How would you "fix" white
General forum
Posted on Dec. 13, 2019, 11:28 a.m. by GhostChieftain
White has really not seen a lot of love recently. If you want to play white, you are basically shoehorned into either playing a weenies deck or a deck that is based in a different color and white is more of an afterthought. White used to have more of a staxy flair about it, but people don't like playing against stax or mass land destruction so wizards has basically done away with those archetypes and in doing so white has a weaker identity.
What would you do to make white better than it currently is?
Card advantage is it's main drawback right now regardless of the format. So White needs to find a spot that fits it's color pie and tie card draw to that and remove it from another color if need be.
Options:
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Tied to small creatures (Remove Green from having the all creatures card draw and leave it with just large creatures).
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Tied to life gain, as life gain in of it's self is seldom worth it make the cost so low like or or just free even if an amount of life is tied to the free cost.
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Card draw via Taxes like Rhystic Study .
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Enchantress, Enchantment ETB draw a card (Green loses this).
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value creatures/spells that have more effects when cast (2 for 1's) and/or some form of Flashback/Rebound that gets just more millage out of your spells. White has done this but the cost is just too high for too little impact.
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More creatures with ETB draw a card/search top X for a specific card type like Militia Bugler
December 13, 2019 11:44 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #4
Do you mean for standard? EDH? I mean, in supplemental products like modern horizons or commander products we've gotten Teferi's Protection , Ranger-Captain of Eos , Giver of Runes , and specifically for EDH, Smothering Tithe , and the dominant card of it's standard, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar all in mono-white, outside of that, multicolored white spells are some of the best, with Dovin's Veto , Teferi, Time Raveler , Teferi, Hero of Dominaria , Kaya's Guile , Siege Rhino , and Deafening Clarion .
For standard Seal Away , cards like Benalish Marshal , Legion's End , the nearly ever-present-since-printed aggro based Venerated Loxodon builds in selesnya or mono-white, as well the base of removal for a while between Settle the Wreckage , Seal Away , and Cleansing Nova .
Even more recently Kaya's Wrath and Time Wipe have been the go-to sweepers. The number-one deck rn is Jeskai Fires abusing Kenrith, Teferi, Clarion, and Justice Strike , Azorious control using Planar Cleansing (a triple white card) is very popular too, and with decks like Mardu Knights, Selesnya Adventure, etc. you'll see white isn't out.
But sure, I would like white to be more powerful, for Vintage, unrestrict Balance , that'd do the trick, for Legacy, just print a 1 mana hatebear for 1cmc instants. Super specific but it'd crush the delver and storm builds that keep it in it's place. Give it protection from instants too so they need a different removal package to deal with it. For Modern, give white a way to deal with tron that is difficult to splash, something like Tomik mixed with Damping Sphere that isn't a human, otherwise that 5c deck will take it.
That and the legacy dude can help some mono-white list beat Shadow, Infect, Eldrazi Tron, Normal Tron, Dredge once they bring in their Axes/Dark Blasts to beat the weenie strategy.
In Pioneer, Humans and Azorius Control are already good.
In standard, give a mono-white strategy some way, that though splashable isn't easy to do so () that hates on graveyards while being good, and some unsplashable way to hate on big creatures. Think The Wanderer if it was good and like or something. Both of these cards need to be decent even without the hate, and with it it suddenly is mainboardable as hate against Cat-Food and Fires respectively.
December 13, 2019 11:47 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #5
Apologies, I meant Legion's Landing Flip rather than Legion's End
December 13, 2019 11:55 a.m.
Magnanimous says... #6
Continue with the following styles of cards: flickering, Venerated Loxodon , Squadron Hawk , tokens, banishing ( Banisher Priest , Oblivion Ring , Spell Queller ), destroy the powerful ( Balance , destroy creatures with power 4 or greater, 1/1 gets buffs).
Make the following effects white/more prevalent in white: Creature tutors ( Chord of Calling for example), enchantress effects, color-pie matters ( Fry , Veil of Summer )
Opinions on white as a color
I really like some of white's old mechanics that just kinda went missing. Land Tax effects, for example, are powerful, interactive, and fun to build around. Armageddon will not be returning, but maybe white could have some other way to punish players for ramping, a spot Leonin Arbiter only somewhat fills.
One of the biggest reasons why I think white is failing is because a lot of its color identity is being stolen by green to make green more interesting. Enchantress effects are more white than green in my opinion. Creatures matter cards are also more likely to be green than white even though white's identity is largely based around creatures. Collected Company and Chord of Calling represent raising an army of small creatures and a collective effort to search for a specific creature, both give off white vibes (while Honor of the Pure effects are less powerful and could be green).
December 13, 2019 12:25 p.m.
Magnanimous says... #7
Pervavita I think card draw should stay out of white. Militia Bugler is fine for card advantage and white's kinda unique in the way it gets card advantage through anything other than direct card draw. So I don't like Rhystic Study effects as the new white thing and WotC wants white to move away from taxes anyway. I also feel like flashback and rebound is really not what white is about and maybe reanimation could fit that niche instead.
On life gain, I don't like "Gain X life" cards and would much prefer something like Soul's Attendant that triggers when you play a creature, or an enchantment, or some other white thing. Additionally, white could be incentivized to not lose life with cards like Luminarch Ascension .
December 13, 2019 12:36 p.m.
multimedia says... #8
I think Wizards needs to explore and expand on what's already strong in white's color pie and make these parts of the color pie more efficient.
Life gain is a core part of white's color pie that I think can be explored a lot more than just gaining life. White could use many more cards that give you value especially draw when you or your opponents gain life. Playing life gain is viewed as a newbie strategy, but I don't think that needs to be the case if more cards gave you good value when life is gained.
Board wipes are another strong part of white's color pie that can also be explored more. Make it better for the player who's casting the wipe and worse for opponents. Exile removal in white can be explored a lot more, there's not enough efficient removal especially instants. A two drop instant that exiles an enchantment or artifact is a good start.
White needs more efficient ways to interact with enchantments, enchantment tutors especially a two drop, enchantments that draw and overall cards that interact with enchantments, more Enchantresses. White is suppose to be the color of enchantments, but green and blue have better enchantments which shouldn't be the case especially blue. Because of Smothering Tithe white should become the second color, red being the first, of treasures with more enchantments/creatures that create or interact in some way with treasures.
December 13, 2019 1:11 p.m.
Magnanimous says... #9
multimedia I agree that white needs to be the enchantment color, I disagree on everything else.
Life Gain: I think life gain decks should treat life gain like a switch that turns on certain cards. Soul Sisters decks use it to turn on Serra Ascendant and it helps against aggro as a side effect. Life triggering card draw or +1/+1 counters is very powerful as those are both upsides, so the cards involved would have to be highly costed and fragile for what they do, leaving little room for a legitimate synergistic deck. The reason I like effects like Luminarch Ascension so much is because it allows you to play powerful cards if you meet a difficult condition, similar to Drown in the Loch for mill.
Wraths: Saying board wipes are an important part of white's color pie and identity is stupid. Board wipes are powerful in control decks as a way to shut down aggro and midrange decks. These decks usually have other colors for card advantage, creatures, and removal and splash white for some multicolored spells, some removal, and a wrath. Mono-white decks focus heavily on creatures and tend to be aggressive decks that hate wraths (see: Selfless Spirit ). I don't think printing wraths will change white's place in the meta, it will just allow control decks to splash for a white card to shut down white decks.
Removal: The nature of white removal is changing and I actually like the fact that white removal is starting to differ from black in more ways than just saying exile instead of destroy.
Treasure Tokens: It looks like Wizards are going to print many more blocks with a specific incentive ability (Food, Treasure, Clues, Energy, ...). In all of these cases the point is what you need to do to activate these incentives, not which color uses them the most.
December 13, 2019 3:11 p.m.
White is the color of Balance and is usually illustrated by bringing everyone down to the same level. White could get more stuff like Alms Collector one that somehow balanced lands would be really nice. Something like
Whenever an opponent has a land enter the battlefield under their control besides their first one each turn you get a treasure token
December 13, 2019 4:58 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #11
TypicalTimmy Any effect that when played creates mana can go easily infinite with that card since you can bounce your own stuff to your hand. Think Zacama as a secondary Temur Sabertooth that draws cards and makes infinite mana.
I think if it targeted opponents nonland permanents but costed 4 to cast it'd be fair. Don't want to to be 3 mana for Zur, even if it is fair, as that makes it an infinite mana outlet.
December 14, 2019 4:47 p.m.
Wait are we talking about abuse outside of mono white because I can't think of anything in white that creates more than 4 mana on entry to the battlefield there are some colorless that make 3 mana on entry like mana crypt which could go infinite if you had something that reduced the cost of activated abilities by 2. This I guess could be fixed by making it 4 white mana because almost nothing makes activated abilities cheaper by colored mana but honestly infinite mana with a 3 card combo is not that big of a deal. There very well might be a ton of abuse possible in like white green... but it is not like green does not already have a ton of infinite mana loops
January 20, 2020 6:38 p.m.
TheRickDecks says... #13
Each color is supposed to have its own unique identity with strengths and weaknesses. But some things are so fundamental to playing the game that all colors need a version of it. Like if there was a color that just didn't get creatures.
White doesn't get ramp or draw, presumably due to patience being one of white's characteristics.
Land Tax was perfect for White. It "draws" in that it increases your hand size and smooths your future draws. Also, hitting a 7th land on turn 7 is basically ramp (because normally you'd only have 5 land the and not reach 7 land until turn 11)
April 1, 2020 10:11 p.m.
TheRickDecks says... #14
Establish Balance 2W Enchantment
When a spell you control is countered by a spell with a lower CMC that an opponent controls, create a Treasure.
When a permanent you control is destroyed or exiled by a spell with a lower CMC that an opponent controls, draw a card.
April 1, 2020 10:25 p.m.
Magnanimous says... #15
You should play blue for powerful, resilient answers and card advantage.
You should play white (in a control deck) for wacky and synergistic interactions that that achieve the same thing but in a really roundabout way.
I'd also like to cut traditional removal out of white, such as Path to Exile and Wrath of God.
And now, some examples of what I like about white: Flagstones of Trokair, Lapse of Certainty, Land Tax, Balance, Brought Back, Mana Tithe, Grand Abolisher, Mother of Runes.
April 2, 2020 1:36 p.m.
I think white's current place in edh is hate. The best cards right now in white are all cheap hate peices (stony silence, Aven Mindcensor, rule of law, deafening silence) there is some good combo protection with silence and Angel's grace but every color has those. White needs more cheap hate peices that actually shut down what people are doing in commander... and maybe a commander that assists with breaking parity rather than just being another hate piece (Grand Augustine is a good example in a blue white space of this). I know I might get some hate for basically encouraging them to design a commander for stax... but that is kinda where white is in commander... playing out weenies instead of spending resources to draw or ramp is great in standard and even some other non edh formats, but is useless in commander
April 3, 2020 1:28 a.m.
TeyoSelflessProtector says... #17
As a fan of the little known planeswalker Teyo Verada, and by extension his home plain of Gobakhan, I would love to see white fixed in a way that fits with the white themes. Gobakhan has regular diamond storms, which are basically sandstorms, but made of diamonds. For this, I can think of two options that fit: 1. A more expensive Fumigate that has “create a treasure token for each creature destroyed this way” instead of life gain. 2. A sandstorm Elemental that has defender, prevents all damage dealt to it, and lets you draw a card for each 1 damage prevented this way.
Also, Teyo is a Shieldmage, a type of mage from Gobakhan that creates shields made of light. In keeping with this defensive theme, I’d love to see an Enchantment that took advantage of not taking damage. Like a mix between Assemble the Legion and Luminarch Ascension but with card draw. It would a little like “at the beginning of each end step, put an experience counter on (the enchantment) if no damage was dealt to you this turn. At the beginning of your upkeep, draw a card for each experience counter on (the enchantment). When damage is dealt to you, remove all experience counters from (the enchantment).” Another possible, less expensive version would probably just put counters on your upkeep if no damage was dealt to you since your last endstep.
Enral says... #2
Print more cards like Smothering Tithe . Give white a Rhystic Study effect. With all of the life gain going around, I think a permanent similar to Dawn of Hope with a cheaper triggered ability can help (A similar card to Mentor of the Meek but for life gain). More Knight of the White Orchid type of cards for ramping. Good bombs like Elspeth, Sun's Champion . I could go on and on but that is my general thoughts on different areas that white can capitalize on.
December 13, 2019 11:33 a.m.