For as long as I can remember, everyone has always thought that White was the weakest color in MTG. For the most part, especially in standard and EDH. There are some amazing cards in white but that number is dwarfed by the power and value the other colors can pull together. As someone who loves to play white for a few of the different arch types, it was always annoying to watch the spoilers and preview cards come and yet again, white was little more than a shoulder shrug. But after Ikoria and C20 I was starting to notice that white was getting a little more love than normal. Then the preview cards for core set 2021 started flowing… white may finally be trending in the right direction!
Let’s start with Ikoria. The card Luminous Broodmoth is an amazing card. Not only does it have evasion seeing that it flies but it gives all of our creatures a form of evasion. sure they may die blocking or during an aggressive attack, but the moth will just bring them back, now flying. So this makes your opponents think twice before attacking you (they dont want to get chump blocked just to give you flyers that can attack back next turn) AND will make them think twice before they block or double block. It is a ton of value from one card.
C20 gave us cards like Cartographer’s Hawk and Verge Rangers. They may not be the most effective mana ramp cards but in white they are more than we have had in a long time! Both of them help us keep pace with opponents. The Hawk gives decent return just for attacking like you would anyways. There’s also the politics that can come into play in a EDH game. The Verge Rangers just let us look at the top card of our library at ANY time and if its a land, it comes out as long as someone has more lands then you, and you’re playing white so there’s a pretty good chance that this is the case!
And now, we have the preview cards coming out for Core Set 2021. One of the first cards to come out was Mangara the Diplomat. This is an amazing card draw engine. I’m excited to use it in multiple commander decks and may even try using him as the commander for a new deck! We also got a new white planeswalker from Amonket and makes a great addition to a white weenies deck or really any soldier/human deck.
White definitely needs a little more but as shown with the Boros cycling deck in standard now, there is hope for white and its guild color mixes that normal have a harder time. A mono color white commander deck for example, is still going to be at a disadvantage but that gap is closing. Yes the other colors are getting great cards as well, but honestly, whats a few more insane cards when you already have so many to choose from? I can’t wait for some of the deck techs that I can build and share with you soon! Let me know in the comments what you think about white in the recent sets, do these new cards change the way you see mono white?
Until next time guys!
AoE Table Top 