A Shard is a group of three concurrent colors in Magic: The Gathering. The order of colors is WUBRG, so any group of three where they go in a line (WUB, UBR, BRG, RGW, GWU) is a Shard. There are five Shards total.

The Five Colors

Magic has five colors, which can be seen on the back of a card.

The order starts at the top and works clockwise, so White (), then Blue (), Black (), Red (), and Green (). These individual colors make up the aforementioned WUBRG, which is pronounced "woo-berg."

The Shards

The Shards got their title from the set Shards of Alara, which came out in October 2008.

The story goes that the plane had fractured into five "shards" (hence the name), each of which contained only three of the five colors: a central, main color (which defined the flavor of each Shard) and the two colors on either side. The five Shards are:

• Bant: GWU ()
• Esper: WUB ()
• Grixis: UBR ()
• Jund: BRG ()
• Naya: RGW ()

Since then, Magic players often refer to three-color decks or cards with one of those combinations by the name of their Shard.

For example, Rhox War Monk is a 3/4 Rhino Monk with Lifelink for . One can refer to it as a "Bant" Creature, and it wouldn't be unusual to say the casting cost is "Bant," meaning it has GWU in the cost.

Other Names for the Shards

Streets of New Capenna came out in April of 2022 and also used Shards, though each Shard got a new name based on the various crime families in the world. They are:

• The Brokers: GWU
• The Obscura: WUB
• The Maestros: UBR
• The Riveteers: BRG
• The Cabaretti: RGW

The original names from Shards of Alara are typically used to describe the Shards, except when referring specifically to cards or deck archetypes from Streets of New Capenna.

The Wedges

In September of 2014, Khans of Tarkir introduced the Wedges. If a Shard is three colors next to each other in the WUBRG wheel order, a Wedge is a color paired with its two "enemy" colors, or the colors opposite to the central color in the color wheel. If you take a look at the wheel, you can determine the Wedge pairings.

Starting with W (), rather than looking at the colors next to it, look at the colors across from it: RB (). They're always spelled with the central color in the middle, so RWB () would be a Wedge. The five Wedges are:

• The Mardu Horde (Mardu): RWB ()
• The Temur Frontier (Temur): GUR ()
• The Abzan Houses (Abzan): WBG ()
• The Jeskai Way (Jeskai): URW ()
• The Sultai Brood (Sultai): BGU ()

Wedges, unlike the Shards, have not been featured in any other worlds, though they were used again in Tarkir: Dragonstorm in 2025.

Final Answer

A Shard is a three-color combination of colors from Magic: The Gathering which are concurrent in WUBRG order. They are named after the set where they first appeared, Shards of Alara, and there are five Shards: Bant, Esper, Grixis, Jund, and Naya.