Magic: the Gathering features, shockingly, a lot of Magic and beyond that a lot of creatures and characters using that magic. A good number of those are considered spellcasters.
Now, there’s a lot of different types of spellcasters in the game, and it is in fact even written on the cards, in the aptly-named typeline. But today, we’re gonna focus on the five “iconic” spellcaster types, one for each color. Though most types often bleed into other secondary colors. After the recent addition of Warlocks as the Black iconic spellcaster, we now have a complete cycle: Clerics, Wizards, Warlocks, Shamans and Druids.
Beyond the colors, what defines a spellcaster is the way through which they obtain their magical abilities, and that’s what we’ll focus on here. However, before we start, a few quick notes. First, the classification presented is far from flawless. Be it for flavor or mechanical reasons, plenty of creatures get those five types without fitting neatly into the definition, or get one instead of another. Sometimes, non-spellcasters also get those types. On the other end, in a game so focused on magic, even characters that aren’t dedicated spellcasters have often recourse to magic, be it warriors, soldiers, archers or rogues. And finally, there’s more types of spellcasters or adjacent that are only gonna be brushed upon here, like Artificers.
For each main spellcaster type, we’ll list their main color, describe what makes them what they are, give a one-sentence description, and give a few examples from the game, planeswalkers or legendary creatures. We’ll go in WUBRG order, starting with…
Clerics can be found primarily in White, but are often seen in Black as well, because of the tendency of major organized religions to be Black-White.
A Cleric draws their magical abilities from their faith and/or devotion towards a being or ideal. The target of that devotion can be a being, either one that’s verifiably real or one that they believe in, or an idea or ideal. A concrete example of the latter would be believing in the Law, Justice or in the religious organization they’re a part of itself.
It is hard to separate a Cleric’s magic from the object of their devotion. Sometimes, the object of devotion actively empowers a Cleric in very obvious ways. Sometimes, faith is just a way to channel the Cleric’s own magic. In any case, conviction is the driving force of their spells. A hieromancer Cleric would only be able to enforce laws they believe in, and a Skirsdag Cleric will exert their power through their faith in demons’ power… Or the power demons grant them itself. The lines can get muddy.
There’s a lot of non-spellcasting Clerics, the type is often given to members of organized religions, of course, but also to healers of all kind, whether they’re devoted to healing others or not. Yawgmoth’s card is a Cleric, after all.
In one sentence: Clerics cast spells through their faith and/or devotion in one or more being, ideal or idea, fueling it through their conviction.
Examples: Gideon Jura (the Law), Ajani Goldmane (helping others), Basri Ket (Oketra, then later just her ideals), Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim (Eldrazis), Whisper, Blood Liturgist (the Cabal/Belzenlok).
Wizards are most often found in Blue, but are one of the most common spellcaster types outside of their main color. One can also find plenty of Wizards in Red, and also in Black, where Wizard was one of the types supporting Black before they got a spellcaster type of their own with Warlocks recently. A good number of Black cards with the Wizard type would probably be Warlocks if printed today.
A Wizard draws their magical abilities from their knowledge of the worlds, and of magic as part of it. They may have had innate magic like most beings, but they learned beyond it, generally through research or study. They’re the most likely to “cast spells” in a traditional way, having invented them themselves or learned it from another source. Due to how vast the subject of Magic is, most Wizards specialize in a certain type of spells or magic for their study, just like most scholars in our world tend to specialize into a narrower and narrower field as they learn more.
Wizards are typically the most knowledgeable spellcasters about magic itself, and as such tend to be the most likely to manipulate it in ways other spellcasters generally don’t, be it by replicating it or by stopping it. However, Wizards can have a harder time understanding magic that doesn’t fit neatly in the theories they learned. However, some spellcasters with a more direct connection to Magic, typically some Shamans or Druids, can know more than even the most scholarly Wizard about the way magic functions onan empirical level.
As far as non-spellcasters go, the Wizard type is granted to scholars of all types, whether they can perform magic or not. Some may have other types overriding it (artificers, for example, get an entirely different type for their field of study,) but most academics fit all kinds of Wizards.
In one sentence: Wizards cast spells through knowledge of magic beyond their natural ability.
Examples: Jace Beleren (Illusion magic beyond his natural mind magic), Teferi (most of his magic stems from his study in a magic school), Venser (one of the rare examples of artificers that get the Wizard type, but he did study his own innate magic beyond the artifacts he built.), Barrin (Had to mention him)
Warlocks, the most recent addition to this list, are centered in Black, and so far haven’t had enough cards to really show up in other colors (with only 11 cards so far), but have the potential to do so. They were introduced toward the end of 2019, as a way to complete the cycle of five color-centered spellcaster types. Because of that, we have a smaller list of examples of what a Warlock is. But one can make good theories from the few we saw and what we know of Black as a color.
A Warlock draws their magical abilities from exploiting an external source. The statement is pretty vague, but it’s because there’s no single way to become a Warlock. A witch that distillates the life and properties of plants and animals into powerful brews is as much a Warlock as someone who draws power from a demonic contract, from the emotions of others or from death and life itself.
Warlocks are one of the harder spellcasters to properly define, partly due to the fact they weren’t around for most of the game, and partly because they can have sources of power very similar to some of the other spellcaster types. A Cleric drawing their power from their devotion to a demon is very close to a Warlock in contract with one. A Druid drawing their power from the nature around them is very close to a Warlock. But the Warlock is powered by using up a resource or an exchange of energies from their source to the magical effect.
We don’t have much of an example for non-Spellcasting Warlocks yet, but one could easily imagine an alchemist or witch not able to cast spells, and be a Warlock. Depending how one considers Innistrad’s stitchers and other mad scientists using geists to power their inventions, they walk the line between Wizard and Warlock, which would probably land them on the latter side.
In one sentence: Warlocks cast spells by using an external source as fuel for their magic.
Examples: Liliana Vess (The Esis root infused with souls, life itself, the demonic contracts, the Chain Veil,….), Davriel Cane (the Entity, demons), Tibalt (pain), Sorin (Blood), Konda (That Which Was Taken/Kyodai).
Shamans are the primary spellcaster type of Red, but due to how easily they mix with elements from other spellcasters, seeing them outside of Red is very common, possibly even more than Wizards. Green and Black, Red’s allied colors, have most of the Shamans after it. Once again, it remains to be seen if Black will have quite as many Shamans now that Warlocks have been introduced. But they’ve already gotten a few since the introduction of the type, so it will probably remain a secondary color for them.
A Shaman draws their powers from their innate magical ability, that they cultivate and train to improve. In the Multiverse, many people have innate magic, weak or strong, generally specialised in a single field. Having that innate magic isn’t enough by itself to be a Shaman (otherwise nearly all planeswalkers and many non-planeswalkers would qualify). The Shaman focuses on it as their main way to interact with magic, sometimes improving it much beyond what it initially was. Jace Beleren is a mind mage by birth, but learned scholarly to master his magic and moved beyond it into Illusion, qualifying him as a Wizard. Though arguments could be made to qualify him as a hybrid of Shaman and Wizard, spellcaster types are usually kept to one. Given the innate magic of many characters, Shaman is usually here as a foundation that can be overwritten later on if the character grows past their talents.
Now, Shamans are also represented in plenty of other roles. Just like Clerics and Druids, Shamans are often part of religions or hold a spiritual role, and through those they often learn rituals or have practices that can borrow elements to all four other spellcaster types (and more!) Their self-reflection can bring them to open up to the world, either to knowledge of it or to the life of it, like Wizards or Druids. Just like Warlocks, some Shamans can sacrifice something (or someone) to perform a ritual. Shamans are by far the least cleanly defined type of spellcaster, and the one that blends most easily with others. But cases like Meren’s show us that even if a Shaman learns rituals, their power is significantly weakened or their execution hindered if they don’t fit who they are.
Non-spellcasting Shamans are few and far between, but the Shamanic traditions mentioned earlier, be them spiritual in nature or not, don’t all require performing magic of their members.
In one sentence: Shamans cast spells from within, from their innate magic and its cultivation.
Examples: Chandra Nalaar (Pyromancy), Sarkhan (Draconic nature), Oko (His main focus is his innate shapeshifting, expanded to others. An argument could be made that shaping minds is another extension of it, thought that’s a stretch,) Gisa (Ghoulcaller’s necromancy)
Druids are almost exclusively Green, and the color’s primary spellcaster type. Only a literal handful of Druids that aren’t aligned with Green can be found in the entire game’s history.
A Druid draws their magical abilities from living things, and their communion with them. While a Warlock might also get their magic from others, a Druid will generally take very little, and not have contracts or formal accords. That’s not to say a Druid won’t form long-standing bonds, quite the opposite. A Druid’s will ask their allies to use their abilities, magic, enhanced by the Druid’s magic, or not at all, to help them. In return the Druid generally cares about those allies, provides directions or is respected by them. Now, a Druid’s allies can include other people, but is generally of a more primal nature. Beasts, plants, elements, sometimes the world they’re on itself. They strengthen themselves and their allies by using each individual’s strong suit towards the service of a commune, of which the Druid is the representative and the conduit of.
While we generally focus on what a Druid uses their magic for, they are, in turn, generally used by their magic and commune in the same way. Druids are all about mutually beneficial help between them and the nature they bonded with. Nissa helps Zendikar, or tries to, as much as Zendikar helps Nissa. When she steps outside of the world she’s bonded with and learned to work with, she has to spend time communing with other worlds she visits, and even then is much less “powerful” there. Garruk (when not cursed), on the other end, is much less tied to a single place, but communes with nature in his own ways. Yes, he hunts and kills animals, but also deeply respects them. He hunts them as part of the system of nature, to sustain himself from it, and in return, protects nature, its beasts and its system from interferences. Attempting to do that is what got him cursed in the first place. A communion primal enough that it seems to work no matter the plane he is on, though he probably would struggle in places like Ravnica where civilization overran the primal nature.
Through their exchanges with the world, Druids learn a lot about it and themselves, in ways that even dedicated Wizards or Shamans don’t. In societies or communities that revere nature, the Druid is a spiritual representative, much more than any Shaman or Cleric could be. Druids sometimes organize in community among themselves too, generally following the same principles and communing with the same entities. Sometimes, Druids will commune with an embodiment of nature, be it a deity, a spirit or an elemental, making them closer to Clerics. But that communion is not more or less than what Druids usually do, just projected onto a more visible avatar. A Druid’s commune can be as small as them and a singular being they’re bonded with, plant, animal or otherwise, but generally this connection can allow them to understand others through more limited exchanges. The Eludha on Ikoria, the Bond between monsters and humans, for example, is very Druidic in nature, though individuals have taken different approach to how they interacted with it.
Non-spellcasting Druids are generally pretty rare, the kind of bond Druids rely on generally deepening onto magical territory, but there’s more than a fair share of people with deep ties to nature and communities that don’t wield their own magic. From hermits in the woods to the Elves on Kaladesh and their ties to the Great Conduit, from Gruul trying to help nature reclaim its spot on Ravnica to Selesnya guide and foster its growth within the city, or even bonded humans on Ikoria with no other magical ability, Druids can exist in most environments, even without magic.
In one sentence: Druids cast spells with the help of other living things they commune with and empower in return.
Examples: Nissa Revane (Worlds themselves, Zendikar specifically), Garruk (The natural order), Vivien (The Arkbow is essentially a portable commune with the beasts within,) Jiang Yanggu (Mowu), Winota (Both Bonded and Bonders)
Clerics: Clerics cast spells through their faith and/or devotion in one or more being, ideal or idea, fueling it through their conviction.
Examples: Gideon Jura (the Law), Ajani Goldmane (helping others), Basri Ket (Oketra, then later just her ideals), Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim (Eldrazis), Whisper, Blood Liturgist (the Cabal/Belzenlok).
Wizards: Wizards cast spells through knowledge of magic beyond their natural ability.
Examples: Jace Beleren (Illusion magic beyond his natural mind magic), Teferi (most of his magic stems from his study in a magic school), Venser (one of the rare examples of artificers that get the Wizard type, but he did study his own innate magic beyond the artifacts he built.), Barrin (Had to mention him)
Warlocks: Warlocks cast spells by using an external source as fuel for their magic.
Examples: Liliana Vess (The Esis root infused with souls, life itself, the demonic contracts, the Chain Veil,….), Davriel Cane (the Entity, demons), Tibalt (pain), Sorin (Blood), Konda (That Which Was Taken/Kyodai).
Shamans: Shamans cast spells from within, from their innate magic and its cultivation.
Examples: Chandra Nalaar (Pyromancy), Sarkhan (Draconic nature), Oko (His main focus is his innate shapeshifting, expanded to others. An argument could be made that shaping minds is another extension of it, thought that’s a stretch,) Gisa (Ghoulcaller’s necromancy)
Druids: Druids cast spells with the help of other living things they commune with and empower in return.
Examples: Nissa Revane (Worlds themselves, Zendikar specifically), Garruk (The natural order), Vivien (The Arkbow is essentially a portable commune with the beasts within,) Jiang Yanggu (Mowu), Winota (Both Bonded and Bonders.)
Anyway, that’s gonna be it! Those are the five main spellcaster types, or at least my interpretation of them. Don’t hesistate to comment where you disagree or if you feel like you have anything to add, and have fun categorizing various magical characters!
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