Is White getting better?

[3drinks]

We can already play instant speed Armageddon though. Cantripping and uncounterable, even.

[DirkGently]

We can already play instant speed Armageddon though. Cantripping and uncounterable, even.

It's not one-sided though. That's kind of important. (also it's 7 mana)

The cantrip is kinda irrelevant tbh. Your hand usually becomes fairly low value after an armaggedon.

Besides the social contract, I think a lot of the armaggedon effects are held back in usage for the same reason a lot of symmetrical hate cards aren't used frequently - exploiting them reliably requires a significant degree of build-around that most people aren't going to put into their decks, especially in a format this mana-hungry. People look at an armaggedon and think "well, that's obviously nasty for my opponents, but my deck also needs lands, so I'd better not." Take away the symmetry and an already stupidly powerful card becomes trivial to run. Then it's solely the social contract putting any check on the card. 1-card asymmetric land wipes are a very very bad idea.

[Cyberium]

Lol those are so insanely broken. 6 mana destroy all enemy lands as an instant? You think 9 mana destroy all enemy permanents is LESS reliable than expropriate? I mean I hate expropriate too but it's not THAT stupid. Y'all in here trying to make white the "kill on sight" color lmao.

Those cards were intentionally exaggerated and obviously not intended to be final; as if WotC would ever entertain the possibility of MLD again, let alone an instant one. (we already have Decree of Annihilation)

I personally don't feel that white needs a big cc game ending spell as much as smaller, more consistent cards across the board, those are the backbone of decks more so than a game-ender.

[DirkGently]

Those cards were intentionally exaggerated and obviously not intended to be final; as if WotC would ever entertain the possibility of MLD again, let alone an instant one. (we already have Decree of Annihilation)

I personally don't feel that white needs a big cc game ending spell as much as smaller, more consistent cards across the board, those are the backbone of decks more so than a game-ender.

I don't think there's any way to tweak those sorts of effects to be remotely positive for the game. Asymmetric unconditional land wipes should not exist at any mana cost.

Idk what language indicated that it "obviously wasn't final" or what final even means in this context.

Fall of the Thran wasn't THAT long ago, so idk that MLD is impossible, at least in some form.

I'm not sure instant-speed is particularly relevant on an MLD effect - usually the advantage on, say, a creature-wipe would be that you get first-mover privileges to untap and redeploy to the board, but that's not so relevant when the land is gone. Usually I'd want to cast it ASAP to avoid letting my opponents get another turn's worth of mana to build up their board. It does make it slightly better at playing around held countermagic but that's not a huge bonus.

Personally I think it's the wincons where white is the weakest. There's not many ways for white to explode over the top, at least not without fairly narrow synergy pieces and/or board setup. That said, weak wincons is something I really like about white. Strong wincons that don't require much setup are tedious and bad for the game imo.

[BeneTleilax]

I personally don't feel that white needs a big cc game ending spell as much as smaller, more consistent cards across the board, those are the backbone of decks more so than a game-ender.

Agreed. I think the format as a whole could do with far fewer "I suddenly win on the stack" cards across all colors. Adding more to white will make it unreliable and could make its average game worse as people see it as an unpredictable threat.

[TheTuna]

Lol those are so insanely broken. 6 mana destroy all enemy lands as an instant? You think 9 mana destroy all enemy permanents is LESS reliable than expropriate? I mean I hate expropriate too but it's not THAT stupid. Y'all in here trying to make white the "kill on sight" color lmao.

Those cards were intentionally exaggerated and obviously not intended to be final; as if WotC would ever entertain the possibility of MLD again, let alone an instant one. (we already have Decree of Annihilation)

I personally don't feel that white needs a big cc game ending spell as much as smaller, more consistent cards across the board, those are the backbone of decks more so than a game-ender.

I think W needs both, personally. I understand the sentiment of people not liking these types of "pay a ton of mana to close out the game" cards in general, but they do already exist in the format for other colors, so W should get some too. W doesn't need a ton of cards like this, just a couple.

I personally don't feel that white needs a big cc game ending spell as much as smaller, more consistent cards across the board, those are the backbone of decks more so than a game-ender.

Agreed. I think the format as a whole could do with far fewer "I suddenly win on the stack" cards across all colors. Adding more to white will make it unreliable and could make its average game worse as people see it as an unpredictable threat.

I would disagree with this, personally. I don't think G having Craterhoof or U having Expropriate and Cyclonic Rift has made their average game worse. This isn't about giving W an edge over the other colors with some tool they don't have, just about giving W a couple more more high-value "close out the game" effects on par with what's available in other colors.

To be clear, I'm not envisioning some spell that's like "7WWW: Win the game out of nowhere", just a couple more bomb cards which can convert a reasonable board state into a win that turn if not answered immediately.

[BeneTleilax]

I would disagree with this, personally. I don't think G having Craterhoof or U having Expropriate and Cyclonic Rift has made their average game worse. This isn't about giving W an edge over the other colors with some tool they don't have, just about giving W a couple more more high-value "close out the game" effects on par with what's available in other colors

They both have a lot of the "smaller, more consistent cards" you disparage to make such wins reliable. I've also seen decks that ran on "I either draw my Big Win or durdle and lose" and they got punished for the possibility of winning out of nowhere, in addition to just stagnating from bad luck.

[TheTuna]

I would disagree with this, personally. I don't think G having Craterhoof or U having Expropriate and Cyclonic Rift has made their average game worse. This isn't about giving W an edge over the other colors with some tool they don't have, just about giving W a couple more more high-value "close out the game" effects on par with what's available in other colors

They both have a lot of the "smaller, more consistent cards" you disparage to make such wins reliable. I've also seen decks that ran on "I either draw my Big Win or durdle and lose" and they got punished for the possibility of winning out of nowhere, in addition to just stagnating from bad luck.

Where have I "disparaged" those cards? That's putting words in my mouth and is frankly a bit rude. In that same post I said W also needs more of the low-to-the-ground, consistent cards, so I'm clearly not disparaging them.

As I noted in my post, I'm not talking about 'win out of nowhere' effects, which I agree are bad. I'm talking about effects which leverage a solid board state into a win, which is not winning out of nowhere.

[Cyberium]

I would disagree with this, personally. I don't think G having Craterhoof or U having Expropriate and Cyclonic Rift has made their average game worse. This isn't about giving W an edge over the other colors with some tool they don't have, just about giving W a couple more more high-value "close out the game" effects on par with what's available in other colors.

To be clear, I'm not envisioning some spell that's like "7WWW: Win the game out of nowhere", just a couple more bomb cards which can convert a reasonable board state into a win that turn if not answered immediately.

I too prefer white having cheaper spells which, while taking more twist and turn, can be incorporated easier into their usual arsenal, such as Angel of Destiny.

Though, if we're to create a big spell, it could be a mass blink or a mass retrieval spell. That way, it could function as a protective spell and/or mass retrigger. Something like:

Realign
X1WW
Instant

Choose one -

*Return each permanent card with mana value X-1 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. X can't be 0.
*Exile each permanent you control with mana value X or less. Return those cards to the battlefield under their owner's control at the beginning of the next end step.

Entwine - 1W


For reference, Planar Birth and Immortal Servitude. The entwine cost is there to allow some late-game mana sink. The second option can function like a delayed "ramp", allowing extra mana during opponents' turn.

[Serenade]

EACH? Maybe if it's {X}{X}.

White needs exile superiority. Farewell has done so much for me in so little time. WWW: Exile target permanent, instant.

I also am curious which color allowed self-milling in Lorehold Excavation. Pretty sure it's red, but that ability in white would play well with its recursion. For now we can mess with minimal learn/connive guys.

[Mookie]

Was typing something up on White's position relative to other colors in another thread, and figured this would be a more appropriate place to post it. I noticed something that perfectly summarizes how I feel about White's position relative to other colors: all of the most expensive White cards are hard, if not impossible, to replace.

The most-played white cards over $10 are:

• Smothering Tithe
• Enlightened Tutor
• Teferi's Protection
• Esper Sentinel
• Grand Abolisher
• Anointed Procession
• Land Tax
• Flawless Maneuver
• Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• Avacyn, Angel of Hope

Most of these cards are pretty difficult to replace - you could swap Land Tax out for Knight of the White Orchid or Gift of Estates, but you're taking a pretty significant hit to the power level. Trying to replace Smothering Tithe or Enlightened Tutor is outright impossible. There are technically replacements for Teferi's Protection - Ghostway and Faith's Reward exist - but if your goal is to protect your artifacts and enchantments from Cyclonic Rift or Farewell, then there simply aren't any alternatives.

In contrast, the top-played green cards over $10 are:

• Heroic Intervention
• Birds of Paradise
• Sylvan Library
• Worldly Tutor
• Seedborn Muse
• Guardian Project
• Finale of Devastation
• Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• The Great Henge
• Green Sun's Zenith

Most of these cards are pretty easy to replace. Worldly Tutor, Finale of Devastation, and Green Sun's Zenith can be replaced by Chord of Calling or another tutor. Sylvan Library, Guardian Project, and The Great Henge can all be replaced by Beast Whisperer or other card draw effects. Birds of Paradise and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove can be replaced by other ramp effects. I would say that only Heroic Intervention is a hard-to-replace effect.

Looking at other colors, there is generally a similar pattern - the most expensive cards may be the best-in-class options for different card slots, but they're still easy to replace (ex: Force of Will → Counterspell, Demonic Tutor → Diabolic Tutor).

....tl;dr: more common / uncommon versions of staple white cards plz.

[5colorsrainbow]

Chris Mooney (a designer) shared what they are currently doing with white card draw;


Summary white can draw cards in three ways;

1- Once per turn when it meets a white condition (Bennie Bracks, Zoologist)

2- By setting up "rules" and drawing cards when opponents break those rules (Smuggler's Share)

3- Community drawing (Tenuous Truce).

[Sinis]

Welp, that's it for me. White is truly never going to catch up.

"We don't want to take away space from other colours", ok, so, why is blue allowed to get Ravenform and Hullbreacher, Simic got Oversimplify, black got Opposition Agent (take that, Aven Mindcensor), and green got basically everything non-wipe under the sun?

Honestly, the designers and the state of white are... idk. It's hard to treat them charitably anymore.

[TheTuna]

Welp, that's it for me. White is truly never going to catch up.

"We don't want to take away space from other colours", ok, so, why is blue allowed to get Ravenform and Hullbreacher, Simic got Oversimplify, black got Opposition Agent (take that, Aven Mindcensor), and green got basically everything non-wipe under the sun?

Honestly, the designers and the state of white are... idk. It's hard to treat them charitably anymore.

I think this is a little harsh. I am a diehard mono-W player (I've got 2 mono-W decks and working on a third) and I feel pretty good about the trajectory of the color. W simply can't get draw equal to other colors because W's answer suite is too good. W has great removal tools for every kind of permanent, which is very meaningful in EDH. If W could draw better than R, for example, while possessing a much more versatile removal suite, that's a problem.

W doesn't need big explosive draw like the other colors can do, it just needs to be able to keep a decent card flow so you can stay in the game, and they're definitely on their way. Sanctuary Warden in particular is a pretty nice draw source in that it natively has "draw 2" stapled to it without requiring you to jump through really any hoops at all. If W keeps getting more cards like that, the color will be in good shape.

[Sinis]

Sanctuary Warden in particular is a pretty nice draw source in that it natively has "draw 2" stapled to it without requiring you to jump through really any hoops at all. If W keeps getting more cards like that, the color will be in good shape.

Sanctuary Warden is 6 mana, mate. I would like development cards that you can leverage during the actual development part of the game.

Like, nobody plays Phyrexian Gargantua, and I know Sanctuary warden is better statted and has a higher ceiling, but... really.

[Wallycaine]

Sanctuary Warden in particular is a pretty nice draw source in that it natively has "draw 2" stapled to it without requiring you to jump through really any hoops at all. If W keeps getting more cards like that, the color will be in good shape.

Sanctuary Warden is 6 mana, mate. I would like development cards that you can leverage during the actual development part of the game.

Like, nobody plays Phyrexian Gargantua, and I know Sanctuary warden is better statted and has a higher ceiling, but... really.

Perhaps shockingly, effects can be costed at prices other than the very first example of a type. The point being made is that "more cards like that" can be made, not that it's all 6 mana fatties going forward.

[3drinks]

Tbf, I'd play sanctuary warden and be happy with it. Admittedly I also play both Kaalias and this has a very relevant type attached 👀

[TheTuna]

Sanctuary Warden in particular is a pretty nice draw source in that it natively has "draw 2" stapled to it without requiring you to jump through really any hoops at all. If W keeps getting more cards like that, the color will be in good shape.

Sanctuary Warden is 6 mana, mate. I would like development cards that you can leverage during the actual development part of the game.

Like, nobody plays Phyrexian Gargantua, and I know Sanctuary warden is better statted and has a higher ceiling, but... really.

Sanctuary Warden is Standard-playable, and a form of EDH that says "this card is unplayable because it's 6 mana" is not the kind of EDH I'd care to play, personally. Anyways, Warden is WAY better than Gargantua & the reason nobody plays Gargantua is that B has a huge amount of great draw options. You're comparing apples and oranges here. If Gargantua was a W card it likely would see play in some mono W decks because W is so hard up for card draw.

My Angel tribal deck with Giada can pretty easily have a T4 Sanctuary Warden & that's plenty early for a 10-12 turn game.

[Sinis]

Sanctuary Warden is Standard-playable, and a form of EDH that says "this card is unplayable because it's 6 mana" is not the kind of EDH I'd care to play, personally. Anyways, Warden is WAY better than Gargantua & the reason nobody plays Gargantua is that B has a huge amount of great draw options. You're comparing apples and oranges here. If Gargantua was a W card it likely would see play in some mono W decks because W is so hard up for card draw.

My Angel tribal deck with Giada can pretty easily have a T4 Sanctuary Warden & that's plenty early for a 10-12 turn game.

First, my point is that I don't think Sanctuary Warden is exciting because I want more than a two-turn Divination before we're leveraging 6-mana spells. I'm not saying that a card with 6 mana value has to be backbreaking, but it can't be "draw 2, but slowly". I'm not even saying "you have to wait til turn 6 to leverage this". I'm saying "other 6 mana spells will develop more than this, or will be dire threats." When you look at what other colours get for six mana, I think you'll agree slow-divination-with-wings isn't stellar, even though the shield counters are worth more than we're discussing, here.

Second, emphasis mine: This is my whole point. White's draw is so incredibly awful that we'll take a card that would normally be unplayable and say "hey, look, White draw!" Should White really be this bad at drawing cards?

Perhaps shockingly, effects can be costed at prices other than the very first example of a type. The point being made is that "more cards like that" can be made, not that it's all 6 mana fatties going forward.

I would not bank on more of the same effect. Mentor of the Meek|ISD was originally printed in Innistrad, which was late 2011. We got Welcoming Vampire 10 years later. Dawn of Hope was 2018 and has never seen subsequent thing in that vein.

You'll forgive me if I don't believe we'll see more of the same of Sanctuary Warden in short order.

---

I think what bothers me about Sanctuary Warden is how cautious a design it is, when pushed/broken cards in other colours have clearly not had the same caution applied to them. Obviously it has a place, and the shield counters give it a resiliency that might be worth the mana, but, it feels like one card a turn needs to be costed less, perhaps with the trade off of having a smaller body.

It just sucks when other colours get open-ended cards without bottlenecks at pretty low mana values, while every single one of White's designs is incredibly cautious.

Take Bennie Bracks, Zoologist. This card could have been a token-equivalent to Beast Whisperer. Roughly the same mana, same power/toughness, BW is on cast so it doesn't work with tokens, but Bennie is on tokens, so it doesn't work with casts. It would have probably been fine if it was a draw-per-token, and if it wasn't, maybe White could have a powerful card once in a while. But, no, Bennie is throttled to one card a turn, and allows for disruption if you can see an engine forming (BW doesn't, once the draw trigger is on the stack).

[Mookie]

Re: Sanctuary Warden - I think the comparison to make here isn't against Mulldrifter or Phyrexian Gargantua - rather, the card you should be comparing it to is All-Seeing Arbiter, from the same set. Both are 6-mana, 5-power flyers that draw cards when they enter the battlefield or attack, and have a supplemental trigger to go along with the card draw (making a token or shrinking a creature). If you're playing a UW deck with no other synergies, then All-Seeing Arbiter will be better - its card draw is unconditional and you get additional filtering.

However, things look different once you add in synergies. If you have counters to remove other than Sanctuary Warden's shield counters (such as +1/+1 counters from Giada, Font of Hope), it goes up in value massively - shield counters means that you get a big, evasive creature that is also difficult to kill, while All-Seeing Arbiter dies to Void Rend. This sends a pretty clear signal to me - white's card draw is meant to be worse in a vacuum.... but it isn't meant to be strictly worse, because it can be better when accounting for synergies or other factors.

Similarly, with Bennie Bracks, Zoologist vs Beast Whisperer, the latter is clearly superior in a vacuum due to it not being limited to once per turn. However, if you're playing a token deck, Bennie looks much better - it's not hard to convoke it out for 0 mana, and I would also argue that it is easier to create four tokens in a turn cycle than it is to cast four creature spells.

....anyway, I don't mind White being 5th in card draw - every color is going to be better at some things and worse at other things. From an ideological perspective, I don't have a problem with that. Rather, I feel the important thing is that players have the tools available to solve the problems they encounter - if they want to run more card draw (or removal, or threats, or whatever), then there should be choices they can make to mitigate that problem.... and the problem with white wasn't that its tools were worse than the options available to other colors, but that they were missing entirely, which removed player agency and generally felt frustrating. Adding new options for white card draw and mana production - even if they may be a bit more conditional than what is in other colors - adds back the agency that was missing.

[TheTuna]

First, my point is that I don't think Sanctuary Warden is exciting because I want more than a two-turn Divination before we're leveraging 6-mana spells. I'm not saying that a card with 6 mana value has to be backbreaking, but it can't be "draw 2, but slowly". I'm not even saying "you have to wait til turn 6 to leverage this". I'm saying "other 6 mana spells will develop more than this, or will be dire threats." When you look at what other colours get for six mana, I think you'll agree slow-divination-with-wings isn't stellar, even though the shield counters are worth more than we're discussing, here.

Second, emphasis mine: This is my whole point. White's draw is so incredibly awful that we'll take a card that would normally be unplayable and say "hey, look, White draw!" Should White really be this bad at drawing cards?

Sanctuary Warden is super exciting. It's not "Draw 2, but slowly". It's a big beater that includes a draw and token generation engine, it has excellent ETB value for flickering/recurring from the GY, and it is highly resilient to removal. W very rarely gets draw engines, so this is a pretty cool card. As a big mono-W guy, it's one of my favorite cards of the whole set.

W should be very bad at drawing cards, because W has the most flexible and versatile answer toolkit of any color. Especially with some of the tools printed in recent years, W can effectively and permanently answer any kind of threat. This is incredibly powerful as a strength, and should not be underestimated. W virtually ALWAYS has an out to a given scenario. If W got draw to rival the other colors coupled with this, that would be problematic (and again, I say this as a mono-W player). W doesn't need to be able to do big explosive draw like G or U or B. It just needs to be able to keep cards coming into your hand so you can keep playing the game, and starting with Esper Sentinel and now SNC/NCC, it's clear that the color is beginning to get the tools to do that.

To your last point, if you printed "Worse Aura Blast - 1RR - Instant: Destroy target enchantment", that would be absolutely unplayably bad by W standards and you would never see it in any WR deck, but mono-R decks would consider running it, because mono-R is really really really bad at dealing with enchantments. This is how the color pie works. W shouldn't get draw effects to compete with B and U any more than B and U should get flexible exile-based removal for a variety of permanent types.

[Sinis]

To your last point, if you printed "Worse Aura Blast - 1RR - Instant: Destroy target enchantment", that would be absolutely unplayably bad by W standards and you would never see it in any WR deck, but mono-R decks would consider running it, because mono-R is really really really bad at dealing with enchantments.

I suppose we are talking past each other: I don't think white should be as bad at card draw as it is. I think we differ in our opinions about how things ought to be.

[TheTuna]

To your last point, if you printed "Worse Aura Blast - 1RR - Instant: Destroy target enchantment", that would be absolutely unplayably bad by W standards and you would never see it in any WR deck, but mono-R decks would consider running it, because mono-R is really really really bad at dealing with enchantments.

I suppose we are talking past each other: I don't think white should be as bad at card draw as it is. I think we differ in our opinions about how things ought to be.

I also don't think W should be as bad at draw as it is, which is why I have expressed my optimism in this thread that W appears to be getting a number of new draw effects over the past year. I just don't think it needs to be as good at drawing as other colors. If W gets to the point where it's solidly last in draw, but "solidly last in draw" still means you can keep cards flowing reliably throughout a 10+ turn game so you can have fun, that will be fine.

[NZB2323]

Archivist of Oghma, Battle Angels of Tyr, and Roving Harper are the right cards to add to white.

[Sinis]

Archivist of Oghma, Battle Angels of Tyr, and Roving Harper are the right cards to add to white.

I like the first two. Like, Archivist is almost guaranteed to draw at least one card, making it pretty cantrippy. I think BAoT is really good, and I hope that retail price doesn't sustain, because I think it's a great white design with real EDH scaling at a bargain mana cost. I feel like both those cards are a leap in the right direction, and am happy to eat my pessimistic words from a couple of months ago.

I can't say I'm too thrilled by cantrip Gray Ogre|4ED; no one plays Wistful Selkie and no amount of Telecircle shenanigans are going to make me want to flicker it for a card. I'd sooner play Wall of Omens (which is cheaper and probably will have a more relevant body) or Wall of Mourning (which has a higher ceiling for card advantage).