[Article] Where All the White Cards At?

[Dr. Sylvan]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6775

Knut's caption:

Phil Stanton is the best Type One writer you haven't read. He's logical, insightful, and downright entertaining. He's even achieved the coveted JP Meyer Stamp of Approval! So with those qualifications, how can you pass up taking a peek at what "Dr. SylvanBunns" has to say today, which just happens to investigate whether there really is a lack of White in the Vintage metagame and what Wizards should do about it?

T3h highlight teaser:

Did you see what happened up there? White's the enchantment color. Where did it go? In fact, it's the only color that didn't have enchantments show up in the top ten most-played cards for the category. Out of 191 enchantments, nine were White - less than five percent. The only thing White has that other colors don't outperform ridiculously is a pair of sorceries: Balance and Decree of Justice.

[rvs]

you could have at least mentioned white DOES have a chance in specific metagames though, as per http://www.morphling.de/coverages/top8decks.php?id=98

[Dr. Sylvan]

In smaller tournaments, it often matters more who is playing a deck than what they're playing, Rudy. :) The whole point of my analyses' 50-person threshold is to ensure that the tournaments under scrutiny are more representative of competitive Type One, and in the biggie tournaments, white gets its ass kicked.

[Ric_Flair]

Philip:

If you go down until you get ten unrestricted artifacts...
23 Smokestack
22 Null Rod
19 Tangle Wire
12 Mana Crypt
12 Isochron Scepter
10 Damping Matrix
10 Mindslaver
9 Memory Jar
8 Nevinyrral's Disk

Mana Crypt is restricted.

I enjoy the article wholeheartedly, but I think an attempt to make White the enchantment color ignores a few latent themes in White that have the potential to be truly backbreaking.  

First, the rules making mechanic.  As you have pointed out the 2/2 for WW is not a successful plan.  Even in Standard it is marginally useful.  But imagine cards like True Believer, Land Tax, Windborn Muse, and Rule of Law with more bite.  Jacob and I had talked about a white card, either a creature or an enchantment, that limited each player to one card per turn during their draw phase only.  That would an excellent, uniquely white card.  They need to push this hard if they ever expect white to be good again.

Other possible themes:

Orim's Chant/Abeyance:  If taken to a more powerful level and costed appropriately cards like this could be very good.  [card]Exhaustion[/card] is another mechanic in line with the Orim's Chant theme that could be utilized in white to great effect.

Rebels:  I know that the shuffling thing was a huge pain in the ass for Wizards, but the fact is that THIS is what an army is supposed to look like in Magic, a collection of small creatures that steadily and in the end convincingly dominates the board.  The Leonine Skyhunter model of cheap efficient weenies can't make an impact in Standard because the format is too slow and can't impact Vintage because the format is too fast.    They would have to print a few of them as good as Lin Sivvi and Ramosian Sgt, but the beauty is that without these two cards in Standard to do all the searching, the whole Rebel deck problem (ie shuffling a lot) would not be an issue.  They would be good weenies like Whipcorder (hopefully better) but amazing when combined with the aforementioned searchers.  I really think that Rebels, if more aggressively costed, could be like Chalice, okay in Standard, but awesome in Vintage.  It just depends on how good the Rebels are.  Rebels solve one of white's inherent weaknesses: lack of card drawing.  In essence, good Rebels would be like Survivals of the Fittest that could attack.  The theme just needs a bit of juice to give it some kick in Vintage.

[Abbadon Khaine]

Philip:

Quote:
If you go down until you get ten unrestricted artifacts...
23 Smokestack
22 Null Rod
19 Tangle Wire
12 Mana Crypt
12 Isochron Scepter
10 Damping Matrix
10 Mindslaver
9 Memory Jar
8 Nevinyrral's Disk
 


Mana Crypt is restricted.

As is Memory Jar.

(I don't wish to sound rude. I was confused about that section of this otherwise excellent article, and figure you probably made a typographical error, or mean something contrary to my interpretation.)

[wonkey_donkey]

Philip:

Quote:
If you go down until you get ten unrestricted artifacts...
23 Smokestack
22 Null Rod
19 Tangle Wire
12 Mana Crypt
12 Isochron Scepter
10 Damping Matrix
10 Mindslaver
9 Memory Jar
8 Nevinyrral's Disk
 


Mana Crypt is restricted.

As is Memory Jar.

I think Dr Sylvan was listing artifacts until 10 unrestricted artifacts were on the list - at least, I'm not being particuarly charitable in assuming that the author knows that Memory Jar and Mana Crypt are restricted, whilst sphere of resistance is not.

On the whole, I liked this article more than your previous ones. I thought it was a better read, although the others are definitely NOT leaving something to be desired. I'm inclined to agree with your take on white, although 'fixing' a colour is getting harder and harder now - the constructed money-formats for wizards are T2 and T1.x, which should not be unfairly hit by any single card. True, the risk is lessened with an underpowered colour such as white, but there is an inherent problem with extended-legal vintage-made cards - this was demonstrated at PTNO. The solution could prove to be worse for the game as a whole than the original problem, although I imagine that some on this site would not see this as a problem.

Good Article, keep it up!

Tom

[Dr. Sylvan]

Re: Mana Crypt/Memory Jar - I know. I was proceeding down the list until I got to the tenth unrestricted artifact. There just happen to be a lot of restricted ones in the way, both in the raw top ten and the next batch.

The problem with Rebels is (a) The shuffling is a pain in the ass. (b) Activated abilities like that on creatures are either terrible (too slow) or dangerous (potential Academy Rector-esque interactions, and/or Goblin-style beatdown efficiency). Anything that's good enough for Vintage is gonna bust all the smaller formats---look at how bad current Rebels are but how completely insane they were in Standard. Making a creature army along the "better in a larger cardpool, weaker in a smaller one" system is bound to fail, because creatures are only good at aggro if the numbers in the corner fall into the best possible proportions. I recognize that you're following the "gradual printing" idea to avoid a synergetic deck, but they'd still have to be way too good to have any impact on Vintage. (If the problem was merely how many 2/2's I could play, then WWu would be okay with enough card-drawing, but it isn't.)

I think there should be creatures like True Believer, which is essentially a walking enchantment, and that this falls into the Cleric flavor of white. However, the concept of an army is not going to work with conventional creatures, only mass tokens. This makes sense for Goblins---they all act independently and have unique abilities. But white's soldiers should be much more uniform to really capture the idea of a military, with Clerics alongside them providing the special protections and support abilities for the campaign.

Not to mention that Rebels doesn't make a lot of sense for the color of order, tradition, and law. That's a gimmick that they can only pull out of the bag for specific plotline reasons, and making all kinds of Rebels would be totally counter to the general sense of obedience to authority that pervades white.

It is rather unfortunate that Enchantress's Presence was printed so recently, otherwise it might be easier to reverse the trend. However, land searching is terrible and we all know it. If it were good, we'd care about Land Tax and Tithe. I like the idea of potential rules-creating cards that limit drawing, but that's not going to be enough; it's cutting off future drawing rather than making up the lost CA of earlier drawing. (Analogize to Disenchanting Survival of the Fittest--good play, but we'd rather they didn't fetch the silver bullet before we could stop it.) Like I said in the article: preemptive control is essential, and you can't make up for their drawing without your own.

One of the elements I was curious about the reaction to is the idea of green as "filtering" for CA. I didn't cite Sylvan Library because I know WotC hates 'green Necro', but that's really what I was thinking of: green gets cards by seeing more of them, not really raw draws. Any thoughts on that bit as an aside to the white debate?

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[jpmeyer]

One of Ben Bleiweiss' articles kind of summed up that what white needs with creatuers is a creature set like the Onslaught goblins, where they're all pretty good on their own, but when they come together it's amazing.  That seems way in line with white's flavor.

[Jhaggs]

Dr. Slyvan,

   Another great article.  Well done.  

But if White is to become good, the 2/2 for WW paradigm must be abandoned, and Replenish has to be broken. If Yawgmoth's Will-without-the-casting-costs isn't insane, the job isn't done yet.

I agree that replenish needs to be broken (and I also think that Academy Rector could be thought of differently as well).  When comparing Rector to Replenish, rector has a "win right now" target in Yawgmoth's Bargain.  But does Replenish have enchantments to bring back that can do the same?  If you resolve replenish, like you resolve Yawg's Will, you should be able to finish the match right then and there.  Is a Replenish/Fervor/Opalescence kill condition viable?

I think a huge problem with white is that it not only suffers from a lack of broken cards from early sets, but that the likely hood of wizards printing out broken or playable white cards for type 1 in future sets is unlikely.  White will always have fantastic splash colors but after 30+ sets that Wizards has released will it ever be able to catch up?

I don't want to hijack this thread, but on a side note, breaking replenish might not be that completely out of the realm of possibilty.  With decks like Madness/Dragon/Stompy proving the sucess of  bazaar of baghdad, replenish may be the next deck to utilize the bazaar engine.

[Smmenen]

I have already spent much time discussing the problem of White.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6460

Scroll down until "Color Wheel" and I beleive my proposal is very sound.

Steve

[mouth]

If there's good White printed for Vintage, it'll be a mistake. For example, Goblins wouldn't be nearly as playable in Type 1.broken if it weren't for previously printed cards such as Goblin Lackey and Goblin Recruiter. That's likely the same scenario that White will face, for an agressive deck anyways.

In any case, WotC has made White a perennial contender in Standard, mostly because of their twisted tendency to reprint Wrath of God in every base set. It seems though, at least to me, that they're now trying to print as much anti-WoG ammunition in Mirrodin block as possible. Maybe they're gunning for a less Wake-filled World's this year, who's to say. I think it's a running joke in R&D myself, to see how broken they have to make things before White becomes unplayable.

Also, they're really pushing a White Weenie deck, but that's obvious. However, if Fifth Dawn adds anything substantial to the deck, it could become the new Goblins when Onslaught rotates out. Still, nothing that would likely merit serious play in Vintage, unless, like previously mentioned, there is some interaction that goes unnoticed and is then subsequently broken for Type 1.

[Note]: WW in Type 2 may not be able to cut it over Ravager Affinity, because man, that decks got speed, resiliency and undercosted fatties, not to mention insane synergy. Suffice to say, it'll take a friggin' miracle card to make WW playable out of Mirrodin block.

[SpencerForHire]

What white needs is something new and unique that is desirable that none of the other colors have that would be good.  For instance.  Blue has counters.. Something game breaking like that, but in white, however the problem is that under whites current principal its protection and the like.  It has no real combo potential and no real aggro potential.  IMO the only thing it could be viable in new cards is control.  In control you could have things that hault parts of turns: [card]Orims Chant[/card], [card]Abeyance[/card], [card]Meddling Mage[/card].  These cards have shown the most potential in the format as apposed to Type 2's options like: [card]Wrath of God[/card] and [card]Exalted Angel[/card].  Although these cards have been good they aren't type 1 material, not the speed required for such a format.  and even then, it would take alot of work for white to reach the level of red or black in terms of being good by itself.  One color will always be the underdog, unfortunately until great improvement, it will be white.

The other cards white has are one of a kind and making something like them would either be pointless or just too strong.  Nothing las good as [card]Balance[/card] should ever be seen again.  And nothing like [card]Decree of Justice[/card] could be justified.  What white needs is some sort of brand new, on going concept.  I really couldnt tell you what it is though.  
All I can think of is more Chants/Abeyance's and denial of that nature.  That is the only chance in hell white will ever have of being a notable contender.  ESPECIALLY mono.

[Dr. Sylvan]

One of Ben Bleiweiss' articles kind of summed up that what white needs with creatuers is a creature set like the Onslaught goblins, where they're all pretty good on their own, but when they come together it's amazing.  That seems way in line with white's flavor.

I'll answer this while answering Steve.

White should never be conducting a blitz; that's way too Red and uncalculated. Instead, the army is based on a buildup of powerful logistical resources to an eventual overwhelming campaign.

I believe that the attempt to make White the strong weenie color is a part of that mistake. [...] White simply has nothing to complement the weenies to make White the best weenie color. Other colors do.

We are in agreement on this issue Steve, but I think black should be specializing in midrange creatures. As the mana costs go up, the color shift should go white, red, black, green, white, green (tokens, goblins, shades, fat, angels, jumbo). This makes white the second best creature color in some ways, but I think white weenie is a total mistake. Red is the color of the most aggressive attacking horde, black has to pay some other resource to make its guys big and effective (we expect large drawbacks), green gets both the best 4/4-5/5 range creatures (Ravenous Baloth, Blastoderm) and the uberfat, while white gets the token army and large angels/spirity-things. All the colors can have utility creatures with flavorful abilities, but those almost follow the design rules for other types of card rather than general creature rules.

[cssamerican]

White is fast mana screwed, it is that simple. Green has cards that let you play additional lands in a turn and creatures that produce mana. Black has Dark Ritual, draw cards that let you get your fast mana, Yawgmoth's Will, and some unused lands that can give a mana boost. Blue has Mana Drain, and cheap draw cards that let you see additional moxes, not to mention playable "free spells" in Force of Will and Misdirection. Red doesn't need fast mana, but it even has Skirk Prospector and Brightstone Ritual. What does White get? Land Tax...hmm...that isn't fast mana, perhaps if Mox Diamond wasn't restricted then White might have something.
White does have good spells, it just can't play them before the game is over. Parfait could actually be pretty decent if white had some sort of mana acceleration that was all its own. Then Parfait would be fast enough to be playable, and if it then received the Enchantress mechanic it could be a very strong force in Vintage. So in my opinion (Which is Worthless) they only need to print two very well thought out cards to make this neglected often times lost color a force to be reckoned with, how hard is that? But as we all know that will never happen!

[Dr. Sylvan]

I disagree with the fast mana idea, particularly since virtually any fast mana card that they printed would immediately be a risk for improving combo. You'll notice that green has been prospering handily without use of its "delayed increase" tempo cards (Wild Growth, Exploration, Fyndhorn Elves, etc). Fast mana is not a reliable way to boost a color; the cards in the color simply need to be appropriately costed and do the right things. We don't need a white Mana Drain as much as we need a white Enchantress's Presence.

[cssamerican]

I forgot to mention Artifacts get Mishra's Workshop, and and you could even say Goblin Welder.

Dr. Sylvan: Many green decks use Elvish Spirit Guide, which is anything but "Delayed Tempo". However, I do understand what you are saying, and I agree that the Enchantress's Presence is important. But I do not think this is enough. Who cares about drawing cards if you can't play them? You need mana, but I do agree you do not want this mana going to combo. So, couldn't we come up with something like this:

Prayer of Light

Add {W}{W} to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to play enchantments.

The problem I see with reduced cost enchantments is if Humility costed even {W} every control deck on the planet could splash and play the powerfull enchantment. Even though this is an extreme example the point I am trying to say is White would not be stronger, some blue based control deck will just splash for the undercosted enchantment. And white will still be the companion color, not the base color.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Prayer of Light
{W}
Add {W}{W}{W} to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to play enchantments.

This is a direction I see fast mana going in the future, and I believe it would be a relatively un-degenerate one which might help out the colors that need it. I'm just saying fast mana isn't what a color needs to get going. Green's not being played for ESG, it's being played for the Odyssey block green Trinity of Madness Doom. ESG isn't making or breaking the deal, really, and its seeing its most important play in combo decks.

[cssamerican]

The Madness mechanic is the same as mana acceleration. Instead of it being direct mana it is a mechanic that lets you play certain creatures at a reduced cost, which has the same effect as fast mana for that type of deck. I would be ok with White going in this direction as well. (Being able to be the color that abuses a mechanic to accelerate its development) An example of this would be a creature that allowed you to put into play equipment cards without paying their mana cost or at leats reducing the mana cost of Equipment. In fact, this is probably more likely since it almost looks as if equipment was made to go with white cards. Just look at the white creatures since equipment was released. There is even one that reduces the Equip cost by one.
The other route you could take would be to give white resource restricting cards. Sort of like an enchantment that says lands do not untap during your untap phase...A super winter orb. This idea is the one I hate the most, but that is probably due to my play style. Either way WotC needs to find a niche to put white into or otherwise they might as well quite printing white cards.

[theorigamist]

cssamerican: Madness is like acceleration in the way that Morphling is acceleration compared to Benthic Behemoth.  It's not actually acceleration that you're describing.  Madness simply has better costed creatures.  That's why acceleration and higher costed creatures is not as good a deck as Madness.

The problem with Prayer of Light style cards is, you never know how they will be abused.  Wizards thought LED was safe mana acceleration because it seemed limited, but look what happened to that.  I think that something like Prayer of Light would have the same result.  (Although I guess it's more comparable to Dark Ritual, which has, inexplicably, managed to remain unrestricted.  Go figure.)

[TheFram]

I discussed this W/ Dr. S. A flavorful way to give draw to white would be to print really strong cantrips in the color. I got the idea from Decree, Abeyance, Renewed Faith, etc.

If WOTC printed the following.

White Card 1
Instant
W
Put a 1/1 white Soldier token into play.
Draw a card.

or

White Card 2
Enchantment
WW
When ~this~ comes in to play, draw a card
Sacrifice ~this~, remove target attacking creature from
the game.

If white went the way of cantrips then at least some of the cards
that are functionally decent in other formats would also be viable in vintage since they replaced themselves upon resolution.

[Matt]

Jacob and I had talked about a white card, either a creature or an enchantment, that limited each player to one card per turn during their draw phase only. That would an excellent, uniquely white card.

You mean [card]Chains of Mephistopheles[/card]?

[SpencerForHire]

And we come back to how unique white is.  It really doesn't have anything much to offer (besides key cards already mentioned.)  But in reality, white has only a few things:
Creatures- Green beats it, red's are faster and blacks are bigger and faster.  
Protection- Whites only true unique-ness.. And really all your doing is stalling your opponent from beating the hell out of you.. Not preventing.
Disruption- Cards like chant and abeyance.. In reality, most people would rather just have a counterspell/FoW/drain.

So they have a few little gems and that is it, you can't bring a uniqueness to this color without further altering the color wheel or somewhat going back to the drawing board.. Its sad but i don't see how it can be fixed even with acceleration.

[jpmeyer]

I don't think the "rule setting" mechanic has really been explored that well.  White has a good number of playable cards in Standard right now, like Eternal Dragon, Decree of Justice, Exalted Angel, and so on but they are either powerful creatures or board sweepers.  None of these would seem to qualify for rule setting cards.

[Harry Lime]

I really wish they would make more cards like Land Tax for white; that method seems to be the color's best option for card advantage (as opposed to blue's raw drawing, black discard, green's syvlan library effect, etc).

An example of this type of mechanic is Skyshroud Sentinel (and the similiar creatures from Nemesis), which I think would be more at home in white than green. This mechanic could be made playable with some tweaking, and even extend to non-creature cards. This also plays into the "amassing an army" flavor mentioned earlier.

Maybe a sorcery speed Powder-Keg spell would work too.

edit - I also think the "tax" mechanic (of say, Propaganda or Pendrall Mists) works really well in white, and provides a unique form of disruption. There was a Propaganda mimicking creature, from Legions I think, but I don't recall anything else beeing made for white using this type of function.

edit 2 - I love the thread title  

[hillbilly]

This is just an idea of a welder for a color that could use help and it is an area white specializes in anyway enchantments. Kind of a welder meets quirion ranger for enchantments

White Welder (you get the idea)
WW
1/1
Return a plains to your hand: Target player exchanges target enchantment in their graveyard for target enchantment in play. This can only be done once a turn.

Double white and requiring plains would help keep it out of the wrong decks hopefully. It would work well with land tax. Maybe it would be too strong with fade counter enchantments but it would be fun. And it could easily protected with a first turn mother of ruins.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

@article:
Good job again!
Let's see how long it takes for wizards to do something to upgrade white, finally there are more and more people voicing their opinion that white doesn't get the good stuff.  

White doesn't feel like a Weenie-color to me, either. I agree that it should be rather control-oriented.

not directly article related stuff:

Quote:

Jacob and I had talked about a white card, either a creature or an enchantment, that limited each player to one card per turn during their draw phase only. That would an excellent, uniquely white card.

You mean Chains of Mephistopheles?

White Chains was what I thought when I read this, too. Seeing how they reprinted Arcane Lab in white, this might actually happen and could help white. The effect fits the color-wheel and wouldn't be broken in t2 or ext.

Something like this would be fine, too:

1W
Instant
Whenever a player draws a card this turn, he skips that draw.

Rules-changing and balancing-effects are probably the best of it's mechanics (color-wheel wise). Other examples that would probably be playable:

A white Ground Seal (if that is not a rule-changing card, I don't understand the term rule-changing)

W
Enchantment
White spells you cast may not be countered.

WW1
Enchantment
All non-White spells cost an additional 2 to cast.
(this could be broken in t2, though)


To give white some carddrawing (aside of the idea of shifting the Enchantress-mechanic)

Using Lifegain:

WW
Enchantment
Whenever a player gains any amount of life, draw a card.

A twist on balancing-effects could turn out strong, too.

Is this broken?
WW
Sorcery
Opponents may discard as many cards as they want to.
If an opponent has more cards in hand than you, draw cards until you have the same number of cards in hand.

WW
Sorcery
If an opponent controls more lands than you, you may serarch your library for a number of land cards equal to the difference and put them into play.
 

Just throwing out some ideas, maybe someone important sees and likes some of them.

/edit:

Let's leave the actual cards to the card creation forum.

Uh, right, thanks for reminding me. I posted the same time you did. Sorry for going a little off-topic.

[Jacob Orlove]

Let's leave the actual cards to the card creation forum.

Rules-setting is actually one of the most powerful areas of the game. Look at stuff like Chalice of the Void, Sphere of Resistance, or Humility. There's a ton of potential there/

[Smash]

Arcane lab is some nice white utility. Hopefully they keep fleshing out the white mechanics.

Still, white doesn't lead to that many combos (replenish..), is slow on offense, and doesn't have any disruption. The way the wheel is, just printing white dark rituals isn't going to solve anything.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Still, white doesn't lead to that many combos (replenish..), is slow on offense, and doesn't have any disruption. The way the wheel is, just printing white dark rituals isn't going to solve anything.

Hence the recommendation for card advantage engines. :)

What struck me when Avi and I were talking last night was that the idea of making numerous efficient cantrips was very similar to purely shifting the Enchantress mechanic. Ground Seal is one of the whitest cards ever, which is symptomatic of the terrible injustice that white's been getting of late.

[defector]

I would like to see white get somethig along the line of non-repsonse control, something like a smoketack lock built around Rule of Law, undercosted to make up for lack of Workshop and double WW to prevent splash.
Players can only play one spell each turn,
Whenever a spell is played, return target permanet to owners hand
Permanets you control can't be the target of spells or abilities.
Cycle Decree for the win.
Some of this almost or already exists.
Some kind of true enchantment based lock rather than artifact or blue style response would be cool.  I don't like mono decks in type 1, but something like this woudl open the door to white based control, also , why is't there something worth fetching in white with the rector?  There should be.
Anothe problem with white is that it's enchantments are too specific, control requires generality, a Justice for any tme a spell is cast, deal damage or a Karma built around permanents instead of swamps, too many old white enchantments simply haed rather than controlled, thsi si more r/d rather rule changing. There should be a non-reactive enchantment based lock to reflect White as the color that makes Law and upholds it.  No weenies or half measures anymore,please.
defector