Lately I've been watching a lot of the Professor's videos talking about White and its shortcomings in recently released sets and (to an extent) the entire history of the game. I agree with a lot of his talking points, namely that White as a color has lost a lot of identity as a result of WOTC decisions encouraging color bleeds and bends. While other colors can do what White can do, what does White get in return? When was the last time White borrowed anything from another color?
Here's my question: What are things that White should, uniquely, be able to do, and furthermore do well enough to be competitive?
While it's not a direction I think WOTC should take, I think a space that should be explored is taxing. If WOTC refuses to give decent ramp or card draw to White, then the very least they can do is make it so that doing those things is a little more difficult (not IMPOSSIBLE) for all the other colors. I'm not a fan of this kind of model, however, as it suggests that the only way White can be good at something is when it is in fact failing miserably, and has to drag other colors down to its level in order to maintain parity.
Token generation used to be a very White thing too, but all the colors create tokens now. I still think that this is a space that could be brought back and developed.
Exile effects are also very White, although we've been seeing Black start to flex its muscles in this area recently. Exiling is often a very good form of removal, but all too often it is conditional, requiring the creature or enchantment doing the exiling to remain on the field.
Other things that White does or has cared about in the past are enchantments/auras/equipment/artifacts/gaining life. Voltron or Enchantment tribal is all very well and good but I think it's been about done to death, and it doesn't really do much to address the core problems White has at the moment. Sure, there's incidental card draw off auras sometimes, but nothing substantial. Equipment has been pushed hard, but I think it's better in Boros than just in plain White. General artifact support is not amazing. Lifegain is supported, but again, does it solve any real issues?
What else is there that White does, or could do? Thinking about this in the car as I was driving, I also thought we could make a distinction between "Hard countering" and "Return to hand" - Blue can have the former, and White the latter. White often returns things to hand, although annoyingly it requires you to control the target. It fits in better in White than in Blue, I think, as it's that same sort of vague strategy White control has - it doesn't deal with the problem permanently, it just puts it off for a short time and hopes for a miracle.
What are your opinions on this? Let me know; I'm legitimately interested in this topic.
Right now white is quite a lot (i think way too much) about equipment and auras.
Thats a mechanic thats bad in limited and bad in constructed for basically forever, funny enough the Boggles deck that uses auras only works because of hexproof.
Then you have the white wrath effect, thats basically a classic and white does it well enough, they just cross it in black too.
The big lifelink creature is usually also a white thing, the bleeding into black once again makes the black creatures with lifelink usually just more valuable (as black uses that life to pay for spells or abilities, while white just gets more life, for basically no benefit, they tried to give lifegain in white an actual "reason" and benefits, but its just too weak and against lots of opponents in constructed lifegain is just meaningless as they win with some kind of combo or get in a board position where all the life is just 1-2 more turns of attacking).
Then we have the +1/+1 for all creature effects, which are quite classic white, that also fuels into the token strategies to make the small creatures bigger.
That mechanic bleeds into green and basically any other color with "lord" effects on tribal cards.
The best white creature for that might be Elesh Norn, but thats more for the crazy -2/-2 attached thats not really white to begin with.
So yea, what white currently does is basically just bad and the good white mechanics bleed into black and green, in which its usually even better than in white itself.
White also has almost no way to draw cards in a meaningful way or get ahead on card advantage.
The cards that break that are usually good white cards , aka Land Tax like stuff.
The entire concept of white and its "balance" is weak, as it requires that an opponent gets ahead and THEN you catch up or benefit from that, thats never really a spot you want to be in, as the crazy cards in current magic provide you a benefit and bury the opponent under that benefits that just pile up, no matter what they are doing.
----
In kaldheim especially a lot of crazy white cards simply provide insane p/t stats for the manacost.
The abilities of these creature are secondary, a cheap 4/4 flyer with vigilance is already a big body capable to win a game if nothing tops it.
----
The good white hate-mechanics against opponents gets way too often into other colors that then get to do it even better, which is silly in itself (kinda like having Damnation in black is so much better than the white Wrath that breaks whites theme of going white with tokens).
The "balance" in land destruction like Armageddon was a particular strong strategy with whites small efficient creatures to keep the game in that early game phase for longer or put the nail in the opponents coffin.
WotC abandoned that completely , so right now basically anything is just snowball mechanics, benefits on creatures left and right, draw extra cards endlessly, and white does neither of that good ; so when it works, its basically just a pile of efficient small creatures that deal damage, but thats super narrow.
----
All the equipment and aura mechanics in white are borderline bad ... its just a trap of design and ramping the powerlevel of these up results in stuff like Stoneforge Mystic (which is arguably very strong), but if a mechanic needs that much powercreep to be competitive or reasonable useful at all, it might simply not be a good mechanic to begin with.
----
Enchantments in general where very hard to deal with for a long long time in magic.
So having a strong white enchantment that hates the opponent out of the game (like the Circle of Protection) was incredible game warping and powerful.
Today we have removal against "permanents" that are so strong that every color somehow gets its Vindicate effect that deals with everything, to rely on a enchantment and sit there is not a working strategy if the opponent can just wait to draw their way out.
So once again, white had something that worked (or was even really really powerful, like a Worship, that basically wins the game on the spot if the opponent cannot deal with it) , but WotC designed the game in a direction that made Whites mechanics weaker and weaker , gave it the Equipment mechanic and auras, life gain here and there, thats just not designed in a way that works with the design the other colors get.
----
White enchantments could be indestructible or have hexproof to counter the removal against them, but then, if they are actually useful, they become insanely powerful and hard to deal with ... it just leads into a design problem of them either being too good or too weak, hitting the sweet spot might be impossible.
Monarch in my view was a mechanic that was particularly suited for white as a great way to make whites aggressive and defensive strategy meaningful and provide white a way to draw cards.
But then once again, Wotc bleed the mechanic into ALL colors, and made it that the Monarch can shift around the table ...
So a potential great white candidate got cannibalized to be a multiplayer mechanic for all colors.
----
That said, i think the biggest deal is that WotC designs in the direction of equipment and auras WAY too much for white in almost any Commander product and so many cards for white.
And then if they find a mechanic that would work great for white, they bleed it basically all the time into other colors and put it on strong cards that outshine white.
Boros cards in particular take the worst parts of white and red (the equipment mechanics, and also vehicle and the like) and do that way too much.
I'd like to have a good faith talk on this but I think we need to address as well the topic has gone passed meme-y into toxic and really highlights the worst of the community. Even more so as this topic I feel is really over blown, not to sound like an old man yelling at a cloud but when i started around alara is was green and red who where "underpowered" and "weak" (hell people where shocked that the Daretti pre-con was playable and many said it was really colorless due being artifact based). I agree white needs help in commander and such, again think this topic has been way overblown. As said by people like Gavin when experimenting with the color pie they often take time will go aim for underpowered experiments than over power. On this point I recently talked to someone that Chandra, Pyromaster back in 2013 was when they started trying impulse draw in red and that was 8 years ago and only recently we started seeing it in larger volume at playable levels. The move to give white ramp and draw started, what 2018? And before then white got draw/ramp once in a blue moon now we are seeing it nearly every other set.
My thoughts on areas where white is needing helps, whats been done and what could be done;
Draw
For experimenting we have seen a number of stuff recently. The white draw and ramp is weak but again they are playing around with it as seen with them trying symmetrical draw. IIRC Maro said Strixhaven will have another white draw thats plays in a different design space. We also got Cosmos Elixir which Maro said he feels could be in mono-white just fine and might be a space to dig into (getting draw instead of life or tokens if you already have the right requirements). Monarch is also nifty and white did get a few more monarch cards in commander legends.
There is also I think a few way for white to gain card advantage than drawing. I believe Ehtan or Gavin also talked about how design is liking limited search (Look at the top X cards and put all card of a certain trait into your hand) which could fit well in many white decks. We have also seen this effect put right on the battlefield like with Armored Skyhunter and result into a white Collected Company or similar effects. We also seems white dipping its toes in small creature/perment recursion with Shepherd of the Cosmos, Trove Warden and Idol of Endurance which imo feels very in color and does let white still have the ability to gain advantage. With Cosmic Intervention, Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel and Promise of Tomorrow we also saw a kinda more extreme versions since they can save your creatures from even hitting the graveyard and can brought back.
Ramp
For ramp we also just got stuff like Colossal Plow, Keeper of the Accord and Stoic Farmer* as well as soft ramp like Search for Glory, The Birth of Meletis and Flower. While not the best I do think its shows they do like the catch up ramp (which is easier to play around with in multiplier games) and are playing around in how to get that playable with Keeper of the Accord doing some good work it seems. Starnheim Courser and similar effect also could be a path for white for ramp. It play differently, is something already in the color and depending on the game can net you more "mana" than true ramp can can become maybe mana dorks but for white.
*I think how well foretell really plays will tell how good this card it since I do think being pay to split costs over turns is more powerful then it appears.
Quick stuff that white does well and we could seen more jumping off from;
@Neuroticneurok I partly agree with you saying equipment is better in boros but I think thats a main issue in magic in general. Vehicles are also growing in magic already seen it giving white some new effects with artifact animation and the new Ox crewing with toughness. Similar we gotten more sagas that so far only has historic support and as white is the enchantment color and isn't out of the color play to play around with counters could be gain more support there.
For tokens I think white is doing fine as is. I do like the design Divine Visitation and Court of Grace upgrading token and think we could use a few more, maybe upgrading when you have a certain number of creature to play into the army feel and not feel too much like green.
Life gain is life gain where often it doesn't matter. I think similar to tokens (and seems wizards is already doing this) we seen more played around with this with card that like you having higher life total such as Righteous Valkyrie or as mentioned Cosmos Elixir.
Kabira Takedown is also something I don't feel like people have talked about enough. Never before has white done damage like this and for a few decks that can spit out tokens fast I can play this basically is a Shock+ that can't hit players. On then one of removal I do think white is doing fine. It can hit anything as seen with with having both Oblivion Ring effects, wraths and the odd exile something forever/ Generous Gift effects as well as (I hope) the new burn with Kabira Takedown.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Can someone explain to me why Hullbreacher's CMC is 2U instead of 2W or is that too much to ask for a color that could REALLY benefit from stealing draws in exchange for producing mana?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Can someone explain to me why Hullbreacher's CMC is 2U instead of 2W or is that too much to ask for a color that could REALLY benefit from stealing draws in exchange for producing mana?
Well it could be multicolor for sure (could even be WUR , as it produces treasures and hates on draw, which red also does, and the card is so powerful, it would absolutely justify a much harsher mana cost anyway, but they wanted to push that card so extreme, thats what we got).
Its the same ballpark as Narset, Parter of Veils which arguably also should be white and blue for the static ability alone.
Having the cards in mono blue simply makes them more powerful, its a very common issue that so many of whites themes bleed into other colors, especially blue and black, as the really good white hate overlaps with these colors to quite a degree (and instead of making it multicolor as it should be, they make it mono off-color as it makes the card even more attractive for the colors).
----
Kabira Takedown is also something I don't feel like people have talked about enough. Never before has white done damage like this and for a few decks that can spit out tokens fast I can play this basically is a Shock+ that can't hit players. On then one of removal I do think white is doing fine. It can hit anything as seen with with having both Oblivion Ring effects, wraths and the odd exile something forever/ Generous Gift effects as well as (I hope) the new burn with Kabira Takedown.
Its funny how these good "white" cards are basically a re-hash of green and red, Beast Within, Outnumber.
It just underlines that so many mechanics and abilities bleed from white into basically any other color, and the mechanic that works is usually something that other colors are just better at.
I think the biggest problem white faces is similar to the issue of confusion between the core functions of white and blue, Balance and Control. With hullbreacher, the mana is correct, in the sense that you’re replacing an action with another. If it was going to be white, it would be “for each card drawn create a treasure token,” rather than the replacement effect. Most cards that we see are rips or weaker versions of cards like the ones mentioned are either breaks in the identity of white, or are sorceries instead of instants, again enforcing balance rather than control. Equalizing the board is an extremely difficult mechanic to print, and on paper looks incredibly weak because it gives no player a specific advantage, which is why white was given the strength of locking out other boards or pillowforting so other players don’t attack. The issue with that is though, blue breaks identity frequently with board locking since it bridges the line between control and balance.
How can Wizards fix this? I don’t think they can. Looking at the most ‘white’ white cards I can think of, Balance, Land Tax and Wrath of God, again it’s about equalizing the board state, but it branches into the other color identities because in order to balance the board you have to affect all aspects of it. And it’s a problem for players. Nobody wants to be on equal footing, and Wizards recognizes this by limiting these balance cards by making them weaker (like in my opinion Ward of Bones could’ve been printed as a 2WW and been perfect.) It could also be said that the player base isn’t playing white as intended, in the sense that you’re not gaining advantage, rather equalizing advantage. White is weak by design, but it’s not flawed in its weakness.
Can someone explain to me why Hullbreacher's CMC is 2U instead of 2W or is that too much to ask for a color that could REALLY benefit from stealing draws in exchange for producing mana?
White doesn't steal, the comparable effects of Alms Collector and Smothering Tithe still let your opponents draw just with a draw back that benefits you in the same flavor as taxing.
On the other hand we have had Notion Thief which basically is word for word the effect of Hullbreacher but gaining you a card vs treasure. We also got the very similar Crafty Cutpurse. Both of these having the key factor of stealing and leaving your opponents with nothing from them to gain their would be extra draws or token making.
Honesty I'd say Hullbreacher shouldn't have been mono-blue but UB or maybe UR.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Personally, I’m fine with permanent reanimation effects being used as “white ramp” as a mono-white deck can easily make a quarter of its mana base fetches of some sort (passage, prismatic, four normal fetches, myriad, evolving, terramorphic).
Seeing Cosmic Voyage as a pseudo explosive vegetation (as you can sac a fetch a second time right after it returns and have it return during your opponent’s end step) that doesn’t always work but that can be sometimes cast on turn 3... or get more than 2 mana if you have multiple fetches... or produce a game-winning blowout in other games... seems fair.
At the end of the day, though, white needs card advantage from the library and I feel that is common sense. You might have answers and sweepers galore but when you are trying to answer the threats of three players who each have have more card flow than you, there is no real substitute. If your opponent draws two cards that both require different specific answers you haven’t drawn yet, drawing only one card won’t get you there. Reanimation only really addresses the card flow problem if paired with self mill (as we see in literally every other color with recursion). While the recent buff of white reanimation is notable, white’s problem is more about getting to the answers it needs and needing to access several distinct answers simultaneously, not having its answers destroyed.
Can someone explain to me why Hullbreacher's CMC is 2U instead of 2W or is that too much to ask for a color that could REALLY benefit from stealing draws in exchange for producing mana?
Because they were designing a blue card, not a white card. They didn't design the card and then say "what colour should this fit in?", they specifically wanted to design a blue card that hosed card draw.
So white's problems are pretty deep. Here's an article I wrote on it (unpublished till now).
White - sucking since 1994
The Problems
So, in the past year or two we've seen Maro saying on his blog that white is in need of a little TLC because recently it’s been underpowered. Boy do I have news for you Maro, it has been underpowered since the game began. We only have to look at the boon cycle in unlimited to see just where this started. Even at one time WoTC considered removing Serra Angel from the card pool because it was overpowered. If this doesn't this explain to you that WoTC doesn't understand white I don't know what does!
Ben Bleweiss complained about the state of white in 2004 and Randy Buehler said that they were taking steps to address the issue. You know what, either they didn't take any steps, or they just got it monstrously wrong. Apart from two very brief periods in the sun (Astral Slide and Rally the Ancestors) white has been a bit player in standard at best. The sometimes occaisional ugly stepchild who showed up to win something because everyone had forgotten about it.
Let me get this straight. Wizards understands the colour pie and philosophically there is nothing wrong with the colour pie. The problem has been in its execution since time began. Every other colour has had a strategy or two built into it such that gameplay is specifically crafted. Blue has draw-go and countermagic, green has ramp, black has discard and reanimation and red has the weenie rush with burn as a finisher. White however is a schizophrenic.
White's signature strategy is supposed to be in its small creatures and its synergy is supposed to be in a team. It is supposed to have the best creatures with 3 casting cost and the best at combat. In the last 5 years though I'm seeing all the other colours get the best small creatures. Yes, white gets volume of creatures in standard, but its creatures have not made the grade. In part this is because WoTC has been making other colours creatures better. Red used not to get a 2/2 for 2 without a significant drawback. Now it gets that with considerable upside. The less I say about some of the things green has gotten at the lower casting cost the better. Black has been encroaching onto white space by getting increasingly more lifelinkers, flyers and indestructible cards such that with its removal and reanimation there's no longer a point in playing white.
On top of all that white is not getting its share of the combat orientated mechanics. You don’t believe me? Let’s look at the current set which is a fighting set which should mean white gets lot of great fighting mechanics right? Well, years after Maro said that they were doing something to help white they have 2 cards in Kaldheim with first strike, no cards in Kaldheim with double strike (one though if you include the equipment that gives double strike) and two cards with lifelink. What do they have instead? Five creatures with the relatively low power ability vigilance.
Another issue white has here is that play design keeps failing for white's small creatures to stick to one theme. One minute its dwarves, then its kithkin, next its cats, zombies, humans (which are actually all colours), birds, soldiers, knights, spirits, warriors ... I could go on. None of the themes between sets synergize with each other and often the themes in one set are not strong enough alone to make a strong standard deck.
However, then you say white is the best at mass destruction. Well yes mostly it is, but that just slots into blue's play pattern and the card may as well just be blue as white is merely acting as blue's sidekick in this. White's mass destruction doesn't go in a white deck as it would just be completely anti-synergistic with the strategy above. So often the power is given to mass destruction cards in white or large goofy angels that don't fit white's strategies but sit perfectly with blue.
Enchantments! White's best at them surely? Well, it certainly has some stronger enchantments but it doesn't have a monopoly on them. Green is as good as white at destroying them and gets the best enchantment synergy (enchantress effect). All colours get good enchantments however so this really isn't especially white.
Wizards has been pushing white's rule setting agenda more recently, but there is never enough of this to make a deck and often its only normally good enough for sideboard play in modern (that is when an artifact can't do white things as well as white). More disturbingly despite saying that they are trying to boost white, we are starting to see these rule setting cards in blue and black as well now.
Okay I hear you say. White is the best at defense. I would hasten to say that hexproof is a better defensive ability that anything white has. It used to have protection but WotC decided it was too complex and to do away with it. Circles of Protection - done away with due to poor gameplay. Indestructable? As often as not given to other colours and made better than the white ones these days. Any white indestructable cards tend to be weak and pushed set card such as Gods go into all five colours.
Meanwhile WoTC has consistently played down on white's disadvantages. It gets poor card draw (causing issues in Commander), it doesn't have ramp (though to be fair WoTC has been easing up on that recently) and its answers now have to have answers. This means that when it used to be a slight second to black in removal it is now third and sometimes even fourth in removal. Blue gets to steal creatures (which is argueably stronger) and transmute things into 1/1 flyers! (please compare the no.2 removal colour's uncommon Divine Gambit to blue's common Ravenform for recent evidence of this). Sometimes I think that WoTC fills its development teams with blue and green players who propogate the play styles they like.
The Solutions
White needs to have a defined strategy or two strategies that it can call its own. What it doesn't need is card draw, but it does need its own way to get card advantage in a unique white way. My suggestions for this are below.
a) Defensive Recruitment Aggro
White needs aggro creatures that are defensively minded and can recruit and / or regenerate. It's way too easy for the other colours to ramp into blockers or just destroy whites army before it can get its game going. It needs to have creatures that can out survive the other colours and are agressively costed. If protection and indestructable are too pushed for this strategy, then it needs to have a mechanic (such as the Ward mechanic from Keyforge) that will allow for temporary protection. Also it needs to recruit out of its deck more to give card advantage without draw.
b) Rule setting aggro control
White needs aggro control creatures that can set rules to its own advantage and stifle the other colours. WotC need to make more use of the rule setting so that white can set its agenda and have its own strategies that will define its play pattern. As part of this its small token making probably needs to be made stronger than it currently is.
c) Make white answers better
White's answers to answers tend to be enchantments or creatures with exile and thus it has to play removal in the slow lane. The second best colour at removal has to normal rely on doing it on its own turn and it doesn't get to be the cleaver colour. That seems to be reserved for everyone else and white's tricks need to be better. Wizards please don't just make white's ability in the cycle to be life gain. Give it some damage redirection tricks that are actually cost effective. Play to white's strengths in card designs and not the weakest part of its colour pie. Make white clever!
d) Weenie characteristic creature
Please, please, please give white a small characteristic creature type and stick to it. Humans are not it as WoTC have given that race to all five colours and made good cards in all the colours. It needs something that it gets with the same freguency as elves, goblins, zombies and merfolk. Something that is identified as white and gets to be repeated all the time.
So white's problems are pretty deep. Here's an article I wrote on it (unpublished till now).
White - sucking since 1994
Everyone is welcome to be wrong. But when you are so wrong and push an agenda your agenda gets lost in how wrong you are. What hasn't always been weak. It has never been particularly strong in EDH which has been acknowledged repeatedly and no one will contest this. However, other than the last year and a half, white has always been a major player in standard as well as other formats. It feels great to thump your chest and say "White has always been bad look at the stuff other colors get" but it really sends the message "The players don't understand why this color is weak so ignore their advice." This isn't the message you want to send. Heck half of the stuff you say is fine but the other half covers it up with being so overwhelmingly wrong that it's hard to say I agree with anything you say.
Everyone is welcome to be wrong. But when you are so wrong and push an agenda your agenda gets lost in how wrong you are. What hasn’t always been weak.
I’ve got to agree with you here, white is definitely not ‘weak’ in a general sense in constructed formats. Nor is it necessarily ‘weak’ in EDH or Brawl formats. Like I said in my post, the idea of board balancing isn’t high powered because the board is equalized therefore no advantage is gained. Yes I agree white probably needs more defined ‘white’ cards in modern printings, and white needs stronger balance or ‘true white’ cards printed. But white doesn’t need Aggro, that’s not what it does. White doesn’t need card draw or ramp, it’s not what the color does. White PREVENTS the opponent from gaining an advantage, rather than out advantaging the opponent. And the problem is, players hate not being able to get advantage, thus Wizards won’t print the old ‘true white’ type cards in new sets so white gets less hate, so white becomes inherently weaker, gaining lame archetypes of life gain... and nothing much else. I mean seriously compare Path to Exile and Winds of Abandon, both are basically ‘true white,’ but in the early game where advantage is normally set, winds falls short of the path in almost any situation.
Everyone is welcome to be wrong. But when you are so wrong and push an agenda your agenda gets lost in how wrong you are. What hasn't always been weak. It has never been particularly strong in EDH which has been acknowledged repeatedly and no one will contest this. However, other than the last year and a half, white has always been a major player in standard as well as other formats. It feels great to thump your chest and say "White has always been bad look at the stuff other colors get" but it really sends the message "The players don't understand why this color is weak so ignore their advice." This isn't the message you want to send. Heck half of the stuff you say is fine but the other half covers it up with being so overwhelmingly wrong that it's hard to say I agree with anything you say.
The overall powerlevel of white is usually low, but sometimes that doesnt matter, as a specific card will carry.
Like a Standard format in which the only mass removal is white, then yes, people will play White if they need access to mass removal, as they cant avoid it.
Bunch of multicolor cards also push you in a color, if you want Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and its UW, you play white and pick some cards that work with it (and WotC usually designs lots of constructed cards around very specific interactions they want to see in decks, so we got plenty of "flash" enchantments to go along with Teferi).
----
A White aggro deck can get along if there is little mass removal around, happens from time to time, but its not a great deck, it just fits a niche and can exploit a slower format to overpower the opponent more quickly.
----
No color is so bad that you cant play it at all, and from set to set some color can be left out, if they dont have anything big going for them.
Sometimes a single pushed card gives a deck a reason to exist, like Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, was enough to make a deck really really good, as the format had basically no good answer to it.
----
Humans are quite "white" as a tribe, but lots of whites mechanic bleed into multicolor and so you see tremendously less mono-white decks being successful, as the true mono-whtie mechanics are just underwhelming in general (the entire life gain thing and vigilance as a mechanic are much weaker than what the other colors bring to the table).
----
In the past white had a bunch of protection creatures, that could on their own dominate a board.
WotC moved away from that, and now we get very little protection and much more "indestructible" instead, which is much weaker, especially as "exile" removal is so much more prevalent (it was super rare for a long time in magic, and white got a majority of exile removal, now black has lots of exile too and plenty of multicolor spells exile as well).
----
Mono-Green became viable as Elves had plenty of card draw and tutors, and big green decks became viable when they also got access to drawing more cards.
Even red got access to pseudo draw spells now, every color gets to draw cards in some way, except white is left out.
Whites card draw is coupled with equipment/auras and enchantments, which are too narrow and weak to really make a functional deck (and if they make something it becomes extreme, like the Puresteel Paladin decks with 0 mana equipment).
Having any reasonable form of card draw in white would most likely fix a lot of the issues, as the game is so much about card advantage right now.
Ironically the good white multicolor cards that actually draw cards are basically all UW cards that are much more blue cards than white.
So white's problems are pretty deep. Here's an article I wrote on it (unpublished till now).
White - sucking since 1994
Everyone is welcome to be wrong. But when you are so wrong and push an agenda your agenda gets lost in how wrong you are. What hasn't always been weak. It has never been particularly strong in EDH which has been acknowledged repeatedly and no one will contest this. However, other than the last year and a half, white has always been a major player in standard as well as other formats. It feels great to thump your chest and say "White has always been bad look at the stuff other colors get" but it really sends the message "The players don't understand why this color is weak so ignore their advice." This isn't the message you want to send. Heck half of the stuff you say is fine but the other half covers it up with being so overwhelmingly wrong that it's hard to say I agree with anything you say.
Name one mono white deck that has won any pro level tournament in the last 3 years? I've been playing since 1994 and watching magic for a as long. Very few mono white decks have ever won anything major. There have been the occaisional success, but that has often been around one or two format defining cards such as Gideon Ally of Zendikar.
Yes white has been a player in blue-white control, but that's because WoTC pushes wraths in white. They tend to be blue based decks with a splash for white for removal and wraths.
Everyone is welcome to be wrong. But when you are so wrong and push an agenda your agenda gets lost in how wrong you are. What hasn’t always been weak.
But white doesn’t need Aggro, that’s not what it does.
Wrong. White weenie has been a thing since 1994. Mark Rosewater's definition is white is the colour of the army and the group. Its the colour that should have the best small creatures (which is a direct quote). Unfortunatley this has been taken recently to be the most small creatures and not the best. The quality of reds small creatures has been going up and up recently as the quality of whites has been going down. As white has no reach it can't finish of a game as aggro whereas red with impulse draw and burn can.
Let me get this straight. Wizards understands the colour pie and philosophically there is nothing wrong with the colour pie. The problem has been in its execution since time began. Every other colour has had a strategy or two built into it such that gameplay is specifically crafted. Blue has draw-go and countermagic, green has ramp, black has discard and reanimation and red has the weenie rush with burn as a finisher. White however is a schizophrenic.
White's signature strategy is supposed to be in its small creatures and its synergy is supposed to be in a team. It is supposed to have the best creatures with 3 casting cost and the best at combat. In the last 5 years though I'm seeing all the other colours get the best small creatures. Yes, white gets volume of creatures in standard, but its creatures have not made the grade. In part this is because WoTC has been making other colours creatures better. Red used not to get a 2/2 for 2 without a significant drawback. Now it gets that with considerable upside. The less I say about some of the things green has gotten at the lower casting cost the better. Black has been encroaching onto white space by getting increasingly more lifelinkers, flyers and indestructible cards such that with its removal and reanimation there's no longer a point in playing white.
You are aware that regenerate was retired and they replaced it with indestructible (and for a number of game play reasons). Also white has more lifelinkers, flyers and indestructible cards than black.
On top of all that white is not getting its share of the combat orientated mechanics. You don’t believe me? Let’s look at the current set which is a fighting set which should mean white gets lot of great fighting mechanics right? Well, years after Maro said that they were doing something to help white they have 2 cards in Kaldheim with first strike, no cards in Kaldheim with double strike (one though if you include the equipment that gives double strike) and two cards with lifelink. What do they have instead? Five creatures with the relatively low power ability vigilance.
I didn't believe you and did looks. Kaldheim has 2 white cards with first strike, two white cards that grant double strike (and no equipment unless your confusing Halvar with his sword), a WB saga that grants double strike and 2 red cards with first strike.
Looking back at a the major sets in the last year (Ikoria + commander decks, M21, Zendikar 3, Commander legends and Kaldheim) only Ikoira the base set has more non-white cards with first/double strike.
Another issue white has here is that play design keeps failing for white's small creatures to stick to one theme. One minute its dwarves, then its kithkin, next its cats, zombies, humans (which are actually all colours), birds, soldiers, knights, spirits, warriors ... I could go on. None of the themes between sets synergize with each other and often the themes in one set are not strong enough alone to make a strong standard deck.
Thats a creative issues, not play design (which has only been around since 2018). And they have been looking for a characteristic fantasy race (so no Kor or Leonin) with apparently the players not latching on to anything they have tried and humans ending up the default. But honesty I think this point is meaning less, this will flux and change depending on the planes. Goblins are default in mono-red race but we seen Innistrad use devils and vampires instead, Kaladesh having gremlins, Amonkhet minotaurs and jacklefolk, Ikoria only having humans the monsters and Kaldheim has trolls and dwarves.
Enchantments! White's best at them surely? Well, it certainly has some stronger enchantments but it doesn't have a monopoly on them. Green is as good as white at destroying them and gets the best enchantment synergy (enchantress effect). All colours get good enchantments however so this really isn't especially white.
By that logic, black can't claim to be good at reanimation since all the other colors can get it. Most thing in magic can be found in other colors (unless its counter-spells in blue), more so when that thing is a major theme of a set.
Okay I hear you say. White is the best at defense. I would hasten to say that hexproof is a better defensive ability that anything white has. It used to have protection but WotC decided it was too complex and to do away with it. Circles of Protection - done away with due to poor gameplay. Indestructable? As often as not given to other colours and made better than the white ones these days. Any white indestructable cards tend to be weak and pushed set card such as Gods go into all five colours.
Protection has been brought back and white has been using it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
You are aware that regenerate was retired and they replaced it with indestructible (and for a number of game play reasons). Also white has more lifelinkers, flyers and indestructible cards than black.
Yes I'm aware of replacing regenrate with Indestructable until the end of the turn. Outside of cycles though white really doesn't get many cards with indestructable, mostly because it ups the power level. More often that not they are part of a cycle (such as the Gods) and more often the other colours get better ones than white. White gets very few indestructable cards outside a cycle very rarely and usually at Mythic. Black uses indestructable until the end of the turn more often and at much lower rarity. As to lifelinkers I've been counting the last few expansions and black has been generally getting the same if not slighty more than white. If you count up the numbers overall then sure white has more because they got a lot more earlier.
Thats a creative issues, not play design (which has only been around since 2018). And they have been looking for a characteristic fantasy race (so no Kor or Leonin) with apparently the players not latching on to anything they have tried and humans ending up the default. But honesty I think this point is meaning less, this will flux and change depending on the planes. Goblins are default in mono-red race but we seen Innistrad use devils and vampires instead, Kaladesh having gremlins, Amonkhet minotaurs and jacklefolk, Ikoria only having humans the monsters and Kaldheim has trolls and dwarves.
True the other colours characteristic races aren't used all the time, but they DO get used regularly whereas white's are all over the place. Goblins and zombies and elves are consistently printed in their respective colours. You can't say that for white. Whereas goblin cards all buff each other up, we are often left with white having a theme one set (knights) and the soldiers the next meaning that the deck as a whole is not got the depth for standard.
By that logic, black can't claim to be good at reanimation since all the other colors can get it. Most thing in magic can be found in other colors (unless its counter-spells in blue), more so when that thing is a major theme of a set.
True, but you'd expect that the colour that gets the thing primarily would be the best at it. Black is the king of reanimation despite the fact that other colours dip into it. Can we really say at this point that white is the best at enchantments?
Protection has been brought back and white has been using it.
Yes I'm aware that it has been brought back, but I thought there were less than there are. I just did a gatherer search for it in standard and I was surprised at the number there were to be honest. They have been using it pretty conservatively though - either protection from colour until the end of the turn or protection from 'random unimportant thing' (Gods? Demons?).
Name one mono white deck that has won any pro level tournament in the last 3 years? I've been playing since 1994 and watching magic for a as long. Very few mono white decks have ever won anything major. There have been the occaisional success, but that has often been around one or two format defining cards such as Gideon Ally of Zendikar.
Yes white has been a player in blue-white control, but that's because WoTC pushes wraths in white. They tend to be blue based decks with a splash for white for removal and wraths.
If you really want to go down this route then I'll pass the ball back to you. I could only find green monocolor decks winning anything of significance in the last 3 years. If that's the criteria for a color being "always weak" then I don' think you should focus on white but rather green as it's the sole good color. If you have a list of winning monocolor decks that spans an actually significant timeframe and excludes white then that would be something to support your argument until then all I have to work with is you saying "Look at this extremely narrow definition of 'good'. You won't find white there(you may not find blue, black, or red either but that's not my point)" Which is more of a really good point for my argument. If you want to actually support your side I welcome it.
You are aware that regenerate was retired and they replaced it with indestructible (and for a number of game play reasons). Also white has more lifelinkers, flyers and indestructible cards than black.
Yes I'm aware of replacing regenrate with Indestructable until the end of the turn. Outside of cycles though white really doesn't get many cards with indestructable, mostly because it ups the power level. More often that not they are part of a cycle (such as the Gods) and more often the other colours get better ones than white. White gets very few indestructable cards outside a cycle very rarely and usually at Mythic. Black uses indestructable until the end of the turn more often and at much lower rarity.
Looking at standard indestructible card (minus gods);
W- 9
B- 5
R- 1
G-7
WU- 1
BR- 1
GW- 1
BW-3
RW-2
UG- 1
C- 3
And I'm not a huge spike but glaring through the white cards seems just as good if not better than some of the other colors indestructible, with Fight as One seeming the most non-pushed god card. And thats also not counting Akroma's Will which has been doing really good in edh.
As to lifelinkers I've been counting the last few expansions and black has been generally getting the same if not slighty more than white. If you count up the numbers overall then sure white has more because they got a lot more earlier.
And they share it so it gonna be close to 50/50? And counting multicolor white still has more as well as most the of the "payoffs" for life gainn being in white.
Thats a creative issues, not play design (which has only been around since 2018). And they have been looking for a characteristic fantasy race (so no Kor or Leonin) with apparently the players not latching on to anything they have tried and humans ending up the default. But honesty I think this point is meaning less, this will flux and change depending on the planes. Goblins are default in mono-red race but we seen Innistrad use devils and vampires instead, Kaladesh having gremlins, Amonkhet minotaurs and jacklefolk, Ikoria only having humans the monsters and Kaldheim has trolls and dwarves.
True the other colours characteristic races aren't used all the time, but they DO get used regularly whereas white's are all over the place. Goblins and zombies and elves are consistently printed in their respective colours. You can't say that for white. Whereas goblin cards all buff each other up, we are often left with white having a theme one set (knights) and the soldiers the next meaning that the deck as a whole is not got the depth for standard.
Ya but really how often are those decks all that worth of note? Like is goblins a deck now? And as much as both us and wizards doesn't care for it, humans are the white race and nearly all the pay offs are in white for humans. Dwarves seems to be gaining traction but still have the issues of wanting to also be red a lot
By that logic, black can't claim to be good at reanimation since all the other colors can get it. Most thing in magic can be found in other colors (unless its counter-spells in blue), more so when that thing is a major theme of a set.
True, but you'd expect that the colour that gets the thing primarily would be the best at it. Black is the king of reanimation despite the fact that other colours dip into it. Can we really say at this point that white is the best at enchantments?
I think that a matter of option and format but in general I'd say white has the most and often better rewards with stuff like Hall of Heliod's Generosity, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Starfield of Nyx, ect. And looking through commander the most used legends for enchantments have white in them.
How many enchantment decks don't run white at all in them?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I think that a matter of option and format but in general I'd say white has the most and often better rewards with stuff like Hall of Heliod's Generosity, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Starfield of Nyx, ect. And looking through commander the most used legends for enchantments have white in them.
How many enchantment decks don't run white at all in them?
Green has a ton of enchantment "loving" cards, mainly back in old cards, as they color-shifted that theme to white quite hard.
Green still gets it, especially in sets that have a big theme of enchantments in general (Theros, "Nyx" cards), then green is suddenly all about enchantments and gets big benefits from it.
Argothian Enchantress being one of the best cards to reward playing lots of enchantments.
The entire Theros "Constellation" mechanic bleeds whites enchantment love into all other colors.
Green overall has a lot of enchantments in cEDH that are played regardless of it being a enchantment themed deck or not.
Most of the cards are just generally good, no matter what.
Whites enchantments somewhat ask for a very heavy enchantment theme to do anything good at all, thats much more niche.
Funny enough the actual good white enchantments do something thats arguably not really "widespread" white.
Cards that produce lots of tokens are basically the core-white enchantment thats almost always useful for a white deck that plays the defensive or token theme: Luminarch Ascension
The hate cards in white are also often either small creatures or enchantments, thats something that works for white, but other colors get these hate creatures and enchantments as well and do it arguably better in some way or another (or so similar that its not really whites strength, but more a "white can do it too").
The theme bleed into other colors , black and green mainly is what white suffers from.
If something is really good in white, its usually also good in green or black that share that theme.
During Time Spiral and Planar chaos we got a bunch of color shifted cards, and it was special for some colors, in white thats basically the norm, for white every set is somewhat of a Planar Chaos experience to see what mechanic and theme white bleeds into other colors today.
I think it's mostly as what's been said before, white has been really lacking an identity, especially since they've been letting the colour pie bleed a lot lately. I think the only things I can think of that it does exclusively are tax effects like [card]thalia, guardian of thraben[/mod] and blink effects. Neither of which are great really.
I'm pretty sure there was a time a while ago when red was considered the worst colour in commander but now white is considered the worst colour in commander, without any debate really
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Here's my question: What are things that White should, uniquely, be able to do, and furthermore do well enough to be competitive?
While it's not a direction I think WOTC should take, I think a space that should be explored is taxing. If WOTC refuses to give decent ramp or card draw to White, then the very least they can do is make it so that doing those things is a little more difficult (not IMPOSSIBLE) for all the other colors. I'm not a fan of this kind of model, however, as it suggests that the only way White can be good at something is when it is in fact failing miserably, and has to drag other colors down to its level in order to maintain parity.
Token generation used to be a very White thing too, but all the colors create tokens now. I still think that this is a space that could be brought back and developed.
Exile effects are also very White, although we've been seeing Black start to flex its muscles in this area recently. Exiling is often a very good form of removal, but all too often it is conditional, requiring the creature or enchantment doing the exiling to remain on the field.
Other things that White does or has cared about in the past are enchantments/auras/equipment/artifacts/gaining life. Voltron or Enchantment tribal is all very well and good but I think it's been about done to death, and it doesn't really do much to address the core problems White has at the moment. Sure, there's incidental card draw off auras sometimes, but nothing substantial. Equipment has been pushed hard, but I think it's better in Boros than just in plain White. General artifact support is not amazing. Lifegain is supported, but again, does it solve any real issues?
What else is there that White does, or could do? Thinking about this in the car as I was driving, I also thought we could make a distinction between "Hard countering" and "Return to hand" - Blue can have the former, and White the latter. White often returns things to hand, although annoyingly it requires you to control the target. It fits in better in White than in Blue, I think, as it's that same sort of vague strategy White control has - it doesn't deal with the problem permanently, it just puts it off for a short time and hopes for a miracle.
What are your opinions on this? Let me know; I'm legitimately interested in this topic.
Thats a mechanic thats bad in limited and bad in constructed for basically forever, funny enough the Boggles deck that uses auras only works because of hexproof.
Then you have the white wrath effect, thats basically a classic and white does it well enough, they just cross it in black too.
The big lifelink creature is usually also a white thing, the bleeding into black once again makes the black creatures with lifelink usually just more valuable (as black uses that life to pay for spells or abilities, while white just gets more life, for basically no benefit, they tried to give lifegain in white an actual "reason" and benefits, but its just too weak and against lots of opponents in constructed lifegain is just meaningless as they win with some kind of combo or get in a board position where all the life is just 1-2 more turns of attacking).
Then we have the +1/+1 for all creature effects, which are quite classic white, that also fuels into the token strategies to make the small creatures bigger.
That mechanic bleeds into green and basically any other color with "lord" effects on tribal cards.
The best white creature for that might be Elesh Norn, but thats more for the crazy -2/-2 attached thats not really white to begin with.
The good white hate creatures like Aven Mindcensor get outclassed by Opposition Agent (which should be partial white at least).
Another hate creature Alms Collector gets totally outclassed by Hullbreacher.
----
So yea, what white currently does is basically just bad and the good white mechanics bleed into black and green, in which its usually even better than in white itself.
White also has almost no way to draw cards in a meaningful way or get ahead on card advantage.
The cards that break that are usually good white cards , aka Land Tax like stuff.
The entire concept of white and its "balance" is weak, as it requires that an opponent gets ahead and THEN you catch up or benefit from that, thats never really a spot you want to be in, as the crazy cards in current magic provide you a benefit and bury the opponent under that benefits that just pile up, no matter what they are doing.
----
In kaldheim especially a lot of crazy white cards simply provide insane p/t stats for the manacost.
The abilities of these creature are secondary, a cheap 4/4 flyer with vigilance is already a big body capable to win a game if nothing tops it.
----
The good white hate-mechanics against opponents gets way too often into other colors that then get to do it even better, which is silly in itself (kinda like having Damnation in black is so much better than the white Wrath that breaks whites theme of going white with tokens).
The "balance" in land destruction like Armageddon was a particular strong strategy with whites small efficient creatures to keep the game in that early game phase for longer or put the nail in the opponents coffin.
WotC abandoned that completely , so right now basically anything is just snowball mechanics, benefits on creatures left and right, draw extra cards endlessly, and white does neither of that good ; so when it works, its basically just a pile of efficient small creatures that deal damage, but thats super narrow.
----
All the equipment and aura mechanics in white are borderline bad ... its just a trap of design and ramping the powerlevel of these up results in stuff like Stoneforge Mystic (which is arguably very strong), but if a mechanic needs that much powercreep to be competitive or reasonable useful at all, it might simply not be a good mechanic to begin with.
----
Enchantments in general where very hard to deal with for a long long time in magic.
So having a strong white enchantment that hates the opponent out of the game (like the Circle of Protection) was incredible game warping and powerful.
Today we have removal against "permanents" that are so strong that every color somehow gets its Vindicate effect that deals with everything, to rely on a enchantment and sit there is not a working strategy if the opponent can just wait to draw their way out.
So once again, white had something that worked (or was even really really powerful, like a Worship, that basically wins the game on the spot if the opponent cannot deal with it) , but WotC designed the game in a direction that made Whites mechanics weaker and weaker , gave it the Equipment mechanic and auras, life gain here and there, thats just not designed in a way that works with the design the other colors get.
----
White enchantments could be indestructible or have hexproof to counter the removal against them, but then, if they are actually useful, they become insanely powerful and hard to deal with ... it just leads into a design problem of them either being too good or too weak, hitting the sweet spot might be impossible.
Monarch in my view was a mechanic that was particularly suited for white as a great way to make whites aggressive and defensive strategy meaningful and provide white a way to draw cards.
But then once again, Wotc bleed the mechanic into ALL colors, and made it that the Monarch can shift around the table ...
So a potential great white candidate got cannibalized to be a multiplayer mechanic for all colors.
----
That said, i think the biggest deal is that WotC designs in the direction of equipment and auras WAY too much for white in almost any Commander product and so many cards for white.
And then if they find a mechanic that would work great for white, they bleed it basically all the time into other colors and put it on strong cards that outshine white.
Boros cards in particular take the worst parts of white and red (the equipment mechanics, and also vehicle and the like) and do that way too much.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
My thoughts on areas where white is needing helps, whats been done and what could be done;
Draw
For experimenting we have seen a number of stuff recently. The white draw and ramp is weak but again they are playing around with it as seen with them trying symmetrical draw. IIRC Maro said Strixhaven will have another white draw thats plays in a different design space. We also got Cosmos Elixir which Maro said he feels could be in mono-white just fine and might be a space to dig into (getting draw instead of life or tokens if you already have the right requirements). Monarch is also nifty and white did get a few more monarch cards in commander legends.
There is also I think a few way for white to gain card advantage than drawing. I believe Ehtan or Gavin also talked about how design is liking limited search (Look at the top X cards and put all card of a certain trait into your hand) which could fit well in many white decks. We have also seen this effect put right on the battlefield like with Armored Skyhunter and result into a white Collected Company or similar effects. We also seems white dipping its toes in small creature/perment recursion with Shepherd of the Cosmos, Trove Warden and Idol of Endurance which imo feels very in color and does let white still have the ability to gain advantage. With Cosmic Intervention, Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel and Promise of Tomorrow we also saw a kinda more extreme versions since they can save your creatures from even hitting the graveyard and can brought back.
Ramp
For ramp we also just got stuff like Colossal Plow, Keeper of the Accord and Stoic Farmer* as well as soft ramp like Search for Glory, The Birth of Meletis and Flower. While not the best I do think its shows they do like the catch up ramp (which is easier to play around with in multiplier games) and are playing around in how to get that playable with Keeper of the Accord doing some good work it seems. Starnheim Courser and similar effect also could be a path for white for ramp. It play differently, is something already in the color and depending on the game can net you more "mana" than true ramp can can become maybe mana dorks but for white.
*I think how well foretell really plays will tell how good this card it since I do think being pay to split costs over turns is more powerful then it appears.
Quick stuff that white does well and we could seen more jumping off from;
@Neuroticneurok I partly agree with you saying equipment is better in boros but I think thats a main issue in magic in general. Vehicles are also growing in magic already seen it giving white some new effects with artifact animation and the new Ox crewing with toughness. Similar we gotten more sagas that so far only has historic support and as white is the enchantment color and isn't out of the color play to play around with counters could be gain more support there.
For tokens I think white is doing fine as is. I do like the design Divine Visitation and Court of Grace upgrading token and think we could use a few more, maybe upgrading when you have a certain number of creature to play into the army feel and not feel too much like green.
Life gain is life gain where often it doesn't matter. I think similar to tokens (and seems wizards is already doing this) we seen more played around with this with card that like you having higher life total such as Righteous Valkyrie or as mentioned Cosmos Elixir.
Kabira Takedown is also something I don't feel like people have talked about enough. Never before has white done damage like this and for a few decks that can spit out tokens fast I can play this basically is a Shock+ that can't hit players. On then one of removal I do think white is doing fine. It can hit anything as seen with with having both Oblivion Ring effects, wraths and the odd exile something forever/ Generous Gift effects as well as (I hope) the new burn with Kabira Takedown.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Well it could be multicolor for sure (could even be WUR , as it produces treasures and hates on draw, which red also does, and the card is so powerful, it would absolutely justify a much harsher mana cost anyway, but they wanted to push that card so extreme, thats what we got).
Its the same ballpark as Narset, Parter of Veils which arguably also should be white and blue for the static ability alone.
Having the cards in mono blue simply makes them more powerful, its a very common issue that so many of whites themes bleed into other colors, especially blue and black, as the really good white hate overlaps with these colors to quite a degree (and instead of making it multicolor as it should be, they make it mono off-color as it makes the card even more attractive for the colors).
----
Its funny how these good "white" cards are basically a re-hash of green and red, Beast Within, Outnumber.
It just underlines that so many mechanics and abilities bleed from white into basically any other color, and the mechanic that works is usually something that other colors are just better at.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
How can Wizards fix this? I don’t think they can. Looking at the most ‘white’ white cards I can think of, Balance, Land Tax and Wrath of God, again it’s about equalizing the board state, but it branches into the other color identities because in order to balance the board you have to affect all aspects of it. And it’s a problem for players. Nobody wants to be on equal footing, and Wizards recognizes this by limiting these balance cards by making them weaker (like in my opinion Ward of Bones could’ve been printed as a 2WW and been perfect.) It could also be said that the player base isn’t playing white as intended, in the sense that you’re not gaining advantage, rather equalizing advantage. White is weak by design, but it’s not flawed in its weakness.
White doesn't steal, the comparable effects of Alms Collector and Smothering Tithe still let your opponents draw just with a draw back that benefits you in the same flavor as taxing.
On the other hand we have had Notion Thief which basically is word for word the effect of Hullbreacher but gaining you a card vs treasure. We also got the very similar Crafty Cutpurse. Both of these having the key factor of stealing and leaving your opponents with nothing from them to gain their would be extra draws or token making.
Honesty I'd say Hullbreacher shouldn't have been mono-blue but UB or maybe UR.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Seeing Cosmic Voyage as a pseudo explosive vegetation (as you can sac a fetch a second time right after it returns and have it return during your opponent’s end step) that doesn’t always work but that can be sometimes cast on turn 3... or get more than 2 mana if you have multiple fetches... or produce a game-winning blowout in other games... seems fair.
At the end of the day, though, white needs card advantage from the library and I feel that is common sense. You might have answers and sweepers galore but when you are trying to answer the threats of three players who each have have more card flow than you, there is no real substitute. If your opponent draws two cards that both require different specific answers you haven’t drawn yet, drawing only one card won’t get you there. Reanimation only really addresses the card flow problem if paired with self mill (as we see in literally every other color with recursion). While the recent buff of white reanimation is notable, white’s problem is more about getting to the answers it needs and needing to access several distinct answers simultaneously, not having its answers destroyed.
Because they were designing a blue card, not a white card. They didn't design the card and then say "what colour should this fit in?", they specifically wanted to design a blue card that hosed card draw.
White - sucking since 1994
The Problems
So, in the past year or two we've seen Maro saying on his blog that white is in need of a little TLC because recently it’s been underpowered. Boy do I have news for you Maro, it has been underpowered since the game began. We only have to look at the boon cycle in unlimited to see just where this started. Even at one time WoTC considered removing Serra Angel from the card pool because it was overpowered. If this doesn't this explain to you that WoTC doesn't understand white I don't know what does!
Ben Bleweiss complained about the state of white in 2004 and Randy Buehler said that they were taking steps to address the issue. You know what, either they didn't take any steps, or they just got it monstrously wrong. Apart from two very brief periods in the sun (Astral Slide and Rally the Ancestors) white has been a bit player in standard at best. The sometimes occaisional ugly stepchild who showed up to win something because everyone had forgotten about it.
Let me get this straight. Wizards understands the colour pie and philosophically there is nothing wrong with the colour pie. The problem has been in its execution since time began. Every other colour has had a strategy or two built into it such that gameplay is specifically crafted. Blue has draw-go and countermagic, green has ramp, black has discard and reanimation and red has the weenie rush with burn as a finisher. White however is a schizophrenic.
White's signature strategy is supposed to be in its small creatures and its synergy is supposed to be in a team. It is supposed to have the best creatures with 3 casting cost and the best at combat. In the last 5 years though I'm seeing all the other colours get the best small creatures. Yes, white gets volume of creatures in standard, but its creatures have not made the grade. In part this is because WoTC has been making other colours creatures better. Red used not to get a 2/2 for 2 without a significant drawback. Now it gets that with considerable upside. The less I say about some of the things green has gotten at the lower casting cost the better. Black has been encroaching onto white space by getting increasingly more lifelinkers, flyers and indestructible cards such that with its removal and reanimation there's no longer a point in playing white.
On top of all that white is not getting its share of the combat orientated mechanics. You don’t believe me? Let’s look at the current set which is a fighting set which should mean white gets lot of great fighting mechanics right? Well, years after Maro said that they were doing something to help white they have 2 cards in Kaldheim with first strike, no cards in Kaldheim with double strike (one though if you include the equipment that gives double strike) and two cards with lifelink. What do they have instead? Five creatures with the relatively low power ability vigilance.
Another issue white has here is that play design keeps failing for white's small creatures to stick to one theme. One minute its dwarves, then its kithkin, next its cats, zombies, humans (which are actually all colours), birds, soldiers, knights, spirits, warriors ... I could go on. None of the themes between sets synergize with each other and often the themes in one set are not strong enough alone to make a strong standard deck.
However, then you say white is the best at mass destruction. Well yes mostly it is, but that just slots into blue's play pattern and the card may as well just be blue as white is merely acting as blue's sidekick in this. White's mass destruction doesn't go in a white deck as it would just be completely anti-synergistic with the strategy above. So often the power is given to mass destruction cards in white or large goofy angels that don't fit white's strategies but sit perfectly with blue.
Enchantments! White's best at them surely? Well, it certainly has some stronger enchantments but it doesn't have a monopoly on them. Green is as good as white at destroying them and gets the best enchantment synergy (enchantress effect). All colours get good enchantments however so this really isn't especially white.
Wizards has been pushing white's rule setting agenda more recently, but there is never enough of this to make a deck and often its only normally good enough for sideboard play in modern (that is when an artifact can't do white things as well as white). More disturbingly despite saying that they are trying to boost white, we are starting to see these rule setting cards in blue and black as well now.
Okay I hear you say. White is the best at defense. I would hasten to say that hexproof is a better defensive ability that anything white has. It used to have protection but WotC decided it was too complex and to do away with it. Circles of Protection - done away with due to poor gameplay. Indestructable? As often as not given to other colours and made better than the white ones these days. Any white indestructable cards tend to be weak and pushed set card such as Gods go into all five colours.
Meanwhile WoTC has consistently played down on white's disadvantages. It gets poor card draw (causing issues in Commander), it doesn't have ramp (though to be fair WoTC has been easing up on that recently) and its answers now have to have answers. This means that when it used to be a slight second to black in removal it is now third and sometimes even fourth in removal. Blue gets to steal creatures (which is argueably stronger) and transmute things into 1/1 flyers! (please compare the no.2 removal colour's uncommon Divine Gambit to blue's common Ravenform for recent evidence of this). Sometimes I think that WoTC fills its development teams with blue and green players who propogate the play styles they like.
The Solutions
White needs to have a defined strategy or two strategies that it can call its own. What it doesn't need is card draw, but it does need its own way to get card advantage in a unique white way. My suggestions for this are below.
a) Defensive Recruitment Aggro
White needs aggro creatures that are defensively minded and can recruit and / or regenerate. It's way too easy for the other colours to ramp into blockers or just destroy whites army before it can get its game going. It needs to have creatures that can out survive the other colours and are agressively costed. If protection and indestructable are too pushed for this strategy, then it needs to have a mechanic (such as the Ward mechanic from Keyforge) that will allow for temporary protection. Also it needs to recruit out of its deck more to give card advantage without draw.
b) Rule setting aggro control
White needs aggro control creatures that can set rules to its own advantage and stifle the other colours. WotC need to make more use of the rule setting so that white can set its agenda and have its own strategies that will define its play pattern. As part of this its small token making probably needs to be made stronger than it currently is.
c) Make white answers better
White's answers to answers tend to be enchantments or creatures with exile and thus it has to play removal in the slow lane. The second best colour at removal has to normal rely on doing it on its own turn and it doesn't get to be the cleaver colour. That seems to be reserved for everyone else and white's tricks need to be better. Wizards please don't just make white's ability in the cycle to be life gain. Give it some damage redirection tricks that are actually cost effective. Play to white's strengths in card designs and not the weakest part of its colour pie. Make white clever!
d) Weenie characteristic creature
Please, please, please give white a small characteristic creature type and stick to it. Humans are not it as WoTC have given that race to all five colours and made good cards in all the colours. It needs something that it gets with the same freguency as elves, goblins, zombies and merfolk. Something that is identified as white and gets to be repeated all the time.
I’ve got to agree with you here, white is definitely not ‘weak’ in a general sense in constructed formats. Nor is it necessarily ‘weak’ in EDH or Brawl formats. Like I said in my post, the idea of board balancing isn’t high powered because the board is equalized therefore no advantage is gained. Yes I agree white probably needs more defined ‘white’ cards in modern printings, and white needs stronger balance or ‘true white’ cards printed. But white doesn’t need Aggro, that’s not what it does. White doesn’t need card draw or ramp, it’s not what the color does. White PREVENTS the opponent from gaining an advantage, rather than out advantaging the opponent. And the problem is, players hate not being able to get advantage, thus Wizards won’t print the old ‘true white’ type cards in new sets so white gets less hate, so white becomes inherently weaker, gaining lame archetypes of life gain... and nothing much else. I mean seriously compare Path to Exile and Winds of Abandon, both are basically ‘true white,’ but in the early game where advantage is normally set, winds falls short of the path in almost any situation.
The overall powerlevel of white is usually low, but sometimes that doesnt matter, as a specific card will carry.
Like a Standard format in which the only mass removal is white, then yes, people will play White if they need access to mass removal, as they cant avoid it.
Bunch of multicolor cards also push you in a color, if you want Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and its UW, you play white and pick some cards that work with it (and WotC usually designs lots of constructed cards around very specific interactions they want to see in decks, so we got plenty of "flash" enchantments to go along with Teferi).
----
A White aggro deck can get along if there is little mass removal around, happens from time to time, but its not a great deck, it just fits a niche and can exploit a slower format to overpower the opponent more quickly.
----
No color is so bad that you cant play it at all, and from set to set some color can be left out, if they dont have anything big going for them.
Sometimes a single pushed card gives a deck a reason to exist, like Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, was enough to make a deck really really good, as the format had basically no good answer to it.
----
Humans are quite "white" as a tribe, but lots of whites mechanic bleed into multicolor and so you see tremendously less mono-white decks being successful, as the true mono-whtie mechanics are just underwhelming in general (the entire life gain thing and vigilance as a mechanic are much weaker than what the other colors bring to the table).
----
In the past white had a bunch of protection creatures, that could on their own dominate a board.
WotC moved away from that, and now we get very little protection and much more "indestructible" instead, which is much weaker, especially as "exile" removal is so much more prevalent (it was super rare for a long time in magic, and white got a majority of exile removal, now black has lots of exile too and plenty of multicolor spells exile as well).
----
Mono-Green became viable as Elves had plenty of card draw and tutors, and big green decks became viable when they also got access to drawing more cards.
Even red got access to pseudo draw spells now, every color gets to draw cards in some way, except white is left out.
Whites card draw is coupled with equipment/auras and enchantments, which are too narrow and weak to really make a functional deck (and if they make something it becomes extreme, like the Puresteel Paladin decks with 0 mana equipment).
Having any reasonable form of card draw in white would most likely fix a lot of the issues, as the game is so much about card advantage right now.
Ironically the good white multicolor cards that actually draw cards are basically all UW cards that are much more blue cards than white.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Name one mono white deck that has won any pro level tournament in the last 3 years? I've been playing since 1994 and watching magic for a as long. Very few mono white decks have ever won anything major. There have been the occaisional success, but that has often been around one or two format defining cards such as Gideon Ally of Zendikar.
Yes white has been a player in blue-white control, but that's because WoTC pushes wraths in white. They tend to be blue based decks with a splash for white for removal and wraths.
Wrong. White weenie has been a thing since 1994. Mark Rosewater's definition is white is the colour of the army and the group. Its the colour that should have the best small creatures (which is a direct quote). Unfortunatley this has been taken recently to be the most small creatures and not the best. The quality of reds small creatures has been going up and up recently as the quality of whites has been going down. As white has no reach it can't finish of a game as aggro whereas red with impulse draw and burn can.
You are aware that regenerate was retired and they replaced it with indestructible (and for a number of game play reasons). Also white has more lifelinkers, flyers and indestructible cards than black.
I didn't believe you and did looks. Kaldheim has 2 white cards with first strike, two white cards that grant double strike (and no equipment unless your confusing Halvar with his sword), a WB saga that grants double strike and 2 red cards with first strike.
Looking back at a the major sets in the last year (Ikoria + commander decks, M21, Zendikar 3, Commander legends and Kaldheim) only Ikoira the base set has more non-white cards with first/double strike.
Thats a creative issues, not play design (which has only been around since 2018). And they have been looking for a characteristic fantasy race (so no Kor or Leonin) with apparently the players not latching on to anything they have tried and humans ending up the default. But honesty I think this point is meaning less, this will flux and change depending on the planes. Goblins are default in mono-red race but we seen Innistrad use devils and vampires instead, Kaladesh having gremlins, Amonkhet minotaurs and jacklefolk, Ikoria only having humans the monsters and Kaldheim has trolls and dwarves.
By that logic, black can't claim to be good at reanimation since all the other colors can get it. Most thing in magic can be found in other colors (unless its counter-spells in blue), more so when that thing is a major theme of a set.
Protection has been brought back and white has been using it.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Yes I'm aware of replacing regenrate with Indestructable until the end of the turn. Outside of cycles though white really doesn't get many cards with indestructable, mostly because it ups the power level. More often that not they are part of a cycle (such as the Gods) and more often the other colours get better ones than white. White gets very few indestructable cards outside a cycle very rarely and usually at Mythic. Black uses indestructable until the end of the turn more often and at much lower rarity. As to lifelinkers I've been counting the last few expansions and black has been generally getting the same if not slighty more than white. If you count up the numbers overall then sure white has more because they got a lot more earlier.
True the other colours characteristic races aren't used all the time, but they DO get used regularly whereas white's are all over the place. Goblins and zombies and elves are consistently printed in their respective colours. You can't say that for white. Whereas goblin cards all buff each other up, we are often left with white having a theme one set (knights) and the soldiers the next meaning that the deck as a whole is not got the depth for standard.
True, but you'd expect that the colour that gets the thing primarily would be the best at it. Black is the king of reanimation despite the fact that other colours dip into it. Can we really say at this point that white is the best at enchantments?
Yes I'm aware that it has been brought back, but I thought there were less than there are. I just did a gatherer search for it in standard and I was surprised at the number there were to be honest. They have been using it pretty conservatively though - either protection from colour until the end of the turn or protection from 'random unimportant thing' (Gods? Demons?).
Looking at standard indestructible card (minus gods);
W- 9
B- 5
R- 1
G-7
WU- 1
BR- 1
GW- 1
BW-3
RW-2
UG- 1
C- 3
And I'm not a huge spike but glaring through the white cards seems just as good if not better than some of the other colors indestructible, with Fight as One seeming the most non-pushed god card. And thats also not counting Akroma's Will which has been doing really good in edh.
And they share it so it gonna be close to 50/50? And counting multicolor white still has more as well as most the of the "payoffs" for life gainn being in white.
Ya but really how often are those decks all that worth of note? Like is goblins a deck now? And as much as both us and wizards doesn't care for it, humans are the white race and nearly all the pay offs are in white for humans. Dwarves seems to be gaining traction but still have the issues of wanting to also be red a lot
I think that a matter of option and format but in general I'd say white has the most and often better rewards with stuff like Hall of Heliod's Generosity, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Starfield of Nyx, ect. And looking through commander the most used legends for enchantments have white in them.
How many enchantment decks don't run white at all in them?
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Green has a ton of enchantment "loving" cards, mainly back in old cards, as they color-shifted that theme to white quite hard.
Green still gets it, especially in sets that have a big theme of enchantments in general (Theros, "Nyx" cards), then green is suddenly all about enchantments and gets big benefits from it.
Argothian Enchantress being one of the best cards to reward playing lots of enchantments.
The entire Theros "Constellation" mechanic bleeds whites enchantment love into all other colors.
Green overall has a lot of enchantments in cEDH that are played regardless of it being a enchantment themed deck or not.
Sylvan Library
Carpet of Flowers
Mirri's Guile
Exploration
Doubling Season
All the mana-enchantments like Wild Growth
Most of the cards are just generally good, no matter what.
Whites enchantments somewhat ask for a very heavy enchantment theme to do anything good at all, thats much more niche.
Funny enough the actual good white enchantments do something thats arguably not really "widespread" white.
Smothering Tithe
Cards that produce lots of tokens are basically the core-white enchantment thats almost always useful for a white deck that plays the defensive or token theme:
Luminarch Ascension
The hate cards in white are also often either small creatures or enchantments, thats something that works for white, but other colors get these hate creatures and enchantments as well and do it arguably better in some way or another (or so similar that its not really whites strength, but more a "white can do it too").
Rest in Peace vs Leyline of the Void
----
The theme bleed into other colors , black and green mainly is what white suffers from.
If something is really good in white, its usually also good in green or black that share that theme.
During Time Spiral and Planar chaos we got a bunch of color shifted cards, and it was special for some colors, in white thats basically the norm, for white every set is somewhat of a Planar Chaos experience to see what mechanic and theme white bleeds into other colors today.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
I'm pretty sure there was a time a while ago when red was considered the worst colour in commander but now white is considered the worst colour in commander, without any debate really