Is White getting better?

[Venedrex]

I think Drannith Magistrate is a pretty good proof that they can think of powerful white hatebears that have outsized effect in commander but aren't that relevant outside of it. But it's definitely an issue.

Weirdly the more I think about it the more I think that cards like Serra Ascendant, while "mistakes" might be another way to go for white. Like creatures that grow based on the number of opponents you have (like get +1/+1 during each opponent's draw step) or whatever.

If you play around with keywords you can make them really relevant too, vigiance/flying/lifelink trinity are really good at creating relevant creatures that impact the board at size.

Definitely agree. I almost wonder if an effect like Saskia the Unyielding could be on a mono white legend, but more narrow. Such as, whenever a creature you control with power 3(2?) or less deals combat damage to an opponent, it deals that much damage to target opponent. Might not be in pie as it feels more of a red effect, but something to make aggro scale better for multiplayer, similar to Torbran, Thane of Red Fell.

How about this:
Cool Sounding Name
Legendary Creature — Angel (M)
Flying, vigilance
Creatures you control get +X/+X and have flying, where X is equal to the number of opponents you have. Regular old anthem in 1v1 formats, +3/+3 for Commander. (In before, but white can't buff all creatures by more than +2/+2 cuz that's a good effect and only green gets good effects.)
: Create a 1/1 white human Soldier creature token.
4/4

[pokken]

excuse me while I dust off my Savannah Lions lol

[onering]

Serra Ascendant is a good example Pokken. On its surface it would seem to hit the interacts poorly with the format red flag extremely hard, but even a turn 1 6/6 flying lifelink is still just a beater, and its far from OP. Its one of the few white weenies that actually supports an aggro strategy that's impactful enough in this format.

Unfortunately, while I think the scaling aspect should be explored, too many of these would be a problem. SA isn't OP because it doesn't have much in terms of redundancy, there just aren't enough super cheap ridiculously large white weenies out there that you can snowball with it. You kind of just have to stick and protect SA for the first few turns until you can start casting reasonably costed threats. A bunch of weenies that become ridiculously costed for their size in this format wouldn't be a good thing. That still leaves a lot of ways to take advantage of the format's rules to give creatures (and other spells) a commander specific boost without making them OP in other formats. Once per turn effects get better in this format for instance, especially cheap once per turn activated abilities. I could see your growing on each opponent's draw step critter working as a 2/2 for 1WW, which is somewhat midrangy. I could also see white's "catch up" effects working this angle harder, like something that grabs a plains to the battlefield for each opponent who has more lands than you, or a sorcery that draws a card for each opponent with more cards in hand than you for 1WW. Maybe a reverse Balance for 3WWW that instead of making everybody sacrifice down, it makes you search out plains, create 2/2s, and draw cards to equal whoever has the most lands, creatures, and cards respectively (although I'm probably way off on the cost).

[pokken]

I wonder how many copies of Serra Ascendant at say, WW, would be too much for the format. I'm thinking the answer is like 8 or so And even then I'm not sure it'd be "too much" so much as present a fairly strong white aggro deck.

[Myllior]

The hard part with white hatebears is that white weenie exists as an archetype in other formats.

True, but you can control that. Drip feed some effects through Standard releases and provide others through supplemental sets, so those ones don't impact Standard or Modern. It's alright to have new cards affect eternal formats and, as pokken said, there's still an enormous area to explore where the effects are more significant in Commander than other formats.

[Dragoon]

What about a smaller version of Sunscorch Regent for ?

[onering]

Man, if Taurean Mauler got done dirty by having a 2/1 sunscorch at 2...

I get nervous about such obvious power creep.

[pokken]

Man, if Taurean Mauler got done dirty by having a 2/1 sunscorch at 2...

I get nervous about such obvious power creep.

Meh. Forgotten ancient already outclasses those. But it's greeeeeen

[Venedrex]

Heck, I mean if a 1W creature with the Sunscorch effect is too good, make it cost 1 more mana. And as far as Taurean Mauler, its a fine card in tribal decks I'm sure but, Managorger Hydra already ate its lunch. Not to mention, here we are debating whether white is allowed reasonable beatsticks, when other colors get Opposition agents, Hullbreachers, and Docksides, and Great Henges. Kinda funny when you stop and think about why white can't catch a powerful card.

The cards that get printed in other colors make white's bombs, (Sorry Archangel of Thune I'm gonna pick on you) look like cheap parlor tricks by comparison. Lemme see, hmmm play God-Eternal Kefnet for 1 less mana than Oketra or archangel, cast infinite extra turns, gg. Oketra. "I make 4/4s!" Thune's best claim to power is that it combos with a bloody green card. Yes it is strong for a fair lifegain deck sitting at slightly above precon power level, but in the grand scheme of things, it's a battlecruiser type card for mono-white Don't get me wrong, I like Oketra and think we should strive to make cards that are more fun than busted. But why do all the busted cards always end up in other colors than white?

I love battlecruiser commander, its my favorite way to play, but for crying out loud give green and blue the slow but grindy not super op cards that are fun and cute but not broken. Give white one card just one that makes player's interested in playing the fifth color of magic for more than a mere splash for goodstuff removal and smothering tithe in your busted five color deck. Oh esper sentinel is a good start, but the vast majority of decks I see it in are 3+ colors. Because why burden yourself with playing mono white when you can cherry pick the only ten good cards the color has ever gotten.

[Mookie]

But why do all the busted cards always end up in other colors than white?

Looking at the cards banned in various formats, I count:

• 20 black cards
• 23 green cards
• 19 red cards
• 41 blue cards
• 12 white cards

(ignoring multicolor, block constructed, and duplicates)

I'll call out that half of white's banned cards (Drannith Magistrate, Gideon's Intervention, Karakas, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Limited Resources, Runed Halo) are only banned in EDH / Brawl due to how they interact with the format, rather than any actual power level problem.

If I were to be extremely reductive, I would say that the majority of banned cards fall into one of three categories: they generate mana, draw cards, or act as a combo piece. White's color pie means that is categorically excluded from the first two categories, and when it does have a combo piece (such as Felidar Guardian), it usually requires another color to finish the color.

In other words: White doesn't get broken cards because broken effects aren't in its color pie.

[PrimevalCommander]

In other words: White doesn't get broken cards because broken effects aren't in its color pie.

I think what we are saying, is to make things that ARE in white's color pie more broken. There is a fine line to this, but simply removing the limiters on many of whites card advantage cards would instantly catapult them into high playability: Welcoming vampire, Monologue Tax, every land search card searching "Basic Plains".

Welcoming Vampire could have easily been more like Morbid Opportunist and triggered once each turn for ANY small creature entering the battlefield. Why just yours? In standard this would still Max out at 2 cards per turn cycle, in Commander it would probably average about the same, but max out at 4 cards, which would make is a white staple.

Monologue Tax is easy. "Whenever an opponent cast a spell beyond the first spell they cast each turn, create a treasure token". Better punisher of heavy spell decks and a weaker, but more widely useful version of Rule of Law.

[onering]

How about instead of trying to make broken white cards (powerful is fine, but we shouldn't hope for broken), Wizards stops printing nonsense like Opposition agents, Hullbreachers, and Docksides, and Great Henges? None of those should have ever been printed, and all have had a detrimental impact on the game. I don't want to see a white card added to that list just to be fair.

[FoxHybrid]

The same person who made the graph that kind of sparked this whole discussion released an article in which they look at how many card draw and ramp effects are being printed in each color and how likely new cards in each color are to be included in a deck. Here is the link: https://edhrec.com/articles/invigoratin ... es-in-edh/

[Magiqmaster]

Cards like Thorough Investigation and Search the Premises are a step in the right direction for more white card draw. I just don't like that you need to spend 2 more mana to benefit from the effect. Maybe have that reduced to to make it more efficient (via a new ability, not by investigating).

[pokken]

How about instead of trying to make broken white cards (powerful is fine, but we shouldn't hope for broken),

Sadly, unless you're gonna ban all the broken cards in other colors, the only way you achieve anything resembling parity is if you let a few broken white cards loose. You could print Dockside Extortionist color shifted to white (at WW of course) and it'd *still* be worse than red overall, but I'd settle for that =P

[onering]

How about instead of trying to make broken white cards (powerful is fine, but we shouldn't hope for broken),

Sadly, unless you're gonna ban all the broken cards in other colors, the only way you achieve anything resembling parity is if you let a few broken white cards loose. You could print Dockside Extortionist color shifted to white (at WW of course) and it'd *still* be worse than red overall, but I'd settle for that =P

Then parity is not a cause worth pursuing. The goal should be to make white playable, not necessarily equal. Equal would be better, but if further breaking the game is the way to do it then it ends up being worse. You can get white to a level where its respectable without giving it broken %$#%. To use fighting game rankings, I'm not going to root for white getting broken nonsense so it can get to S tier when just printing good cards and shoring up some glaring weaknesses can bring it to B tier bordering on A. But to go with that, broken %$#% needs to be reined in across the color pie.

[pokken]

Then parity is not a cause worth pursuing. The goal should be to make white playable, not necessarily equal. Equal would be better, but if further breaking the game is the way to do it then it ends up being worse. You can get white to a level where its respectable without giving it broken %$#%. To use fighting game rankings, I'm not going to root for white getting broken nonsense so it can get to S tier when just printing good cards and shoring up some glaring weaknesses can bring it to B tier bordering on A. But to go with that, broken %$#% needs to be reined in across the color pie.

Meh, they are never going to stop printing new broken stuff. Might as well let white get some of them.

I don't think fighting games are a great analogy here. You can lower the power of characters in fighting games but not colors in magic, really. And tiers are kind of relative, zero sum. there's no S-Tier if everyone is S-tier. In Magic, all the colors could theoretically be fairly balanced (at least within a format).

Imagine a fighting game where you could only balance characters by adding moves that's what magic is like.

I don't think they *should* print broken cards, but we know they will, so they should put them in white (and to a lesser extent red and black), with steep color commitments.

[BeneTleilax]

Might as well let white get some of them.

I think giving white more broken cards will only make the format worse, and take away white's political advantage. In the near term, it risks turning white into a one-trick pony as everyone fixates on the new broken thing, and cause white decks power to oscillate wildly depending on whether they draw their Expropriate-equivalent. In the longer term, I reckon it will also stir up a new round of "white/boros deserves this" that will make setting power levels more annoying; we've already been through that discourse already with 'Geddons. Whatever advisory capacity the RC has already seems tenuous enough, it does not need players trying to undermine it as well.

[pokken]

I think giving white more broken cards will only make the format worse, and take away white's political advantage. In the near term, it risks turning white into a one-trick pony as everyone fixates on the new broken thing, and cause white decks power to oscillate wildly depending on whether they draw their Expropriate-equivalent. In the longer term, I reckon it will also stir up a new round of "white/boros deserves this" that will make setting power levels more annoying; we've already been through that discourse already with 'Geddons. Whatever advisory capacity the RC has already seems tenuous enough, it does not need players trying to undermine it as well.

So the alternative is give the other colors the broken cards and make white fall further behind? Fun

[BeneTleilax]

So the alternative is give the other colors the broken cards and make white fall further behind?

No, the alternative is not to actively advocate for cards that make the format worse in the interest of a childish version of fairness. Feather can already hold her own with the Chulanes and Korvolds, while not being near as obnoxious. I don't particularly want another Korvold, in any color, and I have faith in the RC reigning in the worst excesses (see: how things have noticeably improved after Eldraine), provided the players don't actively sabotage them.

[Venedrex]

So the alternative is give the other colors the broken cards and make white fall further behind?

No, the alternative is not to actively advocate for cards that make the format worse in the interest of a childish version of fairness. Feather can already hold her own with the Chulanes and Korvolds, while not being near as obnoxious. I don't particularly want another Korvold, in any color, and I have faith in the RC reigning in the worst excesses (see: how things have noticeably improved after Eldraine), provided the players don't actively sabotage them.

So what's Boseiju, Who Endures? Bene, every set will have "broken cards" from here until the end of time. All we're saying is, make some cards that are the best of the cycle for white. Do you know that for the inscription cycle Inscription of Ruin (which are not particular powerful but bear with me) Wotc didn't make a red or white version because they "couldn't come up with anything interesting". Skyclave Apparition is a good example of white getting a "broken card" Doesn't need to be as good as Uro, just something that sees play somewhere. That's good enough for me.

Oh, and speaking of fairness, and childishness, why is it vouge for white to get shafted because its too late now, we've had our fill of powerful cards in all four colors of magic, guess white loses out, again. I'd rather wizards cut white out of the game then make halfhearted attempts at pretending it's in the same league as the other colors. The universe won't implode if white got a card on the level of seedborn muse, or dockside, or uro, or any other powerful card. Heck, as soon as SNC spoilers start, let's play a game where we try to compare which colors get the best cards. I'll bet you one color in particular will do really well, three colors will do alright, and one color will get crumbs.

I love NEO as a set, and I loved the good white cards in it. But you know what's funny? Lion sash and spirited companion are just green cards moved to white, and they are some of the best cards white has ever gotten. By the way, at one point, Scavenging Ooze was considered a broken card. So I guess that makes lion sash degenerate nonsense.

Lol, I almost forgot about Kroxa and Uro. What's missing? I would've even settled for an Orzhov Elder Giant card.

[BeneTleilax]

Skyclave Apparition is a good example of white getting a "broken card"

You have a very weird definition of broken, when the example previously set was Dockside Extortionist and cards which have been banned for being so obnoxious. By all means, I want more Solitudes and Apparitions. 2/3rds of my decks are white, ffs.

[Venedrex]

So the alternative is give the other colors the broken cards and make white fall further behind?

No, the alternative is not to actively advocate for cards that make the format worse in the interest of a childish version of fairness. Feather can already hold her own with the Chulanes and Korvolds, while not being near as obnoxious. I don't particularly want another Korvold, in any color, and I have faith in the RC reigning in the worst excesses (see: how things have noticeably improved after Eldraine), provided the players don't actively sabotage them.

Skyclave Apparition is a good example of white getting a "broken card" Doesn't need to be as good as Uro, just something that sees play somewhere. That's good enough for me.

Bene, my weird definition of broken makes more sense when you don't edit my post like a soundbite for a local news channel

[BeneTleilax]

Bene, my weird definition of broken makes more sense when you don't edit my post like a soundbite for a local news channel

Right, but that's still a definition you only gave after I made my post saying I didn't want more broken cards. I was responding to Pokken there, who wanted a white Dockside. I agree with you on everything of substance, it seems. If you're more interested in picking apart my posts than finding common ground, then I don't really see what either of us have to gain.

If your definition of "broken" includes Apparition and Lion Sash, then by all means, I want more of those for white. Maybe they would be broken by someone's standards from 2014, I have yet to meet that person in the present day. I don't want more Docksides, in any color. Does that make sense?

[pokken]

They will always make broken cards. I advocate that they 1) give them steep color requirements and 2) make them white.

If the format is going to continually get worse it should do so while making white better instead of worse