Good White Card Draw
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on July 23, 2015, 3:44 p.m. by IcyLightning
Looking for some suggestions to add in some card advantage to my Mono White Deck. The deck is budget conscious, but any suggestions are appreciated.
Soldiers and Seraphs Playtest
Modern*
SCORE: 3 | 0 COMMENTS | 495 VIEWS
What exactly are you looking for with the draw? There are some but most do other things. Such as Shelter and Abeyance.
July 23, 2015 3:57 p.m.
IcyLightning says... #4
JA14732... yeah I've noticed. I added in Mentor of the Meek but was wondering if anyone had something else I was unaware of.
July 23, 2015 3:57 p.m.
IcyLightning says... #5
urhere13 I'm not looking for much, just an extra card every few turns or so to reliably get more creatures to play. I playtested the deck and by and large its largest problem was just not having cards in hand.
July 23, 2015 3:58 p.m.
omnipotato says... #6
Ranger of Eos doesn't draw cards but provides card advantage. There are some cards that return from the graveyard to the hand/play. You're not going to find good card draw spells in white, so look for other kinds of card advantage.
July 23, 2015 4 p.m.
There are some you can use.
Go to the cards tab at the top of the page, for color type white and Rules type draw and you'll find some.
There's some that will do it but none are particularly good.
Normally what I do (and suggest) because I love white and run into this same issue in my white EDH decks is go to artifacts. Even if I'm using Howling Mine and Font of Mythos it's still cards I didn't have. It's NOT card advantage, because everyone is getting them, however it is more cards for your pool if that's the real end goal here.
July 23, 2015 4:04 p.m. Edited.
IcyLightning says... #8
What about deck thinning cards or tutors in white, such as Knight of the White Orchid?
July 23, 2015 4:06 p.m.
Honestly you could go as far as to just say no one gets card advantage and play an Omen Machine. lol
July 23, 2015 4:10 p.m.
Enlightened Tutor, Gift of Estates, Steelshaper's Gift, Endless Horizons, Enduring Ideal, Heliod's Pilgrim, Idyllic Tutor, Three Dreams, Weathered Wayfarer, or anything with cycle will thin or search for you. There's more too but these are some of the best in my mind.
July 23, 2015 4:18 p.m.
also, not sure how long your games normally go, but Emeria, The Sky Ruin can provide some card advantage in a longer game.
July 23, 2015 4:37 p.m.
Kor Spiritdancer, Mesa Enchantress, Niveous Wisps, Puresteel Paladin, Scout's Warning, and Defiant Strike just to name a few.
July 23, 2015 5:33 p.m.
As has been alluded to above, Modern 
-centric decks have little in the way of reliable card draw unless they settle on a theme. Weenies will get you Mentor of the Meek and Ranger of Eos, Pillow Fort decks can employ Mesa Enchantress, Aura Hexproof decks can go for Kor Spiritdancer (though those decks require 
for the optimal Auras and creatures), and combo decks revolving around Equipment can use Puresteel Paladin (but those also require another color, which in this case is 
). Most of the other cards that fit the description simply don't offer Modern-caliber effects, or are sideboard fodder (looking at you, Hallowed Moonlight).
If that's what you're looking for, my advice is to pick one of the themes mentioned above, or splash a color.
July 23, 2015 11:27 p.m. Edited.
IcyLightning says... #16
There have been some great suggestions here. The deck I'm working on are not enchantment, artifact, or Aura heavy, so a lot of cards are not going to serve that well, but Emeria, The Sky Ruin, Defiant Strike, Scout's Warning, Niveous Wisps, Wall of Omens + Restoration Angel, Endless Horizons I think are more what I was looking for, so I'll play test a few of those out and see how they work.
July 23, 2015 11:38 p.m.
The problem is that all of those suggestions are kinda terrible. Emeria doesn't active until turn 8, unless you're running white ramp, Defiant Strike, Scout's Warning and Niveous Wisps are all terrible cards that should never be played, Endless Horizons is cool I'll admit but not useful (gets Naturalized, goodbye land drops) and Wall of Omens with Resto Angel...I shouldn't even have to say why this is bad, it wastes a Resto Angel, 6 mana AND you break even on the deal. And it takes up 8 deck slots.
Your best bet is one of the following:
Hyper budget- Just add 4x Mentor of the Meek. Not great, but your creature spells all break even.
Budget- Splash red, play 4x Abbot of Keral Keep or Faithless Looting/Magmatic Insight. Not the best option, but oh well.
Semi-budget (not really)- add 2x Sword of Fire and Ice. Good cards with advantage tacked on, sign me up.
Very unfriendly to your budget- Splash black, lower your curve, add 4x Dark Confidant. Bob is the best card for card advantage in all of Modern (better than Serum Visions, etc.) simply because if he eats a removal spell, your opponent just threw away a card, if they don't you get a steady source of card draw throughout the game. The fetches, shocks and bobs will cost you, though.
July 23, 2015 11:53 p.m.
IcyLightning says... #18
JA14732 this deck is meant to budget casual. I'm not looking for competitive deck suggestions, I was just looking for white cards that added some card advantage, which I got. Yeah some of the cards are bad, but I'm not looking for tier one. I've considered 4 Mentor of the Meek, and it certainly adds the card advantage, but I don't know if I want to have 4 of them in the deck. Emeria, The Sky Ruin is at worst a slow plains, so its not killing the deck by adding it into a mono white. Maybe if I was going for aggro, or I was perfectly planning out my lands and cmc for optimal plays every turn, but in all honesty most of my casual 1v1 matches last around 10-15 turns, so Emeria is something I'm considering.
And I'm not planning on splashing anything into this deck, as its meant to be mono white. I'm trying to balance out several decks that my play group can consistently play with without having to worry about a changing meta or breaking the bank. I'm essentially aiming to build a proto board game out of Magic decks.
July 24, 2015 12:02 a.m.
Sees 10-15 turns, actually looks at deck. Understands everything
Looking at your deck, almost none of the suggestions we've offered so far will work! Mentor doesn't have enough targets, etc. Right now, Emeria is probably your best bet for card advantage.
July 24, 2015 9:18 a.m.
Justin_Bop says... #20
If you want to see every white card that draws cards I would actually recommend going to the gatherer advanced search and setting it to white cards/colorless, modern with rules of draw card, that way you see every possibility. That's just what I do personally when making a deck, and it works for me.
July 24, 2015 9:28 a.m.
IcyLightning says... #21
JA14732 Now you get it. Yeah a lot of the options here are not ideal, and Mentor is not the best option. I was mostly looking to give some card draw to supplement the deck, since I'm trying to balance them out within my meta. Card draw was just one option that I saw this deck could utilize to help balance it out against the other decks we play, but it's looking like I might need to go in a different direction, maybe taxes or some restrictive control to slow the game down and allow the deck to draw the cards it needs.
jrogers16 I typically do exactly that, but this search was something that was a little more vague then what gatherer can provide. I was looking for some card advantage, not necessarily straight draw. That can't be typed into gatherer for results.
JA14732 says... #2
Really nothing. White's major weakness is its complete lack of card draw.
July 23, 2015 3:52 p.m.