I was wondering: which are my favourite colours and colour combinations in Magic: The Gathering?
Mono-colour decks
My favourite mono-colour deck is crystal clear: green. The basic archetype of creature-based aggression works for me, and this is one of my most successful archetypes. It’s fun to play.
Mono blue is my least favourite single-colour deck. The other three colours are pretty close, but I think I’ll rate them black, red, and white in the order of preference.
Green >> black > red > white >> blue.
Two-colour combinations
There are ten two-colour combinations.
Recently, I’ve enjoyed playing Boros (white-red). I think it’s a nice flavour of aggro. I also like Gruul (green-red); adding green makes a more interesting deck than just plain red. I also like Dimir (blue-black), which combines the meanest colours in one deck.
My other Explorer deck is Selesnya (white-green). It’s mostly white but runs some green support (Collected Company, as expected). This is a combination I’ve used to some extent but never had huge success with it before this deck. But since this deck is mostly white, I’m going to rank Selesnya slightly lower.
Along with Selesnya are Rakdos (black-red), Orzhov (black-white), and Golgari (black-green). I enjoy playing black decks, and all of these combinations have been a pleasure to play at some point. I’ve rarely played the mainstream decks in these colours, though. My favourite of these three is Orzhov.
My least favourite combinations are Simic (green-blue), Izzet (red-blue), and Azorius (white-blue). Notice a common theme? Simic has some nice ramping potential, which might be fine, but I’ve never explored it properly. Izzet is too much about spells for my tastes. I did run a lovely Izzet Giant Wizard deck, but most Izzet decks are not to my tastes. The same goes for Azorius: I hate to play against these control decks, and I’m not a fan of playing them myself.
Boros > Gruul > Dimir >> Selesnya > Orzhov >> Golgari > Rakdos >> Izzet > Simic > Azorius.
Three-colour combinations
As expected, my favourites are those that interestingly extend my favourite two-colour combos. Naya (green-white-red) combines the best of Gruul and Boros aggro decks, while Grixis (black-blue-red) combines the meanness of Dimir with the brutality of Rakdos. I’ve played Mardu (white-red-black) as a combination of Boros and Rakdos.
Jund (red-black-green) also works: it’s a Gruul aggro deck with some black meanness spliced in. I’ve tried some Jeskai (red-blue-white) decks, but the combination of Izzet and Azorius isn’t attractive to me.
Bant (white-green-blue), Esper (blue-white-black), Abzan (black-white-green), Sultai (green-black-blue), and Temur (blue-green-red) are stranger to me.
Grixis > Naya > Mardu > Jund >> Jeskai > Sultai > Temur > Abzan > Bant > Esper.