Purple

Planar Chaos's position of purple in the color pie

Purple is the color of the expansion symbol of the timeshifted cards in Time Spiral and Time Spiral Remastered. Because they appeared in a rarity significantly different from any other rarity, they were assigned their own new rarity level (higher than rare).

Sixth color

Ever since a prank article in the InQuest #22 (February 1997) which featured purple cards (see Gallery), purple has been speculated to be the unreleased sixth color of Magic.

A sixth color was briefly discussed for Odyssey.

For Planar Chaos R&D actually playtested purple as a sixth color in the color pie, to convey the alternate reality nature of the set. A purple version of Mana Drain was planned and the basic land would've been either City or Cave.

When asked about the theoretical case of adding purple as a sixth color, Mark Rosewater has said that he would nowadays add it to the center of the color pie, so that it would not specifically be an ally or enemy of any color but rather a totality of all the colors. This way, instead of it trying to carve out its own space in the color pie, it would borrow equally from all five colors. This was the approach used for the Colorless Eldrazi archetype in Oath of the Gatewatch. It would be a mix of abilities, almost all things the five colors can do, but mixed and matched in such a way that it could do things that wouldn't normally be done in monocolor. This would also allow R&D to make some hybrid cards (probably a cycle) that are purple and another color. Finally, Rosewater said that if this were the case, he would look for a new mechanic that plays in a novel space that he would allow only the new color to have access to.

Other uses

Purple occasionally stands in for black as visually more appealing in artwork, especially for cards that attempt to represent magical essence in a color-coordinated fashion. Such cards are often cycle-based, either within one artwork or across five. Examples are Mana Cylix, Black Sun's Twilight, and Aphotic Wisps. The M21 showcase card frames connected to Liliana Vess does this also, with it being her distinctive color motif.

Gallery

Inquest cards

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  Alosis the Chosen

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  Finori Doppelganger

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  Invasion of the Soul

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  Purple Portal

Liliana's showcase frame

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  Liliana's Standard Bearer

Timeshifted

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  Purple Time Spiral expansion symbol

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  Bad Moon (Time Spiral Timeshifted)

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  Purple Time Spiral Remastered expansion symbol

Fake card back

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  Fake card back with added purple color.