What, Exactly, is Wrong with White, Currently?

General forum

Posted on Jan. 26, 2021, 10:36 p.m. by DemonDragonJ

Recently, players have been complaining that white is weaker than the other colors, but I wish to examine the issue more closely, to understand why the players believe that.

White is my favorite color in this game, so I naturally wish for it to have powerful cards, but I shall admit that there have been some white cards that could have been better. For example, I feel that Court of Grace, the white card in the court cycle in Commander Legends, is underwhelming compared to the others, and I also think that both Ravenform and Masked Vandal should have been white.

On the other hand, Akroma's Will is an amazing card, so, clearly, white is not always the worst color, either for single cards or in cycles.

What does everyone else say about this? What, exactly, is wrong with white, currently?

Valiarde says... #1

Interesting thread. I've been thinking about white and its problems for quiet some years now. While I like all the colors in Magic, white always had a soft spot for me - because my gaming personality loves pillow forts and having full control over everything - Wrath, Geddon, Disenchant, Oblivion Ring, Protection, Worship like game altering enchantments...all these things really speak to me. (But if I'm honest: Blue is the full control color I was looking for all the time - permission is the real king of answering everything. Oblivion Ring is just a bad excuse for not giving white card draw because iT cAn AnSwEr EvErYtHiNg)

The problem I have with white is similar to what others have mentioned here:

  1. Lack of clear identity and direction. (It can do nearly everything but often worse than other colors. Also: white weenies vs its own mass destruction)

  2. It does have many strong cards but those are often pretty narrow or metagame specific. Like its hate cards. Rest in peace... Those will shine in the right matchup and be useless in others. That relegates white to a good sideboard color or be a good secondary color for other colors' main game plan.

But my number one problem with white in many formats is this:

  1. White is lacking the (often proactive) FUN factor. It is the griefer color that sucks the fun out of other players strategies. Stax. Tax. Lifegain. Get rewards if an opponent does a certain thing but not if you do a certain thing yourself. Good catch up cards if you are behind, but god forbid you want to have an own proactive game plan aside from tokens/weenie rush. You will always play the catchup game or hope your opponent plays the right deck against you.

Some examples: Black gets a cool Reanimation spell. People instantly dream BIG and looking for the coolest fatties they have access to and want to build around it. White gets reanimantion but only for weenies. Cool but far more boring.

Red gets Rituals or Through the Breach effects: People looking for cool BIG effects and spells to use it with. White doesn't get much cheating on mana. It only tries to hose the fun for those players.

Green gets a new enchantress card. You want to build a Enchantment deck an maximize the effect. White gets a new Artifact creature lord that let you draw cards from casting artifact creatures...but only one card a turn. Cool card, but it doesn't let you dream BIG. Going off...forbidden.

Black/Red/Green/Blue get cards like Gaea's Will, Yawg Will, Underworld Breach, Snapcaster, Mizzix Mastery... that make players dream BIG. Build towards your super turn. White can only try to spoil the fun with its efficient hate cards, stax or answers.

Bonus Problem: White can do many things, but it doesn't get access to the strongest things in magic: Card and Mana advantage. No ramp, no rituals, no treasures, no card draw, no card filtering, no impulsive draw - all these things are cool and proactive for any game plan and for big turn plays.

Even a former shallow color like red gets cards that produces treasures for mana advantage and impulsive draw for card advantage.

May 28, 2021 3:12 a.m.

DemonDragonJ says... #2

Thankfully, WotC seems to be realizing that white needs to be more powerful, so they are printing new cards that address many of white's issues; unfortunately, there still are some blue and green cards that are intruding into white's territory, but I can tolerate those cards as long as white actually has good cards.

May 28, 2021 9 a.m.

plakjekaas says... #3

You do realize, that if being boring had a color, it would be white, right? White is the color of law and order, of not breaking the rules, of staying in line. If you want to storm out of control and cast 15 spells a turn, you can say you love white all you like, but you're not applying the color to its purpose at all.

That's what I hate about Verge Rangers and Archaeomancer's Map is they're green cards. They're Courser of Kruphix and Burgeoning but with a "white" restriction of not being allowed to have the most lands. That all the "good and powerful cards white needs" of late, are just ripoffs of cards that people like in other colors, but worse because they're white. Like white can only be good if it's emulating other colors. Because everyone says: "I like white a lot, but it's not fun enough." How do you like white if you're not having fun? If you're having more fun now that you're playing green-light, why weren't you playing green in the first place? We can't go back, we can't unprint these cards, but I don't like "whitening" good othercolored cards to try and improve white. I would like to see good new white cards, not bad green cards with in the cost.

May 28, 2021 11:02 p.m.

MagicMarc says... #4

I agree about not wanting knockoffs of other color's cards to get added to White.

Just Whitewashing other cards is not creative design.

I want white to have its own arsenal of White abilities.

June 1, 2021 6:13 p.m.

ArtieWhitefox says... #5

The race to God's kingdom is not to the quick or to the strong. Externally minded people think that many races exist. That dilutional mind thinks that wiping out one color will make the world to be a good place. Violently minded people will never make this planet to be a good place to live.

December 31, 2021 10:18 p.m.

DemonDragonJ says... #6

ArtieWhitefox, how is that remotely relevant to this discussion?

December 31, 2021 10:46 p.m.

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