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Three color decks sometimes come around that have two primary colors with a bit of a third splashed in to cover the weaknesses that the two paired colors have. Red-Black will sometimes add in a little green in order to get rid of some enchantments. Blue-White-Black has seen some success with Probe-Go and various decks that have used Nether Spirit as the big kill device. What all these decks have in common is that they have two primary colors, with a few lands added to add a third, giving it quite a bit of versatility and the ability to cope with certain situations they normally wouldn't be able to.

With the introduction of Apocalypse there's a new breed of three-color decks that while more than likely not tournament winners, can offer powerful decks that can be fun to play. These new decks use the same idea of having two allied colors working together, but you mix in a third, mutual enemy color in order to offer some power or another option to the deck. Sometimes these decks will revolve around that specific color, with the two opposing colors being added for the support instead.

I'm not going to suggest the next Fires or Counter-Rebel with these suggestions, just a few ideas that might lead to a new deck idea.

White/Green/Black: The first deck mix comes brought to you by Wizards of the Coast themselves. While the mix that they offer is quite effective, it lacks that final punch to pull off the kill. Now White/Black is going to be the most powerful enemy combination after Mercadian rotates out, and lead to several new deck designs, and Green/Black has some rather powerful cards, so why not mix the two decks together. The key for this color combination is to let Black be the dominant color, and use the other two to compliment it. Green should be there in order to help with Mana production: Bird of Paradise, Quirion Elves, and Llanowar Dead are all good cards to add for that. Not to mention you should use the Green aspect for the cards Spiritmonger and Pernicious Deed. While Deed may be strong and usable, just remember that it destroys your stuff as well, so use it accordingly.

White comes in as being very important to the deck, but shouldn't be the secondary color. You'll need to get a Plains out, but mixing in some Caves of Koilos, Brushland, or Elfhame Palaces will help to smooth things out. After that you can sit back and hold those Vindicates and Death Grasps for when you really need them, watching them squirm as they wonder when the next hit to their board or lives is going to happen. Dark Banishing and Disenchant make wonderful additions as well.

This deck can go in any direction depending on how you want to build it. You can turn it into a control deck or an aggro-deck very easily considering what's available. With how good White and Black are at board control you can concentrate those two colors in that direction, while using Green for Mana and a few big fatties, such as Blastoderm and Spiritmonger. Or you can go Aggressive completely by adding Scuta's to the list as well as other large, obnoxious critters. Sabertooth Nishoba would be a good add as well.

Red-White-Blue: A patriotic blend, this color combination can hit surprisingly hard and fast while still watching over the board to keep it from getting out of control. Lightning Angel is a surprisingly fast and decently powerful creature to build a deck around, so I found in some testing. Mix in some counterspells, burn, cheap creatures, card drawing, and maybe some Helionauts to help smooth out the mana and you've got yourself a nice little deck. The Lightning Angels will be the main attackers, though Kavu Gliders can work nicely as well as some Tundra Kavu to help add a mana smoother. Don't over look Minotuar Illusionists, Flametongue Kavu, or Tahngarth, though.

This color pairing screams agrro-control, though a control deck is also very possible. I don't know how aggressive you can really go when you're using blue and white in the same deck, though Red can help cover for it. Stick with some board control and a fair amount of aggressive creatures and you should be able to make something that can compete.

Black-Blue-Green: This trio could prove to be a very powerful color combination. With several good cards and lots of control going on, this could be a nice lock deck to keep people from doing anything. Pernicious Deed, Opposition, Counterspell, and lots of black creature kill, not to mention Green's ability to get rid of some enchantments, you can do a lot with this deck.

The one thing I see with this deck is that it'd make a much better control deck than anything would. Blue/Black is a fairly powerful combination for control decks, and mixed in with some mana acceleration and some rather powerful mixed cards such as the mentioned above, as well as Yavimaya's Embrace and Aether Mutation you can effectively control the board. Using Air Elemental or Mahamoti Djinn you can take care of damage one big hit at a time. Spiritmonger can work as well, though I'd rather use a flying creature to do the deed. Mix in some Jungle Barriers to take care of their bears and card drawing as well.

Black-Red-White: This is a color combination that doesn't work quite as well as the Black-Green-White in my opinion. While Black-White is going to be a strong combination, White-Red isn't quite as good as its counterpart. While there are some nice Red-White cards out there, there aren't enough to really push using. Captain's Maneuvers might be useful though I wouldn't build it into a deck. Goblin Legionnaire is a pretty decent bear, with a fairly useful pair of abilities, but they're still nothing to write home about. Goblin Trenches have potential, in my opinion though mostly as a fun deck, and wouldn't work in a deck like this.

As such what I'd recommend is making a Black-Red deck with some white splashed in. Putrid Warrior and Goblin Legionnaire can be added creature wise, though Orim's Thunder might be nice for enchantment and artifact removal. Add in some Death Grasp and Vindicate for rounding, but concentrate on keeping the deck strongly Black-Red.

Red-Green-Blue: Much like mixing in White to a Red-Black deck this color combination just doesn't work as well as with some of the other possibilities. While White can have an element of aggression to it, and it's cards that are mixed with Black are powerful, this combination just doesn't have a lot of synergy, at least in my opinion. Red-Blue can be a strong pairing, and a lot of people are going to try it, adding green just makes it a strange mixture. With both of these enemy combinations being added you just get to many mana intensive cards to really make it run smoothly.

If you were to try it out Birds would be required. You'd also probably have to work it to mix blue in to a minor level, offering mostly for card drawing and some not so blue mana intensive counterspells, which could be somewhat difficult. Red-Green is a highly aggressive color combination, and it can be difficult to mix in such a control-based color like Blue and make it effective for much more than card drawing and some board control. Even Mystic Snake requires 2 Blue mana, which is possible to get out thanks to the Birds, but when you're going in a different direction than what a color normally goes, you have to really work on it and work it in.

I should probably add in a note to this report, mainly in saying that these are all my opinions on what color combinations can work and which ones are best avoided. To me, Black-Green-White and Green-Black-Blue can make for awesome combinations, as well as Red-White-Blue. White-Red-Black and Blue-Green-Red seem far too weak to me, and too convoluted and conflicting, to be viable color combinations.

If you can prove me wrong about any of this I'd love to hear it. Send all comments and questions to dr_dem@yahoo.com

Gabe C.