Establishing a Color Pie and why it makes sense

Phaserhawk

After almost 300 days playing I have come to a simple conclusion for the betterment of this game and that is establishing colors roles and fixing current color issues.

First and foremost, for any begnining player, they assume the first cover is the strongest color, as we all know this is not true, so D3 please fix this.

Now for the meat of the subject, defining colors. I think choosing to define roles of certain colors would do amazing things for this game but you have to set rules.

Rule 1: Each color should be able to do at least one thing that only it's color can do
Rule 2: Colors can share similar skills, but one color should be able to do it better than the others
Rule 3: Have colors with opposites to promote strategy, example black is purple's opposite in what they can do
Rule 4: Have colors having allied colors to promote strategy, example red and green both like to do damage.

I can go on but these 4 would start us off nicely So what do we know about our colors right now?

These are 3* and 4* only

Damage dealing----:black: 10/14 5/15 11/13 1/8 17/17 4/17
Damage all ---- 4 3 (hulk anger does) 3 1 1 1
Defensive Tiles ---- 4 6 (counting Colossus and IW) 2
Strike Tiles ---- 2 2 2 1 2 (not counting Marvel's)
Attack Tiles ---- 1 5
Steal AP ---- 1 2 1 1
Heals (passive or active)--- 4 1 1
Stuns ---- 4 1

There are other categories one can break things up into but there does appear to be a little bit of a pattern.

All colors can do damage but red, green, and black are the primary colors and of those 3 green has a higher number that damage all.

Your primary defenssive colors are yellow, blue and purple and so on and so forth so here's what I have determined

Does large amounts of damage, both direct and team. These seem to be higher costed but bigger damage
Does lots of damage, in fact does nothing else but damage, they seem to be lower costed than green and don't always do as much damage, tends to be more direct
A little bit all over the place right now, but it does do damage, not as strong as red and green, but it has it's moments, this color is the master of attack tiles
This likes to create protect tiles and stun, not much for damage, it also likes to slow the game down via AP steal as well
The least represented, specializes in AP steal, defensive tiles, has only one damaging skill and it's a whale of a good time
The color that's the most all over the place, it does it all, it does seem to be the best color for healing and creating specialized tiles, but also has some offensive power

I think D3 needs to tighten up on the colors, and more recently they have. Some characters I need to have their colors adjusted like The Hood, his blue should be purple. She-Hulk's blue should be purple, her green should be blue, red could be left as is or switched to green.

Irregardless, having a set of skills specific to a color would go a long way for this game, as well as adjust cover order to bring a smart and coheisive architype that makes sense and also easier for newer players to understand. A new player sees Spiderman and thinks yellow is his stongest, than blue than purple, except it's not, these are the little things that need to be fixed.

orionpeace

I think D3 has vacillated between selecting colors based on the Character (Black Panther) and matching powers to a predefined Color Pie (recent change to Classic Magneto).

I think they need to pick one or the other. At least decide on a system that doesn't leave us with few options for Purple in the 3 range.

Unknown

We do need more purple powers. I say we give loki a second purple ability because, well he is Loki that is his thing.

Pylgrim

The Devs have stated here and there that Purple is the colour of "trickery and deceit". That may be the reason why there are not that many purple abilities: Most of the characters are brawlers with little time for subtlety or playfulness.

Mawtful

Cryptobrancus wrote:

We do need more purple powers. I say we give loki a second purple ability because, well he is Loki that is his thing.

With a bit of work, Loki could be quite interesting. If he was given a 3rd power which was a Purple Passive that only kicked in when he had X purple AP in reserve that would create a unique and interesting dynamic. Illusions is circumstantial, but has its uses. Its cheap cost combined with the lack of direct damage means that you can often afford to hold off until you have enough AP for multiple casts - and with a bit of luck, 2 casts back-to-back can net you enough AP in cascades to cast it a 3rd time. If Loki had a passive power that only kicked in while you held that AP in reserve then that's interesting.

Alternatively, it could kick in straight away with a strong bonus, but if you hold on to too much Purple AP then it starts to drain AP from your other reserves? That would force you into casting Illusions more often - even if it wasn't ideal for you at the time.

Zifna

I think if they're trying to establish roles for various colors, "damage" isn't a good thing to isolate since almost every character will need to deal damage and that just leads to the situation we have now where certain colors are heavily overrepresented.

A better idea might be to look at types of abilities beyond damage - for example:

* defense tiles
* strike tiles
* attack tiles
* tile position changes
* tile destruction
* mana steal
* tile creation / color change
* stun
* silence (?) (can match/tank but can't cast abilities - example of a future addition)

These are the sorts of things that could each be isolated (largely) to a single color without overly limiting design capability. In addition to damage, I would say it would be wrong for countdown tiles to be limited from any color as countdowns are more a *manner* by which abilities work than a type of ability.

yogi_

Another colour related thread.

I make the suggestion in the latter part of it that from one perspective, there should be a much clearer seperation between colour and ability but more so, I offer a model of a connection between colours and abilities here, that is much more rigorous in the long term.

FierceKiwi

I'd honestly be happy if they'd just publish the internal system they currently claim to have and on the release of new characters have something like "We made this abilty Red for X reason" were X could even be something as utterly lame as "We couldn't decide so we consulted the magical Skittles bag and it spit out a Red."

Unknown

seems to have a lot of tile destruction.

Is it really such a benefit to know what each of the colours do? I think by purposefully not having those, they're allowing themselves to come up with abilities that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to if they had been tied to such a color scheme.

yogi_

daibar wrote:

:greenflag: seems to have a lot of tile destruction.

Is it really such a benefit to know what each of the colours do? I think by purposefully not having those, they're allowing themselves to come up with abilities that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to if they had been tied to such a color scheme.

From what I understand from previous dev talk, they do follow a colour guide to some degree and it is largely what comes up in these sorts of threads. It becomes an issue in the much longer term as the very fact that many characters are powerful superheroes that bash stuff is why we see a lot of the assigned colours like green and red and sometimes lesser numbers of other colours. In the ideal world, there would be an equal distribution of each colour but given my previous point, this ultimately becomes problematic.

The second link in my post above gives a different perspective on the connection between colour and its' representation.

Phaserhawk

Zifna wrote:

I think if they're trying to establish roles for various colors, "damage" isn't a good thing to isolate since almost every character will need to deal damage and that just leads to the situation we have now where certain colors are heavily overrepresented.

A better idea might be to look at types of abilities beyond damage - for example:

* defense tiles
* strike tiles
* attack tiles
* tile position changes
* tile destruction
* mana steal
* tile creation / color change
* stun
* silence (?) (can match/tank but can't cast abilities - example of a future addition)

These are the sorts of things that could each be isolated (largely) to a single color without overly limiting design capability. In addition to damage, I would say it would be wrong for countdown tiles to be limited from any color as countdowns are more a *manner* by which abilities work than a type of ability.

I agree with the damage issue, because that stop builds. Like if you had a purple/black/yellow and said those colors don't do damage, well you have a character that can't do anything, so they would just get left last as you dealt with bigger threats first. So yes, damage is fine over all colors. But establishing colors that are the best at damage does create strategy as you are fighting for resources during the game.

has pretty much been defined, and while limited does have a feel to it, also has a feel, you know it's going to rearrange or defend or steal, it might be a bit here and there but it has a feel. seems to be about big smashing damage and things blowing up but then you have things like Reprieve and Flame Jet that just dont' feel very and just seem a bit all over the place. Black sort of feels damaging and it does like to make attack tiles, but then it also steals AP now, or stuns people that doesn't seem very and right now does everything. it heals, shields, strike tiles, damages. I'm not sure where it is going.

I would like to see become even more of a tit for tat power which it sort of is. You get X but you have to give up Y. Like Fastball, you get damage but your guy is inactive and it hurts them. Hypersonic Punch, you get damage and a stun, but they get a strike tile, Inferno you get attack tiles but you give us AP. That's why Surgical Strike doesn't quite fit black IMO, that seems more One guy I really thin should go is Sentry. I really think he should be build since you have to give up a massive amount of life to get a massive strike tile.

FierceKiwi

yogi_ wrote:

daibar wrote:

:greenflag: seems to have a lot of tile destruction.

Is it really such a benefit to know what each of the colours do? I think by purposefully not having those, they're allowing themselves to come up with abilities that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to if they had been tied to such a color scheme.

From what I understand from previous dev talk, they do follow a colour guide to some degree and it is largely what comes up in these sorts of threads. It becomes an issue in the much longer term as the very fact that many characters are powerful superheroes that bash stuff is why we see a lot of the assigned colours like green and red and sometimes lesser numbers of other colours. In the ideal world, there would be an equal distribution of each colour but given my previous point, this ultimately becomes problematic.

The second link in my post above gives a different perspective on the connection between colour and its' representation.

The colors are already pretty evenly distributed (There's definately a surplus of Red (and oddly Yellow/Blue)). Purple is the only glaring problem spot and even then it's mostly a 3*+ issue.

Enoc99

I am not certain that an established color pie is the best direction to go in, but it is not necessarily a bad idea either. For supporting and countering arguments, lets look at another popular game that uses a "Color Pie", Magic: The Gathering. The reason that they have a color pie is three-fold.

First, for familiarity to players. In Magic, Trample is something that is predominantly a Green keyword ability. Players expect to see it on Green cards, and while it does appear on all the other colors to various extents when appropriate, most players expect and anticipate to see it more predominantly on Green cards.
-This can work to the advantage of MPQ. As certain mechanics, such as strike tiles, defense tiles, stuns, etc. can be associated with a certain color, and this can work towards the advantage to familiarize players with them, as well as assist the designers to know where to put a certain mechanic, color-wise. There is some consistency with this, but there are a number of mechanics that appear to be spread across all of the colors, and some colors, such as Yellow, don't have much of a familiarity with any specific type of mechanic.

Second, for flavor. In Magic, each color is associated with certain themes: White is Law, Compassion, Healing, etc. Green is Nature, Life, and Strength, and so on... In MPQ, this can again be used to the advantage of design. A lot of black abilities are on Villainous characters, which appears to be representative of villainous flavor. Some characters, such as Black Panther, seem to have a black ability for a different flavor dimension, that being his namesake and/or his costume. So MPQ doesn't have a lot of consistency on this front.

Third, for combining with other like/unlike colors. In Magic, keywords and abilities are separated into their various colors for the above reasons, but mechanically they are set up in this fashion to encourage a variety of playable decks. Mono-colored decks are more consistent on gathering their resources, but are limited in the types of abilities that they have access to, while multi-colored decks have a much wider array of abilities to pull from, but are limited based on the consistency of their resources, since they have to manage multiple colors.
-The from since you are sampling from a wide variety of colors.is actually works the opposite way in MPQ. In MPQ, it is often more advantageous to have a diverse selection of colored abilities so that you can maximize your match damage, as well as be able to effectively use any color AP you happen to acquire. As such, it is more advantageous to different colored abilities, which also gives you a wider array of abilities to choose from at the same time. So having a color pie does not create this same contention with resource management in the same way.

Phaserhawk

As it stands
=============

4*'s---- 3 2 2 1 1 0

3*'s---- 14 13 11 13 7 17

2*'s---- 6 7 5 5 6 8

1*'s---- 2 2 2 3 4 3

You have 3 4*'s, 26 3*'s, 13 2*'s and 7 1*'s

4*--100%
67% and
33%
0%

3*'---65%
53%
50%
42%
26%

2*---61%
53%
46%
38%

1*---57%
42%
28%

Looking specifically at the 3* you can see that out of 26 characters there is a extremely large amount that have red, yellow blue and black are roughly 1/2. So as one can see, D3 needs to slow up on the red powers and start kicking out a few more green and a lot more purple.

Phaserhawk

Enoc99 wrote:

I am not certain that an established color pie is the best direction to go in, but it is not necessarily a bad idea either. For supporting and countering arguments, lets look at another popular game that uses a "Color Pie", Magic: The Gathering. The reason that they have a color pie is three-fold.

First, for familiarity to players. In Magic, Trample is something that is predominantly a Green keyword ability. Players expect to see it on Green cards, and while it does appear on all the other colors to various extents when appropriate, most players expect and anticipate to see it more predominantly on Green cards.
-This can work to the advantage of MPQ. As certain mechanics, such as strike tiles, defense tiles, stuns, etc. can be associated with a certain color, and this can work towards the advantage to familiarize players with them, as well as assist the designers to know where to put a certain mechanic, color-wise. There is some consistency with this, but there are a number of mechanics that appear to be spread across all of the colors, and some colors, such as Yellow, don't have much of a familiarity with any specific type of mechanic.

Second, for flavor. In Magic, each color is associated with certain themes: White is Law, Compassion, Healing, etc. Green is Nature, Life, and Strength, and so on... In MPQ, this can again be used to the advantage of design. A lot of black abilities are on Villainous characters, which appears to be representative of villainous flavor. Some characters, such as Black Panther, seem to have a black ability for a different flavor dimension, that being his namesake and/or his costume. So MPQ doesn't have a lot of consistency on this front.

Third, for combining with other like/unlike colors. In Magic, keywords and abilities are separated into their various colors for the above reasons, but mechanically they are set up in this fashion to encourage a variety of playable decks. Mono-colored decks are more consistent on gathering their resources, but are limited in the types of abilities that they have access to, while multi-colored decks have a much wider array of abilities to pull from, but are limited based on the consistency of their resources, since they have to manage multiple colors.
-The from since you are sampling from a wide variety of colors.is actually works the opposite way in MPQ. In MPQ, it is often more advantageous to have a diverse selection of colored abilities so that you can maximize your match damage, as well as be able to effectively use any color AP you happen to acquire. As such, it is more advantageous to different colored abilities, which also gives you a wider array of abilities to choose from at the same time. So having a color pie does not create this same contention with resource management in the same way.

The one issue however is the AI, if it was acutally live player battles, colors would be oh so important, as it is, the AI just matches at random, meaning you aren't stessed to find a color, but for arguement sake, lets say the AI did priortize colors like a player, well then having deck diversity becomes a larger issue, if you are both fighting over green and red, that means other colors are left open, so a broader spectrum of colors helps in this issue as each color could be lethal.

I agree it would be nice to keep colors with a certain flavor, it gives them an identity. You do see it a little bit, red, purple and black feel more defined, like red is damage, purple is trickery, black seems to be power at cost, Daken, Marvel, Colossus, Torch, BP, they all seem to have to give up something in order to use black, whether it's health, strike tile, AP. Blue for the most part feels like defense, but then it does stuff like She-Hulk's blue where it feels more purple. Yellow seems like health but just does everythign right now. Green seems like massive damage, high costs and tile destruction but then it does weird things like She-Hulk's repreive (Seriously She-Hulk's colors are all wrong, she should be Purple/Blue/Red or Green)

The further the game progresses you are starting to see more defining of colors, I just wish maybe every 3 months D3 would do a small update where they cleanup and redefine things, like fixing cover order to match tile strength order, switching colors to more match flavors.

Enoc99

So for the "Color" Pie, here is what is out there currently. I don't count damage, unless damage is the only main purpose of the ability. AoE damage is something different, as is massive damage, so those I will specify. Also, Nick Fury's Avengers Assemble doesn't really fall into the color pie because it uses 5 colors of AP for full effect.

Black

(7)Creation of Attack Tiles - 1* Storm, 3* Storm, Psylocke, 2* Human Torch, 3* Human Torch, Doctor Doom, The Punisher
(3)Special Tile Manipulation/Destruction - Yelena, Loki, Moonstone
(3)Self-Regeneration: 2* Daken, 3* Daken, Deadpool
(2)Critical Tile Creation - Bullseye, Yelena
(2)AoE Damage - Black Panther, The Punisher
(2)Ability Deals Self Damage - 2* Daken, 3* Daken
(2)Ability Helps Enemy - Captain Marvel, Black Panther
(2)Protect Ally From Attacks - Deadpool, Colossus
(1)High Single Target Damage - 4* Wolverine
(1)Instant Kill - Venom
(1)AP Stealing - 2* Black Widow
(1)Stun - Captain Marvel
(1)Random Tile Color Shift - Hulk
(1)Ability Generates AP - 4* Wolverine

Blue

(9)Stun - 1* Black Widow, 2* Storm, 1* Iron Man, 2* Captain America, 3* Captain America, 2* Hawkeye, Daredevil, 3* Iron Man, 3* Spider-Man
(4)Special Tile Manipulation/Destruction - 2* Spiderman, Falcon, She-Hulk, Invisible Woman
(2)AoE Damage - 2* Storm, Nick Fury
(2)AP Stealing - The Hood, Psylocke
(1)Group Healing - 2* Black Widow
(1)Countdown Tile Interaction - 2* Black Widow
(1)AP Drain/Destruction: 2* Hawkeye
(1)Random Localized Tile Destruction - 2* Magneto
(1)Random Special Tile Creation - Beast
(1)Protect Tile - Black Panther
(1)Limited Tile Color Shift - Doctor Doom
(1)Swapping Tiles - 3* Magneto
(1)Ability Helps Enemy - She-Hulk

Green:

(10)Random Tile Destruction - Juggernaut, 1* Storm, 2* Storm, 3* Storm, Hulk, Beast, The Punisher, Ragnarok, Invisible Woman, 4* Wolverine
(5)Increased effect with More Green AP - Ares, 2* Storm, Hulk, 2* Human Torch, 3* Human Torch
(4)Ability Generates AP - 1* Storm, 2* Storm, 3* Storm, Invisible Woman
(3)High Single Target Damage - Devil Dinosaur, 3* Wolverine, 4* Wolverine
(3)Strike Tile Creation - 2* Wolverine, The Punisher, 3* Wolverine
(3)AoE Damage - Beast, Sentry, 3* Black Widow
(1)Pinpoint Tile Destruction - 3* Black Widow
(1)Group Healing - She-Hulk
(1)AP Drain/Destruction: She-Hulk
(1)Ability Helps Enemy - 3* Wolverine

Purple:

(5)AP Stealing - 1* Black Widow, 2* Black Widow, Yelena, Daredevil, Nick Fury
(3)Protect Tile - Falcon, 3* Spider-Man, Bullseye
(2)Selected Tile Color Shift - 2* Magneto, 3* Black Widow
(2)Swapping Tiles - Loki, 2* Spider-Man
(1)Critical Tile Creation - 1* Hawkeye
(1)Stun - Venom
(1)Special Tile Manipulation/Destruction - Moonstone
(1)AoE Damage - Deadpool
(1)Strike Tile Creation - Nick Fury

Red:

(12)High Single Target Damage - 2* Wolverine, 1* Iron Man, 2* Captain America, 3* Captain America, 2* Magneto, Moonstone, 2* Thor, 3* Thor, Colossus, Daredevil, 3* Wolverine, Ragnarok
(3)Massive Damage with Self Damage - Juggernaut, Hulk, Sentry
(3)Random Tile Color Shift - 2* Thor, 3* Thor, Ragnarok
(2)AoE Damage - Ares, 2* Hawkeye
(2)Random Localized Tile Destruction - 2* Magneto, She-Hulk
(2)Damage Based on %Health of Enemy - The Punisher, Deadpool
(2)Pinpoint Tile Destruction - 1* Hawkeye, 3* Black Widow
(2)Strike Tile Creation - Psylocke, 3* Wolverine
(1)Ability Generates AP - 2* Magneto
(1)Protect Tile Destruction - Captain Marvel
(1)Team-Up Tile Destruction - 3* Magneto
(1)Ability Helps Enemy - 3* Wolverine

Yellow:

(4)Protect Tile Creation - 1* Iron Man, 2* Captain America, 3* Captain America, 3* Magneto
(3)High Single Target Damage - 2* Thor, 3* Thor, The Hood
(3)Cares about Team-Up Tiles - 1* Storm, 3* Storm, Black Panther
(3)Self-Regeneration: 3* Wolverine, 2* Wolverine, 4* Wolverine
(2)Team-Up Tile Destruction - 1* Storm, 3* Storm
(2)Effect Generates AP for Tiles Destroyed - 1* Storm, 3* Storm
(2)Random Tile Color Shift - 2* Thor, 3* Thor
(2)Group Healing - Beast, 3* Spider-Man
(2)Protect Allies from Attacks - Colossus, Invisible Woman
(2)Ability Generates AP - The Hood, 3* Iron Man
(1)Retributive Damage - 2* Storm
(1)Special Tile Manipulation/Destruction - 2* Spiderman
(1)Attack Tile Creation - Black Panther
(1)Special Tile Enhancement - Falcon
(1)Pinpoint Tile Destruction - The Hood
(1)Strike Tile Creation - Sentry
(1)Massive Damage with Self Damage - Ares

Conclusions to be made from this data (which is quickly thrown together and I will not claim as 100% accurate):
-Attack Tiles is the primary ability in the Black color pie
-Stuns are the primary ability in the Blue color pie
-Random Tile Destruction and Caring about how much AP of color possessed are the primary abilities in the in the Green color pie
-AP Stealing is the primary ability in the Purple color pie
-High Single Target Damage is the primary abiilty in the Red color pie
-Caring about Team-Up tiles is the primary ability in the Yellow color pie

Some Abilities that have a primary and a secondary or equal color pie (List is not exhastive):
-Self Regeneration: Equal between Yellow and Black
-Special Tile Manipulation/Destruction: Primary in Blue, Secondary in Black
-Protect Tiles: Primary in Yellow, Secondary in Purple
-Strike Tiles: Primary in Green, Secondary in Red



A few abilities which are the wrong colors based upon MPQ's above established color pie:
Deadpool's Purple: Should be Blue. AoE is primarily in Blue.
3* Magneto's Blue: Should be Purple. Tile Swaps are primarily Purple
She-Hulk's Green should be Blue
She-Hulk's Red should be Green
And several others...

Unknown

This game is still far away from balance to do anything fancy like adhereing to arbitary principles over gameplay. If having a true heal ability on red makes the game better then that's what should be done instead of saying 'but red doesn't do heals'.

Phaserhawk

Phantron wrote:

This game is still far away from balance to do anything fancy like adhereing to arbitary principles over gameplay. If having a true heal ability on red makes the game better then that's what should be done instead of saying 'but red doesn't do heals'.

No, but its a start.

I played Magic the Gathering back when it came out in 95 or 96. Back then every color could do everything but some colors were clearly better. They found that play suffered because you could just pick and choose and any color was as good as the other. So they started to carve out niches for colors, create enemy and ally colors and define what they could do. For example, Red would do 3 damage, Green would make their guy +3/+3 points tougher, black would make a guy -3/-3, white would make either prevent damage or beef a guy +0/+4, and blue would just counter everthing or redirect. Red likes green and black, but hated blue and white etc, etc.

I'm not saying MPQ should follow this strict principle, but making colors fit certain thresholds does make sense in the long run. So Red would not like blue/purple/yellow in MPQ becaus red general damages and blue,yellow,purple protects. It in essence allows you to counter certain characters and abilties and hopefully build more roster diversity.

Unknown

Magic the Gathering had the same problem when they used to try to focus on what a color should do. Blue's thing is supposed to be card drawing and that's why they have Ancestral Recall, which some argue is the most powerful MTG card ever, and card drawing went from U for 3 to 2U for 2 (Divination) and I think now it's 3U for 2 and 6U for 3. You can't just say card drawing is a property of a color the same way AP steal is a property of some color when this property happens to be the game's most powerful property. In fact if you make a parallel it'd be like Aggressive Recon would be banned while Dormammu's Aid is like Ancestral Recall, and then after that we got a bunch of weakened incarnation of AP steal like Bewilderment/Escape Plan/Radar Sense but just like you'd never use any card drawing ability in MTG if you could use Ancestral Recall, there's not much reason to use those abilities as long as you have Dormammu's Aid. Now it works in MTG because they can just ban The Hood and say Radar Sense is now the golden standard for AP steal and nobody would think that's an unfair ability, but we can't just do that in MPQ. MTG can stick to its philosophy because the overpowered stuff eventually gets phased out or just outright banned, but it's hard to see that happening in MPQ in a format that'd even make sense.

Phaserhawk

Phantron wrote:

Now it works in MTG because they can just ban The Hood and say Radar Sense is now the golden standard for AP steal and nobody would think that's an unfair ability, but we can't just do that in MPQ. MTG can stick to its philosophy because the overpowered stuff eventually gets phased out or just outright banned, but it's hard to see that happening in MPQ in a format that'd even make sense.

I disagree, this is the digitial age, MPQ can just rewrite the code to bring it more in line much like League of Legends does. MTG can't unprint cards, otherwise they would change things that are overpowered or unfitting to a color slice, so they ban and have multipe formats that allow certain cards. With the input of some code they can make Hood's blue to purple and say it's an active ability or only steals if you have more than 10. Agressive Recon could have the cost increased, paper card products are stuck so that comparison doesn't work. You can argue that if Dorammu's gets changed that it's unfair and you should be refunded becasue that's not the card you spent time and money on, but they can change these characters as we well know. I do agree you shouldn't always say only 1 color can do 1 thing, as in MTG blue draws cards, but so does black, but it usually pays life not mana, however to stay balanced they allow their opposite color green also to have the ability to draw cards, but in different ways, like when creatures come into play. They all share the ability, and establish that blue and black will be the true card draws, one pays with mana, the other with life, but to keep them in line, their opposite can as well.

So red does damage, and maybe it allies with green and black who also do damage but differently, but blue, yellow, purple protect, each one in their own way, blue likes to use CD tiles to create protection, yellow allows you to overwrite things to create it, purple just creates them.

As it stands right now I would say the pie is

---

---

---

---

---

---

likes
dislikes

and so on and so forth

Unknown

MTG is far more willing to bring out the big guns in balance. If WotC is in charge of MPQ and let's say they're also under the same restrictions where nothing can be changed (MTG cards can't be patched to do something else) it'd probably just be The Hood, OBW, and Sentry banned, and X Force/Thor/maybe one more put on an equivalent of the restricted list (say can only pick one character from restricted list out of 3), and X Force/Thor will soon be rotated out of the current format. WotC isn't shy about making drastic changes to the game and value to make the game they want. Power 9 is only usable in one format so your most expensive MTG cards don't see a lot of usage. Banning a card like Jace also destroys value for player, and so is having your $200 deck having its expansion rotated out of the format. I don't know if the balance in MTG is necessarily any better than MPQ in terms of who is in charge of balancing, but MTG is not afraid to make very significant changes, and it has to because there indeed is a color pie in MTG but eventually you find out one color's flavor is that it wins, just like right now in MPQ green is probably the 'winner' color though blue has its share of crazy abilities too which also came from the color flavor (ATU and Dormammu's Aid, while Magnetic Field is really kind of an oddball ability that doesn't particular fit blue's flavor but was just flat out overpowered). It's fine to have some kind of theme but you got to bring out the big guns when one color's theme turned out to be 'win'.