I think that certain cards constantly repeat themselves across decks and there is a serious lack of powerful white cards and white win conditions in modern.
It would be very helpful if we could have a statistics for every single card ever printed that state the following:
- ratio of (sum of all the cards of the same name (e.g. all the serum visions) that were played during a given season of modern play) and (sum of all the cards of the same color (all the blue cards) that saw play within that same modern season across all decks that utilized the same color) (e.g. blue). Example: ratio of all cards named Serum Vision during last modern season and all the purely blue cards that saw play within that same season
I guess the Wizards have a such a statistic but its for their internal use. If they don't I really recommend they should make one.
The first problem I see in modern is with the blue color. Usually, when I see a multicolored deck that has blue color in it, blue color will be the most represented one and within that blue color there will usually be the same cards that constantly repeat themselves across various archtypes; those are ofcourse the cantrips: Serum Visions, Sleight of hand, (Opt will surely be here as well) and some others too like: Thoughtscour, Remand etc. You can see this happen in grixis delver, jeskai delver, temur delver, UG delver, grixis control, jeskai control, UW control, UW tempo, Esper control, temur aggro...
Don't get me wrong. I like cantrips, I like drawing cards. That is because I like all the mechanisms of this fascinating game. I like its diversity. That is why I think these blue cards are narrowing the diversity of other playable blue cards but also the representation of other colors in vast number of decks.
There seems to be an overrepresentation of single mana blue cantrips: serum visions, sleight of hand, opt, banned ponder and brainstorm not to mention that there are other cantrips as well: remand, cryptic command, ojutai's command, spreading seas. Recently, on 4th February there was a modern challenge and this deck won: https://mtgtop8.com/event?e=18409&d=314296&f=MO . It contained 20 cantrips or card-drawing mechanims of some sort.
Ofcourse, the most obvious card with that problem is the lightning bolt, the card that is most played card ever. The rhetorical question is: If you play red color, why aren't you playing a playset of lightning bolts in it? Even further, if you have an almost finished deck, could it be better with 4 lightning bolts in it? If yes, the rhetorical question is: why don't you? Grixis delver and temur delver decks splash red color sometimes just because of lightning bolt. One obvious thing to mention and emphasize is: Lightning bolt is a win condition.
Now, let's look at the white color: there, the only powerful card that constanly pops up in various decks that utilize white color is path to exile. And it is not a win condition.
Other white cards that appear in modern are either combo pieces or sideboard cards: puresteel paladin, angel's grace, stony silence, rest in peace, ethersworn canonist, blessed alliance, timely reinforcement, mirran crusader...the list goes on.
White color is not-arguably the weakest color in modern.
When you look at the win conditions of other colors:
Green: tarmogoyf, primeval titan, wild nacatl
Black: death's shadow, gurmag angler, tasigur, the golder fang,
Blue: delver of secrets
Red: lightnig bolt and its variants, goblin guide, monastery swiftspear
When you look at the mechanism and traits the colors use: the greatest diversity there is is among green and black color while the blue color holds control over the most important mechanism that are the heart of the game and those are casting of the spell (rather NOT) and card draw.
Blue: counter spell, draw a card, discard a card, the best creature and card ever printed, bunch of jaces
spell pierce, spell snare, dispel, remand, cryptic command, serum visions, sleight of hand, opt, spreading seas, snapcaster mage, jace the mind sculpter, jace, architect of thought
Green: boosters, return from graveyard to hand, noxious revival, mana acceleration, search library for..
blossoming defense, become immense, mutagenig growth, might of old krosa, eternal witness, arbor elf, bird of paradise, collected company, traverse the ulvenvald, mwonuli acid moss, satyr wayfinder
Black: opponent discard, return from graveyard to play, destroy creatures, pay life for card draw, others
Inquistion, Thoughtseize, Liliana of the Veil, Goryo's vengenance, Bloodghast, vendetta, murderous cut, go for the throat, doom blade, dark confidant, fatal push, ad nauseam, griselbrand, painful truths, living end, dark blast, small pox
White: exile creatures, taxation, others
Path to exile, thalia, guardian of thraben, leonin arbiter, puresteel paladin, soul's attendant, Soul Warden, martyr of sands, lingering souls, kor spirit dancer, daybreak coronet, selfless spirit, What powerful mechanism was white color gifted with? It has the most powerful sideboard hate but sideboard hate is not a win condition. It's a poor strategy to lose the first game so that you can use your powerful sideboard. Being splashed into a deck because of sideboard and not mineboard just proves how white color is secondary to any other. Puresteel paladin is not a win condition per se, it is a combo peace; a win condition in a puresteel paladin combo deck is usually grapeshot which is a red burn spell or, rarely, monastery mentor which is white. Soul Sisters and MartyProc decks were never tier 1 as far as I know. These 2 decks aren't played that much even in current metagame with no deck clearly dominating all the others. Life gaining effect is not a trait exclusive to white color. Black and green also have life-gaining effects. And altough life gaining effects would be mostly asociated with white color, I guess Wizards don't want to create cheap and powerful life-gaining cards because players would play such white cards more often and the there would be a shift of win-conditions from decreasing opponent's life to milling him or her, prolonging the games indefinetly. Personally, I would prefer that a few more decks like these exist. Losing life is the most common way of losing the game. Gaining life is a defensive measure, one mostly attributed to white color but unfortunately the Wizards keep this trait very low.
Vigilance is a rare trait that belongs solely to white color but it is basically a defensive trait and not an offesive one
I guess the main problem of white color in modern was made when colors were constructed. When one regards damage dealing capabilities:
1.Red: (direct burn, small haste creatures, P/T ration in favor of power)
2.Green: mana acceleration landing huge creatures early, trample
3.White: both small and big creatures
4.Black: both small and big creatures
5.Blue: creatures, P/T ratio in favor of toughness
Regarding control:
5.Green: almost none,
4. Red: direct creature burn, small board wipes
3.White: creature exile, creature destruction, mass-board wipe
2.Black: opponent discard, creature destruction, mass board-wipe
1.Blue: counter spell,
White is in the middle of everything. The sentence: „Jack of all trades but master of none“ unfortunately applies to it very well. It's not the master of aggro nor control but it seems to me that it's not even good in the middle, it's not even jack of all trades. It's a sink in the middle of everything.
There are many similarities between white color and black color and a few reasons why white color is in the shadow of the black. Black color does all the things that white color does, is better at control and is equally fast if not faster then white. Black and white have same mass sweepers (Damnation/wrath of God; take a look at the difference of price in those to colors just to see how much more often Damnation is played or needed). Black recently got Bontu's last reckoning and white got Settle the wreckage. Regarding single target removals: white has Path to Exile while Black has: Fatal Push, Doom blade, Go for the throat, Vendetta, Murderous Cut, Ultimate price. Black has lifegaining effects and tokens just like white. But black also has access to powerful discard mechanisms which white doesn't. By that logic and and a given aggro-control continuoum that I layed out beforehand white color should be somewhat faster then black. But that doesn't seem to be the case. In fact: goryo's vengenance breaks the pattern of speed: when combined with right cards it makes an explosively fast deck and there is no instance of white cards or combos able to do the same except for puresteel paladin combo recently. Also, equipment storm deck was never able to kill on turn 1 like grixis reanimator could.
Let's return to blue color and its cantrips. Looking at the aggro continuoum: red is the fastest (aggro), blue should be the slowest (control), so if white is in the middle it should be tempo. But that is not the case. Tempo is usually associated with cantrips that belong to blue color. I argue that blue color simbolicaly stole the cantrips from white color. White color should be filled with one mana cantrips and not the blue color. I guess this is a remnant of the past when color paradigm was made at the inception of the game. This is way in modern mainboards there is na overpresence of blue cantrips and consequently blue color in certain decks in general and also underpresence of white color.
Except a few white planeswalkers, white color lacks emblamatic win conditions. Red has bolt, green has tarmogoyf, blue has snapcaster mage, black is a bit dispersed (sahdow, gurmag, griselbrand). On a side note, Black had powerful planeswalkers even before white (Liliana of the veil, liliana, the last hope. Path to exile is emblamatic but is not a win condition.
I articulated the problem, so I must offer a solution as well. Here are my suggestions and food for thought for:
1.To gradually introduce to modern play cheap (one mana) white cantrips.
2.Cheap single-target instant removals akin to Path to exile, Fatal push, Doomblade should be added to white color cardpool.
3.An introduction of small white creatures that are very troublesome under certain conditions.
4.Mana acceleration could be added to white color but in a weaker form than the one that green possess. Paying life for gaining mana could be added as activated ability to a specific white creature.
5.There is no need of looking at paying life for drawing cards as a necromantic or demonic deed (Griselbrand, Yawgmoth's bargain, Dark confidant, Phyrexian Arena). Sacrificing life to gain valuable insight can be a noble thing.
6.Angels and all the divine folk can be lofty and untroubled in their skies but one can say that their retribution is final and they easily become judgemental. That can be used as a mechanism and a flavor and a mechanism. If an opponent somehow damages the white player (reduces his or hers life total, destroys his creature, makes him or her discard cards), there are white cards that make swift and even greater damage back.
7.Following the divine theme, modern white card pool could be enchanced by some uncounterable cards.
I think you have identified white's niche, but you are then trying to blow it up and take things outside of its colour pie.
Small disruptive creatures are its 'thing'. White Weenie, and all that. Death and Taxes being the premier 'white' deck of the format, while its hate options are the strongest is about right.
I did mention sideboard and the problem about it. Maybe I haven't been clear enough. White DOES have the most powerful sideboard
but that sideboard is exactly that: sideboard...it's not mainboard. That's what makes it a best supporting colour (you're right SmauG) but not enough
powerful in its own right. And I find that not problematic, just unfair and sad.
White wheenie is a premier modern white deck but it wins occasionally. I don't think white color ever had a deck that was feared or
loathed because of its power level in modern. Same goes for Death and Taxes. Death and Taxes are basically sideboard cards thrown into mainboard
so to properly build a white prison you have to anticipate what others are playing (the metagame). Burn was a thing! Goryo's reanimator could kill on turn 1! Jund was so played Wizards had to ban Bloodbraid Elf for several years. Bunch of blue cards are banned in modern because they are over the top: Brainstorm etc.
idSurge, I don't want to blow white colour up (altough I wouldn't mind if it could have its several months of raw overpowered domination in modern) but I do suggest that Wizards print some new powerful white cards for modern. And I don't see a problem if it takes the things and mechanisms outside its colour pie (I did that in the starting post on purpose and knowingly). It's flavorful. White is a colour that contains all the other colours. Hence, it can (or should) do all things that other colours do but not as powerfully as other colours altough they can or should be powerful enough in white to be played in modern. If green can have lifegaining effects but not as powerful as white why white would have a one or two cards in modern for mana acceleration. If black can discard opponent's hand why white wouldn't be able to exile a card or two.
Also, I suggest a completely new mechanism for white colour and that is: to be able to cast cards from any zone in the game. An instant or sorcery or whatever that allows you to cast a cards that was exiled either by you or your opponent and put it onto battlefield under your control if it is a permanent card or just cast it if it's a sorcery or instant.
Also, I suggest a completely new mechanism for white colour and that is: to be able to cast cards from any zone in the game. An instant or sorcery or whatever that allows you to cast a cards that was exiled either by you or your opponent and put it onto battlefield under your control if it is a permanent card or just cast it if it's a sorcery or instant.
Pull from Eternity? I know it’s not quite what you specified, but in spirit...
The problem with weenies is that you eventually get outclassed by stuff that doesn't care (storm), is bigger (zoo/green in general) or has stronger synergy (elves).
White has a strong presence in modern imo. Yeah it's sideboard, but every white deck has white mainboard stuff. I agree that path is a beast of a card.
Imo thalia, guardian of thraben is the perfect white card for this strat. She's legendary so you can't load up, but she slows the game down and rumbles in combat very well. On the flip side vryn wingmare isn't even touched. That 1 extra cmc is huge in a format as fast as modern. You run thout risk of critical mass though. The deck could very quickly devolve into something not fun if it was redundant enough.
I was kind of surprised to see a complaint about white when the first thing that came to mind was how badly green and blue were balanced against the other colors. I still think green has it the worst because of the above curve power and toughness it's known for is so easily mitigated in modern. Not saying the answer is to make their creatures into what standard is dealing with, where they had to go overboard on removal just to deal with all the indestructible and recurring creatures they got right now, but the only claim to fame green has is to go big mana or play out as a support color.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I can't believe this sh*Tt? I spent 2 hours writing that first post and now its gone? I think I edited it and something went wrong? Anyway,
I had a copy in Word so I put it into the second post which is now first.
I don't think, green has any issues in modern. Primeval Titan, Sakura tribe-elder, Garruk Rellentless, Scapeshift, Utopia Sprawl, Tarmogoyf, Arbor Elf, Birds of Paradise, Scavenging ooze, Ancient Stirrings, Eternal Witness, Garruk Wildspeaker, Collected Company, Wild Nacatl, Beast Within, Courser of Kruphix, Search for Tommorow, Farseek, Experiment One, Rancor, Glistening Elf, Gladecover Scout....
Imo, you are forgetting many things related to white color and why it's strong in Modern.
White is a defensive color.
Like blue, you don't have a direct win condition with white, but you're supporting your win condition or prevent your opponent to have their.
Cards like rest in peace, eidolon of rethoric, path to exile, wrath, thalia, stony silence, runed halo etc...
And theese card are not only sideboard cards.
Plus, white color is too a support color, with very powerfull colors to support the main color of your deck, white give many tempo and boosts like intangible virtue, secure the waste, lingering souls, blade splicer etc...
The white color is a value defensive color, every white cards generate value, the goal of theese cards is to make 2 for 1 or even more like timely renforcement, secure the waste, wrath, restoration angel (this card can be a kill too ). Combined with blue it's even more insane, verdict, sphinx revelation etc...
So imo even is white is not a main modern color with kills or mandatory cards, it's a very good color to play with, with the purpose to generate value, tempo, and support for your main color. Kinda like blue.
What kills with blue deck is never the blue color alone, but powerfull cards supported by blue color (bolt, tasigur, shadow, tarmo etc...).
The only exception is the U/W color who use two defensive colors with the goal of making value of each cards to exhausts your opponent and then kill with colonnade/snap/angel/batterskull/or 1/1 token from secure the waste
Perhaps I haven't explained my thoughts well so I'll try again.
White color is about:
- small creatures (mostly)
- negation strategies, taxing the opponent,
- best sideboard hate
- life gain effects
- providing greater value with a single card
- if there are any other, please add them
This we have concluded togeter in this discussion.
So here is my problem with white color in modern:
- small creatures make a wheenie deck but they usually don't appear in any other type of deck
- creatures that do taxes and negate the opponent are usually in the sideboard but if they are in the mainboard then they usually appear only in death and taxes archetype and not anywhere else
What I'm saying with this is that white creatures like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Leonin Arbiter are exclusive creatures, creatures around which you cannot build various decks, creatures that don't spin your head with the question:"Oh, my God, the possibilities that can be done with this creature." I compare them to creatures like Delver and Tarmogoyf because Delver of Secrets doesn't have just one single blue deck that plays it. This card is so inclusive! You can have a UR Grixis, Jeskai or Temur Delver. They are all tempo decks built to utilize it. It is a flagship of tempo decks. Take Tarmogoyf for example. People think about what colours to add to green to make most use of Tarmogoyf or can their build be better if they splash green for Tarmogoyf. With Thalia all you have is a continuoum of "death&taxes to wheenie" strategies. WHAT I'M SAYING IS THAT WHITE COLOR LACKS A COLOR-FRIENDLY CREATURE AROUND WHICH somehow different colored decks or archtypes could be created.
To move on, white color is the one that revolves around life gaining strategies but there aren't powerful life-gaining strategies. Soul-sisters is a modern deck but I don't think it was ever Tier 1 and it is especially not so now. Modern is becoming faster meaning that decks can reduce opponent's life total even faster than before and more often so. That means that life's value has decreased so old methods of gaining life lost value. If GAIINING LIFE LOST POWER, then WHITE COLOR IN GENERAL LOST POWER, too. One would say that black's and green's ability to gain life lost power too but less so then in white and I believe black and green got more love recently than white.
To remedy this, I suggest that Wizards print new white cards for gaining life that would be viable in modern and would both improve Soul-sisters strategies and also make players want splash white to other archtypes more often because of these effects.
and it received Collected Company that re-enabled Birthing Pod decks and enabled Bant Spirits e.g. and many others.
This means that GREEN TOOK A PIECE OF "COLOR-PIE" FROM THE WHITE COLOR.
Black recently got Fatal Push which is direct hit to white color and its Path to Exile because they are both equal in CMC and roughly equal in power. For years black had other single-target-destroy-creature which I mentioned in previous posts. That made black color more versatile than white but white had the best single-target removal. Now, even that is debatable. With Fatal Push being printed, Wizards pushed PtE to the edge.
To showcase how life is not even that important, and is certainly less important then time (meaning card draw advantage for example), player's often exchange life for some other benefit. Fetchlands and shocklands absolutely prove this. Then there is phyrexian mana to prove the point. Black color's flavor is about exchanging life for card advantage: Dark Confidant and aa....Phyrexian Arena and.....Painful Truths and many others.
At this point I have to comment spoilers of new set: Dominaria.
These are my suggestions to Wizards:
- white colour needs at least one single creature emblamatic for white colour around which many different colours and strategies could be made. Green has tarmogoyf, black has death shadow, blue has snapcaster and delver. White has none. Thalia is too narrow.
- more powerfull life-gaining cards and exile cards
- new flavors and themes and mechanics that would be associated mostly with white colour
Forecast is an excellent mechanic that could be made powerful in modern if the forecast cost would be 3CMC and lower and forecast effect modern relevant.
Also, if black colour can use life so "disrespectfuly" to gain card advantage or any other advantage then white could take an opposite approach. By preserving the life, it gains some kind of advantage. That's the flavor and the mechanic could be: "If you have more life than target opponent"....you can draw extra cards or get free creature tokens or something else.
Anyways, I really hope Wizards will show more love for white color.
I have 4 modern decks. One is Jund, but my other 3 are 2 colored decks that have white in them: GW hatebears, BW tokens, and RW Blood Moon. White is strong in all these decks for different reasons, both with strong mainboard and sideboard cards.
I guess I don’t really see the issue, but I’m not against stronger white cards being printed, as long as they’re reasonable. I don’t think Wizards should print white cards that are outside white’s color pie, unless colors outside their color pie is a theme of a set.
EDIT: I also think a SFM unban is reasonable as long as they ban batterskull.
As a fellow white mage who has entertained some of the same thoughts - i backed away from the idea because im old enough to remember using balance, swords to plowshares, armageddon and land tax in the same deck.
White doesnt need more in its' color pie. It just needs better cards. I'm not going to compare it to green but I do think you had a point in comparing it to black. I think black has clearly got more going on and that's not cool. I dont like how black has Liliana at 3 but there's nothing to compare for white at 3 cmc.
Back to the big picture - white is a good place to have symmetric effects. Maybe a re-balanced version of big Elspeth's wrath effect could be put as the middle ability on a 1WW Elspeth PW? That would be flavorful, give white better game against Liliana, and with the right win condition it would satisfy your wish for a build-around card.
Some of my new suggestions for white cards in modern. Apotheosis is here to encourage life-gaining strategies that can be present in Abzan and Selesnya CoCo Chord decks. I see there is a tendency to remove black from coco chord shell and to make it just about walking balista dealing damage to opponent. Life-gaining element is not needed any more and Murderous Redcap was probably t0o expensive. Altough I like the speed and novelty in new iterations I don't want old flavours to go out of play.
Vile Vampirism was inspired by cards like Defiant Bloodlord and Sanguine Bond and Vizkopa Guildmage. All are great cards but cannot be used in modern because their CMC is too high (or sth else). So I decided to make a 1mana black instant that copies those effects for a turn only. The play around this card is to make decks that can gain sufficient bursts of life to snuff out the opponent with this kind a spell. Let's make Soul Sisters a bit faster and edgy. Imagine this with lets say Life goes on. It fits into Abzan Coco Chord as well instead of redcap. Small army of lifelinking craetures can be quite dangerous all of a sudden.
Celestial Imposition - Well it's basically an anti-cantrip for opponents. If WotC don't want to print 1mana white cantrips howabout a spell that prevents opponents from getting extra cards. This works even agains draw step.
Impose Temporal Limits - A card that buys time by taking away opponent's time or to be precise it's turn.
Forgotten Ideas - basically a white Goryo's Vengeance for instants and sorceries. I wanted to provide white colour with a powerfull card that revolves around graveyards. What would you do if you could cast any instant or sorcery from your graveyard but you pay only 2 mana?
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It would be very helpful if we could have a statistics for every single card ever printed that state the following:
- ratio of (sum of all the cards of the same name (e.g. all the serum visions) that were played during a given season of modern play) and (sum of all the cards of the same color (all the blue cards) that saw play within that same modern season across all decks that utilized the same color) (e.g. blue). Example: ratio of all cards named Serum Vision during last modern season and all the purely blue cards that saw play within that same season
I guess the Wizards have a such a statistic but its for their internal use. If they don't I really recommend they should make one.
The first problem I see in modern is with the blue color. Usually, when I see a multicolored deck that has blue color in it, blue color will be the most represented one and within that blue color there will usually be the same cards that constantly repeat themselves across various archtypes; those are ofcourse the cantrips: Serum Visions, Sleight of hand, (Opt will surely be here as well) and some others too like: Thoughtscour, Remand etc. You can see this happen in grixis delver, jeskai delver, temur delver, UG delver, grixis control, jeskai control, UW control, UW tempo, Esper control, temur aggro...
Don't get me wrong. I like cantrips, I like drawing cards. That is because I like all the mechanisms of this fascinating game. I like its diversity. That is why I think these blue cards are narrowing the diversity of other playable blue cards but also the representation of other colors in vast number of decks.
There seems to be an overrepresentation of single mana blue cantrips: serum visions, sleight of hand, opt, banned ponder and brainstorm not to mention that there are other cantrips as well: remand, cryptic command, ojutai's command, spreading seas. Recently, on 4th February there was a modern challenge and this deck won: https://mtgtop8.com/event?e=18409&d=314296&f=MO . It contained 20 cantrips or card-drawing mechanims of some sort.
Ofcourse, the most obvious card with that problem is the lightning bolt, the card that is most played card ever. The rhetorical question is: If you play red color, why aren't you playing a playset of lightning bolts in it? Even further, if you have an almost finished deck, could it be better with 4 lightning bolts in it? If yes, the rhetorical question is: why don't you? Grixis delver and temur delver decks splash red color sometimes just because of lightning bolt. One obvious thing to mention and emphasize is: Lightning bolt is a win condition.
Now, let's look at the white color: there, the only powerful card that constanly pops up in various decks that utilize white color is path to exile. And it is not a win condition.
Other white cards that appear in modern are either combo pieces or sideboard cards: puresteel paladin, angel's grace, stony silence, rest in peace, ethersworn canonist, blessed alliance, timely reinforcement, mirran crusader...the list goes on.
White color is not-arguably the weakest color in modern.
When you look at the win conditions of other colors:
Green: tarmogoyf, primeval titan, wild nacatl
Black: death's shadow, gurmag angler, tasigur, the golder fang,
Blue: delver of secrets
Red: lightnig bolt and its variants, goblin guide, monastery swiftspear
When you look at the mechanism and traits the colors use: the greatest diversity there is is among green and black color while the blue color holds control over the most important mechanism that are the heart of the game and those are casting of the spell (rather NOT) and card draw.
Blue: counter spell, draw a card, discard a card, the best creature and card ever printed, bunch of jaces
spell pierce, spell snare, dispel, remand, cryptic command, serum visions, sleight of hand, opt, spreading seas, snapcaster mage, jace the mind sculpter, jace, architect of thought
Green: boosters, return from graveyard to hand, noxious revival, mana acceleration, search library for..
blossoming defense, become immense, mutagenig growth, might of old krosa, eternal witness, arbor elf, bird of paradise, collected company, traverse the ulvenvald, mwonuli acid moss, satyr wayfinder
Black: opponent discard, return from graveyard to play, destroy creatures, pay life for card draw, others
Inquistion, Thoughtseize, Liliana of the Veil, Goryo's vengenance, Bloodghast, vendetta, murderous cut, go for the throat, doom blade, dark confidant, fatal push, ad nauseam, griselbrand, painful truths, living end, dark blast, small pox
White: exile creatures, taxation, others
Path to exile, thalia, guardian of thraben, leonin arbiter, puresteel paladin, soul's attendant, Soul Warden, martyr of sands, lingering souls, kor spirit dancer, daybreak coronet, selfless spirit, What powerful mechanism was white color gifted with? It has the most powerful sideboard hate but sideboard hate is not a win condition. It's a poor strategy to lose the first game so that you can use your powerful sideboard. Being splashed into a deck because of sideboard and not mineboard just proves how white color is secondary to any other. Puresteel paladin is not a win condition per se, it is a combo peace; a win condition in a puresteel paladin combo deck is usually grapeshot which is a red burn spell or, rarely, monastery mentor which is white. Soul Sisters and MartyProc decks were never tier 1 as far as I know. These 2 decks aren't played that much even in current metagame with no deck clearly dominating all the others. Life gaining effect is not a trait exclusive to white color. Black and green also have life-gaining effects. And altough life gaining effects would be mostly asociated with white color, I guess Wizards don't want to create cheap and powerful life-gaining cards because players would play such white cards more often and the there would be a shift of win-conditions from decreasing opponent's life to milling him or her, prolonging the games indefinetly. Personally, I would prefer that a few more decks like these exist. Losing life is the most common way of losing the game. Gaining life is a defensive measure, one mostly attributed to white color but unfortunately the Wizards keep this trait very low.
Vigilance is a rare trait that belongs solely to white color but it is basically a defensive trait and not an offesive one
I guess the main problem of white color in modern was made when colors were constructed. When one regards damage dealing capabilities:
1.Red: (direct burn, small haste creatures, P/T ration in favor of power)
2.Green: mana acceleration landing huge creatures early, trample
3.White: both small and big creatures
4.Black: both small and big creatures
5.Blue: creatures, P/T ratio in favor of toughness
Regarding control:
5.Green: almost none,
4. Red: direct creature burn, small board wipes
3.White: creature exile, creature destruction, mass-board wipe
2.Black: opponent discard, creature destruction, mass board-wipe
1.Blue: counter spell,
White is in the middle of everything. The sentence: „Jack of all trades but master of none“ unfortunately applies to it very well. It's not the master of aggro nor control but it seems to me that it's not even good in the middle, it's not even jack of all trades. It's a sink in the middle of everything.
There are many similarities between white color and black color and a few reasons why white color is in the shadow of the black. Black color does all the things that white color does, is better at control and is equally fast if not faster then white. Black and white have same mass sweepers (Damnation/wrath of God; take a look at the difference of price in those to colors just to see how much more often Damnation is played or needed). Black recently got Bontu's last reckoning and white got Settle the wreckage. Regarding single target removals: white has Path to Exile while Black has: Fatal Push, Doom blade, Go for the throat, Vendetta, Murderous Cut, Ultimate price. Black has lifegaining effects and tokens just like white. But black also has access to powerful discard mechanisms which white doesn't. By that logic and and a given aggro-control continuoum that I layed out beforehand white color should be somewhat faster then black. But that doesn't seem to be the case. In fact: goryo's vengenance breaks the pattern of speed: when combined with right cards it makes an explosively fast deck and there is no instance of white cards or combos able to do the same except for puresteel paladin combo recently. Also, equipment storm deck was never able to kill on turn 1 like grixis reanimator could.
Let's return to blue color and its cantrips. Looking at the aggro continuoum: red is the fastest (aggro), blue should be the slowest (control), so if white is in the middle it should be tempo. But that is not the case. Tempo is usually associated with cantrips that belong to blue color. I argue that blue color simbolicaly stole the cantrips from white color. White color should be filled with one mana cantrips and not the blue color. I guess this is a remnant of the past when color paradigm was made at the inception of the game. This is way in modern mainboards there is na overpresence of blue cantrips and consequently blue color in certain decks in general and also underpresence of white color.
Except a few white planeswalkers, white color lacks emblamatic win conditions. Red has bolt, green has tarmogoyf, blue has snapcaster mage, black is a bit dispersed (sahdow, gurmag, griselbrand). On a side note, Black had powerful planeswalkers even before white (Liliana of the veil, liliana, the last hope. Path to exile is emblamatic but is not a win condition.
I articulated the problem, so I must offer a solution as well. Here are my suggestions and food for thought for:
1.To gradually introduce to modern play cheap (one mana) white cantrips.
2.Cheap single-target instant removals akin to Path to exile, Fatal push, Doomblade should be added to white color cardpool.
3.An introduction of small white creatures that are very troublesome under certain conditions.
4.Mana acceleration could be added to white color but in a weaker form than the one that green possess. Paying life for gaining mana could be added as activated ability to a specific white creature.
5.There is no need of looking at paying life for drawing cards as a necromantic or demonic deed (Griselbrand, Yawgmoth's bargain, Dark confidant, Phyrexian Arena). Sacrificing life to gain valuable insight can be a noble thing.
6.Angels and all the divine folk can be lofty and untroubled in their skies but one can say that their retribution is final and they easily become judgemental. That can be used as a mechanism and a flavor and a mechanism. If an opponent somehow damages the white player (reduces his or hers life total, destroys his creature, makes him or her discard cards), there are white cards that make swift and even greater damage back.
7.Following the divine theme, modern white card pool could be enchanced by some uncounterable cards.
Some of the examples I suggest.
Small disruptive creatures are its 'thing'. White Weenie, and all that. Death and Taxes being the premier 'white' deck of the format, while its hate options are the strongest is about right.
Spirits
I'd say white is the very best supporting color.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
but that sideboard is exactly that: sideboard...it's not mainboard. That's what makes it a best supporting colour (you're right SmauG) but not enough
powerful in its own right. And I find that not problematic, just unfair and sad.
White wheenie is a premier modern white deck but it wins occasionally. I don't think white color ever had a deck that was feared or
loathed because of its power level in modern. Same goes for Death and Taxes. Death and Taxes are basically sideboard cards thrown into mainboard
so to properly build a white prison you have to anticipate what others are playing (the metagame). Burn was a thing! Goryo's reanimator could kill on turn 1! Jund was so played Wizards had to ban Bloodbraid Elf for several years. Bunch of blue cards are banned in modern because they are over the top: Brainstorm etc.
idSurge, I don't want to blow white colour up (altough I wouldn't mind if it could have its several months of raw overpowered domination in modern) but I do suggest that Wizards print some new powerful white cards for modern. And I don't see a problem if it takes the things and mechanisms outside its colour pie (I did that in the starting post on purpose and knowingly). It's flavorful. White is a colour that contains all the other colours. Hence, it can (or should) do all things that other colours do but not as powerfully as other colours altough they can or should be powerful enough in white to be played in modern. If green can have lifegaining effects but not as powerful as white why white would have a one or two cards in modern for mana acceleration. If black can discard opponent's hand why white wouldn't be able to exile a card or two.
Also, I suggest a completely new mechanism for white colour and that is: to be able to cast cards from any zone in the game. An instant or sorcery or whatever that allows you to cast a cards that was exiled either by you or your opponent and put it onto battlefield under your control if it is a permanent card or just cast it if it's a sorcery or instant.
Pull from Eternity? I know it’s not quite what you specified, but in spirit...
Anyway, Path to Exile really is a thing. And if you want to power up W, maybe try unbanning Stoneforge Mystic.
Death and Taxes is a thing, and it is a white deck.
Humans is 5 Colour, but it is the white, and Gold with White, that make it strong.
UW Control.
UWR Control or Tempo.
UW Spirits.
There is no need for white to break out of pie (and yes your suggestions are) when they can function inside of it with cards they have.
Spirits
White has a strong presence in modern imo. Yeah it's sideboard, but every white deck has white mainboard stuff. I agree that path is a beast of a card.
Imo thalia, guardian of thraben is the perfect white card for this strat. She's legendary so you can't load up, but she slows the game down and rumbles in combat very well. On the flip side vryn wingmare isn't even touched. That 1 extra cmc is huge in a format as fast as modern. You run thout risk of critical mass though. The deck could very quickly devolve into something not fun if it was redundant enough.
Spirits
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
There are so many key Green creatures, especially once you splash...
Spirits
I had a copy in Word so I put it into the second post which is now first.
I don't think, green has any issues in modern. Primeval Titan, Sakura tribe-elder, Garruk Rellentless, Scapeshift, Utopia Sprawl, Tarmogoyf, Arbor Elf, Birds of Paradise, Scavenging ooze, Ancient Stirrings, Eternal Witness, Garruk Wildspeaker, Collected Company, Wild Nacatl, Beast Within, Courser of Kruphix, Search for Tommorow, Farseek, Experiment One, Rancor, Glistening Elf, Gladecover Scout....
As for win condition. Entreat the Angels is going to be decent, now that Jace is unbanned.
And on personal experience.. I'm enjoying the use of Sun Titan, Gideon of the Trials, Flickerwisp, Elspeth, and Blade Splicer in my Emeria deck.
Stony Silence is also an amazing sideboard card.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/modern/full/all
By diving into further statistics, WotC has requested multiple times that people detain from doing that in legal form.
You won't get what you're looking for unless WotC/Hasbro has a change of heart.
White is a defensive color.
Like blue, you don't have a direct win condition with white, but you're supporting your win condition or prevent your opponent to have their.
Cards like rest in peace, eidolon of rethoric, path to exile, wrath, thalia, stony silence, runed halo etc...
And theese card are not only sideboard cards.
Plus, white color is too a support color, with very powerfull colors to support the main color of your deck, white give many tempo and boosts like intangible virtue, secure the waste, lingering souls, blade splicer etc...
The white color is a value defensive color, every white cards generate value, the goal of theese cards is to make 2 for 1 or even more like timely renforcement, secure the waste, wrath, restoration angel (this card can be a kill too ). Combined with blue it's even more insane, verdict, sphinx revelation etc...
So imo even is white is not a main modern color with kills or mandatory cards, it's a very good color to play with, with the purpose to generate value, tempo, and support for your main color. Kinda like blue.
What kills with blue deck is never the blue color alone, but powerfull cards supported by blue color (bolt, tasigur, shadow, tarmo etc...).
The only exception is the U/W color who use two defensive colors with the goal of making value of each cards to exhausts your opponent and then kill with colonnade/snap/angel/batterskull/or 1/1 token from secure the waste
White color is about:
- small creatures (mostly)
- negation strategies, taxing the opponent,
- best sideboard hate
- life gain effects
- providing greater value with a single card
- if there are any other, please add them
This we have concluded togeter in this discussion.
So here is my problem with white color in modern:
- small creatures make a wheenie deck but they usually don't appear in any other type of deck
- creatures that do taxes and negate the opponent are usually in the sideboard but if they are in the mainboard then they usually appear only in death and taxes archetype and not anywhere else
What I'm saying with this is that white creatures like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Leonin Arbiter are exclusive creatures, creatures around which you cannot build various decks, creatures that don't spin your head with the question:"Oh, my God, the possibilities that can be done with this creature." I compare them to creatures like Delver and Tarmogoyf because Delver of Secrets doesn't have just one single blue deck that plays it. This card is so inclusive! You can have a UR Grixis, Jeskai or Temur Delver. They are all tempo decks built to utilize it. It is a flagship of tempo decks. Take Tarmogoyf for example. People think about what colours to add to green to make most use of Tarmogoyf or can their build be better if they splash green for Tarmogoyf. With Thalia all you have is a continuoum of "death&taxes to wheenie" strategies. WHAT I'M SAYING IS THAT WHITE COLOR LACKS A COLOR-FRIENDLY CREATURE AROUND WHICH somehow different colored decks or archtypes could be created.
To move on, white color is the one that revolves around life gaining strategies but there aren't powerful life-gaining strategies. Soul-sisters is a modern deck but I don't think it was ever Tier 1 and it is especially not so now. Modern is becoming faster meaning that decks can reduce opponent's life total even faster than before and more often so. That means that life's value has decreased so old methods of gaining life lost value. If GAIINING LIFE LOST POWER, then WHITE COLOR IN GENERAL LOST POWER, too. One would say that black's and green's ability to gain life lost power too but less so then in white and I believe black and green got more love recently than white.
To remedy this, I suggest that Wizards print new white cards for gaining life that would be viable in modern and would both improve Soul-sisters strategies and also make players want splash white to other archtypes more often because of these effects.
Green color has recently gained a lot of creatures that provide more value like:
- Ramunap Excavator
- Wayward Swordtooth
- Tireless Tracker
and it received Collected Company that re-enabled Birthing Pod decks and enabled Bant Spirits e.g. and many others.
This means that GREEN TOOK A PIECE OF "COLOR-PIE" FROM THE WHITE COLOR.
Black recently got Fatal Push which is direct hit to white color and its Path to Exile because they are both equal in CMC and roughly equal in power. For years black had other single-target-destroy-creature which I mentioned in previous posts. That made black color more versatile than white but white had the best single-target removal. Now, even that is debatable. With Fatal Push being printed, Wizards pushed PtE to the edge.
To showcase how life is not even that important, and is certainly less important then time (meaning card draw advantage for example), player's often exchange life for some other benefit. Fetchlands and shocklands absolutely prove this. Then there is phyrexian mana to prove the point. Black color's flavor is about exchanging life for card advantage: Dark Confidant and aa....Phyrexian Arena and.....Painful Truths and many others.
At this point I have to comment spoilers of new set: Dominaria.
These are my suggestions to Wizards:
- white colour needs at least one single creature emblamatic for white colour around which many different colours and strategies could be made. Green has tarmogoyf, black has death shadow, blue has snapcaster and delver. White has none. Thalia is too narrow.
- more powerfull life-gaining cards and exile cards
- new flavors and themes and mechanics that would be associated mostly with white colour
Forecast is an excellent mechanic that could be made powerful in modern if the forecast cost would be 3CMC and lower and forecast effect modern relevant.
Also, if black colour can use life so "disrespectfuly" to gain card advantage or any other advantage then white could take an opposite approach. By preserving the life, it gains some kind of advantage. That's the flavor and the mechanic could be: "If you have more life than target opponent"....you can draw extra cards or get free creature tokens or something else.
Anyways, I really hope Wizards will show more love for white color.
I guess I don’t really see the issue, but I’m not against stronger white cards being printed, as long as they’re reasonable. I don’t think Wizards should print white cards that are outside white’s color pie, unless colors outside their color pie is a theme of a set.
EDIT: I also think a SFM unban is reasonable as long as they ban batterskull.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Spirits
Green only good cards are either multicolored or it's tarmogoyf. Green used to be played back when Pod was a thing, sadly it got hit by a perma ban.
White doesnt need more in its' color pie. It just needs better cards. I'm not going to compare it to green but I do think you had a point in comparing it to black. I think black has clearly got more going on and that's not cool. I dont like how black has Liliana at 3 but there's nothing to compare for white at 3 cmc.
Back to the big picture - white is a good place to have symmetric effects. Maybe a re-balanced version of big Elspeth's wrath effect could be put as the middle ability on a 1WW Elspeth PW? That would be flavorful, give white better game against Liliana, and with the right win condition it would satisfy your wish for a build-around card.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Apotheosis is here to encourage life-gaining strategies that can be present in Abzan and Selesnya CoCo Chord decks. I see there is a tendency to remove black from coco chord shell and to make it just about walking balista dealing damage to opponent. Life-gaining element is not needed any more and Murderous Redcap was probably t0o expensive. Altough I like the speed and novelty in new iterations I don't want old flavours to go out of play.
Vile Vampirism was inspired by cards like Defiant Bloodlord and Sanguine Bond and Vizkopa Guildmage. All are great cards but cannot be used in modern because their CMC is too high (or sth else). So I decided to make a 1mana black instant that copies those effects for a turn only. The play around this card is to make decks that can gain sufficient bursts of life to snuff out the opponent with this kind a spell. Let's make Soul Sisters a bit faster and edgy. Imagine this with lets say Life goes on. It fits into Abzan Coco Chord as well instead of redcap. Small army of lifelinking craetures can be quite dangerous all of a sudden.
Celestial Imposition - Well it's basically an anti-cantrip for opponents. If WotC don't want to print 1mana white cantrips howabout a spell that prevents opponents from getting extra cards. This works even agains draw step.
Impose Temporal Limits - A card that buys time by taking away opponent's time or to be precise it's turn.
Forgotten Ideas - basically a white Goryo's Vengeance for instants and sorceries. I wanted to provide white colour with a powerfull card that revolves around graveyards. What would you do if you could cast any instant or sorcery from your graveyard but you pay only 2 mana?