My issue with Dawn of Hope is that it clears its own hurdle, and "card draw tied to lifegain" is something B does, after a fashion,
Draw in black is normally associated with life loss.
I said "after a fashion". Acquire currency, invest currency, acquire more currency. Black's basic philosophy.
And everything is currency to black.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I think it’s honestly ok to limit white’s card draw in EDH because colorless options are so abundant (as ISBPathfinder said).
No white spell would ever be more efficient than Mind’s Eye, Trading Post, Staff of Nin or the Immortal Sun (much less Memory Jar), so why bother? In a way, this works out perfectly as it means white can get these effects at the cost of being vulnerable to artifact destruction. That is not such a bad trade off.
No mention of Skullclamp? Considering white is the best at making small tokens...
My issue with Dawn of Hope is that it clears its own hurdle, and "card draw tied to lifegain" is something B does, after a fashion, and something we already see WU do. "Lifegain and card draw on the same card" is WU or simply G, though for the latter it has to again stay in green's lane. Sure, you're paying 2 for each card, but it's still turning every creature with lifelink (and Ajani's Mantra, and...) into a sort of Phyrexian Arena. To say nothing of what combining it with a lucky charm does. "Kicker 2. If kicked, cantrip." sounds dangerous.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
So many of the post and suggestions in this thread ultimately amount to "give white card draw" in some form or another. MaRo has reiterated again and again that that's simply not happening (outside of extremely niche, build-around cards that support existing white design space [e.g. equipment]).
Rehashing it is just wasting our time.
Well we know that's not true as there is Alms Collector, Armistice and even Dawn of Hope from the lastest set.
So it's not unreasonable at all to be talking about it and discussing good designs to make it fit within the white framework and mold.
Armistice is from Mercadian Masques. So is a very old card. There are multiple old cards with effects which doesn't fit modern colour pie rules. Dawn of Hope is a recent card and it is a niche card for life gain decks. Sure it has the build in token thing but the card shines when you are not reliant to that token. In addition the card was highly discussed and Maro already said that he was nervous about this and he stated that it's a color break. He doesn't seem to be very happy about this card. Alms Collector is from the cat commander deck. They get more funky in this kind of product. Red get some technical card against enchantments last time. It is a color break I think but less than the cards before. For me the disruption effects of this card is the main reason to play it. The 1 card is a nice bonus. This will rarely draw you more than 1.
TBH, the color pie was pretty well-established by Masques. Keep in mind that Armistice is also bad: "Cards! I've got cards today! 3WW a pop! And your friend gets some free tonic! You blue mages should know, it goes great with djinn. Would you like a card, good sir?"
(All the blue, green, black, and red mages scoff at how ludicrously overpriced Armistice is.)
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Maros Tumblr got a lot of questions, ideas, suggestions about white card draw. For example.
For white card draw, you mentioned that drawing up to equal your opponents hand is likely out of the question, but would something like Timely Reinforcements for card draw work? Something that gave a set amount of card advantage, but only if you were behind.
To all suggestions Maros answer was similar:
No. White is bad at drawing cards. The solution to white is not making it better at drawing cards. It’s purposefully supposed to be bad at drawing cards. Look to enhancing strengths of white not trying to undo its weakness.
What is the meaning of this? White strengths? More cheap removal or repeatable removal in some way? More token, life gain stuff and more board wipes? I don't think that increasing the quality of this kind of effects will lead to something. Maybe better/more disruption effects but most player hate playing against such things.
I don't think reprinting old cards will do something. Maybe for newer player but that doesn't help white to catch up with the other colours.
To me, it means white has to be worst at drawing cards, significantly worse than even red. I honestly think Mentor of the Meek, Puresteel Paladin, and Mesa Enchantress are too good. Though Puresteel Paladin is arguable, since it could be argued it's staying in its own lane at least. (Though again, red should be better at drawing cards than white...)
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Green is the master of recursion, but absolutely *****ty at reanimation.
Anyway, I was thinking maybe political card draw? Something like
Serra's Basilica3WW
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, each opponent gains 5 life and you draw a card.
This is a simple version. You can also have them create tokens or draw cards themselves or play permanents for free or recur things or things of that nature. Just make sure to include a lot of knobs to follow two rules:
1. It must be bad. Nothing as good as Prosperity. I mean, it doesn't have to be too bad, but it does have to be such that no one's splashing white for card draw. You can (and should) overcost things like Armistice does, for instance.
2. The benefit to opponents must be generally good. Recursion (card of their choice), tokens, cards of their own, lifegain, that sort of thing.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Beyond that, it does let you (and everyone else) draw an additional card off Brainstorm; of course, you're the only one actually drawing X cards, so for everyone else, "an additional" is off their zero cards.
Personally I worry about card draw connected to lifegain in white. It steps too close to the best black draw spell of all time. After all, if my lifelinked creature does five damage to you, Necro just says I get five cards (but don't actually draw them) at EOT. I mean, it wouldn't be so bad except Dawn of Hope creates lifelink tokens, and every last one of them, so long as it lives, is a little Phyrexian Arena.
How about an enchantment that produces mana off life gain?
Mana Life Gain Enchantment 2WW
Enchantment
Whenever you gain one of more life add 1.
Mana doesn't accumulate, though. So it wouldn't be as bad as (the obvious card you're comparing it to) Channel. Like, I add 1 off Ajani's Mantra or Baneslayer Angel, big whoop. It'll probably just disappear when my upkeep or combat ends. Drawing a card? Unless I draw more than 7 cards (without Thought Vessel, Reliquary Tower, and the like, and even then, having no maximum hand size can be a bit winmoar at times) I can keep all those cards at EOT.
(Actually, now that I think about it, Alms Collector really ****s over anyone with Sylvan Library out, since you're basically forced to pay 8 life every turn.)
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Beyond that, it does let you (and everyone else) draw an additional card off Brainstorm; of course, you're the only one actually drawing X cards, so for everyone else, "an additional" is off their zero cards.
Personally I worry about card draw connected to lifegain in white. It steps too close to the best black draw spell of all time. After all, if my lifelinked creature does five damage to you, Necro just says I get five cards (but don't actually draw them) at EOT. I mean, it wouldn't be so bad except Dawn of Hope creates lifelink tokens, and every last one of them, so long as it lives, is a little Phyrexian Arena.
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
(By the way, about Lin Sivvi, um, rebels are too parasitic to be "as big a threat as Azusa or Azami", IMO. There are only three blocks with rebels other than Whipcorder: Masques, Time Spiral, and Lorwyn.)
There's nothing that says rebels can't exist outside of those sets, it doesn't add any mechanical complexity and would make flavor sense for a lot of cards. The only difference between rebels and goblins is that goblins happened to get printed a lot more, so they ended up with a critical mass of good ones to support a commander deck, while rebels did not. No one complains about goblins being parasitic.
Lin, as a deck, is much worse than azami, no question. But in a vacuum I don't think she's a weaker card. The theoretical power is there in the commander, white just doesn't have the payoffs to make it work. Imagine if something like elesh norn or sun titan were a rebel.
It would, but if wishes were horses we'd all be nigh-unblocakble. Playing Sivvi (I was always under the impression "Lin" was a title, or surname first à la Chinese or Hungarian, e.g. Sivvi's Ruse.) is also bad politics because all that tutoring (and shuffling) takes added time, and while I have no problem with bad politics that keeps opponents from doing things, I draw the line at bad politics that just annoys people. I do think rebels could come back, but it would be something like, on a creature with CMC X, "2X: Look at the top N cards of your library. You may put a Rebel with CMC X+1 or less on the battlefield. Shuffle your library afterward." N could be a constant, or also related to X, e.g. "Rebel Sergeant" gives you the top 3 cards, "Rebel Lieutenant" gives you the top 4, "Rebel Captain" gives you the top 5, etc. Also, some might look in the graveyard. There are several ways to get the recruitment flavor of rebels, which I would love to see the game use.
And of course, also rebels could expand colors. Black ones could be the smarmy faux-populist whose plans help him, not you; or the smugglers, mercenaries, pirates, and other types who are the lifeblood of rebellions but are hated at all other times. Red ones could be the "goblin rebellion", if you will: Rebelling just for the sake of rebelling. (Also, rebelling against oppressive theocracies.) Green ones could be a sort of return to tradition, or, you know, ecoterrorists. I have trouble imagining blue rebels, but I'd imagine they'd be holding out against an inquisition, Lysenkoism (the denial of scientific consensus for political reasons, named after the Soviet denial of heredity), or some other "government wants to hide the truth" situation. Different settings, different colors. (Since, obviously, totalitarian states are always at least partially white.)
As it is, it is parasitic, though. Tribes with a go-to mechanic that doesn't easily fit in every set tend to be parasitic just because they're only in a small number of sets. (I mean, tapping creatures for mana, sacrificing creatures for effects, returning creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield, and various expressions of hunger, those types of things will be in every set, so for elves, goblins, zombies, and vampires, it's more a matter of flavor if they're not included.) Though as they're printed more, they may become less parasitic.
Though to be fair, we do clones in every set, but again, this doesn't help rebels because 1) white (and black) lack clones, and 2) clones aren't clones outside the battlefield.
Anyway, back on topic, I think what's forgotten (and this talk about rebels reminded me of it) is the flavor reason as well. White can't get as good card draw (and as long as it's significantly worse and white stays in its lane, e.g., white gets enchantresses and Collective Unconscious, but worse than green, or "something green wouldn't do", e.g. equipped creatures, artifact creatures, I have no issues) because white is the color most opposed to learning. Red actually can learn by experimentation, but generally doesn't care to much for fancy book-learning. Blue learns by research (and experimentation and observation). Green learns by observation, much more (typical green) passively than red or blue. Black...doesn't care how it learns, just the old adage, "knowledge is power", is enough for black to be interested. White, as I said, white believes in the noble lie. It's white's biggest weakness, and one of the things typical of "evil white". (The other is suppressing all individuality.) So, the balance reason is, white has all the answers, and the flavor reason is...white has all the answers.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
For ramp, I'd be happy with "Every color gets Nature's Lore at 2M."
Anyway, for card draw, that's the harder nut to crack. The funny thing is, well, first, Dawn of Hope is fartooclosetowhatblackalreadydoes. Secondly, white is already the best color to exploit Skullclamp and can use Book of Rass to better effect than red, blue, or green. (Black wouldn't bother with it; Greed exists and is already "bad" by modern standards.) So, what do we have?
The first option is Collective Unconscious. Maybe a perfect color shift, since Shamanic Revelation is twice-better (costs 1 less and can gain you a buttload of life) in green. Okay, that was obvious.
Curiosity might be interesting, though I prefer a rule that white's Curiosity is worse, no Augury Adept-type things. Already, every other color has it. (Black has to pay life with each proc, and red has impulse drawing or looting on the proc instead of straight up drawing.)
One option is to say the creatures must be enchanted or equipped?
Beyond that, the only thing I can think of is already-broken things like Windfall.
Of course, this is what artifacts are for: Shoring up a color's weakness.
(By the way, about Lin Sivvi, um, rebels are too parasitic to be "as big a threat as Azusa or Azami", IMO. There are only three blocks with rebels other than Whipcorder: Masques, Time Spiral, and Lorwyn.)
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I said "after a fashion". Acquire currency, invest currency, acquire more currency. Black's basic philosophy.
And everything is currency to black.
On phasing:
No mention of Skullclamp? Considering white is the best at making small tokens...
My issue with Dawn of Hope is that it clears its own hurdle, and "card draw tied to lifegain" is something B does, after a fashion, and something we already see WU do. "Lifegain and card draw on the same card" is WU or simply G, though for the latter it has to again stay in green's lane. Sure, you're paying 2 for each card, but it's still turning every creature with lifelink (and Ajani's Mantra, and...) into a sort of Phyrexian Arena. To say nothing of what combining it with a lucky charm does. "Kicker 2. If kicked, cantrip." sounds dangerous.
On phasing:
TBH, the color pie was pretty well-established by Masques. Keep in mind that Armistice is also bad: "Cards! I've got cards today! 3WW a pop! And your friend gets some free tonic! You blue mages should know, it goes great with djinn. Would you like a card, good sir?"
(All the blue, green, black, and red mages scoff at how ludicrously overpriced Armistice is.)
On phasing:
To me, it means white has to be worst at drawing cards, significantly worse than even red. I honestly think Mentor of the Meek, Puresteel Paladin, and Mesa Enchantress are too good. Though Puresteel Paladin is arguable, since it could be argued it's staying in its own lane at least. (Though again, red should be better at drawing cards than white...)
On phasing:
Green is the master of recursion, but absolutely *****ty at reanimation.
Anyway, I was thinking maybe political card draw? Something like
Serra's Basilica 3WW
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, each opponent gains 5 life and you draw a card.
This is a simple version. You can also have them create tokens or draw cards themselves or play permanents for free or recur things or things of that nature. Just make sure to include a lot of knobs to follow two rules:
1. It must be bad. Nothing as good as Prosperity. I mean, it doesn't have to be too bad, but it does have to be such that no one's splashing white for card draw. You can (and should) overcost things like Armistice does, for instance.
2. The benefit to opponents must be generally good. Recursion (card of their choice), tokens, cards of their own, lifegain, that sort of thing.
On phasing:
Mana doesn't accumulate, though. So it wouldn't be as bad as (the obvious card you're comparing it to) Channel. Like, I add 1 off Ajani's Mantra or Baneslayer Angel, big whoop. It'll probably just disappear when my upkeep or combat ends. Drawing a card? Unless I draw more than 7 cards (without Thought Vessel, Reliquary Tower, and the like, and even then, having no maximum hand size can be a bit winmoar at times) I can keep all those cards at EOT.
(Actually, now that I think about it, Alms Collector really ****s over anyone with Sylvan Library out, since you're basically forced to pay 8 life every turn.)
On phasing:
It doesn't do much on its own, in my experience. The thing is, it only hits "draw N cards, where N>1". It does shut down Brainstorm, Tidings and friends, Blue Sun's Zenith and friends, wheels, Greater Good, Skullclamp, Garruk, Primal Hunter's -3, Grim Flowering, Sign in Blood and friends, Shamanic Revelation, and Sylvan Library, but it leaves staples like Phyrexian Arena, Argothian Enchantress, Fecundity, and Bident of Thassa untouched, along with things like Necropotence and Act on Impulse that don't technically draw a card. (And using a cantrip like Aggressive Urge on something like Mirrorwing Dragon is still possible: You only draw one card between each SBA check, after all.) But the key word is "shut down". Opponents won't play/activate them until Alms Collector is gone, which is a huge tempo loss. And it does have an effect on things like Damia, Sage of Stone.
Beyond that, it does let you (and everyone else) draw an additional card off Brainstorm; of course, you're the only one actually drawing X cards, so for everyone else, "an additional" is off their zero cards.
Personally I worry about card draw connected to lifegain in white. It steps too close to the best black draw spell of all time. After all, if my lifelinked creature does five damage to you, Necro just says I get five cards (but don't actually draw them) at EOT. I mean, it wouldn't be so bad except Dawn of Hope creates lifelink tokens, and every last one of them, so long as it lives, is a little Phyrexian Arena.
On phasing:
It would, but if wishes were horses we'd all be nigh-unblocakble. Playing Sivvi (I was always under the impression "Lin" was a title, or surname first à la Chinese or Hungarian, e.g. Sivvi's Ruse.) is also bad politics because all that tutoring (and shuffling) takes added time, and while I have no problem with bad politics that keeps opponents from doing things, I draw the line at bad politics that just annoys people. I do think rebels could come back, but it would be something like, on a creature with CMC X, "2X: Look at the top N cards of your library. You may put a Rebel with CMC X+1 or less on the battlefield. Shuffle your library afterward." N could be a constant, or also related to X, e.g. "Rebel Sergeant" gives you the top 3 cards, "Rebel Lieutenant" gives you the top 4, "Rebel Captain" gives you the top 5, etc. Also, some might look in the graveyard. There are several ways to get the recruitment flavor of rebels, which I would love to see the game use.
And of course, also rebels could expand colors. Black ones could be the smarmy faux-populist whose plans help him, not you; or the smugglers, mercenaries, pirates, and other types who are the lifeblood of rebellions but are hated at all other times. Red ones could be the "goblin rebellion", if you will: Rebelling just for the sake of rebelling. (Also, rebelling against oppressive theocracies.) Green ones could be a sort of return to tradition, or, you know, ecoterrorists. I have trouble imagining blue rebels, but I'd imagine they'd be holding out against an inquisition, Lysenkoism (the denial of scientific consensus for political reasons, named after the Soviet denial of heredity), or some other "government wants to hide the truth" situation. Different settings, different colors. (Since, obviously, totalitarian states are always at least partially white.)
As it is, it is parasitic, though. Tribes with a go-to mechanic that doesn't easily fit in every set tend to be parasitic just because they're only in a small number of sets. (I mean, tapping creatures for mana, sacrificing creatures for effects, returning creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield, and various expressions of hunger, those types of things will be in every set, so for elves, goblins, zombies, and vampires, it's more a matter of flavor if they're not included.) Though as they're printed more, they may become less parasitic.
Though to be fair, we do clones in every set, but again, this doesn't help rebels because 1) white (and black) lack clones, and 2) clones aren't clones outside the battlefield.
Anyway, back on topic, I think what's forgotten (and this talk about rebels reminded me of it) is the flavor reason as well. White can't get as good card draw (and as long as it's significantly worse and white stays in its lane, e.g., white gets enchantresses and Collective Unconscious, but worse than green, or "something green wouldn't do", e.g. equipped creatures, artifact creatures, I have no issues) because white is the color most opposed to learning. Red actually can learn by experimentation, but generally doesn't care to much for fancy book-learning. Blue learns by research (and experimentation and observation). Green learns by observation, much more (typical green) passively than red or blue. Black...doesn't care how it learns, just the old adage, "knowledge is power", is enough for black to be interested. White, as I said, white believes in the noble lie. It's white's biggest weakness, and one of the things typical of "evil white". (The other is suppressing all individuality.) So, the balance reason is, white has all the answers, and the flavor reason is...white has all the answers.
On phasing:
Anyway, for card draw, that's the harder nut to crack. The funny thing is, well, first, Dawn of Hope is far too close to what black already does. Secondly, white is already the best color to exploit Skullclamp and can use Book of Rass to better effect than red, blue, or green. (Black wouldn't bother with it; Greed exists and is already "bad" by modern standards.) So, what do we have?
The first option is Collective Unconscious. Maybe a perfect color shift, since Shamanic Revelation is twice-better (costs 1 less and can gain you a buttload of life) in green. Okay, that was obvious.
Curiosity might be interesting, though I prefer a rule that white's Curiosity is worse, no Augury Adept-type things. Already, every other color has it. (Black has to pay life with each proc, and red has impulse drawing or looting on the proc instead of straight up drawing.)
One option is to say the creatures must be enchanted or equipped?
Beyond that, the only thing I can think of is already-broken things like Windfall.
Of course, this is what artifacts are for: Shoring up a color's weakness.
(By the way, about Lin Sivvi, um, rebels are too parasitic to be "as big a threat as Azusa or Azami", IMO. There are only three blocks with rebels other than Whipcorder: Masques, Time Spiral, and Lorwyn.)
On phasing: