What can be done to save White magic ?

[silvernail]

Back in the good old days, (before I ever played magic), people looked to white cards for things like Swords to Plowshares and Disenchant. Today these cards arent seeing print in the "Core set".Condem and Disenchant are currently standard legal, but are not actually in the Core set.

Rumor has it that Wrath of God might not make the next Core set either.This leaves me to wonder what reason do we have to play white cards? White doesnt get much that other colors don't. White seems to have its best use as a support color, but with its mainstays being shuffled to other colors, I fear we may not see many white cards in the next few years of magic( at least type2).

What can be done to make white a contender again  if the main cards that have been used throughout magic's history arent going to be included in the next Core set?

[Atlatl]

Good white cards (Land Tax, Swords, etc) are too powerful for most constructed formats.

Useful white cards will still be around in some form (I just don't see Wrath going away, sorry... not going to jump on that bandwagon until something official comes down) so its splashability should remain there.

It will always have White Weenie to fall back on... there aren't many 2/2 first striking pro color knights around these days, but there are alternatives.

The rest of white is total horseshit. I think R&D tosses all the bad spells in a hat, and whatever they pull out they assign to white.

[Cross]

Last I heard fish and bomberman were fine decks, and they both utilize white very well.

[Hi-Val]

The new Magus of the Tabernacle looks exciting in PC. Basically Tabernacle on legs, but it will only matter if it costs W or 1W, otherwise it'll probably be junk. White has a "taxing" theme that has some depth to it, but its mechanic, lifegain, is pretty weak. More cards like Shining Shoal, please!

[zeus-online]

They should make goblins white....
No seriosly, goblins do all the "help each other", while white gets decent creatures with NO synergi.

The problem is probably somewhere along these lines:
White gets removal spells, but they suck compared to red and black.
White gets weenies, but they're not as fast or synergistic as red creatures (Although, sometimes, they are)
White gets control elements, but they can't deal with whatever the opponent has in his hands...and white gets no real card drawing.
White gets fatties, but they're generally worse then the green ones. (although the white ones have flying)

But lets not forget that white still gets played, kamigawa white weenie and onslaught Slide decks where both succesfull.

They should probably just focus on making the white weenie archetype a bit better, and loose the control elements, although this would probably piss some people off

/Zeus

[Norm4eva]

I concur, White needs some Goblinesque synergy if it's really to be the weenie color of choice.  White's idea of 'creature synergy' is "Look, my 3 first strikers will take down your 6/6"
I mean sure, I'm a big proponent of White Weenie / Angel Stompy etc.. it's my favoritest deck ever and it even has a good matchup against said Gobbos.  But in no way does it have the same utility and range of possible paths to the Win as its kin.

[nataz]

I don't get it. Are you guys even remotely familar with standard and extended? White is everywhere on all types of good cards. Even legacy has BW aggro control. Vintage has bomberman and UW fish. Whats the problem? You said it yourself, D-Chant is still around, and the speculation that Wrath is leaving is just that, speculation. Sure there aren't a lot of "power" white cards in the core set, but honestly there aren't alot of "power" any cards in the core set.

[Bardo]

I concur, White needs some Goblinesque synergy if it's really to be the weenie color of choice. White's idea of 'creature synergy' is "Look, my 3 first strikers will take down your 6/6"
I mean sure, I'm a big proponent of White Weenie / Angel Stompy etc.. it's my favoritest deck ever and it even has a good matchup against said Gobbos. But in no way does it have the same utility and range of possible paths to the Win as its kin.

Yeah a 1WW 2/2 with a Ringleader-ability for "Knights" or "Soldiers" (maybe Rebels) would be sweet (ditto for an SGC "instant army" ability). It doesn't make much sense that Goblins should get the best and most competitive tribal cards, when Red isn't tribal by nature.

[asi]

Yeah a 1WW 2/2 with a Ringleader-ability for "Knights" or "Soldiers" (maybe Rebels) would be sweet (ditto for an SGC "instant army" ability). It doesn't make much sense that Goblins should get the best and most competitive tribal cards, when Red isn't tribal by nature.

Why shouldn't red be tribal? Goblins, dwarves and probably Minotaurs are tribal. The humans that represent red are tribal as well (Balduvians, for example). Black and White are hierarchical, I'd say; black has many minions and only little Lords who control a lot of them (like in Marx's end stadium of capitalism), white has many steps in between, more like a middle-age structure with pawns, lords, kings and clerics, so a well-established hierarchical order. Blue could interestingly either use democracy or aristocracy; blue creatures are some sort of "intellectuals"; they could establish a democracy if theres enough rationality among the people they would reign, or enforce a Republic like the Roman's senate. Green and red are anarchic colours, I'd say. But while green creatures don't fight for power (because they try to be in line with nature), red ones will do intensively. They're too stupid to ever acquire real power but too greedy to not try it, so some will gain power on their "tribe", which is the only structure that can exist under such conditions.

(This explanation is a bit Marxist: Green represents the original, natural condition of human existence; then comes red, white, black, and finally blue. Those colours increase in the ratio of "number of reigned people" to "reigned people", with green creatures reigned by no one, while black creatures are like capitalists struggling against each other, with a majority of people without any means of production (= the minions.) This system leads to self-destruction because in their struggle for power, black creatures will kill themselves, so only the now enlightened proletarians will be left, who can use their knowledge and technical progress (=blue's domain) to build up a democracy where everyone is equal).

This is so offtopic, but I wanted to point out that red is a tribal colour, in my mind.

[CCClark]

They should really just emphasize white's already in print cards.    They decided against things like Blaze of Glory and such for some reason and I think that what hurt them.     Make White the master of combat tricks.   Make Banding understandable with a few lines of text.  That would be an accomplishment all it's own.     Reprint a good Blaze of Glory.   Give white the best in combat spells.   Make lifegain a serious issue if ignored.    I think that would be the biggest one.   Lifegain is kind of crap.  Sure, it can swing a game that's fairly even, but what if white just happened to have cards that could outrace a Legacy sligh deck just in pure lifegain?    That would be interesting.

[silvernail]

Well, yes in the non type 2 formats, white does well because of the larger card pool and the fact that it has access to older, powerful spells.

But in type 2, white tends to be pretty weak compared to other colors. It lacks a strong set of abilities that result in strong decks.It lacks synergy in its creatures, like other posters have mentioned.

White just doesnt have a strong presence in many decks, because most of its strength is in a few support based cards and not in overall themes across its card base.

[Roxas]

As previously mentioned, anyone complaining that white is being underplayed/underpowered in Standard and Extended needs to do a little research. A full six of the top eight at Worlds ran pretty heavily white decks, and Extended has Boros, Trinket Angel, and U/W Tron seeing quite a bit of play. White doesn't play the "supporting role" in most of these decks, either; the one-drops are the centerpieces of the aggro decks, and the Wraths and win conditions are pretty important to the control decks. If anything, the other colors (red in the aggro decks and blue in the control decks) are the support colors.

[wraith985]

That's not really true; though the white weenies are the centerpieces of the aggro decks, the control decks play white purely because of Wrath of God, and to a lesser extent Faith's Fetters. Now that Damnation is around, a lot of the decks that play white for Wrath would be better off playing black; for example, I don't see any reason to play U/W Control now that black has a Wrath of God. You can basically straight swap Wrath for Damnation, Fountains for Graves, and UGRs for Adarkar Wastes, and end up with essentially an equivalent deck in better colors.

No doubt that Savannah Lions and their ilk will continue to be important parts of the metagame, but I really don't buy the argument that white is a primary component of any control deck in the current format. White could only be considered a major component because it had Wrath; now that black has co-opted that, there's very little reason to play White. The only white deck I can think of that didn't play white for Wrath are Glare and Boros, both aggro decks that don't want Wrath anywhere near their 75 (that includes across the table).

I liken it much to Gifts control, pre-Saviors and post-Saviors. Pre-Saviors, white was an extremely integral part of the Gifts deck - it provided the Ethereal Haze lock and Final Judgment to deal with Kodama of the North Tree. Then Saviors happened, Kagemaro was printed, and poof - the white was gone, because it no longer needed Final Judgment.

Of course, when we see the rest of Planar Chaos, we'll see exactly what shenanigans white will co-opt to replace its 'loss' of Wrath - and all of that ridiculousness might be reason enough to continue playing white. I'm definitely not selling my Wraths yet - I'm just saying that if Damnation was in the core set over Wrath right now, none of the white control decks would be playing white.

EDIT: heh, "Darkness" is not the new Wrath.

[Norm4eva]

I'll admit that my knowledge of Standard is suboptimal at best.  I draft way more often than I play FNM *shrug*.  Basically if I ever get the urge to play Type 2 I put together RG Beats and just show up and see how I do.  Gruul beats FTW yo
I think the relevant issue here is these things, though; we're generally talking from a Vintage/Legacy standpoint here, cuz that's kinda what TMD is aboot.  That said, if you take a look at decks like Goblins, most of the good stuff from there came from one season of Type 2.  Piledriver, Warchief, Siege-Gang, Incinerator; these are all offerings from Onslaught Block.  So in one block these all get dropped into Type 2 and we've all seen the reach these cards have had since then.  The last really important White spell to reach across formats was what, Exalted Angel?  Maybe Lightning Helix, but who plays Helix in Eternal formats?
So I see the cards that they'll dump into an archtype that was, at that point, regarded as "Sligh that dies to Engineered Plague" and then I take a look at how White's Timeshifted burn spell is supposedly fucking Strafe??  And how the combat phase is supposedly White's domain, yet Red has 7 cards (of questionable awesomeness) that allow for an additional combat phase.  Fuck that, even if it's a shitty effect Relentless Assault should be WHITE.  I can't even think of a good spell that says "Play -this- only during combat."  Waylay shouldn't suck, either.  Maybe I'm just venting now. :)

[Vegeta2711]

Waylay shouldn't suck

Just for reference, Waylay was pretty much THE BEST CARD EVER before errata. White Lightning decks were amazing.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Reading the title, I thought this was a thread discussing ways to beat Katsuhiro Mori, Kenju Tsumura, Masashi Oiso, and so on.

[nataz]

Reading the title, I thought this was a thread discussing ways to beat Katsuhiro Mori, Kenju Tsumura, Masashi Oiso, and so on.

chuckle*

The last really important White spell to reach across formats was what, Exalted Angel?

Fine, you wanna talk about vintage some more.

Joten Grunt
Kataki
Salvagers

All recent and very relevent cards in white.

We can keep going and add in

Hide/Seek

and possibly Children of Kolios.

[Fubar]

White does seem to be heading towards twodimentional, weenies + lifegain.  Maybe a tech angel will make the new set.  I assume armageddon will never see the light of day?

[Anusien]

Here's the thing.  I sat down to see if my Standard Flare deck could re-emphasize Black with Damnation over White for Wrath, and I'm not sure.  I imagine that's why they printed a black Wrath, to prove that White is still important.  I don't think the UWx decks that use giant Angels for a kill condition are willing to give up the ability to hardcast Akroma or Angel of Despair.  I can see Solar Pox going straight UB, but I don't think Solar Flare will be able to.  Casting Akroma on turn 5 is just too good.

[Hi-Val]

At the risk of going out into the weeds, with the Red Akroma, Flare could drop white and pick up Red, especially for that new red split shock/bounce to replace something like Condemn or Fetters. I don't know if you'd have to do it but there are plenty of nonwhite options once you eliminate the need for white Wrath.

Even most of white's spells that I know of you don't pay retail on a lot; Akroma comes out for 1G or 3B as much as it gets hardcast.

Reprinting Balance at WWWW would certainly do the trick in re-emphasizing white decks. The way to make white good again is to give it absurd spells with heavy white commitments.

[Norm4eva]

Nataz: the majority of those cards are arguably metagame cards.  Salvagers obviously isn't, but Kataki/Grunt are.
The point I was trying to make (and failed I think b/c it was early in the AM) was that Goblins is taking on the role that R&D would have us believe White should play.  If any color should build a small army in the first four turns and become highly lethal it's White - at least, so says the color pie.  White's hold on the combat phase should be likened to Blue's of the stack, and that's just not what's happening.
Kataki is a solid metagame card.  Goblin Piledriver is just a good card.  You can build a deck around Piledriver; you could try it with Jotun Grunt but I think you'd just get pissed off.

[nataz]

White's hold on the combat phase should be likened to Blue's of the stack, and that's just not what's happening.

Where is this not happening. In both standard and extended white is the best color to attack with. Again, akroma, boros, etc. In extended, same thing. In type one, you have UW fish, where most of the beaters are *gasp* white (grunt, kataki, lions, isumaru, mage). The only place where white isn't the best combat deck is legacy, the least developed of the major formats out there.

The whole bitch fest about white sucking made a lot more sense 2 years ago. Ever since lions came back, white has had a huge comeback with really high quality cards. 

[Atlatl]

Reprinting lions didn't spontaneously trigger good white cards seeing the light. It opened a powerful weenie slot for an underutilized color, which prompted a few shifts to include whatever people could scrounge up to support that color. You just don't see many mono-white decks running around, and you haven't in a very, very long time. Masques Block was the last time I saw real, competitive, open-fielded white decks running around. Everything lately is a dual-color or splash. Or, looking at it another way, you see plenty of Mono-R, Mono-B, or Mono-G (probably not too many Mono-U... not a big thing lately either), but white can't stand on its own legs - it needs help.

Now, don't read into it too hard and think that I am saying "White is Bad, Bad, Bad", because I'm not. It has perfectly decent cards in print at a very high power level. There just aren't very many, leading to very limited options and few variances. I firmly believe that white is powerful in its own right - it has all the tools. But, R&D needs to expand its tool box a bit to some of its other options.

[nataz]

Reprinting lions didn't spontaneously trigger good white cards seeing the light

No, but it marked a documented start to the revitalization of white. I can remember multiple articles on the wizards website talking about how they were making an effort to make white matter again, and I think we can safely say they made good on their promise. I believe this was around the time of mirrodin, and the printing of 10th (9th?).

[Atlatl]

We will see what Planar Chaos brings, but yes, white is better than it has been in a while. But, I'm still waiting for it to regain its former glory.

[andrewpate]

We will see what Planar Chaos brings, but yes, white is better than it has been in a while. But, I'm still waiting for it to regain its former glory.

What do you mean by that?  What former glory, exactly, are you talking about?  Glare won Worlds just last year.  Do you mean it has to be Monowhite?  It so happens that Monowhite Martyr Tron is the only monocolored deck viable in Standard right now; it even made Top 8 at Worlds.  Do you mean glory days of White Weenie specifically?  It was a serious contender in Kamigawa Block Constructed in both Arcane and conventional forms, and it was the business portion of a wide variety of B/W aggro decks throughout Kamigawa/Ravnica/9th Standard, all this not to mention the Boros decks already mentioned in this thread.  Do you mean Balance?  I hope not.

[wraith985]

I remember something on mtg.com talking about how Martyr of Sands was printed as a way to gauge how good life gain had to be before it saw serious tournament play. Judging by Martyer/Proclamation, I think they got their answer.

[Godder]

I'm not sure how much play Martyr of Sands would see if it wasn't for Proclamation of Rebirth - unless life gain is excessive, recursive, or otherwise added onto a card, it doesn't see play, and even at 12 life for 2 mana, I'm not sure if this would be good enough.

[forests failed you]

Vintage cards that have been playable in White off the top of my head since Onslaught block

Onslaught

True Believer
Akroma
exalted Angel
Decree of Justice

Mirrodin

Rule of Law
Pristine Angel
Salvagers

Champs
issamaru
Kataki

Rav
lightning helix
suppression field
watch wolf
razia, boros arch angel
hide seek

Spiral

Children of Koilis


I'll admit it isn't the most impressive list ever... But I think that if you made a list for Green or Red it would likely be just as poor. 

It just so happens that the mechanics assoicated with Blue and Black tend to be more abuseable with the more powerful cards in Vintage. 

[zeus-online]

Pristine angel? What deck played with those?
Same thing with watchwolf.

/Zeus