i think they definitely can be fun. it just depends on what the player prefers. i have 1 mono-white and 3 mono-red decks, and all of them i can say i enjoy. and if you put your deck-building energies to it, almost anything is possible.
my only mono-white is a khemba control/aggro. since khemba makes tokens himself, a lot of the deck is actually pretty heavy on the hate-tech.
krenko does a pretty good job holding down the aggro end, even though hes a bit of an all-in kinda guy; and if anyone hasn't had a go at the pre-con, seriously, its awesome fun.
also, people think that aggro strategies are unviable in this format; it's not. you just need to know when to extend, how to bait removal/sweepers, when to hold back, and when to go for broke.
also, people think that aggro strategies are unviable in this format; it's not. you just need to know when to extend, how to bait removal/sweepers, when to hold back, and when to go for broke.
Very much this. It is also a matter of picking the right aggro approach for the right deck. In Ruhan, I usually only commit (at most) one creature besides Ruhan at a time, so if someone wipes, I lose little, especially if the wipe doesn't take out artifacts. In Gisela, I sometimes to a little damage here and there to soften people up, then commit all at once and take out the whole table in an Alpha strike. In Yasova Dragonclaw, half of what I commit to the fight is other people's stuff, so I don't lose so much if someone boardwipes.
It's not that aggro doesn't work in Commander/EDH. It just doesn't work the way it does in standard and other constructed formats, and in general you have to be smarter about it than you do in other formats. You can't just make a crappy version of a Zoo deck and expect it to work in EDH.
Red and white do struggle in the sense that they don't have as much card advantage as the other colors, but you cannot have a better two colors for board sweepers. No colors are truly bad, though mono-red seems to struggle.
And fun is purely subjective. I have a ton of EDH decks of many different colors and combinations, some good, some poorly constructed, but I find them all fun to a certain extent.
I feel like if you haven't planned properly, these colors are particularly prone to getting stuck late game with no cards in hand and few permanents in play.
For many, I could understand if they don't consider this fun.
they are good,i would Pick them always before green,green suck as main colour and Its only good for support...
Saying green sucks is just as bad as ssying red or white sucks. What you're really saying is "I don't like this color," or maybe "this color isn't a good match for my preferred style of play," either of which is fine, but neither equates to "this sucks." Green has its strengths and weaknesses, just as do the other colors
I think Red is easily my favorite color to play in EDH. So many silly and crazy things to do.
White on the other hand is my least favorite. Versatile, but boring.
Exactly my opinion anymore. Despite having the option of playing artifact Esper, I never found it fun, but Daretti is a blast. It's because of the things I can do with Daretti and Welder. Theyre dynamic and support so many strategies within their niche. I even use Krenko for aggro/combo because it's just simple, fun, and goblins are much, much more of a fun tribal archetype to me than the rest.
And honestly, If I wanted to play the same game every game, I'd go back to playing 5c or Esper. What's the point of a singleton format when you have all of the tutoring and recursion in the world?
Wow, there are some really narrow viewpoints in here (with some exceptions of course). I am surprised that people still consider mono red weak...I guess it doesn't do as much hand-holding as blue, green, or black, but a competent deckbuilder/player with mono red is not something to take lightly.
It also sounds like some people still don't understand Aggro in EDH.
R, W, and R/W are just fine in EDH, they just require more competent deckbuilders and players from my experience.
Red might also be my favorite color in EDH, even though I will also be a blue mage Red can be really explosive and actually do have a alot of drawpower. I run a deck with Squee, Goblin Nabob where stuff like Wild Guess, Goblin Lore et al., quickly filter cards both in hand and the yard, which can be used with Past in Flames. Much inspired by d0su's list here.
White is probably my favorite color in Magic, though I'll agree mono-white doesn't have a ton of ramp and card-draw options. I've found it fun to play in EDH, yet I haven't yet built *my own* white EDH... this thread inspired me to make one!
they are good,i would Pick them always before green,green suck as main colour and Its only good for support...
I play a pretty complete green deck. Sure, it doesn't really counter things (although it can), but there is a lot of artifact/colorless support that gives mono-colors a lot of tools these days. A lot of it is a bit more expensive mana wise, but green doesn't really have problems with that. My mono-green is probably my most consistent and powerful list.
Every color is playable in EDH, it's pretty simple. It may be easier to splash certain colors, but it is definitely possible to run a quite powerful deck in a single color (R, W, or other); you just need to be willing to commit to the strengths of the color(s).
The way I look at it, comparing each color as mono-color is a completely different thing than comparing them as support colors. But first of all, by comparing them I look at the qualities of consistency, adaptability, and the the ability to win while ahead. On fun factor, it's whatever you like, of course.
My multi-color ranking: 1) Blue, 2) Green, 3) Red, 4) White, 5) Black
Blue is Blue, and Green is Green. No surprises there. The biggest jumper from one to the other is Black. Sure, you can draw cards and generate mana as Black, but generating mana only comes easily to Mono-Black. Otherwise, it doesn't interact with artifacts like the other colors do in order to produce mana. Still, those qualities put it behind Blue only as a mono-color. But when you look at it along other colors, I'm starting to see that the main things it's good for is Demonic, Vampiric and Necropotence. Once out of mono-Black, I'm often not drawing into tutors to combo off anymore, because there are other other avenues now to win. What card advantage mechanisms it has are not very specifically tailored, so they often end up being left out in favor of Green's or Red's draw. And it falls seriously behind on creature strength, disruption, and so on. The only thing it really has left unique to it is discard, and that's not useful everywhere.
That said, you start to see what you're using Red and White for. White does a lot of the things Black does in the area of creature destruction, only it does it better every time. Akroma's Vengeance over Life's Finale, and Swords to Plowshares over everything are a couple examples. Graveyard exile, essentially the same. White lacks unconditional draw, but has cards that search for lands in a similar way that some Black cards do. When you have access to both with limited slots in a deck, you end up using those White land search cards and leaving out Black draw because of mana costs. In other words, those White cards outcompete those Black cards. The only arguable point, besides tutors, is creature recursion. Black has more of it in terms of card quantity, but White's card quality happens to be as good or better, see Titan, Lark, etc as format staples. Oh, and White can also destroy non-creatures, destroy lands, run hate cards, and recur non-creatures, all things that Black can't.
But the main differentiating quality for White is creature support. If you want to win in EDH by attacking with multiple, non-General creatures, then you need either White or Green. One odd thing I've noticed is that Cathars' Crusade and such Glorious Anthem-plus effects see tons and tons of actual play, but they get about zero respect when it comes to assessing color strength. While Green does it better, White gets games done and over with. Maybe only Red can compete with either via multiple combat steps at a reasonable cost. Black is not on the map.
The reason I've got Red ahead of White even still as a multi-color is because of the things that no other color but Red can do. Let's set aside the truly game-changing, deck-defining cards like Jokulhaups. No one who's used them has Red as the worst color in the first place. But even aside from those, no other color can destroy Sol Ring's at anywhere near tempo parity. No other color has more than one or two cards that interact on the stack, except for Blue. And no other color has as much mass creature removal that's usable on the opponent's turn, such as Starstorm. Most people just see the nature of those cards being limited by creature toughness, and they don't believe that the Instant speed nature of them could outweigh that. It does. In some situations, it saves you from using the card as play goes around and attacks don't materialize. In other cases like when Deadeye Navigator, Prophet of Kruphix, Craterhoof, and all the usual culprits start to go off, it saves you the game. Outside of one or two cards in White and Blue, you can't get both a comprehensive answer and an Instant speed answer outside of Red. And as a final note, no color other than maybe Green has the kind of creature strength at 5cmc and below that Red and White do. There are just a bunch of utility creatures in Blue and Black.
Black is for very slow, grindy, attrition strategies that are still left up in the air because Black isn't flexible. None of the three can unseat Green or Blue, but I definitely have Black as last place of the other three. And in my opinion, the worst 2-color combinations are actually Orzhov and Rakdos, not Boros.
I disagree very, very heavily with black in last place for multicolored decks( I personally have it roughly on par with green in first ).
Factors I consider in my color strength determination:
Card draw: Blue > Black > Green > Red > White
Tutors: Black > Green > Blue > White > Red
Ramp: Green > > > > Blue > Black > White > Red
Single Target Removal: White > Black > Blue > Red > Green
Mass Removal: White > Black > Blue > Red > Green
Resulting in:
Green( best ramp ) = Black( best tutors ) > Blue( Best draw ) > White( best removal ) > Red( best nothing )
I will note I deliberately try and avoid unfair decks/strategies
I disagree very, very heavily with black in last place for multicolored decks( I personally have it roughly on par with green in first ).
Factors I consider my color strength determination:
Card draw: Blue > Black > Green > Red > White
Tutors: Black > Green > Blue > White > Red
Ramp: Green > > > > Blue > Black > White > Red
Single Target Removal: White > Black > Blue > Red > Green
Mass Removal: White > Black > Blue > Red > Green
Resulting in:
Green( best ramp ) = Black( best tutors ) > Blue( Best draw ) > White( best removal ) > Red( best nothing )
I will note I deliberately try and avoid unfair decks/strategies
Depends on what you mean by mass removal. Red got plenty for creatures and artifacts. I would definitely rack red higher then blue here!
Resulting in:
Green( best ramp ) = Black( best tutors ) > Blue( Best draw ) > White( best removal ) > Red( best nothing )
I will note I deliberately try and avoid unfair decks/strategies
If you're purposely ignoring red's MLD (Jokulhaups/Obliterate etc.) because it's "unfair", I don't know how you can call it the "worst" color.
I don't care if it's powerful if it results in the table not having fun. But even then, I don't think cards like obliterate are particularly good at cut throat tables either.
I have built decks in almost all color combinations, and ingenuity can always put you in the game.
My mono-white deck has a VERY solid win percentage, and can go crazy very easily. I have two mono-red decks, and my Krenko build is easily my most degenerate deck. The other build, a fun Kumano, Master Yamabushi Big Red Things deck is very solid as well. It gets better as people play more artifcats, as that is a theme of the deck.
I have a Boros 'ad-hoc' deck (meaning I made it with cards on hand and haven't updated more than 2-3 cards) that wins an awful lot as well. I run as many 'save my creatures from wraths' cards as I can, and they provide a massive win% swing all by themselves.
One of the keys with building in colors that are less popular is that you can do things and run cards that are unexpected. Which is easily one of the things about Magic that gives me the most enjoyment.
I don't care if it's powerful if it results in the table not having fun. But even then, I don't think cards like obliterate are particularly good at cut throat tables either.
OK, but you considering R/W to be less fun because of power level, but are purposefully ignoring their most powerful strategies. I guess I don't understand your intent.
So power level is important but only when you decide it is.
Anyways, lately red has been getting some solid card advantage, with best being Daretti, Scrap Savant (this commander is soooo good).
I don't care if it's powerful if it results in the table not having fun. But even then, I don't think cards like obliterate are particularly good at cut throat tables either.
OK, but you considering R/W to be less fun because of power level, but are purposefully ignoring their most powerful strategies. I guess I don't understand your intent.
So power level is important but only when you decide it is.
Anyways, lately red has been getting some solid card advantage, with best being Daretti, Scrap Savant (this commander is soooo good).
I think of it as a few tiers:
Tier 1: Only the best, where cards like force of will are required to be competitive and running a 5 color general is almost always the right choice because you can run the most broken cards of every color. As close to singleton vintage as they can get.
Tier 2: Powerful with combos. Decks are usually quite optimized, but the wins are a bit less efficient. Tier 1 might involve a hermit druid win, whereas tier 2 might try to quickly ramp into a turn 4-5 tooth and nail win.
Tier 3: Powerful with minimal combos: Decks are built to be more fair, but they still run good cards. An example of the difference between tier 2 and 3 is that rather than fetching out half of a two card win combo with a demonic tutor, it's fetching an exsanguinate to drain everyone for 15.
Tier 4: The rest: Just about everything else goes here. Theme decks, non-optimized decks, etc.
Each tier can hold their own against the tier immediately above it, but will usually be at a noticeable disadvantage.
I play in a tier 3 group, none of us like particularly like the non-interactive combo wins or powerful unfair strategies.
When trying to play fair, with interaction, red and white perform very poorly. You have to move into the realm of unfair to make them shine, but that kills the enjoyment at my edh table.
When trying to play fair, with interaction, red and white perform very poorly. You have to move into the realm of unfair to make them shine, but that kills the enjoyment at my edh table.
Now we are getting somewhere. Red and White are awesome in this scenario, I am tending to think that you just have not seen a good player with a good R or W or R/W deck in your group.
If I go by your Tiers, T1 and T2 are where R, W, R/W struggles. T3 is in their wheelhouse.
I disagree very, very heavily with black in last place for multicolored decks( I personally have it roughly on par with green in first ).
Factors I consider in my color strength determination:
Card draw: Blue > Black > Green > Red > White
Tutors: Black > Green > Blue > White > Red
Ramp: Green > > > > Blue > Black > White > Red
Single Target Removal: White > Black > Blue > Red > Green
Mass Removal: White > Black > Blue > Red > Green
Resulting in:
Green( best ramp ) = Black( best tutors ) > Blue( Best draw ) > White( best removal ) > Red( best nothing )
I will note I deliberately try and avoid unfair decks/strategies
No, I think we more or less agree. Black's biggest strength is tutors. That's what happens when Demonic and Vampiric are legal. It depends on the player and the deck how crucial tutors are, but I don't have them as the second more important thing in EDH. Black is also middle of the ground in several important categories, like ramp and draw, which make it a very strong mono-color. There's just a few small differences in the way I view these categories, and I've also considered other categories not listed.
On draw, it's true that Black has a few draw 3 for 4 mana, a few draw 2 for 2 mana, one or two draw one card per turn, and a couple of heavy hitters like Decree of Pain. That's in addition to the busted, never-run cards like Ad Nauseam and Necropotence. But in practicality, I find myself never running these cards outside of Orzhov, Rakdos and mono-Black. Even Mardu is deep enough that I've got more options. In Green, I'm nearly always running things like Greater Good, which are just better volume. So, I can't really put Black that high on draw when I'm going to the alternatives nearly all of the time.
On ramp, I've got Black as second best when mono-color, last place when multi-color. All colors outside of Green rely on artifacts, and Black doesn't interact with artifacts at all the way Blue, Red and even White do. About the only thing that supports it is Guardian Beast, which I see nowhere. The other colors have artifact recursion, artifact tutors, and metalcraft here and there. The Swamp-matters stuff is better, but I haven't gotten it to work in any multicolor.
Single-target removal, I've got Green and Blue ahead of Black. Possibly because I'm considering non-creatures too, while you might not be. Bounce has always performed solidly in the kind of EDH I play, and usually Beast Within and Song of the Dryads lead me to running those instead of any Black removal when in multi-color. Red and Black are basically in a toss-up for last, depending on whether you want to kill artifacts or creatures. More often, I consider killing artifacts to be more important because Sol Ring exists, and equipment strategies are very common. And as mentioned, Red's options there are one of a kind.
Mass removal, I don't think Damnation, Toxic Deluge and a few creature-only wipes at 6+ cmc Sorcery gets you anywhere near the top. I understand that it's common wisdom that Black is supposed to be good at this, but I don't find myself playing any of the Black cards. I have honestly been fine even in Grixis to just Academy Ruins Oblivion Stone, along with Evacuation, Rift and Starstorm effects. Maybe I include Damnation, maybe not. Even in White, I often find myself with only Rout and Angel of the Dire Hour depending on the deck. I might even run fogs instead. Sorcery is just so passive.
Categories you didn't include are: creature recursion (goes to White), spell recursion (goes to Green), stack interaction (goes to Blue, then Red), creature strength (White and Red), creature support (Green and White), combo potential (Blue and Red), land destruction (Red and White), and non-creature removal (White > Blue > Green). Maybe some of these are "unfair", but not all of them.
But notice that Black isn't anywhere on the map in any of these categories. So, I think we're looking at the same cards, we just vary on what the importance of each role is. Black is a color with the very best tutors, average at best with everything else, with certain things that it just can't do. And I don't think two or three tutors is enough to put a color at the top. If I am considering Black for a deck, other than the general, it's because a combo deck could use two or three more tutors. There's nothing else forcing you into Black.
On ramp, I've got Black as second best when mono-color, last place when multi-color. All colors outside of Green rely on artifacts, and Black doesn't interact with artifacts at all the way Blue, Red and even White do. About the only thing that supports it is Guardian Beast, which I see nowhere. The other colors have artifact recursion, artifact tutors, and metalcraft here and there. The Swamp-matters stuff is better, but I haven't gotten it to work in any multicolor.
Black can tutor up artifacts just like the other colors, sometimes more efficiently.
Only blue has real good access to abilities that can make artifacts tap for tons of mana, which is why I have it second.
Artifact recursion stuff is about as hard to set up as things like urborg, tomb of yawgmoth + swamps matter cards, but I prefer the swamps matter stuff because it typically ends up being game endingly huge ramp when it works out.
Categories you didn't include are: creature recursion (goes to White), spell recursion (goes to Green), stack interaction (goes to Blue, then Red), creature strength (White and Red), creature support (Green and White), combo potential (Blue and Red), land destruction (Red and White), and non-creature removal (White > Blue > Green). Maybe some of these are "unfair", but not all of them.
Creature recursion goes to black without question. Black has the biggest and best effects like living death and sepulchral primordial, the strongest persistent effects like oversold cemetery and volrath's stronghold, and the fastest reanimation like reanimate.
Spell recursion is more of a tie between green and blue, but that's mostly due to eternal witness being such an absurd card.
Creature strength is an odd one. Could you be more specific in what you measure this with?
Combo potential is another difficult one to measure. Are we measuring efficiency at getting combos going? Do mana locks count as combos? How many playable combos the colors have available? Do they have to be infinite or just big? All the colors have a number of instant kill combos at their disposal, I consider it more of a wash, with black coming out ahead if anything because combos like tutors and black has the best tutors.
Land destruction I left out mostly because of the type of table I play at, where white's armageddon effects are avoided entirely because of how it affects everyone's ability to play the game. At a "fair" land destruction level, I'd put green in second because a lot of their playable cards happen to be able to destroy lands, and red in first because of their land destruction cards and effects like blood moon.
Creature recursion goes to black without question. Black has the biggest and best effects like living death and sepulchral primordial, the strongest persistent effects like oversold cemetery and volrath's stronghold, and the fastest reanimation like reanimate.
Spell recursion is more of a tie between green and blue, but that's mostly due to eternal witness being such an absurd card.
Not really accurate at all. First, there's a difference between recursion and reanimation. Black has white beat in reanimation easily. White takes it over black in recursion for being more efficient usually. Reanimation cheats stuff into play, while recursion gets back stuff that died already. White also specializes in permanent recursion, specifically artifacts and enchantments (In addition to creatures), something no other color really does.
Strongest persistent effects - Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Sun Titan, Debtors' Knell. I'd say bringing things back to play is considerably better than returning to hand/top of library. Besides, the ones you mentioned aren't even the best in black, which goes to Phyrexian Reclamation, but that's about on par with Sigil of the New Dawn. And although they work differently,, black's strongest cards in this category are actually Bloodghast and friends.
Creature recursion goes to black without question. Black has the biggest and best effects like living death and sepulchral primordial, the strongest persistent effects like oversold cemetery and volrath's stronghold, and the fastest reanimation like reanimate.
Spell recursion is more of a tie between green and blue, but that's mostly due to eternal witness being such an absurd card.
Not really accurate at all. First, there's a difference between recursion and reanimation. Black has white beat in reanimation easily. White takes it over black in recursion for being more efficient usually. Reanimation cheats stuff into play, while recursion gets back stuff that died already. White also specializes in permanent recursion, specifically artifacts and enchantments (In addition to creatures), something no other color really does.
Strongest persistent effects - Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Sun Titan, Debtors' Knell. I'd say bringing things back to play is considerably better than returning to hand/top of library. Besides, the ones you mentioned aren't even the best in black, which goes to Phyrexian Reclamation, but that's about on par with Sigil of the New Dawn. And although they work differently,, black's strongest cards in this category are actually Bloodghast and friends.
Reanimation - Already said black takes it here.
second sunrise and faith's reward - I won't say they are bad, but who plays these cards? I haven't seen them outside of eggs.
open the vaults - Yes, this card is good, but the topic was on creatures, so I didn't bring it up.
emeria, the sky ruin - This card is pretty hard to get going in multicolor decks, there is no equivalent to urborg, tomb of yawgmoth that I know of in white. It's pretty good though.
When I think of interacting with creatures in the graveyard, I go to black. White might have a couple cards I'd want to run alongside it, but black is the core.
Red is easily my favorite color in Magic, so yes I like playing Red EDH. Krenko and Purphoros have been some of my most powerful EDH decks, and Kiki-Jiki is no slouch either. Red can combo out quickly or just destroy someone out of nowhere. People undervalue haste and direct damage in this format, but maybe I'm just not playing against an entire table of Force of Wills? While Red does lack in certain aspects of recursion, they excel at disruption to that recursion; how can you control the board with only 3 lands or less? Blood Moon throws out a similar wrench into the cogs.
White in EDH is not as fun for me, but I think White is just my least favorite color. That's a personal preference though, I think White has plenty of strengths, such as MLD and sweepers and most of the tuck / exile. I'm also partial to artifacts, which white excels at...
TL;DR I think the strengths of Red/White are just different and stigmatized (i.e. MLD)
my only mono-white is a khemba control/aggro. since khemba makes tokens himself, a lot of the deck is actually pretty heavy on the hate-tech.
krenko does a pretty good job holding down the aggro end, even though hes a bit of an all-in kinda guy; and if anyone hasn't had a go at the pre-con, seriously, its awesome fun.
also, people think that aggro strategies are unviable in this format; it's not. you just need to know when to extend, how to bait removal/sweepers, when to hold back, and when to go for broke.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Very much this. It is also a matter of picking the right aggro approach for the right deck. In Ruhan, I usually only commit (at most) one creature besides Ruhan at a time, so if someone wipes, I lose little, especially if the wipe doesn't take out artifacts. In Gisela, I sometimes to a little damage here and there to soften people up, then commit all at once and take out the whole table in an Alpha strike. In Yasova Dragonclaw, half of what I commit to the fight is other people's stuff, so I don't lose so much if someone boardwipes.
It's not that aggro doesn't work in Commander/EDH. It just doesn't work the way it does in standard and other constructed formats, and in general you have to be smarter about it than you do in other formats. You can't just make a crappy version of a Zoo deck and expect it to work in EDH.
And fun is purely subjective. I have a ton of EDH decks of many different colors and combinations, some good, some poorly constructed, but I find them all fun to a certain extent.
For many, I could understand if they don't consider this fun.
Saying green sucks is just as bad as ssying red or white sucks. What you're really saying is "I don't like this color," or maybe "this color isn't a good match for my preferred style of play," either of which is fine, but neither equates to "this sucks." Green has its strengths and weaknesses, just as do the other colors
Exactly my opinion anymore. Despite having the option of playing artifact Esper, I never found it fun, but Daretti is a blast. It's because of the things I can do with Daretti and Welder. Theyre dynamic and support so many strategies within their niche. I even use Krenko for aggro/combo because it's just simple, fun, and goblins are much, much more of a fun tribal archetype to me than the rest.
And honestly, If I wanted to play the same game every game, I'd go back to playing 5c or Esper. What's the point of a singleton format when you have all of the tutoring and recursion in the world?
GB [Primer][Competitive][Stax][Combo] Meren of Clan Nel Toth 95% RETIRED
UW [Primer][Competitive][Combo][Stax] Brago, King Eternal RETIRED
BR Rakdos, Lord of Riots (75%)
G Titania - 75%
W SRAM - Welcome to the cheeri0s jam 95%
U Teferi - stax 100%
R Neheb - janky mono red eggs combo 90%
B Gonti - 50% valuetown
It also sounds like some people still don't understand Aggro in EDH.
R, W, and R/W are just fine in EDH, they just require more competent deckbuilders and players from my experience.
White is probably my favorite color in Magic, though I'll agree mono-white doesn't have a ton of ramp and card-draw options. I've found it fun to play in EDH, yet I haven't yet built *my own* white EDH... this thread inspired me to make one!
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
I play a pretty complete green deck. Sure, it doesn't really counter things (although it can), but there is a lot of artifact/colorless support that gives mono-colors a lot of tools these days. A lot of it is a bit more expensive mana wise, but green doesn't really have problems with that. My mono-green is probably my most consistent and powerful list.
Every color is playable in EDH, it's pretty simple. It may be easier to splash certain colors, but it is definitely possible to run a quite powerful deck in a single color (R, W, or other); you just need to be willing to commit to the strengths of the color(s).
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
The way I look at it, comparing each color as mono-color is a completely different thing than comparing them as support colors. But first of all, by comparing them I look at the qualities of consistency, adaptability, and the the ability to win while ahead. On fun factor, it's whatever you like, of course.
My mono-color ranking: 1) Blue, 2) Black, 3) Green, 4) Red, 5) White.
My multi-color ranking: 1) Blue, 2) Green, 3) Red, 4) White, 5) Black
Blue is Blue, and Green is Green. No surprises there. The biggest jumper from one to the other is Black. Sure, you can draw cards and generate mana as Black, but generating mana only comes easily to Mono-Black. Otherwise, it doesn't interact with artifacts like the other colors do in order to produce mana. Still, those qualities put it behind Blue only as a mono-color. But when you look at it along other colors, I'm starting to see that the main things it's good for is Demonic, Vampiric and Necropotence. Once out of mono-Black, I'm often not drawing into tutors to combo off anymore, because there are other other avenues now to win. What card advantage mechanisms it has are not very specifically tailored, so they often end up being left out in favor of Green's or Red's draw. And it falls seriously behind on creature strength, disruption, and so on. The only thing it really has left unique to it is discard, and that's not useful everywhere.
That said, you start to see what you're using Red and White for. White does a lot of the things Black does in the area of creature destruction, only it does it better every time. Akroma's Vengeance over Life's Finale, and Swords to Plowshares over everything are a couple examples. Graveyard exile, essentially the same. White lacks unconditional draw, but has cards that search for lands in a similar way that some Black cards do. When you have access to both with limited slots in a deck, you end up using those White land search cards and leaving out Black draw because of mana costs. In other words, those White cards outcompete those Black cards. The only arguable point, besides tutors, is creature recursion. Black has more of it in terms of card quantity, but White's card quality happens to be as good or better, see Titan, Lark, etc as format staples. Oh, and White can also destroy non-creatures, destroy lands, run hate cards, and recur non-creatures, all things that Black can't.
But the main differentiating quality for White is creature support. If you want to win in EDH by attacking with multiple, non-General creatures, then you need either White or Green. One odd thing I've noticed is that Cathars' Crusade and such Glorious Anthem-plus effects see tons and tons of actual play, but they get about zero respect when it comes to assessing color strength. While Green does it better, White gets games done and over with. Maybe only Red can compete with either via multiple combat steps at a reasonable cost. Black is not on the map.
The reason I've got Red ahead of White even still as a multi-color is because of the things that no other color but Red can do. Let's set aside the truly game-changing, deck-defining cards like Jokulhaups. No one who's used them has Red as the worst color in the first place. But even aside from those, no other color can destroy Sol Ring's at anywhere near tempo parity. No other color has more than one or two cards that interact on the stack, except for Blue. And no other color has as much mass creature removal that's usable on the opponent's turn, such as Starstorm. Most people just see the nature of those cards being limited by creature toughness, and they don't believe that the Instant speed nature of them could outweigh that. It does. In some situations, it saves you from using the card as play goes around and attacks don't materialize. In other cases like when Deadeye Navigator, Prophet of Kruphix, Craterhoof, and all the usual culprits start to go off, it saves you the game. Outside of one or two cards in White and Blue, you can't get both a comprehensive answer and an Instant speed answer outside of Red. And as a final note, no color other than maybe Green has the kind of creature strength at 5cmc and below that Red and White do. There are just a bunch of utility creatures in Blue and Black.
Black is for very slow, grindy, attrition strategies that are still left up in the air because Black isn't flexible. None of the three can unseat Green or Blue, but I definitely have Black as last place of the other three. And in my opinion, the worst 2-color combinations are actually Orzhov and Rakdos, not Boros.
Factors I consider in my color strength determination:
Card draw: Blue > Black > Green > Red > White
Tutors: Black > Green > Blue > White > Red
Ramp: Green > > > > Blue > Black > White > Red
Single Target Removal: White > Black > Blue > Red > Green
Mass Removal: White > Black > Blue > Red > Green
Resulting in:
Green( best ramp ) = Black( best tutors ) > Blue( Best draw ) > White( best removal ) > Red( best nothing )
I will note I deliberately try and avoid unfair decks/strategies
Depends on what you mean by mass removal. Red got plenty for creatures and artifacts. I would definitely rack red higher then blue here!
Blue has cyclonic rift, kederekt leviathan, evacuation, aura thief, and devastation tide, which are both very difficult to stop( you can't get around them with indestructible ), and lend themselves well to be used repeatedly with a card like archaeomancer
If you're purposely ignoring red's MLD (Jokulhaups/Obliterate etc.) because it's "unfair", I don't know how you can call it the "worst" color.
I don't care if it's powerful if it results in the table not having fun. But even then, I don't think cards like obliterate are particularly good at cut throat tables either.
My mono-white deck has a VERY solid win percentage, and can go crazy very easily. I have two mono-red decks, and my Krenko build is easily my most degenerate deck. The other build, a fun Kumano, Master Yamabushi Big Red Things deck is very solid as well. It gets better as people play more artifcats, as that is a theme of the deck.
I have a Boros 'ad-hoc' deck (meaning I made it with cards on hand and haven't updated more than 2-3 cards) that wins an awful lot as well. I run as many 'save my creatures from wraths' cards as I can, and they provide a massive win% swing all by themselves.
One of the keys with building in colors that are less popular is that you can do things and run cards that are unexpected. Which is easily one of the things about Magic that gives me the most enjoyment.
OK, but you considering R/W to be less fun because of power level, but are purposefully ignoring their most powerful strategies. I guess I don't understand your intent.
So power level is important but only when you decide it is.
Anyways, lately red has been getting some solid card advantage, with best being Daretti, Scrap Savant (this commander is soooo good).
I think of it as a few tiers:
Tier 1: Only the best, where cards like force of will are required to be competitive and running a 5 color general is almost always the right choice because you can run the most broken cards of every color. As close to singleton vintage as they can get.
Tier 2: Powerful with combos. Decks are usually quite optimized, but the wins are a bit less efficient. Tier 1 might involve a hermit druid win, whereas tier 2 might try to quickly ramp into a turn 4-5 tooth and nail win.
Tier 3: Powerful with minimal combos: Decks are built to be more fair, but they still run good cards. An example of the difference between tier 2 and 3 is that rather than fetching out half of a two card win combo with a demonic tutor, it's fetching an exsanguinate to drain everyone for 15.
Tier 4: The rest: Just about everything else goes here. Theme decks, non-optimized decks, etc.
Each tier can hold their own against the tier immediately above it, but will usually be at a noticeable disadvantage.
I play in a tier 3 group, none of us like particularly like the non-interactive combo wins or powerful unfair strategies.
When trying to play fair, with interaction, red and white perform very poorly. You have to move into the realm of unfair to make them shine, but that kills the enjoyment at my edh table.
Now we are getting somewhere. Red and White are awesome in this scenario, I am tending to think that you just have not seen a good player with a good R or W or R/W deck in your group.
If I go by your Tiers, T1 and T2 are where R, W, R/W struggles. T3 is in their wheelhouse.
No, I think we more or less agree. Black's biggest strength is tutors. That's what happens when Demonic and Vampiric are legal. It depends on the player and the deck how crucial tutors are, but I don't have them as the second more important thing in EDH. Black is also middle of the ground in several important categories, like ramp and draw, which make it a very strong mono-color. There's just a few small differences in the way I view these categories, and I've also considered other categories not listed.
On draw, it's true that Black has a few draw 3 for 4 mana, a few draw 2 for 2 mana, one or two draw one card per turn, and a couple of heavy hitters like Decree of Pain. That's in addition to the busted, never-run cards like Ad Nauseam and Necropotence. But in practicality, I find myself never running these cards outside of Orzhov, Rakdos and mono-Black. Even Mardu is deep enough that I've got more options. In Green, I'm nearly always running things like Greater Good, which are just better volume. So, I can't really put Black that high on draw when I'm going to the alternatives nearly all of the time.
On ramp, I've got Black as second best when mono-color, last place when multi-color. All colors outside of Green rely on artifacts, and Black doesn't interact with artifacts at all the way Blue, Red and even White do. About the only thing that supports it is Guardian Beast, which I see nowhere. The other colors have artifact recursion, artifact tutors, and metalcraft here and there. The Swamp-matters stuff is better, but I haven't gotten it to work in any multicolor.
Single-target removal, I've got Green and Blue ahead of Black. Possibly because I'm considering non-creatures too, while you might not be. Bounce has always performed solidly in the kind of EDH I play, and usually Beast Within and Song of the Dryads lead me to running those instead of any Black removal when in multi-color. Red and Black are basically in a toss-up for last, depending on whether you want to kill artifacts or creatures. More often, I consider killing artifacts to be more important because Sol Ring exists, and equipment strategies are very common. And as mentioned, Red's options there are one of a kind.
Mass removal, I don't think Damnation, Toxic Deluge and a few creature-only wipes at 6+ cmc Sorcery gets you anywhere near the top. I understand that it's common wisdom that Black is supposed to be good at this, but I don't find myself playing any of the Black cards. I have honestly been fine even in Grixis to just Academy Ruins Oblivion Stone, along with Evacuation, Rift and Starstorm effects. Maybe I include Damnation, maybe not. Even in White, I often find myself with only Rout and Angel of the Dire Hour depending on the deck. I might even run fogs instead. Sorcery is just so passive.
Categories you didn't include are: creature recursion (goes to White), spell recursion (goes to Green), stack interaction (goes to Blue, then Red), creature strength (White and Red), creature support (Green and White), combo potential (Blue and Red), land destruction (Red and White), and non-creature removal (White > Blue > Green). Maybe some of these are "unfair", but not all of them.
But notice that Black isn't anywhere on the map in any of these categories. So, I think we're looking at the same cards, we just vary on what the importance of each role is. Black is a color with the very best tutors, average at best with everything else, with certain things that it just can't do. And I don't think two or three tutors is enough to put a color at the top. If I am considering Black for a deck, other than the general, it's because a combo deck could use two or three more tutors. There's nothing else forcing you into Black.
Black can tutor up artifacts just like the other colors, sometimes more efficiently.
Only blue has real good access to abilities that can make artifacts tap for tons of mana, which is why I have it second.
Artifact recursion stuff is about as hard to set up as things like urborg, tomb of yawgmoth + swamps matter cards, but I prefer the swamps matter stuff because it typically ends up being game endingly huge ramp when it works out.
Creature recursion goes to black without question. Black has the biggest and best effects like living death and sepulchral primordial, the strongest persistent effects like oversold cemetery and volrath's stronghold, and the fastest reanimation like reanimate.
Spell recursion is more of a tie between green and blue, but that's mostly due to eternal witness being such an absurd card.
Creature strength is an odd one. Could you be more specific in what you measure this with?
Combo potential is another difficult one to measure. Are we measuring efficiency at getting combos going? Do mana locks count as combos? How many playable combos the colors have available? Do they have to be infinite or just big? All the colors have a number of instant kill combos at their disposal, I consider it more of a wash, with black coming out ahead if anything because combos like tutors and black has the best tutors.
Land destruction I left out mostly because of the type of table I play at, where white's armageddon effects are avoided entirely because of how it affects everyone's ability to play the game. At a "fair" land destruction level, I'd put green in second because a lot of their playable cards happen to be able to destroy lands, and red in first because of their land destruction cards and effects like blood moon.
Not really accurate at all. First, there's a difference between recursion and reanimation. Black has white beat in reanimation easily. White takes it over black in recursion for being more efficient usually. Reanimation cheats stuff into play, while recursion gets back stuff that died already. White also specializes in permanent recursion, specifically artifacts and enchantments (In addition to creatures), something no other color really does.
Biggest and best effects - Faith's Reward, Second Sunrise, Open the Vaults, Twilight Shepherd (And in green, Praetor's Counsel) would all like to have a word with you. Don't even know how you categorize "best" anyway.
Strongest persistent effects - Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Sun Titan, Debtors' Knell. I'd say bringing things back to play is considerably better than returning to hand/top of library. Besides, the ones you mentioned aren't even the best in black, which goes to Phyrexian Reclamation, but that's about on par with Sigil of the New Dawn. And although they work differently,, black's strongest cards in this category are actually Bloodghast and friends.
Reanimation - Already said black takes it here.
Commander/EDH:
WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator WU
GW Saffi Eriksdotter GW
BW Selenia, Dark Angel BW
W Heliod, God of Sun W
Retired:
Jenara, Asura of War Thada Adel, Acquisitor Jaya Ballard, Task Mage Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero Lyzolda, the Blood Witch Akroma, Angel of Wrath Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Tajic, Blade of the Legion Selvala, Explorer Returned Maga, Traitor to Mortals
Tiny Leaders:
W Mangara of Corondor W
second sunrise and faith's reward - I won't say they are bad, but who plays these cards? I haven't seen them outside of eggs.
open the vaults - Yes, this card is good, but the topic was on creatures, so I didn't bring it up.
twilight shepherd - I'll take mikaeus, the unhallowed thank you.
emeria, the sky ruin - This card is pretty hard to get going in multicolor decks, there is no equivalent to urborg, tomb of yawgmoth that I know of in white. It's pretty good though.
sun titan - Black has plenty of similarly powerful reanimation effects like Sheoldred, whispering one.
debtor's knell - This is only runnable when you have access to both black and white, so it's not an advantage of one over another.
There are also a bunch of unmentioned cards like puppetteer clique and grave betrayal and rise of the dark realms and apprentice necromancer and victimize and that's not even all of them.
When I think of interacting with creatures in the graveyard, I go to black. White might have a couple cards I'd want to run alongside it, but black is the core.
If I want to get artifacts back, my first choice is red for goblin welder, deretti, scrap savant, and scrap mastery.
Only when I want to do something with enchantments do I go to white. It does that the best.
White in EDH is not as fun for me, but I think White is just my least favorite color. That's a personal preference though, I think White has plenty of strengths, such as MLD and sweepers and most of the tuck / exile. I'm also partial to artifacts, which white excels at...
TL;DR I think the strengths of Red/White are just different and stigmatized (i.e. MLD)
R Feldon of the Third Path EDH R
X Kozilek, the Great Distortion EDH X
B Sidisi Ad Nauseam Combo EDH B