Strengths

Everyone knows Green strengths start and end with ramp, it's unique ability to cast spells like Rampant Growth or Explosive Vegetation to ramp out multiple lands to the battlefield from your library. And then we have mana dorks like Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves to tap for that mana as well! We also have Sakura-Tribe Elder to do both. Ramp is beloved and one of the key things that make Green so powerful.

Big beaters. The next thing Green does well is run big dorks into the battlefield to punch powerfully. These are game powerhouses with big power and toughness for their casting cost and are ahead of the curve like Gigantosaurus or Ghalta, Primal Hunger. This is also the color of power matters like reductions in cost like with Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma or in card draw like Garruk's Packleader. Power matters works here.

Green is the third best color for recursion. Unlike the top two it can return anything from its graveyard, but only to its hand like Eternal Witness or Regrowth.

For removal, Green is best at destroying flyers like Whirlwind or Silklash Spider. It's also great at handling artifacts and enchantments from Naturalize on over. It has Reclamation Sage to answer those types, and then it's not bad at the occasional land removal like Acidic Slime, Creeping Mold, or Winter's Grasp. So, it's good at handling artifacts, enchantments, lands and flyers. It's Chaos Warp to handle anything is Beast Within and it just has one to, barring Desert Twister. It also has one of the best answers to answers called Heroic Intervention.

Ever since Tempest, Green has been great at going wide with Overrun effects on a wide board to win faster. Many are played today like Craterhoof Behemoth and Garruk's Wildspeaker. Then it's the color of the 2nd best evasion giving in trample. It loves things like Brawn or Garruk's Uprising.

It loves going wide with tokens too and even has token doublers like Doubling Season and Parallel Lives. It also loves going tall with +1/+1 counters and has the powerful and beloved Forgotten Ancient to build and distribute them to others.

Just like Red has a love/hate relationship with artifacts, so too does Green with enchantments, ever since Verduran Enchantress drew you a card from a cast of that type! Green also has a love relationship with creatures and all of its card draw cares about creatures or enchantments save for Harmonize or Sylvan Library.

So Green has a lot of strengths from answering three permanent types, flyers, and then having the best ramp, big stuff, trampling and big bodies, and recursion of anything, and a love of enchantments and dorks too! Combing ramp with big beaters can win the game or going wide with tokens and lands matter stuff to win with Overrun stuff.

Green's Weaknesses

Here's the main issue with Green. It only wins in the red zone, and never with the most important evasion, flying. Sure, it can kill flyers or block with reach all day long, but cannot win on the ground outside of trample or going wide when it swings. If you have ways of preventing combat damage or bouncing/answering the trample enablers and such you can shut down Green's one method of winning the game. That's the only real issue with Green - no matter how big they go with Gigantosaurus or +1/+1 counters or wide with tokens and landfall stuff like Avenger of Zendikar, they are never winning from flyers. The inability to win with evasion in flyers or outside of the red zone means that this color will never be able to reliably grab wins against those prepared.

3. Blue

You might not agree with me that Blue is the middle of the pack, since it's the color of countermagic that answers anything, but it is. Blue without anything other color or colorless to help it out is a rough ask.

Blue's Strengths

Blue is the color of counters, like Counterspell and Negate that answer anything or most things. It also can bounce, either anything for one spell like Boomerang or multiple things from one spell more limited like Aetherize for attacking dorks. It's powerhouse here is the seven mana overloaded Cyclonic Rift which bounces everything not a land of others back to their hand at instant speed. It's a feel bad like Jokulhaups. Finally, it can answer dorks but leave something behind like Pongify or Rapid Hybridization. You can fly over Green and bounce the grounded attack force. Blue can also steal stuff like Control Magic or copy like Clone.

Blue is the best color at pure card draw ever since Ancestral Recall, banned in Commander was printed, as well as classic also restricted in Vintage Timetwister and things like Mulldrifter, Fact or Fiction, Tidings and Concentrate. It also has two multiplayer powerhouse card draw houses in Consecrated Sphinx and Rhystic Study which are must answers.

Blue is the color of evasive flyers and enablers like Archetype of Imagination and Wonder. Blue is great with flyers like Favorable Winds.

Blue is great with Spellslinger strategies like Talrand, Sky Summoner or Archmage Emeritus, or recursion like Archaeomancer. Blue is fun with artifact love too from tutors like Fabricate to making them dorks like Animate Artifact and more. After Green, it's the 2nd best color in +1/+1 counter matters stuff and loves proliferate and things like Flux Channeler.

Blue is the best at getting an alternate win con called milling where you deck your foe like Traumatize or Ambassador Laquatus. It's also great at alternate win cons like Thassa's Oracle and Laboratory Maniac.

Finally, Blue is the best at blinking and getting multiple triggers from ETB stuff like Mulldrifter or Trinket Mage with things like Ghostly Flicker.

Blue's Weaknesses

Now let's look at why Blue is 3rd on my list. First, Blue is the worst at winning in the red zone. Sure, it has flyers and things like Sphinxes, but Red has the iconic and better Dragon tribe, White and Black have better dorks for attacking and more so it's hard to consistently kill multiple players with your overcosted Sphinx of Uthuun stuff.

Secondly, Blue is the only color outside of ramp. Without Green's Birds of Paradise or Rampant Growth, Red's Treasures, mana rocks or the ramp from Black or White ramp too, then you have nothing to speed up your deck and you are slloow. Your fast land was banned called Tolarian Academy.

Thirdly, Blue players often misplay Blue's card draw. They will run Opt, Consider, Ponder, or other things instead of things that draw you cards. Sure, you can cast them turn one with an untapped land and dig for lands or interaction or problems of your own but they don't draw you a card. They are just cantrips. They don't put you up on cards. So, other than the Sphinx, Rhystic Study, sometimes Mystic Remora and Mulldrifter, that's it for card draw.

Fourth, Blue can only reliably answer dorks with Pongify stuff, it can steal with Control Magic/Clone or such, but that's it, it cannot destroy anything like artifacts, planeswalkers, lands, or enchantments are unanswerable. The only thing it can do it counter it, and If it was uncountered, bounce it later. The problem with relying on countermagic as your only interaction is that in multiplayer you only have so much mana available and if you tap out for Counterspell on turn three, then your foes have a round of free stuff to drop. Also, most early counters are limited for what they counter, like Negate, Swan Song or the sometimes free Fierce Guardianship. And the counters that they do run are just 1:1 and since they are misplaying card draw, they aren't filling out their hand. So, if they do matchup Counterspell early with anything, they aren't drawing to replace it. So, unless they use cantrip counters like Dismiss or Cryptic Command as their key counters or actual card draw like Tidings and such, then they aren't played it right.

Counterspells can only do so much, require mana, and often are card neutral, and relying on them will prevent you from doing what you want or stopping others. Also, bounce as backup removal is usually card disadvantage like Boomerang and just slows them down. And that's why Blue is just 3rd here!

2. Black

Now let's turn to the penultimate color! Everything is going dark!

Black's Strengths

Black has a unique ability called discard where it can strip cards from their hands. Typically, its cheap stuff has limited card windows like Duress, but Thoughtseize will swap two life on the first turn for most things you'd want. This can cheaply handle issues before they become problems. Also, the best discard here is all opponents discard like Burglar Rat or Liliana's Specter since this dials up. That's card advantage in discard form not card draw. A permanent with discarding enabled like Liliana Vess's +1 will force people to play their stuff and thus you'll know what they have and can destroy it.

The next thing Black does well is draw cards, and since most Blue players play cantrips, you can swap life for cards like Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena, or Sign in Blood or sacrifice for cards like Vampiric Rites or Village Rites or death triggers like Soul of the Harvest which will draw tons of cards and that means Black tends to have the best card draw commonly played in Commander and multiplayer, like Liliana, Dreadhorde General.

Black is the best at recursion from the first set's Raise Dead and Animate Dead to Zombify and Beacon of Unrest. It typically only recurs creatures to the battlefield or your hand but you'll sometimes find others. Black is also a color with mass recursion like Rise of the Dark Realms or Living Death. Black is also the color at self-recursion like Bloodghast and Gravecrawler. Black is also the ideal color for clearing out graveyards, like Leyline of the Void.

In terms of answers, Black can answer loads - like lands with Rain of Tears and Sinkhole, dorks with Murder, planeswalkers with Hero's Downfall and then even Edicts can make players sacrifice enchantments. It also has mass removal of dorks like Damnation, mass -X/-X like Infest or Mutilate to slip past indestructible, and mass sacrifice like Living Death and Barter in Blood. From edicts like Chainer's Edict to other sacrifices it can hurt a one dork team nastily without targeting through hexproof of protection.

Black is all about ramp with Cabal Coffers and Crypt Ghast which can make more nonbasics Swamps with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Black has the best tutors as well like Vampiric Tutor and Demonic Tutor.

Black is all about opposing life loss, card draw, and other triggers from death to win from sacrifices to things like Viscera Seer to win with Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat or to trigger removal like Grave Pact so it doesn't have to win in the red zone. Although it's good there too with the evasive Vampire tribe and the fear evasive ability. It also can win with Treasures with Revel in Riches or Mirkwood Bats.

Black is the best at deathtouch and keeping defenses from trading from attacking like Typhoid Rats.

So, in summation, there are so many things Black is the best at from discard, to tutors, to recursion to fighting graveyard to death triggers to card draw.

Black's Weaknesses

What are Black's weaknesses? Well, outside of Feed the Swarm, it doesn't have reliable enchantment removal, and you often need to burn it on a dork or its sorcery speed prevents fast interaction and someone dominates with a nasty enchantment for a turn, like the aforementioned Grave Pact. Then it is unable to answer artifacts at all, barring the slow Gate to Phyrexia in your upkeep. That's a lot of powerful types. Your land answers are either fast only lands like Sinkhole that you'll rarely run or the slower Befoul type that that can hit a dork but costs four and only some dorks. So, folks really don't like running it, unlike green's Acidic Slime style stuff. That's three key types that are hard to find space to answer that dominate the board like Maze of Ith, Mind's Eye, and Rhystic Study. Although Black has discard to answer those things before they become problems.

Black's ability to respond can be harder to get caught up with, since it tends to cost more like Murder vs Pongify in Blue or Swords to Plowshares in White. Black often needs to get the nuts Cabal Coffers draw to keep up with the other mana heavy stuff it plays.

Black's recursion is usually only for dorks and the cheapest only recurs your own stuff, like the four cost Zombify.

Black's classic aggro in 20-life duals, like Suicide Black's Carnophage, is not great in multiplayer. So, Black's heavy aggro is out of the question.

Thus, overall, Black is great at a bunch of stuff, but slower with its answers, its aggro heavy nature doesn't work in multiplayer, and there are many key permanent types it cannot easily answer at instant speed even with a color bend like Chaos Warp or Beast Within.

1. White

Now let's turn to the top color in multiplayer, and it's had this lead for decades! White was always the most dominant color in multiplayer; Five-Color brews emphasized it and its strengths which are many!!!

White's Strengths

Let's turn to why this color rocks the block. First of all, it's the best answer color ever printed. It can answer anything in mass or targeted removal. It has the best creature removal spell ever printed in Swords to Plowshares, which exiles so there is no recursion, and Path to Exile works well too. It has the cheapest four-cost mass removal of dorks in Wrath of God and Day of Judgment, instant-able Rout to Wrath instantly, and loads more. It's the best answer to dorks ever, which are the biggest problem.

Then it has Disenchant effects for artifacts and enchantments instantly, and is heavily printed, as well as mass removal like Purify and then sweepers that hit all three like Akroma's Vengeance and exile like Farewell. Then it hates on lands and planeswalkers too with Armageddon, Generous Gift, Stroke of Midnight, and Get Lost.

Now let's turn to White's card advantage, not from card draw like Rhystic Study or Sylvan Library or Grim Haruspex but instead virtual like Burglar Rat or Unnerve in Black. It's with the heavy use of sweepers like Austere Command or Farewell or Planar Cleansing. That's your card advantage. By spending one card and a dork or two for an entire board of card advantage by taking out 2 or 3 for you and 6 or 7 of your foe's. Modern day White card draw like Esper Sentinel or Mentor of the Meek is reliable and strong.

Ever since Resurrection, White has been 2nd best in recursion after Black and many classics like Karmic Guide and Sun Titan play into that nicely.

White is the most defensive color, with cards like Kor Haven or Mother of Runes to save a dork you control by tapping her and choosing the right color. White is the color of vigilance enablers, the best multicolored evergreen ability since you can swing at open players and hold back for blocking like Serra Angel and Akroma Senior. White has color blockers like Commander Eesha. White is also the best color for the 3rd most popular Commander Archetype called life gain, with things like Ajani's Pridemate or the card drawing Font of Hope.

White is the new best color for taxing, like Esper Sentinel and the color shifted Ghostly Prison that make people pay. And then White's Pillow Forting like Windborn Muse or the Prison can keep people from attacking you in mass and then you can kill what slipped through, block it with Eesha a protection giving Mother of Runes or Kor Haven it. White is also the color of the popular archetype called Hate Bers around things like Aven Mindcensor and the Sentinel.

Ever since Land Tax, White has been the 2nd best ramp color, and it's love of ramping like Knight of the White Orchid in the right circumstances or the taxing/ramp of Smothering Tithe are great at that.

White loves equipment, auras, and vehicles, through cards like Sram, Senior Edificer or Mesa Enchantress. It's also the color that cares about planeswalkers and legendaries. It also has those tutors like Plea for Guidance or Call the Gatewatch.

White is also the color of tokens matter and is the best with things like doublers in the Command Zone like Mondrak, Glory Dominus. It can turn 1/1s into 4/4s with flying and vigilance with Divine Visitation to make this a more powerful win-con. It's also the color of Glorius Anthems with pumping your aggro or tokens to win with.

White is also the color that likes low powered dorks like Retribution of the Meek or Crackdown to keep bigger threats tapped. Also, oddly, White is very fast about winning in the late game with the best flying tribe after Dragons in Angels and beaters like Akroma, Angel of Vengeance or the indestructible giving, Avacyn, Archangel of Hope.

White has the best answers to answers with phasing out like Teferi's Protection to save from everything or indestructible granting Flawless Maneuver or that and hexproof giving to all dorks and players Everybody Lives!. White also gives hexproof to you, nasty!!!

White does everything, that's why it's my top color. It has more mechanics than anything else, it's the best at removal of permanents.

White's Weaknesses

So, White can do much, but what are it's weaknesses?

First, White is the best aggro color in the game, and that's weak at multiplayer. People aren't running aggro staples like White Knight or Silver Knight in multiplayer against many 20 foe or 40 life foes. Secondly, White's land removal, barring Generous Gift, is not targeted and will annoy people since many won't like running into Armageddon effects like Cataclysm. It's the Jokulhaups/Cyclonic Rift of White mass removal.

Thirdly, White doesn't have classic card draw spells like Harmonize, Concentrate, Ambition's Cost or Act on Impulse. Sure, there have been a few recent ones that draw multiple people cards like Secret Rendezvous. White often has to give pure card draw to others.

Fourthly, White does have the occasional counter like taxing such as Mana Tithe or targeting you with Dawn Charm. But, basically, it cannot answer sorceries or instants without counters or discard, like Red with Pyroblast.

Finally, White's affinity for low power stuff gets in the way of killing and it's pro-planeswalkers where those are weak in multiple waves of players to attack is rough. It's love of taxes or Hate Bears can get targeted by removal. White's love of defense shows its way into Defender and Wall matters stuff like Rolling Stones but that's weak against multiple players.

And there we go! Those are my reasons for the Five Colors Ranked for Commander/multiplayer play! What did you think of my opinions? Enjoy!