Red Ward (Original Art)

Red Ward is a one-mana white Enchantment-Aura that gives target creature protection from red, and was first printed in Alpha (1993). It’s a cheap, efficient protection spell that makes your creature completely immune to red. Red Ward is part of Magic’s first cycle of color-specific “wards”- simple, single-color enchantments granting protection from a specific color (e.g. Blue Ward, Black Ward). In Old School Magic, Red Ward is sometimes played in Mono-White Control or White Weenie decks as a defensive tool against aggressive red decks. It can protect key creatures such as Serra Angel or White Knight from cards like Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Fireball. Because red burn decks were very common in the early days of Magic, Red Ward was a interesting piece of color-hate tech. It served as an efficient way to ensure that your most important creature stayed alive. You’d often see out of the sideboard when facing red opponents, since one mana to shut off all red removal from a creature was a huge tempo swing in 1994. Red Ward is not on the Reserved List.