Current state of mono white and Azorius

[RowanKeltizar]

So my question to you is: Are there any mono white or Azorius commanders you can really get behind or have had positive experiences with? If not, what kind of commander would fill that niche for you? Are there specific cards that would support those colors and strategies?

Mono white and Azorius have been lagging at the bottom of popularity for a while now and especially in recent years as these colors have struggled to find a socially acceptable identity in the format, and other colors lean even heavier into their strengths of card and/or mana advantage or quick aggro. (My friends Gruhl deck can do 40 combat damage on turn 3 with largely budget friendly cards).

While there are certainly some great white cards Esper Sentinel Smothering Tithe and many other format staples, rarely do you see a mono white deck, and even rarer do you see it win. The same goes for Azorius as it continues to be a fairly underdog color combo.

I can only assume wizards is reluctant to print powerful cards in these colors due to the unpopularity of control and stax in the format as these are some of the colors primary strengths.

White is a great companion color, but falls behind inherently due to its own restrictions in what it's allowed to do as well as the focus on the unpopular theme of control that it has had historically.

I think a big reason you see so few mono white decks is the lack of exciting commanders. There is also a ceiling for power level. Sram, Senior Edificer is about as powerful as we get in terms of card advantage, while Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Avacyn, Angel of Hope and God-Eternal Oketra are the ceiling as far as board presence go.

As the format gets faster and faster and efficient card draw and ramp become ever more prevalent, even in the command zone I believe the need for tax, stax, and control is greater than ever for a healthy format. The question is how do we normalize these archetypes and strategies in a way that isn't too oppressive?

I think the word "can't" is pretty much a no-go, as is mass land destruction or major mana restriction.

The following card is an attempt in this direction. It plays into the control aspect of the colors without outright using the words "can't" which I think is the most contentious aspect of that archetype.

I also really like the idea of gaining advantage from my opponents actions on their turns while keeping them in check.

Eyhra, Wings of the Fallen WWUU

Flying, vigilance, flash

At the beginning of each end step, you may return target card from your graveyard to your hand with mana value equal to or less than the number of cards drawn by target opponent this turn greater than one. Any player may pay 2 to counter this ability.

Whenever an opponent casts a spell with mana value greater than the number of lands you control, you may untap a land you control. That land produces an additional W or U until the end of your next turn.

2/5

Lavinia, Azorius Renegade is fairly similar but as I said before this is kind of stax/control that isn't fun to play against and so draws hate from the rest of the table.

[Mookie]

Looking at my decks, the mono-white cards I run generally fall into one of three buckets: recursion, board wipes, and removal. Depending on the deck, I may also be running some synergistic cards, such as token production or flicker effects... but if I'm looking for staples that fit in multiple decks, the cards generally fall in those categories. That definitely means that the white cards generally feel like they're a supporting role - the recursion effects are for recurring my non-white cards, and board wipes / removal, while certainly important, are never really the core of a deck.

When I'm looking for something to be the core of a deck, I'm usually looking for an engine card - something that generates card advantage or mana over time, and can snowball if left unchecked. White cards don't do that... or if they do, it is in the form of creating creature tokens, which can be entirely negated by a single board wipe. There are some powerful card advantage commanders in white - Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle and Sram, Senior Edificer come to mind - but they're also very linear. I would want a commander to be somewhat more open-ended.

With that in mind:
Eternal Record-Keeper 1WW
Legendary Creature - Spirit Advisor
Flying
Whenever an opponent casts a spell, if it wasn't the first spell cast this turn, create a Treasure token.
At the beginning of your end step, you may sacrifice one or more tokens. When you do, return target permanent card with mana value less than or equal to then number of tokens sacrificed from your graveyard to the battlefield.
2/3

The first ability is probably a bit too strong as written, but aiming higher than Monologue Tax is a pretty low bar. Would I use the second ability to recur fetchlands and Origin Spellbomb? Mmmmmaaaaaaybe.

[RowanKeltizar]

Yeah, I think you bring up a good point in that white doesn't really have any great engines in the command zone. The commanders you mentioned are the closest we get.

At the beginning of your end step, you may sacrifice one or more tokens. When you do, return target permanent card with mana value less than or equal to then number of tokens sacrificed from your graveyard to the battlefield.

I like this, however I think changing the ability to gain some benefit from your creatures being board wiped would be cool. Something like:

Whenever one or more tokens leave the battlefield under your control, you may return target permanent card with mana value less than or equal to the number of tokens that left the battlefield this way from your graveyard to the battlefield. This ability triggers only once each turn.

Probably not quite right, but you can also leverage this pretty easily in other ways too. I like the open ended aspect of a commander, or a commander that makes otherwise janky cards usable.

[Hawk]

I love commanders that make you dig through your box to find off-beat, quirky cards that help the color combo do something new. My current "dream" commander would be...

Auriss, Mystic Theurge
1WU
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard Cleric (M)
Whenever a creature you control activates an ability, if that ability had T in its cost and isn't a mana ability, copy that ability. You may choose new targets for that copy.
(W/U), T: Tap target creature. You gain 1 life.
1/3

This is Rings of Brighthearth/Illusionist's Bracers: The Commander, but by not triggering on 'walkers or artifacts goes in a bit of a different direction. Suddenly, there's all sorts of interesting stuff you might go looking for that you'd normally ignore in UW.

[Guardman]

My answer: Tallowisp

Would love for it to be Two-Color Azorious. Or possibly add something else to get some of that spice. But honestly, I would be 100% happy if I just got a one for one copy of Tallowisp except legendary.

[Cyberium]

What I want isn't a few powerful commanders, that'd only make them the only competitive options. What I want, are cards that favor mono-color or bi-color decks, such as Endless Atlas, Ruination, Back to Basics, War Room, mechanics like devotion, adamant, and affinity for basic lands, etc. An example for such would be:

Memory of Zhalfir
WW
Instant

Up to X target permanents phases out, where X is the number of basic plains you control.

------------

Ideally, there are pros and cons in having extra colors, i.e., extra options and versatility at the cost of consistency, but WotC had been way too aggressive on helping players mixing colors, and done less to support mono-colors by comparison. As result, there's almost no drawback in having extra colors as it should be in the past.

Though, disregarding that concern, I'd like a white commander that vindicates the color's affinity for small permanents:

Amithara, Imperial Tither
WW
Legendary Creature - Advisor
1/3

Whenever one or more nonland permanents enter the battlefield under opponents' control, you may choose one of those card types. If you do, search your library for a permanent with mana value 2 or less of that card type, then put them onto the battlefield.

[RowanKeltizar]

Ideally, there are pros and cons in having extra colors, i.e., extra options and versatility at the cost of consistency, but WotC had been way too aggressive on helping players mixing colors, and done less to support mono-colors by comparison. As result, there's almost no drawback in having extra colors as it should be in the past.

I 100% aggree with this. I think rewarding mono color decks other than being able to slot in Blood Moon and Back to Basics would be a GREAT thing for the format in general.

[Cyberium]

Ideally, there are pros and cons in having extra colors, i.e., extra options and versatility at the cost of consistency, but WotC had been way too aggressive on helping players mixing colors, and done less to support mono-colors by comparison. As result, there's almost no drawback in having extra colors as it should be in the past.

I 100% aggree with this. I think rewarding mono color decks other than being able to slot in Blood Moon and Back to Basics would be a GREAT thing for the format in general.

I don't see why we can't use BM or BoB, consider they'd be mostly useless against mono-color decks. It's no different from people slotting Pyroblast to counter blue based strategy, at the cost of it being worthless against non-blue decks.

[duducrash]

Creature teferi. 5mv


Flash

1U : Quicken
1W : target permanent you control phases out

2/4

[pokken]

This is such a really difficult question. If Tymna the Weaver was UW, that is pretty much all I could ever ask for I think

Ephara is very close to perfect for me.

[Mookie]

Ideally, there are pros and cons in having extra colors, i.e., extra options and versatility at the cost of consistency, but WotC had been way too aggressive on helping players mixing colors, and done less to support mono-colors by comparison. As result, there's almost no drawback in having extra colors as it should be in the past.

I 100% aggree with this. I think rewarding mono color decks other than being able to slot in Blood Moon and Back to Basics would be a GREAT thing for the format in general.

I don't see why we can't use BM or BoB, consider they'd be mostly useless against mono-color decks. It's no different from people slotting Pyroblast to counter blue based strategy, at the cost of it being worthless against non-blue decks.

Back when Golos was legal, my suggested compromise was 'don't ban Golos, but reprint Blood Moon in every precon'. It's still a plan I would support.

More seriously, I don't know that I would want nonbasic land hate in the command zone... but I would like some more options. As things currently are, there are only one or two strong nonbasic hate cards per color, which makes building around them incredibly inconsistent. If you're running 4-5 of the effect, it's a lot easier to justify a basic-heavy manabase. That said, 'your multicolor opponents can't play the game' is still a pretty bad gameplay experience.

[ISBPathfinder]

Honestly, I want something sort of like Dragonlord Ojutai but a little higher on the curve and probably not hexproof but add in some of the Avacyn / Akroma things like vigilance and some combat superiority feel to it (Ojutai actually kind of gets beat by most things he gets in combat with). I always feel like Ojutai's hexproof element makes him not fun and he is cheap enough that the cheap mana ramp into a bunch of extra turns is really annoying too. I was thinking that taking him up on the curve but also making him feel better in combat could all be cool. I love a lot of the big white angels but they need some sort of card advantage element in most cases which adding blue ideally should do.

Rather than going all the way up to being an 8 drop though I would rather a little less power and drop it into a six - seven drop.

I personally like playing the duck and cover playstyle. It just doesn't feel like UW gets the right commanders to fit the playstyle how it likes being played.

[RowanKeltizar]

I don't see why we can't use BM or BoB, consider they'd be mostly useless against mono-color decks. It's no different from people slotting Pyroblast to counter blue based strategy, at the cost of it being worthless against non-blue decks.

I was just pointing out that there currently aren't too many ways to leverage your mono-colored ness with probably the exception of mono black. Mono blue has some good stuff too like High Tide.

Blood Moon and Back to Basics are two of the most powerful ways to leverage a high basic count that currently exist. I have no issue with the cards themselves since they punish people for spending too much money on their non-basics And the truth is I see those cards so infrequently anyway because they are hard to break parity on unless you are running mono or maybe a dual colored deck.

That said, neither of those cards are that fun to play against especially if they totally lock someone out of playing their deck and they can't interact with said enchantments.


Explorer 1W

Creature

Whenever a plains enters the battlefield under your control, you may look at the top card of your library. If it has the same mana value as a permanent you control you may reveal it and then put it into your hand.

[Guardman]

So I was looking over the list of Azorious commanders, and two that caught my eye for doing something a little bit different are Inniaz, the Gale Force and Isperia the Inscrutable. Both are flying tribal commanders, but they do some interesting things. Inniaz, the Gale Force is a chaos commander that isn't red. And Isperia the Inscrutable has a cool subgame to get a pretty neat effect (though there are ways to cheat the subgame).

The more I think about it though, I think the biggest problem is just the color pair itself just leans you towards a gameplay pattern that isn't the most fun for a lot of people. For example, I somehow feel like I would be more excited to try and build Inniaz, the Gale Force if she was mono-colored... which is weird. But how I feel.

[pokken]

Y'know in thinking on it more I would love something with flash. Something like Naru Meha, Master Wizard but UW and 4/5 lifelink instead of the weird wizard anthem.

Even just like 1UW Flash flying lifelink 3/1 keyword factory might be pretty fun?

I really enjoy flash commanders.

[NZB2323]

I think Niko Aris as a commander would be fun for everyone at the table. Fun to play with, fun to play against, not overpowered, and not underpowered. Late game you could get a lot of shard tokens, but you also have to pay commander tax. You could build him out with creatures that have ETB triggers and triggers on dealing an opponent damage.

[BeneTleilax]

Millicent is pretty close to mine. A swarm aggro deck with surprisingly deep resiliency, with some tribal elements for an underappreciated tribe, but almost every creature does interesting things on its own, so I rarely feel like I'm just looking at creature's typelines. I've also got a couple of mirrorweave-type effects, which are always fun in a swarm deck. Seriously, try her out.

[Myllior]

When I examine what White and Blue contribute over my roster of decks, I get the following breakdown.

White: Removal, recursion and hatebears.
Blue: Counterspells, draw and clones.

Removal and counterspells are necessary but are not things to build around, unless you're trying to create extroardinarily durdly decks that revel in slowing the game until you finally assemble your win. I find those decks miserable to play against, so won't be subjecting my opponents to them.
Recursion (as CA) and draw are both also important to decks but again they don't provide something to build around. Further, they're usually best supplemented by other colours who can do it better; black allows you to properly move from recursion into cheating things into play via reanimation and green allows mass card draw based on power or Coastal Piracy effects. (The irony being that, despite Coastal Piracy being a blue card, green has the same effects while providing better bodies for using it).
Hatebears and clones; here we go! Things we can build around that will help shape our deck and what we want it to do. The complication for me is that both of these already exist in Bant decks, where the addition of green brings extra hatebears (including my favourite), tutors, significant draw and exemplary ramp.

Considering all of this, a W or U/W deck would need to allow me to leverage hatebears and/or clones in a way that other colour combinations currently can't, perhaps through the commander(s) providing a unique effect that allows for a different style of gameplay. This leads me towards four potential commanders to consider if I were to approach these colour combinations,

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar: Hatebear-based white weenie aggro. Probably a bit too all-in to provide for interesting gameplay in the long run. Also begs the question of why I'm staying in mono-W instead of moving to Boros?
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails: Hatebear-based white weenie control. I absolutely love the idea behind 8.5 Tails but the abilities are awkward and costly to use effectively. I think this deck would too often fall victim to not wanting or needing to cast its commander, which seems a bit self-defeating.
Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice: Aura-based voltron. Damn that's one hell of an ability! Certainly a deck that would lead to a linear playstyle, but I'm a fan of delver-esque play that centres on resolving a threat and protecting it. The sheer efficiency of the ability allows it to shore up some of W's weaknesses re card advantage.
Akroma, Vision of Ixidor/Sakashima of a Thousand Faces: U/W beatdown clone control. While this would play a slower game, wanting to develop resources while keeping itself protected, it wouldn't be about blowing the world up repeatedly...potentially. It would have the means to protect itself, generate sufficient card advantage and deliver a relatively quick finish.

After running through that, I end up with a single option I'd seriously consider: Light-Paws, because of the uniqueness and efficiency of the ability. The other commanders all beg the question of why I'm not playing a different colour combination or one of my already-built decks. This goes back to the old truism in commander: You sacrifice power, versatility and (potentially) varied gameplay by running fewer colours, so you need to get something worthwhile in return.

PS: If I were to try and build a mono-W hatebears-weenie deck, I'd want a commander with a strong hate effect coupled with an anthem, protection, recursion or something like that; a way to make my other cards go further while providing some measure of protection for them.

[RowanKeltizar]

Millicent is pretty close to mine. A swarm aggro deck with surprisingly deep resiliency, with some tribal elements for an underappreciated tribe, but almost every creature does interesting things on its own, so I rarely feel like I'm just looking at creature's typelines. I've also got a couple of mirrorweave-type effects, which are always fun in a swarm deck. Seriously, try her out.

Millicent, Restless Revenant is a good commander for sure. I forgot about her honestly. My friend just built a deck.

Vega, the Watcher is a commander I could definitely see myself building. Very efficient and encourges building with foretell, suspend, and flashback. Gives card draw to what appears to be a slow-ish spellslinger deck. This is a deck I could see running Approach of the Second Sun in alongside all the "play from the top" effects.

I guess I personally would like a mid-range Azorius control commander that isn't automatically hated out but works to keep the game in check. Just a bit of a road block for these hyper efficient aggro/value decks I keep seeing.

[Yatsufusa]

I assigned WU the "control" aspect of my decks, but I quickly learnt that traditional control doesn't scale well in multiplayer and element that does (stax) is heavily disliked in the more casual meta (although I also found out competitive metas do actually appreciate it to some degree because it actually helps keep things in check if done right). I also affirmed I was terrible at control either way.

So I tried "defensive" control, initially starting with Pillowfort (with Isperia, Supreme Judge), but it was also pretty lackluster, especially in the rising wave of UG goodstuff just overwhelming whatever meager tools I could deploy. Blink was a strategy I considered, but the only thematic option back then (Brago, King Eternal) I knew would cause me personally to just tilt the deck to combo instead of control and because I was weak at control, I couldn't afford the Commander to be a combo-piece, I would most certainly just pilot it as a combo deck outright.

Then Yorion, Sky Nomad happened, and well I think the dream was fulfilled. As an extra bonus it was a Legendary Serpent (I always wanted one of those that wasn't UG goodstuff-adjacent or Taniwha, who was just plain bad). I assigned the combo element to Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle within the deck and I think Teshar is the most interesting w Commander to-date, but I have no experience nor incentive to speak further on the mono-color itself. I feel like w would really need its equivalent to Yorion to appeal more to me (although I think there's no way it can actually convince me to redesign my suite from bottom-up, even Pramikon, Sky Rampart failed and that was a 3-colored Commander aligning with my pillowfort desires back then).

[Serenade]

I think this thread is too close to custom card creation, but I'll throw something in before it possibly gets taken down…

The Wall of Text, 1WWU
Legendary Wall, 0/3
Defender
{2}: Can attack this turn.
Gets +/+1 for each ability on all commanders defending player owns.

I'd also throw that last ability on a UW Mirror-Sigil rhino general from Alara, too. Something that actually punishes people for using partners or these cards with so much text. (TC's card has SO MUCH written on it.) It shows I read it! And am hurting you for that.

[RowanKeltizar]

My answer: Tallowisp

Would love for it to be Two-Color Azorious. Or possibly add something else to get some of that spice. But honestly, I would be 100% happy if I just got a one for one copy of Tallowisp except legendary.

I think Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice is probably as close as we're going to get haha, but that's a decent mono white commander for sure.

I think this thread is too close to custom card creation, but I'll throw something in before it possibly gets taken down…

The Wall of Text, 1WWU
Legendary Wall, 0/3
Defender
{2}: Can attack this turn.
Gets +/+1 for each ability on all commanders defending player owns.

I'd also throw that last ability on a UW Mirror-Sigil rhino general from Alara, too. Something that actually punishes people for using partners or these cards with so much text. (TC's card has SO MUCH written on it.) It shows I read it! And am hurting you for that.

My intention was more of a discussion on the current state of those colors in the format and the commanders that we have to choose from to represent those colors The custom cards are more for the purpose of addressing any blind spots in those colors/commander options. I'll try to ammend the original post as such.

[pokken]

So we're really close to white being able to run an entire ramp package without needing a bunch of artifacts, which I really like. I think that's really when white will be solid all around is when they're able to play a land ramp package almost as good as Green that's fairly consistent.

The missing things there are:
1) Critical mass of effects
2) stop with the Basic rider on plains, so that we're not so constrained to mono white or Wx. I get why they do it, but having nonbasic plains fetchable will help a lot of color combos that aren't that popular (WR, WB, UW).

The Restoration of Eiganjo // Architect of Restoration is a really cool template but it could probably do without the "tapped" rider.

I feel like there are tons of cool commanders from Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle to Heliod, Sun-Crowned to Ephara, God of the Polis and Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage and Niambi, Esteemed Speaker, etc.

It's primarily the ramp package I'd like to see finished off. Need like a couple more Archaeomancer's Map and Tithe power level cards.

[Guardman]

My answer: Tallowisp

Would love for it to be Two-Color Azorious. Or possibly add something else to get some of that spice. But honestly, I would be 100% happy if I just got a one for one copy of Tallowisp except legendary.

I think Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice is probably as close as we're going to get haha, but that's a decent mono white commander for sure.

The problem with Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice is that she can't do the combo that makes Tallowisp such a neat "commander" in my eyes.

Tallowisp + Weight of Conscience + Mistveil Plains + A spirt/arcane card = A free exile each turn for 1www.

Is this efficient. No. Is it fun. It is to me. And that's what counts.

[Serenade]

White needs to keep copying green. Give it a Crop Rotation. Give it Burgeoning or the bottom half of Archaeomancer's Map for {W}. Let us sac Plains (to keep our land count behind) for ritual mana like Colossal Plow.