How many colour combinations are there in Magic?

Thirty-one. That is five single colours, ten two-colour pairs, ten three-colour sets, five four-colour sets, and one five-colour set. Colourless is sometimes counted as a thirty-second option, though it is the absence of colour rather than a combination of them.

What are the ten guild names?

From Ravnica: Azorius is white-blue, Dimir is blue-black, Rakdos is black-red, Gruul is red-green, Selesnya is green-white, Orzhov is white-black, Izzet is blue-red, Golgari is black-green, Boros is red-white, and Simic is green-blue. The first five are allied pairs and the second five are enemy pairs.

What is the difference between a shard and a wedge?

Both are three-colour combinations, and the difference is which colours are grouped. A shard is a colour plus both of its allies — Bant is green-white-blue. A wedge is a colour plus both of its enemies — Abzan is white-black-green. There are five of each, making ten three-colour combinations in total.

What are the five shard names?

From Shards of Alara: Bant is green-white-blue, Esper is white-blue-black, Grixis is blue-black-red, Jund is black-red-green, and Naya is red-green-white. Each shard is one colour and its two allies.

What are the five wedge names?

From Khans of Tarkir: Abzan is white-black-green, Jeskai is blue-red-white, Sultai is black-green-blue, Mardu is red-white-black, and Temur is green-blue-red. Each wedge is one colour and its two enemies. Before Khans in 2014 the wedges had no official names at all.

What are the four-colour combinations called?

The Nephilim names from Guildpact: Yore-Tiller is everything but green, Glint-Eye is everything but white, Dune-Brood is everything but blue, Ink-Treader is everything but black, and Witch-Maw is everything but red. Many players simply say 'no green' or 'sans green' instead, which is clearer in conversation.

Why is the colour order always WUBRG?

WUBRG — white, blue, black, red, green — is the order colours appear on the colour pie going clockwise, and it is the order Magic uses on cards, in mana costs, and in every official product. Blue is U because W was already taken by white. Reading the wheel in this order means each colour is adjacent to its two allies and opposite its two enemies.

What is the difference between allied and enemy colours?

On the colour wheel, each colour sits next to two colours and across from two others. The adjacent ones are its allies and the opposite ones are its enemies. White's allies are blue and green; its enemies are black and red. Allied pairs have historically received more support, which is why the allied shards got names nine years before the enemy wedges did.

Do these names matter for deckbuilding?

They are shorthand, not rules. But they are the shorthand everyone uses — deck lists, articles, Commander discussions and tournament coverage all say Jund or Esper rather than listing colours. Knowing them is the difference between reading a deck name and having to decode it.

What is a five-colour deck called?

Usually just five-colour, WUBRG, or Rainbow. Some players use Domain, after the mechanic that counts basic land types. There has never been an official flavour name for all five colours together, because every set that has used them has treated five-colour as a special case rather than a faction.

MTG Color Combination Names: Every Guild, Shard and Wedge (2026)

A Vocabulary Nobody Teaches You

Magic never sat you down and explained that Jund means black-red-green. It just started saying it, in tournament coverage and deck lists and every conversation about Commander, and expected you to keep up.

The names are not rules text. Not one of them appears in the Comprehensive Rules. They are flavour names from specific sets that stuck so hard they replaced the actual colour descriptions in everyday use, and they now cover almost every one of Magic's 31 colour combinations.

The system is more organised than it first appears. Two-colour pairs come from Ravnica. Three-colour allied sets come from Alara. Three-colour enemy sets come from Tarkir. Four-colour sets come from a strange five-card cycle in Guildpact that most players have never actually cast.

Here is all of it in one place.

Thirty-one combinations: 5 mono, 10 pairs, 10 triples, 5 quads, 1 five-colour.

The WUBRG Order

Before the names, the order — because everything else depends on it.

Magic always lists colours as White, blUe, Black, Red, Green. Blue takes U because white already claimed W.

That order is the colour wheel read clockwise, and it is not arbitrary. Arrange the five colours in a pentagon in WUBRG order and two relationships fall out automatically:

Each colour is adjacent to its two allies. White sits beside blue and green.

Each colour is opposite its two enemies. White sits across from black and red.

Every naming system below is built on that geometry. Our MTG colors guide covers what each colour actually does philosophically and mechanically.

Two Colours: The Ten Ravnica Guilds

The most-used names in Magic, from the plane built around exactly ten two-colour factions.

The mnemonic that actually works

The five allied guilds are the ones whose colours sit next to each other on the wheel: Azorius, Dimir, Rakdos, Gruul, Selesnya — go around the pentagon in WUBRG order and you have them in sequence. The five enemy guilds skip a colour each time: Orzhov, Izzet, Golgari, Boros, Simic. If you can recite the first five in order, the second five are just the pentagram drawn inside the same pentagon.

Three Colours: Shards and Wedges

Ten three-colour combinations, split into two groups of five by a single structural difference.

A shard is a colour plus both of its allies. A wedge is a colour plus both of its enemies.

The Five Shards (Alara, 2008)

The Five Wedges (Khans of Tarkir, 2014)

The shards got names in 2008. The wedges waited until 2014. That six-year gap is the clearest evidence of how much longer allied colour pairs were favoured in Magic's design.

Before Khans of Tarkir, wedges genuinely had no names. Players used clumsy descriptions or borrowed the name of a Commander 2013 general. The clan names landed so completely that they are now the only terms anyone uses.

Four Colours: The Nephilim

The odd one out. Four-colour names come from a five-card cycle of creatures in Guildpact (2006) — a set otherwise entirely about two-colour guilds. The Nephilim are not a faction, they have no story significance, and most were never good cards. Their names became the standard anyway, purely because nothing else was available.

Nobody actually says Yore-Tiller

In practice most players describe four-colour decks by what they are missing — "no green", "sans white" — because it is instantly parseable and the Nephilim names are not. Commander players more often reach for the four-colour legends instead: Atraxa is sans red, Breya is sans green, Kynaios and Tiro is sans black, Yidris is sans white, and Saskia is sans blue. Naming a four-colour deck after its commander is now more common than either alternative.

Five Colours and Mono-Colour

Five colours has no flavour name. Players say five-colour, WUBRG, Rainbow, or occasionally Domain after the mechanic that counts basic land types. Every set that has explored all five colours at once has treated it as a special case rather than a faction, so no name ever stuck.

Single colours are simply mono-white, mono-blue, mono-black, mono-red and mono-green. Mono-coloured decks trade the flexibility of a second colour for a consistent mana base and access to colour-specific payoffs — which in Commander is a real trade, not a downgrade.

Why This Vocabulary Persists

Two practical reasons, beyond habit.

It is shorter. "Jund" is one syllable. "Black-red-green" is four, and you have to think about the order.

It carries strategic meaning. Saying a deck is Esper communicates more than its colours — it implies control, artifacts and a particular way of winning. Saying "white-blue-black" communicates only the mana base. That extra layer is why the names survived long past the sets that produced them.

For Commander specifically, the names double as colour identity shorthand, which determines what you can legally include in a deck. A Golgari commander means every card in the deck must be black, green, colourless, or some combination — and the guild name is the fastest way to say that.

Common Misconceptions

"Shards and wedges are the same thing." Shards are a colour plus its allies. Wedges are a colour plus its enemies.

"The guild names are rules terms." None of these names appear in the Comprehensive Rules. They are entirely community and flavour vocabulary.

"WUBRG is alphabetical or arbitrary." It is the colour wheel read clockwise, which is what makes allies adjacent and enemies opposite.

"Every combination has an official name." Five-colour never got one, and the four-colour Nephilim names are barely used.

"Blue is U because of ultramarine." Blue is U because white had already taken W. That is the whole reason.

"Colour identity is the same as colour." They are different. A card's colour comes from its mana cost; its colour identity includes mana symbols in its rules text, which is what Commander deckbuilding uses.

Conclusion: Learn the Ten, Infer the Rest

If you memorise nothing else, memorise the ten guilds. They are the combinations that come up most often, they cover every two-colour deck you will ever build, and once you know which five are allied and which five are enemy, the three-colour groups organise themselves around the same wheel.

The shards and wedges follow from one question: is this colour with its friends, or with its enemies? Answer that and you already know whether you are looking for an Alara name or a Tarkir one.

And do not lose sleep over four-colour. Almost nobody says Ink-Treader out loud. Say what colour you are missing, or name the commander, and everyone at the table will know exactly what you mean.

Citations & Resources

MTG Colors Explained — what each colour actually does, mechanically and philosophically
The Ultimate MTG Keywords Glossary — every keyword, with a printable cheat sheet
MTG Symbols Explained — the mana symbols behind every colour combination
MTG Formats Explained — where colour identity rules actually bind
How to Build an MTG Deck — choosing a colour pair for a first deck
Best MTG Commander Decks — decks organised by colour identity
What Surveil Means in MTG — the Dimir mechanic, and the ten guild-pair surveil lands

MTG Color Combination Names: Every Guild, Shard and Wedge (2026)

Quick Verdict

The WUBRG Order