M:TG color combos as GW build concepts/strategies

Alright. So I recently have a conversation with my friend as we're playing a game of Magic:The Gathering about Guild Wars and he says, "You know, the way you have a huge selection of skills limited to certain themes from which you pick a small number that you actually get to use is a lot like building a deck for Magic:The Gathering out of one or two colors." I agree and add, "You know, it's funny you mention that, because the Mesmer class is basically the color Blue in magic. I think it even has a skill that's basically 'counter-spell.' "

So we talk about it and he asks if there's anything like white, since he's an avid player of white defensive decks that can outlast the damage dealing capasity of opponents with lots of healing and prevent damage spells. I answer, "Yeah, the Monk is basically like that, though less about damage prevention and more about healing. It can do a lot of damage prevention though."

We come to the conclusion that the way you formulate strategies in Guild Wars is alot like the way you form strategies in Magic:The Gathering. First, you look at the metagame. You examine what deck builds are currently doing really well in the current environment, and you learn from them. Much of the same can be said about Guild Wars. Secondly, you examine the individual cards in the current environment - specifically, the way they play off of one another - to come up with card combos that will challenge the best decks out there. This is basically comming up with different skill combos and attribute builds in Guild Wars that work really well together and can potentially defeat the best builds out there or certain amongst them. There are lots of different skill combos in GW, just as there are tons of different deck themes in Magic:The Gathering, and just as in one, there are many basic similar themes I see in the other.

To the point: I've been collaborating with some of my friends and fellow players of Guild Wars and Magic:The Gathering to come up with some basic themes from M:TG that work well within the structure of Guild Wars. However, I myself have not reached the end point of the game nor have I participated heavily in PvP combat. For that reason, I'll leave the actuall assigning of skills to the experts who may read this thread and find themselves amused by the ideas. Also, I will lay down a disclaimer in saying that many of the following themed builds have probably already been discovered. The intent of this post was mearly to show a few more traditional M:TG deck theme ideas that could, or already do, work well within GW as build concepts.

Well anyway, here they are, and I've taken to classifying certain colors of magic with the GW profession I believe most personifies that color.

The Mesmer (Blue)

In M:TG, the color blue is considered the most "control" oriented color for reasons such as the instants "counter-spell," and "boomerang." Counter-spell is essentially an instantaneous interruption of the flow of play that negates the last spell your opponent attempted to play. Combining such skills as power spike and the attribute of fast-casting, it's a no-brainer how alike these two effects are. Essentially, the theme behind any well-built primary blue deck is the same theme behind any well-build Mesmer primary build: prevent your opponent from winning by controling how he can play the game. Blue alone can do this extremely well - as can the Mesmer even without a secondary profession. But, in respect to the fact that roleplaying characters must chose a secondary profession before leaving pre-searing Ascalon, I will explain a few of the more effective combos with Blue and how they might be pulled off in GW.

Blue/White Control centers around the idea of being able to manipulate the opponent's game in order to slow it down long enough for you to be able to build up a strong defense and drop down some kind of really powerful creature or combonation of cards that wins the game for you. In GW, it's not that easy, but the basic idea of controlling what your opponent can do in order to slow them down while you play defensively can still be applied. I can see this best done as a Mesmer/Monk who focuses on the attributes Fast-Casting, Domination, and Healing. Using domination skills to manipulate your opponent into unfavorable circumstances while you "buff" your allies and keep them alive with healing spells that you can cast almost instantly is an extremely powerful support build. Being a Mesmer primary, you may even want to sink a few points into Inspiration in order to use skills that drain energy from your opponents in order to keep up your own energy reserve.

Blue/Black Bruise is similar. By controlling your opponent's game with the standard blue tactics - again, domination - you slow them down long enough to play a powerful combo or tough creature. However, the difference here is that you're not trying to build up a strong defense. Instead you're trying to ruin their offense by taking the offense yourself. The color black in your deck does this in numerous ways such as causing the opponent to "discard" cards, remove their creatures from play, or keeping your own creatures alive with recursion. Unfortunately, none of those tactics play into GW very well, but with a bit of thought, some of the idea can still be applied. Black very obviously bears similarity to the Necromancer profession. Now, although you cannot make the enemy "discard" their skills, you can "remove creatures from play" in a way by taking control of their undead. I'd say that a Mesmer/Necromancer build that focuses on dominating the enemy while taking control of their summons would be something extremely reliant upon the metagame. If at some point we begin to see a large number of Necro/Mesmer "Minion Masters" who like to raise the dead and overwhelm their enemies, then a Mesmer/Necro who focuses on taking control of those undead or kills them off with Necro skills would be extremely effective. Just as in M:TG, Blue/Black decks that focus on creature removal are also usually based on the metagame. The other common use of black with a blue deck is for the status effects it can create. Black has lots of different ways to produce effects that reduce the effectiveness of your opponent's creatures, or your opponent itself. Also, ALOT of black cards call for the sacrifice of life in order to produce the effect printed on the card. Blood magic anyone? Without going too much further, you could very easily try a Mesmer/Necro with Domination, Inspiration and Blood Magic that focuses on control, sacrificing life to mess up the enemy, and inspiration to regain health.

To a lesser extent, you can combo Blue with Green and Red relatively effectively, although the combos are generally less effective. Whenever you see a Blue/Green or Blue/Red deck doing really well, it's usually a case for the metagame. Generally speaking, Blue combos with Red to counter your opponent, giving you the opportunity to throw massive direct damage at them with red burn spells. A Mesmer/Pyromancer would seem to be the obvious choice, but in truth, there are more red spells that are attributed to "lightning" than "fire." Althought a red spell known as "fireball" is probably the best red burn spell in the game for it's cost + effectiveness, in GW the Aeromancer has far more choices to interrupt the enemy as well as deal direct damage to them. A Mesmer/Aeromancer with air spells that knock the opponent down or bypass armor would fit best into this kind of a build. A Blue/Green deck basically wants to stall the enemy while it lands a huge creature, or a bunch of strong ones. A Mesmer/Ranger build copying this strategy would focus on Fast-Casting, Domination, and Beast Mastery to give it's pet the edge it needs to stomp on the enemy. I can also see a Mesmer/Ranger built this way being an incredibly effective PvE build.

To avoid too much redundancy and unnesecary thread length, I wont go over color combonations that I've already mentioned in previous segments. Without further ado, Red.

Red can be used a number of ways, but it almost always focuses primarily on one thing: dealing damage as fast and effeciently as possible. In GW we can assume this would probably be either a Pyromancer or an Aeromancer, both of which focus on dealing damage directly to an enemy or wide range of enemies. Because you often see Red feilding goblins or other cheap creatures to speed along the death of your opponent, I would say a pure Red build theme would secondary warrior just for the added ability to melee and get the job done even faster. Energy Storage, Fire or Air Magic, and your choice of weapon for spell beatdown + melee power to finish the enemy off.

Red/Green combines the idea of direct damage with powerful creatures to even greater extent. Though generally a bit slower than a pure Red build, it can sometimes be more reliable. Having a pet at your side to take down your enemy instead of marching into the fray might be safer for an elementalist, who probably wont have a lot of health to survive much melee combat. An Aeromancer/Ranger or Pyromancer/Ranger with Beast Mastery fits this kind of build concept.

Red/White tries to do what Red does, while at the same time extending your own lifespan in order to give you more time to do it. An Aeromancer/Monk or Pyromancer/Monk with Healing as a third attribute keeps itself and it's team alive while bringing down the enemy. The only problem is that this kind of build doesn't have any way of drawing energy from the enemy to replenish, so if you're trying to beat the energy curve, you'll want to sink plenty of points into energy storage and focus mostly on just healing yourself when you need it. Dont bother bringing along a raise, since that wont be your primary purpose. Keep your slots free for more damage. Remember, Red is the primary theme of this build, so dealing damage comes before healing. The healing power is just to keep yourself alive to outlast the enemy while you bring them down with fire and lightning.

Red/Black is a popular offensive theme. Bringing into the field powerful direct damage and creature removal + debuffing power, an Aeromancer or Pyromancer secondaries as a Necromancer to copy Red/Black themes by focusing on dealing damage quickly with offensive spells, and taking out the opponents summons or using blood magic to take them down directly. If you're using blood magic for this kind of theme, you'll want to be sure to bring Aura of Restoration with you, since you'll be casting lots of spells and that Aura of Restoration will pay for your sacrificing of life.

Red/Blue I've already gone over. Bring down your oppoenent, secondary as a Mesmer in order to slow down your enemy by countering his build.

Green, as I hinted at, is mostly about big stomping creatures that beat up your enemy. Wow is that ever an alude to Beast Mastery. There are plenty of ways to make your pet another deadly member of the team, and if you're going to play your Ranger primary like you would a Green deck, you'll want to be sure to focus build on ways to make your pet more formidable, or bring lots of creatures onto the field. Green is also about enchantments that remain in play and alter the game. Spirits do this in essentially the same way - and they're also part of Beast Mastery.

Green/Black can be played in a couple ways. Either you can secondary as a necromancer for death magic and summon lots of little horrors that help your super beefy pet overwhelm the enemy, or you can secondary as necromancer for blood magic that sacrifices life to harm or hex your opponent. Troll ungent should take care of the life loss.

Green/White is another one of those fairly straight-forward build concepts. Bringing a powerful creature into play, trying to keep it alive and trying to keep yourself alive with healing power in order to outlast and overpower your opponent. This is easily one of the most widely played deck themes in Magic: The Gathering, in almost any environment, since there are just so many different powerful green creatures and excellent white preventative spells. A Ranger/Monk with a powerful pet creating spirits and healing everyone wouldn't take much thought to create, and would probably be a good solo character as well (for those times when all you can find are henchies to adventure with.)

And finally, White. White is all about damage prevention and healing, as I've said before, and so is the monk profession in GW if it's not being played offensively (which I'll mention in a moment.) Since I've already gone over every color combonation already besides White and Black, I'll just mention that and let you refer back to previous sections for ideas combining the monk with others professions to mimic M:TG deck builds.

White/Black decks are a rare and mixed lot. A most common white/black deck is called "Pestilence" which uses white defensive spells to prevent the damage dealt to everything (including the owner) by the black enchantment Pestilence. This kind of deck can't really be replicated that well in GW, but the idea - preventing damage to yourself from a necrotic source that harms others - is still applicable. Otherwise the basic idea behind White and Black applies in any combo of the colors. Keep yourself alive with white, prevent damage to your summons and keep them alive as well, and meanwhile, conjure hordes of zombies or sacrifice life to bleed your opponent of his.

Well, it's really late and I'm getting tired. It's about 3am here in California as I write this, and I'm getting drained of ideas. If this seems interesting to any of you, feel free to add your own thoughts and ideas, including specific skill combos that you think would work well for any of these themes.

Very informative.

Wow I knew the devs have compared gw with Mtg and I saw the obvious parallels.
But I must say this thread actually helped me focus some of my character ideas
Gonna go try out my blue/green deck now
I mean.. My Mesmer/Ranger of course