Red
Red is the color of fire and destruction. Red has a variety of direct damage spells and small creatures. It also has many mass destruction spells like Jokulhaups. One thing to remember when playing a person who is playing red is to either watch out for creatures or for burn spells. Two common decks have arisen from red. The Sligh deck which uses a variety of small creatures and a few burn spells. The Burn deck is a classic red deck relying mainly on burn spells to kill you before you get a chance. Red has a weakness. It has no way to deal with enchantment spells leaving it vunerable to many red hosing enchantments like Chill. Red players will often add another color like White, which has the might Disenchants, to deal with the enchantments. So when considering playing Red throw in some cards from other colors to protect you. And always remember what color hosers the other colors have. Here are the 2 most common. From White there is Circle of Protection: Red, which can bring down any Red deck. From Blue there is Chill, which slows down a Red deck.
Blue
Blue is the color of water. The Good about Blue is that it can counter, control or get rid of just about anything. It also has some great card drawing cards. The Bad about Blue is that it does not have great creatures. The best color combined with blue is Black. Some famous Blue cards: Counterspell Time Walk, Timetwister, Ancestrall Recall.
Green
Green is the color of life. The Good about Green is it has creatures and lots of them. Most of the color is creatures. Oh yea it also has fast mana. The Bad about Green is that is has a hard way to get rid of creatures and few ways to get rid of other cards. The best color combined with green is Red. Some famous Green cards: Regrowth, Beserk, Erhnam Djinn, Oath of Druids.
White
White is the color of good things. The Good about White is it can get rid of anything. It also has ways to heal yourself. The Bad about White is that its creatures are about the only way to deal damage. The best color combined with white is Red. Some famous White cards: Balance, Armageddon, Wrath of God, Disenchant.
Black
Black is the color of evil and darkness. Black provides players with the largest selection of “kill cards” in the game. (Ashes to Ashes, Royal Assassin, Minion of Leshrac, etc.) This is a very good characteristic, however, the black kill cards generally all have the same flaw. They only target non-black creatures. Terror, Dark Banishing, Dregs of Sorrow, all those cards have the same problem. Not only does this make a game between two mono-black decks extremely boring, but can be a big drawback at crucial moments. Still, all those cards are quite useful. However, when it comes to destroying enchantments, you’re in a bit of a fix. I don’t know how many times I’ve lost the game to a Light of Day, or a Drought. So far, I don’t know of any black enchantment remover. As for removing artifacts, well, black is pretty much stuck. Black may find its little ways, but none of them are foolproof. Playing a cursed artifact on an artifact, for example, will probably get rid of what’s annoying you, but not for sure. When it comes to land-removal, black has enough good cards to hold out. Icequake, sinkhole, rain of tears, and blight are all somewhat effective. However, many of them are Enchant lands as opposed to fast effects, making them easier to pick off. Black also supports some very strong creatures like Juzam Djinn, and Pit Spawn. However, black’s big creatures will often have major setbacks. Take Infernal Denizen. A 5/7 big guy who takes control of creatures! Great! Every turn you sac two swamps or lose a creature! Not so great! You see, they all have their little problems, but the downside doesn’t always outweigh the good side. If you use Infernal Denizen correctly, you’ll kill him off with his own creatures before you’ve lost all your swamps. These kinds of cards have won me the game on several occasions. But be sure you’re playing with a few Dark Rituals, because black creatures normally have very high casting costs. Most of the cards I’ve already mentioned seem very high ccwise. Infernal Denizen is 7B. Minion of Leschrac is 4BBB. Heck, even Dregs of Sorrow is X4B. Although this is a big problem, there is a way around it. The creatures I mentioned so far are all big power creatures, but black is also a good choice in a weenie deck. There are lots of good black weenie creatures such as Drudge skeleton, Will-o’-the-wisp, and Black Knight. Plus, the black weenie deck has fared extremely well in world championships. It won the 1996 world championships. But you’ll have to get the right cards, and play them right if you’re going to be successful. As for card-drawing ability, black is pretty good. Especially when you consider some of the better cards in this area like Necropotence, Oath of Lim-dul, and Necrologia. (Notice, though, how all of these cards have some brutal setbacks, just like a lot of black.) Then there’s countering and controlling creatures. You can find a couple of cards here, but altogether, black, like other colours, has left this job for blue. Really, black hardly has anything here. And while I’m talking about the domain of other colours, black has a couple of ok burn cards to show. Haunting misery, spinning darkness, drain life, and soul burn are all good cards, and get the job done. Then there’s grave-manipulation. This is one of the strongest areas for Black. You can take creatures from your own graveyard, you’re opponent’s graveyard, you can use instants, sorcery’s, permanents, and then there’s the “recyclers” like nether shadow, or ashen ghoul, that take care of themselves. This is definitely one of black’s strongest points. I could name TONS of cards in black to take creatures from graveyards, but the list would be to long. I don’t think there’s much more to say here. Hands down, black has the upper end in this division. Now for the grand finale. I mentioned card-drawing ability before, but that’s only part of a bigger issue. Card advantage. The other half is manipulating your opponents hand, and forcing them to discard(It's also having more cards out in play then your opponent and that sort of thing, but that has alreay shown it's greatnes in black when I talked about creature removal.) This is black’s “piece de resistance,” with cards like stupor, hymn to torach, and coercion. These cards seem insignificant at first but can easily win you the game. Then there are the big bad bruisers like Rag Man, and even Bottomless Pit. So, with all this said, the color of death can be quite good. You must beware, however, because black has those legendary “Sacrifice one creature during your upkeep or tap this card and take fifty gazillion billion damage. No spells or abilities may be used to counter this loss of life. Haha. Should have thought of that before you played without a breeder!” In other words, when evaluating a black card, there’s almost always a downside, so be careful.
