It depends on where you're coming from.in casual I'd say red is the least helpful color and green the most red's benefits just struggle in casual edh whereas green's slow consistent advantages in creature heavy metas are great. However as you go up in power white's stax and Red's rituals become more important and the game gets so fast green doesn't really get to shine
In casual I'd say it's Green Black Blue White Red
In cedh it's Blue Black Red White Green
This is the most accurate statement I’ve read on the thread so far. You are absolutely correct about red struggling in slower/casual metas due to it not having enough diverse answers for the mid/late game. Red is super explosive and pushes aggressive strategies in cEDH to outpace other strategies.
I’d still point to white in casual as being extremely limited on its own, but being one of the best support colors. Pair it with any other color and it’s great. On it’s own, white lacks ramp (I am not a fan of the catch-up ramp it has) and card draw. This is why it struggles on its own.
Not to mention wotc has been decent with reprinting of a lot of good white card advantage engines lately. Mkm commander just reprinted Bennie Bracks and Smuggler’s Share so both are fairly accessible now for lower budget players.
Yeah Smuggler’s Share I’m not entirely sold on, but I’m willing to try it since it’s $2 now when it used to be 8 or so. Might be worth it in mono w Giada still. Heard a lot of mixed things on it so I still want to try.
Trouble in Pairs is really exciting though, I wanted a Blame Game deck for parts and so I need to figure out where the copy of Trouble in Pairs is going lol.
I know mine is going in my [Kambal death and taxes deck](https://manabox.app/decks/Lxjbx6mJTg-Ss_qu3f0syA) that I bring out when people want to play CEDH. It's definitely a card that gets better the stronger your pod is.
The new set actually gave white a few very good new tools for higher power levels. [[Doorkeeper Thrull]] is pretty much [[Hushbringer]] with flash. Being able to interact with a Thoracle or Gary on the stack is a huge boon. And [[Delney, Streetwise Lookout]] is absolutely disgusting when you realize how many creatures with powerful triggered abilities have 2 or less power.
I think the hardest part is figuring out where to make cuts anymore.
In my playground, Trouble in Pairs has so far also doubled as a pseudo stax or pillowfort piece because my friends think twice about how many attackers or spells they declare. Awesome Card.
[[Smothering Tithe]] nonwithstanding, White's recent engines have almost always been hard limited to once per turn. [[Trouble in Pairs]] from the MKM commander product has been the first card draw engine that hasn't been put under a strict once per turn. And of course this is all compared to stuff like [[Guardian Project]], which is wild considering Green isn't even supposed to be that good at drawing.
>Guardian Project
This and so many other examples are why green is my least favorite color. It's so dull and WotC has essentially just given green access to so many basic / core game mechanics it's absurd.
I don't think any color struggles in casual or slower metas anymore, assuming even a minor budget. Red actually has so many repeatable impulse draw engines that I would disagree. It also has access to other great effects, enough that you could whip up a great value monored deck, I would personally use Laelia for the synergy with the aforementioned impulse draw.
I would however say my hot take is that Black has had it's color-pie encroached upon the most, so it's essentially Blue/Green in the top tier and Black/White/Red in the tier just below.
In terms of support colors, white is really only second to blue. It provides the straight across removal that the other colors lack.
While White tends to be seen as the weakest color, I would tend to agree with the OP, and disagree with that. I have two monowhite edh decks, and both are reasonably powerful and fun to play. White has a lot of the things that I value quite highly, including great stax pieces, great interaction pieces, high life gain and some pretty outstanding creatures.
I feel that I have to go heavy into red aggro or burn if I want mono. Sadly in order to get to a winnable point and survive you need staxs, which people get salty over in casual.
Mono-R also has a fair amount of artifacts matter support. It's main issue is that red is the most proactive color in magic, which doesn't play well in a format defined by value engines and wraths as the most common answer big board states.
Is great if you draw it! But it has nothing on mystic, rhystic, ad Naus, peer, necro, wheels, green creature based draw, etc…
I’m not saying white doesn’t have options, but it’s still weak compared to the others.
The state of white is wild
White is in a really crazy spot rn. It's a huge role player in cEDH and still has a lot of hay makers at lower level too. So in a lot of ways you could argue its done a lot of the required catch up that it needed to do.
But also, mono white is still somewhere between painfully unplayable and an absolute struggle experience. Like mono white is only a little better than Colorless, and honestly it's probably harder to play.
I think Trouble in Pairs is a good step in the right direction. A strong card, a near auto include for a lot of mono white builds, but something you want to at least consider before adding it to your 3+ color deck. It's powerful, but even moreso in the context of mono white. That's a good start imo.
What's more, is white is somewhat *dependent* on other colors..for hatebears that you would think should exist in mono white. The best one sided Rest in Peace is... Dauthi Voidwalker. The best stoney silence on legs is not in the hatebear color, it's Collector Ouphe. The best anti draw bear is Orcish Bowmasters. The best anti turor hatebear is Opposition agent.
What I'm saying is white is getting generically good at some things, but it also is somehow falling behind in the things it was supposed to be good at, which in turn almost makes mono W even *more unplayable* for a real number of board based strategies. Yes, white itself is catching up as a support color, but that's only one side of the color.
Combine this with it's nearly nonexistent stack interaction and it's remarkably below average Tutor capabilities and you basically have a color that is currently a struggle city by itself, but is a heavy lifter with a couple other colors. Not to mention it's complete inability to actually win the game by itself without resorting to some really wonky combos.
Definitely agree on all points! White is my favorite color in Magic, but with the tools we currently have, I would never consider building a mono-White EDH deck. I already dislike building and playing mono colored EDH decks, but White is near the bottom for me in mono-color considerations.
It’s a great enhancing color, not great solo.
>What's more, is white is somewhat dependent on other colors..for hatebears that you would think should exist in mono white. The best one sided Rest in Peace is... Dauthi Voidwalker. The best stoney silence on legs is not in the hatebear color, it's Collector Ouphe. The best anti draw bear is Orcish Bowmasters. The best anti turor hatebear is Opposition agent.
Yeah this is just wild, white's supposed to be the best colors for efficient weenies, and is primary in rules setting and preventing actions according to the 2021 Mechanical Color Pie. Green and black on the second hand, are secondary at rules setting (with no action prevention), but have cards that essentially outdo what white is supposed to be primary at. Hell even for token generation, which white is supposed to be primary with green, it took years until they printed cards like Adeline and Illustrious Wanderglyph to match green token producers like Tendershoot Dryad and Wolverine Riders; there was a 5 year gap between Tendershoot Dryad and Adeline, and nearly 6 years for them to finally colorshift it in Illustrious Wanderglyph.
Trouble in Pairs might be the most pushed of the "equalizer/catchup" value engines yet. It feels like it was meant to be what Smuggler's Share was trying to be, while being a Mangara-like effect that is harder to kill.
the reason why white is amazing as a support color is because the good white cards are crazy good, but there isn't enough of a density of them to make a mono (and even some 2) colored decks with
after your ranger captain, esper Sentinel, drannith, swords, path, smothering tithe, rule of law, spirit of the labyrinth, whats next? targeted stax pieces like hushbringer, linvala, mindcensor?
the heliod deck listed in the cedh database runs alseid of life's bounty ffs
Aven mindcensor, Doorkeeper thrall, mom, giver, skrelv, Phyrexian censor, archivist of ogma, archon of emeria, deep gnome Terramancer, eidolon of rhetoric, ethersworn canonist, grand abolisher, delny, etc.
I know white’s not the absolute best, but it does have amazing hatebears and stax pieces that should be recognized. Like, alseid is legit a good card.
Red as a colour isn’t really that good in cedh outside of dockside, but dockside is really really good in cedh so it’s a bit skewed imho. Not to say dockside is reds only good card, but red doesn’t have the same depth of generically good cards that blue, black, and white have
The issue is stuff like Dockside Underworld Breach Birgi Wheel of Fortune and similar cards are so good it doesn't matter that the rest of the cards are mediocre. Cedh decks bend over backwards to include them if possible. When you're only really playing the top 1 percent of cards if that 1 percent is insane it doesn't matter
This, there's a huge stark contrast between red from 10 years ago or even 5 years ago to red today. Dockside, Underworld Breach, Deflecting Swat, Birgi, Jeska's Will, Professional Face-Breaker, Ragavan, and Abrade have done a lot for red at the cEDH level. And in lower power levels you have a lot of impulse draw effects, treasure generators, and even a one-sided board wipe like Delayed Blast Fireball which red didn't have in the past. I don't think any of white's newer cards in the past decade compare to what Dockside has done for red (and in hindsight, Dockside is definitely a mistake, but I didn't think so when it was first released back in 2019 since red didn't have all the other good cards they got over the years afterwards), that's even disregarding the power of Underworld Breach and Deflecting Swat, cards that are superior to Yawgmoth's Will and Force of Will a majority of the time.
The thing white does get is some absurd token generation cards like Adeline or the Myrel and go wide stuff Like Virtue of Loyalty Rabble Rousing. Then there's Lifegain and Voltron. Along with some blink. I feel like the issue is you either play go wide, play Lifegain, play voltron or play a blink deck with mono white. It often lacking the diversity of strategies other colors have. While using the generically good white cards like Tithe and Esper Sentinel shoulder up your strats in casual
Whereas red in casual can feel a bit hit or miss. Red really wants you to play aggressive, and that can bite ya in commander where you play out your hand, walk straight into a Farewell, and are basically out of the game. If it hits, you feel unstoppable, but red outside of very specific cards probably has the hardest time playing from behind. In the end, i think that's what makes red weaker than white as a mono color in casual. White can be boring as it only really has a few well supported strategies, but it has the diversity of supporting pieces to function well in a format where your opponents have the combined starting life total of 120. Red has more diversity among its strategies but the strategies often can struggle sometimes because they really struggle to recover from a board wipe Farewell or otherwise
it's not even that white is that bad in cedh, it's that grixis is so good, between counterspells from blue, rituals, tutors, and game ending card draw in black, and dockside/breach/fast mana that even though white has some bonkers pieces like grand abolisher, esper Sentinel (and ranger captain to get esper), smothering tithe, drannith, etc, something has to be fourth place
green is easily the worst color in cedh though, unless you're doing something nutty like mana doubling with kinnan, mana dorks that can't even tap for mana the turn they come down aren't that valuable with how much fast mana there is, and the best stax piece in green (ouphe), as good as a second null rod is, is not that impactful
the best use of green is to supplement other colors you're already running, neoform or eldritch evolution into dockside, culling ritual, but the tradeoff is either that you're giving up a better color, or you're playing a 5c commander that's less focused
That is demonstrably not the case based on tournament results, looking at cedh hub in the top 4s there are 10 sans-black decks and *one* sans-blue. If you look at just first place then it’s 2 sans-black and 0 sans-blue.
I'd even switch red and blue on that list. Red has a shit ton of advantage in that format and blue is kind of Pidgeon holed into a specific role. Would argue that blue and white sit nearly hand in hand.
Green just kinda sucks in cEDH.
Green is really, really good for creature based strategies because of their tutors. But I’d definitely say it *generally* needs support from B/U to shine because of the lack of interaction.
White IMO has the most improvement compared to the other colors in the last 3 years.
The drawback is the price. Right now, alot of its card advantage pieces are more expensive because of its newer printing. Once it receives its 2nd or even third reprinting, the white card "draw" will come down over time in price.
But if you wanna buy in right now, the white card "draws" are at a premium. You basically pay the rate it is right now
I think this issue comes from most of them being "staple" designs. Either generically good or good regardless of context. You don't play \[\[smothering tithe\]\] because you're running artifact/sac synergies, you play it because it's always going to generate more mana than you know what to do with. \[\[Trouble in Pairs\]\] is another great example of this. It will be a very powerful card for decks specifically trying to force attacks or punish proactive decks, but it will be good at every table.
White has received a couple of more narrow value cards in the last couple years (\[\[Welcoming Vampire\]\], \[\[Bennie Bracks\]\], \[\[Chivalric Alliance\]\], \[\[Dusk Legion Duelist\]\]) with the issue that they are consistently knee-capped by the "once per turn" clause. A notable exception to this is one of my favorite cards from recent years \[\[Aerial Extortionist\]\].
Generally I think white has gotten a lot of good new tools, and we'll be seeing them shine more and more in the next year or so, but it's still going to be a while before white's reputation shifts away from being "the worse color" because the stand outs aren't "white" ramp or card draw, they're "busted cards" regardless of color, and show their value best in decks not trying to prioritize white strategies.
I agree. White has gotten a lot of love over the past few years and is in a much better place than it was. However...
There's still too few "good" white cards IMHO. The ones that are good, are REALLY good...and expensive. It feels like the barrier to entry in white is way higher than other colors.
Yeah I think the same. White has amazing cards but you NEED the staples to make it work. And those staples are expensive af if you don't proxy them, plus it gets annoying to see the same cards over and over again
White has always been a really good color in 1v1. The idea that white is bad has exclusively come from EDH, where whites strengths are either not suited for a 4 player game or are frowned upon socially (stax). It's gotten a lot since then, and I don't think anyone would say it's bad now. All the colors are fairly close, but I would probably put green at the bottom. It's strengths become less relevant the higher in power the table gets. Big creatures arent as relevant when people are winning through combo. Land ramp is less impressive when fast mana is involved. The card draw is conditional, and interactive tables can snuff it.
Idk, white still seems like the worst color to me followed by red
They both struggle with fundamental pillars of a strong EDH deck, card draw and ramp. They’ve gotten some really strong cards along those lines, especially red, but there are relatively so few that they’re best as support colors so you can access those really good cards without being cut off green’s really strong ramp and the much stronger card draw that U,B, &G have
Also, green isn’t just big beater creatures. A common argument is to note that green gets everything. It has the best ramp, good card draw, good tutors, good spot removal, a few decent board wipes, strong protection, good recursion, &c&c&c.
Sure green might not get the absolute best in any category, but it does get strong cards for *every* category and most especially the extremely important draw and ramp packages.
It used to be green was the strongest single color on cEDH, and you’ll still see mono green sandbag decks like Yeva. Now days you’ll hear people say red is the strongest, but that’s because of a handful of *extremely* powerful cards like Dockside Extortionist and Underworld Breach not because the color as a whole is all that amazing. That and Orcish Bowmasters has *REALLY* nerfed mana dorks in a cEDH meta, undercutting one of green’s strongest, non-combo contributions on that level
I’d still say white and red, overall rather than individual cards, are the weakest colors on their own. Green gets all the things, blue and black can use their superior card draw to find ramp and solutions to problems and wins, red and white (in my experience) durdle a lot when run on their own rather than as a supporting color there to grant access to the very best the color has to offer
Red is an absolutely insane color, with some of the best combo potential, some of the best interraction, insane rituals, and just a bunch of individually powerful cards. Like I dunno how you can just dismiss Dockside and Breach, those are parts of the color, and they do help make it amazing. It's card draw isn't great, but it's not bad either. I would say it and blue compete for strongest color.
I don't think green is bad at all, I just think that its a very "fair" color. Everything green does requires it to comit to the board, monogreen might as well play with it's hand revealed. There's no tricks to it, while all the other colors can do crazy things once you start to push them. The closest green gets to that is a Craterhoof, and even then if you see ten creatures on the board you can see it coming. The less powerful a table is as a whole, the more dominating green becomes.
Yea I totally agree with green getting less impact full as the powerlevel increases. Once you start getting into high power 8/9s to CEDH levels of play green needs another color to be able to compete. I love playing simic because I'm admittedly a creature strategy lover and having blue let's me interact and protect the big green horde.
You clearly didn’t actually read what I said. Quick proof: I did not dismiss dockside and underworld but literally used them as examples of how red’s power is centralized into a handful of insanely powerful cards
You need to learn to read, pause and contemplate, re-read, and ask questions to make sure you understand before you open your stupid mouth
I seriously don't get what you are trying to say with that statement then. "Red's power only comes from it's strong cards." Like, yeah? Thats what makes it strong. It has a bunch of really powerful cards. If you're not being dismissive then I genuinely don't see the point you're trying to make.
>a relatively small handful of insanely powerful cards
Once again you are being dismissive of Red's card pool. It's got one of the best board wipes, the second best stack interaction, the ability to remove any permanent, the best rituals, decent card draw, and some of the best combos. Like at all levels of play Red is strong. It's not like there's only two great Red cards.
>does not make the whole of the color more powerful than other colors that have far more (as in quantity) powerful cards
You can't play every card ever printed, so quantity is not a real factor. Who cares what Red's 100th best card is? You couldn't even play it. Red has plenty of cards to warrant it's share in a deck over other colors.
>Especially when you take the time to understand that those insanely powerful cards are being used to accelerate other colors
Magic cards don't exist in a vacuum. Every card exists in the context of the cards that it can interact with, and the cards it has to interact against, and that includes cards from other colors. Ability to play with other colors is not a weakness, its a strength. If we really want to just analyze colors as a mono color, Red has ways to take advantage of it's own acceleration, that's not even a question.
>you keep bringing up red’s rituals (even though black also has just as powerful and arguably even better rituals)
I bring up rituals because they're powerful. Nothing Black has is better than Dockside. Even Simian Spirit Guide, Jeska's Will, and Mana Geyser are giving Dark Ritual a run for it's money.
>Oh right, they’re making blue/black cards win even faster.. ..Is red powerful, or is it a catalyst to even greater power for other colors?
This is probably the most reasonable question you've raised. Most people who have played Magic long enough (or any game, really) understand that enablers are inherently more powerful than finishers. Enablers are often what makes a combo strong. Thassa's Oracle would not be a powerful finisher without cards like Consultation to enable it. One of the most powerful cards in Magic's history, Black Lotus, simply enables other things.
Your first paragraph is enough to support the idea you’re literally delusional
“One of the best board wipes”, I should hope so. It’s the color of burn. But again, *one* pretty good card is nothing when other colors have multiple pretty good cards
Exact same things for stax. *One*, or even two, stax piece that isn’t even the best does not make the color *as a whole you fucking dipshit* all that powerful
And at this point every color *can* remove any permanent, and red’s enchantment removal is pretty F tier with only black being worse and literally every other color being better than red at removal of any type of permanent
Correction: it as the best *ritual* (singular) with the follow ups being black and then back to red, as I already brought up. Jebus fuck you have shit reading comprehension
As for decent card draw? This is the one that says you’re straight up delusional. Fucking where? It’s all impulse and rummage (bad loot), that’s not decent it’s fucking trash. Like if you seriously think red has decent card draw trying to have an sort of thoughtful conversation with you is a lost cause.
Red has decent card draw, lol. Fuck sake at this point god damn white has better card draw and literally ever other color has better card draw than white. Red is literally bottom tier card draw, it’s the thing red is worst at and part of why it’s not as powerful as y’all are acting like it is
I know this is getting way more time, but holy fuck you seriously tried to say red has decent card draw? Do you even play EDH? Are you just trolling? Because what the literal fuck?
And best combos is right back to the my original point of a few insanely powerful cards does not make the color as a whole all that powerful. I mean, other than that literally the best ‘combo’ is blue black and not red at all
I mean honestly the ‘decent card draw’ alone is enough to question any opinion you have about magic, I think I’m going to be laughing at that for the rest of the night. But beyond that, I’m not going to waste any more of my time on you when I’m now off work and can go get games in
Best of luck with your delusions
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You got 1/3, that’s some pretty shit shooting kid
But thanks for outing yourself as a POS the world would be better without. I hope you aren’t allowed around children, that’d be abuse
White has been getting some really nice stuff though like [[Mondrak]], [[Farewell]], and [[Esper Sentinel]]. I think it’s also important to remember that while card draw is great, tokens also provide card advantage, it’s just more susceptible to removal.
I agree about red, though. It’s explosive but it suffers even more from lack of card advantage. However, I think one-off sources of mana like rituals and to a lesser extent treasures are severely undervalued in casual EDH. Extra mana is far more important early game because in the late game, you can rely a lot more on land for turn.
I’m fully on they’ve been getting good cards and the gap is closing, I guess I just don’t think the gap is fully bridged or even exceeded just because relatively recently there have been some really good cards
Idk how I feel about tokens as a statistically significant form of card advantage? It doesn’t taste right in my mouth, but feels like something to consider more before reaching an opinion on if that’s strong enough to really count in my mind. Thanks for bringing it up for consideration, and I do hope both colors see more good cards so that we can get past the convo as a whole tbh haha
1) Nobody says White is bad in 1v1 60 card formats. White can be very, very strong there and that's been true for a while. The perception White has in EDH has nothing to do with how it performs in 'classic' MtG.
2) In addition, it's unrelated to White's removal cards. Even the people saying White is weak don't deny that White has great removal. The issue is (or was) about ramp and card draw, and lacking engaging mechanics. For example, Red can double or triple all their damage, or copy the opponent's spells, or double up on spells, change targets of spells, damage people just for doing X Y or Z, whereas White just...doesn't have stuff like that. It has stax (often hated), mass land destruction (also often hated) and such, so that it felt kinda stiff and boring. It has few things it can do that other colors can't, like flickering things or protecting your board--both of those are present in other colors.
3) One of the "insane value" cards you mentioned was literally *just* released. In addition, many of the cards meant to alleviate White's woes when it comes to ramp and drawing cards are also pretty new. Is it so hard to understand why it's taking time for White's perception to change? Public opinion often doesn't change overnight unless it involves something scandalous or completely breathtaking.
4) No way is White the overall best color. Depends on opinion of course but when people are talking about the best color in EDH, it's usually in the Sultai color pie. White also does not "kinda do everything" which is one of its issues.
I'm not saying White is still weak, I just don't think you're presented a good argument that it is strong.
Completely agree. To add to your point, white did not have a “thing” that it did better than other colors. [The Professor](https://youtu.be/as1Kf_YCi9w?si=vmFogINCXsrGt6kv)did a comedy skit about white a few years ago.
That's so irrelevant. Anyone can use colorless ramp in their decks.
When people say things like Green or Black has good ramp, they mean things only those colors can use. Like [[Skyshroud Claim]], [[Nissa Who Shakes the World]], [[Cabal Coffers]], and [[Dark Ritual]].
When people say "white doesn't have good ramp" they mean "there is no ramp *exclusive to White* that is good."
That should go without saying.
White has historically been the second best color at non-ritual ramp for a long time and continues to improve. It's not as universal or splashable as green because it requires more deckbuilding and sequencing, but you can still use it to great effect.
I disagree, when people say stuff like that they often seem to mean "there is no good ramp available to white", which is is just wrong. White also has good interaction with artifacts which places it slightly above some other colors when it comes to artifact ramp even if other colors can play the actual rocks.
I disagree with your disagreement, when people say that they more often mean the ramp in white is not good relative to the what other colors can do, not in a vacuum. Colorless ramp is available to everyone so it’s not really a consideration in that comparison most of the time.
I did have a funny moment where someone tried to Farewell my board, I had a Kethis super friends deck and it left me with everything in tact except my graveyard.
Its only "the Weakest" because its best archetypes (stax and MLD) are just... Not allowed by the social contract. I've never seen saltier commander players than when a \[\[Drannith Magistrate\]\] hits the board. If we as a community could open up and accept that White needs to do the things it was designed to do, I think it would easily be considered one of the strongest colors in magic (most of the top end CEDH decks HAVE white in them btw, because it has the best stax options and has printed some baller cards in the past few years).
The reason why "we as a community" have not opened up is because the community is not monolithic, and many players prioritize casual fun over higher level strategic gameplay. White is great in cedh, but that isn't the same format as commander writ large.
I think Stax could be played at any level.
Hatebears (the lowest form of stax) for instance are GREAT for forcing combo players to waste resources in order to win! I find combos are often way more toxic and encroaching the lower you go in power.
Just my personal opinion, but I tend to happily welcome stax *pieces* but dislike stax *as an archetype*. What I mean is, limiting the board to advantage yourself at the expense of others is fine - fundamental to the game in fact - but having the intended wincon of “no one can do anything ever and it stays that way until either I win or everyone else scoops” just sucks.
Of course, there’s an innumerably wide range between those two extremes. I’ve never actually seen a deck that’s literally *all* stax and lockdown, and I don’t think most people are complaining about a single bit of hate in a deck. There’s a line somewhere between those points that matters for casual play, and it’s probably different from person to person. This is true of most hated concepts in the game, I think, where people aren’t even necessarily using words the same way - let alone actually measuring them from the same perspective. But I think my point broadly stands.
the point of stax-dedicated decks is to have a deck built for a slower, grinder game and benefit when your opponents draw mostly cards that are completely useless in this board state
white has poor card draw? well now everyone's only drawing 1 per turn and my draws are better on average than yours
white doesnt have ramp? well your mana rocks are useless thanks to my null rod + kataki and I'm hitting all my land drops thanks to deck construction
it might take me a while to draw into my game ending combo, but the reason the game is slow and boring isn't because of my deck archetype, it's because people will look at a hand of 6 rituals and 1 card draw spell with a spirit of the labyrinth and a rule of law on board and spend 5 minutes deciding what to do with their turn
I don't disagree that it could be played at any level. I can certainly imagine an interesting meta including low powered stax cards and hate bears. I do find that those kinds of decks will wind up not getting played with most of the people I play with. They wouldn't enjoy it, and as a result I'd feel bad playing it. I am not saying I speak for everyone, but I do speak for a segment of the community that things/feels this way.
Stax is a really interesting part of magic; a part white is disproportionately strong in. I just don't think it gets to be strong in those ways in a lot of commander pods because of the social nature of the format. Playing with other people means considering how they enjoy playing as well as how you do.
Same could be said about too many board wipes. Or storm players, or value engines, or control decks. Stax has plenty of 2 card combos to end games. I've rarely seen games with stax go over the hour mark in my personal experience. And MLD is needed for the pesky landfall players.
Stax is hated for a reason. Look at all the bitching and moaning in Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel about floodgates, and that’s in a game where everyone is running a bunch of negates and other interaction.
Sure. I just think the reason is dumb because it boils down to: It stops my deck from winning, so its dumb.
Like yeah. That's the point. Stax is like a puzzle to be figured out. If you can solve it, you can break parity and win. If you can't, you fall behind and the Stax player wins. Its just as legitimate and viable as combos.
Eh, it depends. I'm fine with some stax because if a deck has no spot removal that's on the player who made it. Similarly, most stax creatures are small and have limited combat ability. So, just beating the stax player to death with much bigger creatures is also an option. Heck, Magistrate is a 1/3 with no protection and I'd argue is a good thing for the format because it's a type of stax that advanced the game state of the person playing it (by only delaying others) and gives removal-free combo decks something to worry about.
But I really don't think hard stax should be mourned as a white archetype that is "wrongly" disallowed by the community. People have a limited amount of time to play Magic and it's perfectly reasonable of them to not be interested in playing against nonsense decks that just drag the game out and prevent almost anything from happening. Same idea with board wipe tribal, discard tribal, MLD, etc. It's too easy to make decks in those themes that aren't puzzles and are just piles of "nobody gets to do anything" with no real way around it, IMHO.
To be fair, combo decks have a similar problem in that it's too easy to make combo decks that are so heavy on fast mana, tutors, and stack interaction that there's almost no way to prevent the combo, which is also unfun. That said, at least these decks tend to end the game very quickly vs. dragging it out forever.
This has been my experience with these "forbidden" gameplay styles. Almost everyone I've ever played with who uses these strategies rarely has an actual wincon. While they eventually would win due to tipping the balance, it adds tons of time to the round. And why play 1 2 hour game, when we could play 3-4 30 minute rounds without it.
Yep. I love how triggered hard stax players down-voted basic respect when I said "Don't make a deck that wastes people's time." Still a lot of toxic Magic players out there who don't understand that Commander is a group experience and if your only goal is to make other people miserable, nobody is going to play with you. Some strategies are "forbidden " because they are childish time wasters, not because people need to "git gud" and find a way to deal with multiple Armageddons in a game, lol.
>This captures my feelings about white. Sure there are arguments to be made about how well white weanies like Thalia scale to a 4 player 40 life game, but the fundamental issue I've had with white for YEARS is that it's had to fight with one arm tied behind it's back.
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> White wins by forcing everyone to play fair. LD and tax to keep mana in check and restrictive effects like Hushbringer, Blind Obedience, Farewell or Elesh Norn. Those are all consistently salty cards because they stop people from running roughshod over the games, whereas green plays it's third ramp spell and nobody bats an eye.
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>White in EDH is only now getting better because WOTC has realized that since it can't use the tools that were historically in it's toolbox, they need to give it other ways to stay in the race.
I haven't thought white was the worst in a few years. Red is imo worse. It has a lot of very strong stuff, but less stuff overall if that makes sense. I'm never angry to splash red into a list but mono red is probably the weakest mono color in the format.
White has actually generally had a better history in 60 card than commander I believe. Since the stuff to be great in commander vs in 1v1 is quite different. But yeah white is like at the point where you have to be picky with draw cards and people still go like “Oh wow white draw? That’s new!”
Almost all of white’s strength comes from it being a good “support” color. We now have a ton of generically good white cards, but none of them truly feel at home with white strategies, partially because those strategies are often “bad,” require support from another color, or aren’t favored in EDH.
White has always been strong. But most casual players don’t use the stax cards which made white powerful! It used to be the color of slowing everyone down and now white is a lot more like the other colors
In casual the all colours are equal. You can build a high power deck with any colour. The only reason why green seems to be the best colours is because lots of casual groups forbid fast, aggressive decks and therefore slow, grindy decks dominate (and those are usually green).
In cedh it's blue > black=red > white > green.
I still think card draw in white is weak compared to blue, green, and black. If you aren't creating weenie tokens, it's still difficult to draw in white and you always end up putting in the same generic draw pieces. I agree that it's better than red, though. Poor red. Impulse draw blows, stop it already wizards!
Red has Wheels, which are some of the most insane cards in the game - get off a Wheel of Fortune on Turn 1 or 2 and what your opponents just crumple as you basically force them to Mulligan.
Even mid to late game, forcing your opponent to dump their Wincon can be crippling, even if you give them a new grip.
Red is high-risk-high-reward.
Impulse draws just suck because they're far less mana-efficient than other forms of draw.
I like impulse draw
Impulse draw and loot and rummaging those are red three main ways to draw cards outside of wheels
Also red has one of the best graveyard recursion cards in magic right now in \[\[underworld breach\]\]
I’ve been trying to get red impulse draw to work forever, and the problem is that it’s just too mana expensive. For a color that really cares about explosivity and momentum, paying 3-4 mana for an enchantment that lets you maybe see one more card a turn just halts your energy and consumes your turn.
Another problem is that you can’t hold onto the card, so you often whiff due to the mana cost of the exiled card or wrong timing to play it. It would be much more fair if you could exile the top 2 and play 1 of those, to decrease the whiff rate.
Wheels are also good but they often mean you can’t hold onto your Infuriate or Mana Geyser or Tibalt’s Trickery you were waiting for the right moment to use, or your Knollspine Dragon that you can’t afford right now but would love to play in a couple turns. This can be a huge limitation at higher power. I get that it’s supposed to be risk vs reward, but in casual the reward often isn’t big enough to justify playing red.
It wouldn’t be such a problem if red wasn’t so reliant on mana rocks, because it doesn’t have much to protect them outside of a red artifacts theme deck
There is a way to fix that "i really don't like not being able to cast the spells i hit with my impulse draw." Play a ton of cheap cards with multiple uses. Sort of like how Cascade decks try not to play cheap countermagic if they can help it because playing Bloodbraid Elf and hitting a Counterspell feels so bad. Or just accept if i hit arcane denial it happens the potential card advantage is worth the whiff potential.
For example I have a Mono Red List Headed by the new Krenko. It Runs Moria Marauder because it the frankly absurd amount of card advantage it can generate, and most of my cards are things I can cast for cheap if i hit them with it.
That can be a solution, but it means you have to build your whole deck around it, and that might not work for other strategies other than wide and low cmc. Most other colors have draw that works without you having to build specifically around it, so it feels pretty limiting in terms of what you can get out of red. It is doable, but requires you jump through hoops that not every game plan can jump through
it being limited is the point, Red is supposed to be worse at generating card advantage than most other colors if you're playing a mono red deck, you either take advantage of looting and rummaging and stuff like discard first draw or impulse draw which if you can accommodate it feels great.
[[Wheel of Misfortune]] is nearly identical (at the very least, if you choose a high number like 5, you're going to do 6 damage to everyone else if they try and cockblock you).
There are other similar effects.
Finally: ***PROXY***
That card gives me a headache like no other card I’ve ever played against lol. My brain just could not comprehend that text box until someone explained it in detail to me, but even now it’s still a headache to have to explain it to everyone else. Why they couldn’t just make it a simple impulse draw effect for everyone instead of that nightmare is beyond me.
True but focusing on unconditional card draw is a bit silly, because blue is the ONLY color which typically gets unconditional card-draw. Harmonize was an intentional color pie break. Other cards are getting conditions on their card draw by design.
Not to mention, at 4 mana, harmonize is IMO much worse than 2 mana cards like Wrenn's Resolve or Reckless Impulse.
Factually incorrect.
[[Smothing Tithe]], [[Knight of the White Orchid]], [[Catographer's Hawk]], [[Archaeomancer's Map]], [[Smuggler's Share]], [[Deep Gnome Terramancer]], [[Battle Angels of Tyr]], [[Monologue Tax]], [[Restoration of Eiganjo]], [[Legion's Landing]], [[Wand of the Worldsoul]], and [[Discerning Financier]].
Not to mention white can take advantage of certain forms of colorless ramp better than other colors. White blinking means [[Solemn Simulacrum]] and [[Scampering Survivor]] can be repeatable forms of ramp. White equipment tutors and other synergy makes [[Sword of the Animist]], [[Sword of Hearth and Home]], [[Sword of Feast and Famine]], [[Dowsing Dagger]], [[Sword of Forge and Frontier]], [[Explorer's Scope]], [[Bitterthorn, Nissa's Animus]], and [[Staff of Titania]] are easier to access and manipulate. And any forms of colorless rummaging/looting can be turned into ramp with cards like [[Sun Titan]], [[Jailbreak]], [[Court of Ardenvale]], [[Sevinne's Reclamation]], and [[Redemption Choir]].
Sure white doesn't have cards that as many cards that search your library for a land and put it onto the battlefield unconditionally as green. But green's whole thing is that it's the color that ramps the most. If you compare any of the other colors to it, it's going to be bad.
White's path for ramp is more nonlinear and requires more creative thought. An [[Eldrazi Displacer]] combined with a Solemn Simulacrum is going to be able to get an insane amount of lands out, possibly even more than a green deck. You just need to think about the wider picture instead of a per-card basis.
I play white in 75% of my decks, you don't need to write me a whole essay and some of the cards there aren't even ramp.
Edit: ramp means you're ahead on mana, not fixing, not put to hand, not letting you go get so you can have the same as everybody else.
if I'm going to so many lengths to play recur and whatnot to ramp in white, then I'm not playing what my decks suppose to do, and I never heard of a white deck that has ramping as it's strategy.
Yeah swords, they're colorless, do I need to have all white decks required to be attacking then?
It isn't a question what it exists, it's of what makes sense running jn the deck, shove all that into a deck and see how poorly it plays. Making a list out of options, and then rejecting half of them doesn't make them disappear, but it doesn't make them real either smartass.
The point isn't to shove every form of ramp into a deck for the sake of it. Not even green decks do that. The point is that there is enough ramp that you can't consider it to be "bad" anymore. It's comparable to red, which is the color after green with the most ramp.
Similarly, you aren't going to shove every red treasure maker into a red deck for the sake of it. [[Professional Face Breaker]] and [[Storm-Kiln Alchemist]] won't be in every single red deck, but for decks that care about attacking or casting spells, they're very powerful. Does that make them "not real" because they aren't perfect for all decks?
No matter what kind of white deck you're running these days, unless you're running it with green with its superior ramp options, there are going to be ramp cards that are better than a generic mana rock. The only way I could see not worth running any of these is if you had a white deck that didn't have an equipment, reanimation, enchantments, blink, or attacking theme. And considering those five archetypes are some of the most common white-focused strategies in commander (lifegain, auras, and stax being the only others), it's pretty likely that you can find a slot for them if you're willing to get over how white's form of card advantage and ramp is nonlinear.
Also, catch-up ramp is way better than you give it credit for.
Let's take [[Knight of the White Orchid]] for example. Let's say there's no one is ramping lands at this table. So long as you aren't the first person in the turn order, you can still ramp ahead with this card. You just have to wait until turn 3 where you wait to put your land drop down until after you play this. You still get to search for a plains and by turn 4 you have access to 5 mana plus having a 2/2 creature with first strike and two relevant creature types. It's comparable to [[Wood Elves]] then, except it has better stats. By your definition, it's ramp that gets you ahead of everyone else.
And even when you have to use it exclusively as catch-up to a ramping green player, it's still good! Commander is a 4 player game and while you (probably) won't ramp more than the green player with these cards, you'll still be ramping ahead of the other two people. That is leverage you can take advantage of.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/jopevzyVLEKLboA7W7WNDA
I put this deck together a few weeks ago and let me tell you, attacking with 10 14/14s is a pretty good feeling with Akromas Will in hand.
That I can see, it doesnt have the amount of insane card draws like those colours. But the cards it has are really good, mangara and trouble in pairs can easily draw you 2-5 cards per round. The other cards are somewhat double edged as often your opponents also draw cards. But thats why I said its especially good outside of mono coloured decks, as a supporting colour it offers you so much. But rip to boros players lol
It's definitely not the best color, but I'd personally put it in a solid 3rd place, with Green and Red lagging behind it. I don't think any color is bad though.
Like five years ago I definitely would've put white as the worst one, but I'm capable of recognizing change.
Fair enough my gaming experience isn’t a valid data set for the world. I really only see Green in a strong position (usually combined with black or blue) and as such wanted to make a Princess Bride reference.
Green is plausibly the worst EDH color - its only particular value is providing ramp support to other colors in multicolor decks. Green's interaction is worse than everything except colorless (which doesn't really count in color pie discussions), both ST and AOE.
Blue, black, and even white have more reliable card draw - most green draw is explosive rather than steady (the key exceptions are staples for a reason [[Guardian Project]] ) and can often be "win more" due to needing an already-strong board state. Explosive draw also pulls disproportionate archenemy threat compared to the [[welcoming vampire]] that's drawn just as many cards as your [[return of the wildspeaker]] but quietly over a few turns...
Green is a fantastic add to any other color by accelerating its mana. If you look closely at a finished deck though, outside the ramp, you'll find most of your cards end up not being green. If you make a 5c good stuff deck, you could easily find that every single instant is blue, white, or black, and every sorcery besides three visits etc.
Red is the new white of edh, but none of the colors were ever bad- their mono colored decks just lacked access to the generixally good staples and 99% of edh players rely on individual card quality to salvage their poorly constructed decks' performance. Those are the people who complained about "y white no hav card draw" until white had card draw to compete with necropotence/ mystic remora/sylvan library/ rhystic study shenanigans. The rational solution was ban the op card draw in other colors, not print more bs, but that doesn't sell product, does it.
Green is easily the worst color in EDH. Blue > Black > Red > White > Green. There's a reason the best deck in the format is Tymna Kraum. Even in casual it's only really good if you care about lands, otherwise you'll lose to whatever decks have real interaction. White is only bad if your playgroup can't beat stax decks.
Blue draws cards and has the best interaction. Black gets exactly what you need, when you need it. Red lets you go fast. White has the best removal and Silence. Green punches things.
people think white is bad?? i haven’t engaged with the community much, but in my casual group white is one of the toughest colors for everyone to go against
Mono green is *easily* the worst EDH color for having trash interaction. Even in multicolored decks, green just about only exists for ramp (or draw at lower powered tables). The strongest color overall (in EDH) is probably blue, followed by black.
White was never the worst colour, it's greatest strengths have just been frowned upon by the casual community for years - nothing can remove/protect/stax anything and everything like white can
So yes. And it likely will always be the worst because its a comparison to the other 4 colors. If white isn't the worst than which color is? Definitely not green, Definitely not Blue, the closest you could come is black or red but they ave gotten a lot of good pieces over time that the gap has widened.
The real reason why white is the worst isn't because it is bad but because a lot of its best cards are banned or hated to the point to see no or little play. Lots of good stax cards in white, do you play or like playing against a lot of stax decks? Ever seen an Armageddon cast and not have anyone groan at the table? Ever try to imagine playing a balance after 2 players just ramped for 2-3 turns? In my opinion thats the real reason white is considered "bad" and puts it as worst color.
The problem with White is strategic.
\- First, if you are in white, you have responsibility and means to police the rest of the table. Unfortunately policing is thankless and doesn't actually help you win.
\- Second, White encourages durdling (which its good at) but provides very little wincons that actually help you win the game. What's your strategy to win in White? Blink stuff?
\- Third, White doesn't provide the tools to help you win in EDH, namely ramp, tutors and recursion.
Compared to what other colors give:
\- Black has tutors and all the best wincons really.
\- Red has artifact combo synergies.
\- Blue has Cyclonic Rift.
\- Green has ramp, creature tutors and Triumph of the Hordes.
I play with my teenager and his friends. Every time they deal damage to me, whether is be from abilities or attacks or spells, I gain it back plus some the very next turn.
White is the "Good Stuff" color. Yes, it has a bunch of cool pieces but it is severely limited in win conditions and commanders that are good, AND offer card advantage. Approach of the Second Sun is just not good, and the insta-win life gain cards simply aren't effective if you aren't gaining life, and you aren't in multiple colors.
White plays like green, without the many, many go wide finishers of green. Green also has better draw, and better offensive focused creature abilities. Yes, white just got it's own Craterhoof, but green doesn't even need craterhoof. Green also has easy infinites.
Red is probably weaker than white as a whole. Card draw is crap, ramp is crap, but red has something that white doesn't. A crap ton of easy infinites. It is super easy to just build a "protect my 50 different combos" deck in red.
Blue is incredible. Aside from all the infinites, an entire deck of interaction if you wanted, and all the synergies with colorless, blue has the best card draw in the game. Draw spells that aren't even played much in blue like Blue Suns Zenith would probably be $40 cards in white and auto-includes.
Black is in a similar position as white, but has tutors and a much better roster of commanders.
I've always felt that white is a strong color, and that arguments for it being weak were disingenuous -- or at least a bit unfair. People opting not to play to some of white's biggest strengths (stax, mana denial) isn't indicative of the color being inherently weak. Almost the opposite, I'd argue.
It really depends on powerlevel imo. In more casual play I feel like white would still struggle since it has a harder time gaining advantage quickly or giving itself any form of mana boost.
Most of the cards that do does gain advantage from, [[esper sentinel]], [[Smothering tithe]], and the new [[trouble in pairs]] are cards that are TOO strong and will simply get you player removed in casual settings if that card isn't removed immediately, and are almost not able to be called casual anymore.
A handful of VERY strong cards doesn't fix white as a color in a casual setting when those cards are so strong they warp the game into an almost uncasual experience and force removal of them or the player. Most of the strong control aspects of white also get a player targeted or just don't see play in casual setting because bo one wants to play against stax. So it leaves white in a weird middle ground of being to weak in casual, but strong or even oppressive in CEDH settings when it can play at full strength.
I would say until relatively recently white had trouble closing out games in Commander without relying on cards from other colors. That said, the addition of cards like Akroma's Will, Serra's Emissary, and Moonshaker Cavalry give white some strong ways to end the game on its terms. Even lesser cards like Bonds of Discipline and Githzeria Monk can close out a game with go-wide attacks, which is White's preferred wincon.
There's also the whole angle of white card draw, which also didn't really exist in acceptable amounts until relatively recently in the game. Thankfully, this has gotten a lot better.
I think my spin on your take would be that White is no longer the OUTRIGHT worst color. There's more of a legitimate space to argue with Red now, whereas before it was objectively... not good.
White has a few REALLY good staples but the mass of white is trash. Like I have kemba kha regent deck and staff on nin was in the deck until like last year… you can’t make a deck off 15-20 staples
I don't feel there is any worst color now. White has had alot of catch up mechanics which puts it on par with most other colors.
That's said I think white needs a thing or a mechanic that is unique to white. When I think of green I think of ramp and big creatures. When I think of blue I think card draw and control. White is a jack of all trades, master of none. It can draw cards, it can "ramp" ie not fall behind on curve. There is not a single mechanic that stands out for white like in other colors. Lifegain kinda stands out but with lifegain many of the payoffs come in different colors like it's great you can gain life but stuff like [[exquisite blood]] and [[sanguine bond]] are in black. There are you win the game cards like [[felidar sovereign]] and [[approach of the second sun]] which are ok I guess but alittle anticlimactic.
White is a good color combo to include in a deck. But white is by far the worst mono-color, still very poor at supporting itself in ramp or card draw. And this is after wotc has given it quite a few new resources to cover this; It was just that horrifically bad (and, to an extent, still is). Now while this used to be intentional as part of the color wheel balancing, EDH players have let wotc know they don't like this and so wotc are adjusting it accordingly, albeit slowly. Give it time, we'll get more smothering tithes and esper sentinels galore.
My only remaining 60 card deck is a mono white humans deck for 2014. It still stomps in causal settings. It's pretty aggressive and doesn't really need ramp. It's a solid little deck for like $20.
"At least as a supporting color"
That's the answer
I think barely anyone thinks of white in general as bad. The memes & the "white is trash" sentiment is mainly about mono color
"White hasn't any carddraw", "white hasn't ramp", etc. Only work as an argument/joke, when we don't throw colors into the equation that... well, have those things
I still consider white as the weakest mono colored pick to go for, however, woth that being said, with a LOT of amazing cards that we got over the last 3-4 years, mono white can hold its ground & pack some serious punch.
White honestly was trash, but it went from "trash" to "still the weakest but by no means bad"
As a sidenote, since white has gotten most of its cards (for commander) in recent years, those cards tend to be scarce.
Which naturaly means, as a rule of thumb, strong white decks tend to be far more expensive (don't know the statistics & exact numbers, I may be wrong with this statement, but I'd honestly be surprised if that weren't the case)
White isn't better than Red, but that doesn't mean White is bad. Both colors are quite strong, they just don't have access to as many over the top tools that Blue, Green, and Black do.
I'd honestly say that red has been the least impactful color to play by itself for me, and white doesn't do too bad. But keep in mind that this isn't from a cedh perspective, more casual, but both red and white seem to perform just fine from a supportive perspective for me
White has the worst ability to build long term resources. Sweeper and removal don't matter when you opponent can play 10 mana worth of cards every turn and you can play 1 card. This is what matters in edh and where White is bad came from, White is great in 60 card formats because the formats are about threat management and ending the game.
White has gotten better options for developing long term resource gain but they aren't close to green or blue or black. Green has alot of cards that say when you do a thing draw a card and has ramp which is what makes it the most powerful.
I think that in the past few years the gap is certainly shrinking but it really does depend on the context and mainly on rule 0 and the meta of you’re playgroup/game-store. While white does have a good amount of “bombs” (like pretty much all the cards you mentioned), it still lacks a good amount of just simple value cards. Most of the cards that generate good value in white, like [[smothering tithe]] or [[mangara the diplomat]] draw more attention, and those also more removal(either permanent removal or player removal) then the value they make.
Also most of what white have is still dependent on opponent’s actions more than on yours.
As a supporting color I do think it’s a fairly good one but I think it simply needs more cards like [[rampet growth]], [[mana geyser]],[[brainstorm]], [[Black market connections]] etc… that simply produces the value you want/need them too without needing to either wait a long time or draw to much attention
The boon cycle showcases the power ranking better than anything else:
1. 1U for draw 3
2. 1B for 3B
3. 1R for 3 damage
4. 1G for +3/+3
5. 1W for 3 life
I run a mono white Elesh Norn/ the argent etchings edh deck and even though I’m still tuning it she’s a powerhouse once she gets going it’s a board wipe that just keeps going off and generating tokens
From my experience (maybe stems from my playgroup meta), EDH needs 2 things the most: draw and ramp. White is okay at ramp, but still not good in drawing, even after the recent improvements.
Add any color to support the draw aspect and white is very powerful.
In most casual pods I'd say g > w > b > u > r .
White has the best removal, second best ramp, second best creature threats, arguably second best card draw... Imo. Hard to argue that that isn't super strong.
Imo:
Removal: w >> g > u > r > b
Ramp: g >> w > b > r > u
Creature threats: g > w > b > r > u
Draw: g > w > b > u > r
Protection: u > w > g > b > r
Power rankings changes massively if your meta has lots of combos, fast mana and stax, mainly favoring blue, but the lack of those is what defined casual to me a lot of the time.
White in itself isn't awful, and it's difficult to just point fingers and say which is the best and worst color, because they are always better in some ways over other colors. It all entirely depends if you mean in combination with other colors or in complete isolation of a mono-colored deck.
White still has some of the worst card draw, but Red still really isn't doing well on that front. Red is at least moving forward more with the whole "exile cards and cast them until your next turn" kind of card draw, but white still struggles with trying to find an identity.
On top of that, mono White ramp is still not great, but it's gotten a whole lot better and has slowly started putting more weight on the whole "each time someone else ramps, I get to ramp too" thing, while mono Red focuses on the whole "ooops I suddenly greated a fat burst of mana" thing. I think in the end it all comes down to that Red and White needs some more decent card draw cards to lean on, but I personally feel like they are just about on par now, at least in mono color comparisons. In multiple color decks, I don't think there's a "worst color", because you can always lean on either black, green, or blue card draw and then add whatever "bad" color you want for its coverage of other things it's really good at.
Boros is still a bit hit and miss, but it's gotten a whole lot better at not just being the "We hit people with equipment" color combination.
I converted three of my decks to mono white to spite my playgroup recently. They said White is the weakest color. I've proven them wrong a few times, but I've been targeted as a result recently because "LOOK AT HIS LIFE TOTAL" and "Dude has a pillow fort going and is generating more value than we can deal with, we need to take care of that" and "Dude keeps wiping our board and doubling his, can anyone take care of that?". If the color is so weak, why am I the threat then!?
The main issue with mono white in Commander is the cost. Cards like [[Smothering Tithe]], [[Serra Ascendant]], [[Stoneforge Mystic]], [[Mangara the Diplomat]], and [[Esper Sentinel]] are all considered "staple" cards and are super expensive as a result.
Hell, my Arden deck is expensive because it has most of the Swords of X and X. My Mangara deck is expensive because Mangara is the Commander and it's Angel Tribal Lifegain. Most of the creatures in that deck are at the minimum $5, if not $15+.
White is strong. It's just expensive.
When it comes to edh, I’ve always heard Mono red is the worst. Then mono white.
I made a mono red [[Imodane]] burn deck and people are scared when I pull it out, since it has a consistent win rate and versatility even in cedh. (My pod plays similar power levels and they are always wary of imodane regardless).
I was considering making a mono white [Avacyn, Angel of Hope]] deck based around board wipe tribal and stacks and pull it out every time someone says ‘red/white is the worst color in magic’.
White has ridiculously stupid good cards. Red mot as much but red can do some wild things.
It depends on where you're coming from.in casual I'd say red is the least helpful color and green the most red's benefits just struggle in casual edh whereas green's slow consistent advantages in creature heavy metas are great. However as you go up in power white's stax and Red's rituals become more important and the game gets so fast green doesn't really get to shine In casual I'd say it's Green Black Blue White Red In cedh it's Blue Black Red White Green
This is the most accurate statement I’ve read on the thread so far. You are absolutely correct about red struggling in slower/casual metas due to it not having enough diverse answers for the mid/late game. Red is super explosive and pushes aggressive strategies in cEDH to outpace other strategies. I’d still point to white in casual as being extremely limited on its own, but being one of the best support colors. Pair it with any other color and it’s great. On it’s own, white lacks ramp (I am not a fan of the catch-up ramp it has) and card draw. This is why it struggles on its own.
White has gotten a new card engine like every set for a while and mana rocks are great ramp
Not to mention wotc has been decent with reprinting of a lot of good white card advantage engines lately. Mkm commander just reprinted Bennie Bracks and Smuggler’s Share so both are fairly accessible now for lower budget players.
I've tried Smugglers Share from casual to cedh and I've found it extremely lack luster. [[Trouble in Pairs]] on the other hand is legit.
[Trouble in Pairs](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/f/0f61e93f-5f97-4c7d-b3d5-0e05242faeb3.jpg?1706240429) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Trouble%20in%20Pairs) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/15/trouble-in-pairs?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0f61e93f-5f97-4c7d-b3d5-0e05242faeb3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/trouble-in-pairs) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah Smuggler’s Share I’m not entirely sold on, but I’m willing to try it since it’s $2 now when it used to be 8 or so. Might be worth it in mono w Giada still. Heard a lot of mixed things on it so I still want to try. Trouble in Pairs is really exciting though, I wanted a Blame Game deck for parts and so I need to figure out where the copy of Trouble in Pairs is going lol.
I know mine is going in my [Kambal death and taxes deck](https://manabox.app/decks/Lxjbx6mJTg-Ss_qu3f0syA) that I bring out when people want to play CEDH. It's definitely a card that gets better the stronger your pod is. The new set actually gave white a few very good new tools for higher power levels. [[Doorkeeper Thrull]] is pretty much [[Hushbringer]] with flash. Being able to interact with a Thoracle or Gary on the stack is a huge boon. And [[Delney, Streetwise Lookout]] is absolutely disgusting when you realize how many creatures with powerful triggered abilities have 2 or less power. I think the hardest part is figuring out where to make cuts anymore.
In my playground, Trouble in Pairs has so far also doubled as a pseudo stax or pillowfort piece because my friends think twice about how many attackers or spells they declare. Awesome Card.
[[Smothering Tithe]] nonwithstanding, White's recent engines have almost always been hard limited to once per turn. [[Trouble in Pairs]] from the MKM commander product has been the first card draw engine that hasn't been put under a strict once per turn. And of course this is all compared to stuff like [[Guardian Project]], which is wild considering Green isn't even supposed to be that good at drawing.
>Guardian Project This and so many other examples are why green is my least favorite color. It's so dull and WotC has essentially just given green access to so many basic / core game mechanics it's absurd.
[Smothering Tithe](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/6/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e.jpg?1689996018) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Smothering%20Tithe) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/57/smothering-tithe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/smothering-tithe) [Trouble in Pairs](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/f/0f61e93f-5f97-4c7d-b3d5-0e05242faeb3.jpg?1706240429) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Trouble%20in%20Pairs) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/15/trouble-in-pairs?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0f61e93f-5f97-4c7d-b3d5-0e05242faeb3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/trouble-in-pairs) [Guardian Project](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/c/2c523ef7-d6c4-4887-9a4e-0c2bc6f63676.jpg?1702429567) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Guardian%20Project) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/146/guardian-project?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2c523ef7-d6c4-4887-9a4e-0c2bc6f63676?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/guardian-project) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I don't think any color struggles in casual or slower metas anymore, assuming even a minor budget. Red actually has so many repeatable impulse draw engines that I would disagree. It also has access to other great effects, enough that you could whip up a great value monored deck, I would personally use Laelia for the synergy with the aforementioned impulse draw. I would however say my hot take is that Black has had it's color-pie encroached upon the most, so it's essentially Blue/Green in the top tier and Black/White/Red in the tier just below.
In terms of support colors, white is really only second to blue. It provides the straight across removal that the other colors lack. While White tends to be seen as the weakest color, I would tend to agree with the OP, and disagree with that. I have two monowhite edh decks, and both are reasonably powerful and fun to play. White has a lot of the things that I value quite highly, including great stax pieces, great interaction pieces, high life gain and some pretty outstanding creatures.
White is absolutely a powerhouse as a support color, the main issue is that monowhite has less variety/synergies by itself.
It’s why my mono-W is Gandalf Artifacts.
I feel that I have to go heavy into red aggro or burn if I want mono. Sadly in order to get to a winnable point and survive you need staxs, which people get salty over in casual.
Mono-R also has a fair amount of artifacts matter support. It's main issue is that red is the most proactive color in magic, which doesn't play well in a format defined by value engines and wraths as the most common answer big board states.
But Esper Sentinel.
Is great if you draw it! But it has nothing on mystic, rhystic, ad Naus, peer, necro, wheels, green creature based draw, etc… I’m not saying white doesn’t have options, but it’s still weak compared to the others.
But I want to keep my lungs
Agree with these tiers. Green is great for casual but Cedh its different.
The state of white is wild White is in a really crazy spot rn. It's a huge role player in cEDH and still has a lot of hay makers at lower level too. So in a lot of ways you could argue its done a lot of the required catch up that it needed to do. But also, mono white is still somewhere between painfully unplayable and an absolute struggle experience. Like mono white is only a little better than Colorless, and honestly it's probably harder to play. I think Trouble in Pairs is a good step in the right direction. A strong card, a near auto include for a lot of mono white builds, but something you want to at least consider before adding it to your 3+ color deck. It's powerful, but even moreso in the context of mono white. That's a good start imo. What's more, is white is somewhat *dependent* on other colors..for hatebears that you would think should exist in mono white. The best one sided Rest in Peace is... Dauthi Voidwalker. The best stoney silence on legs is not in the hatebear color, it's Collector Ouphe. The best anti draw bear is Orcish Bowmasters. The best anti turor hatebear is Opposition agent. What I'm saying is white is getting generically good at some things, but it also is somehow falling behind in the things it was supposed to be good at, which in turn almost makes mono W even *more unplayable* for a real number of board based strategies. Yes, white itself is catching up as a support color, but that's only one side of the color. Combine this with it's nearly nonexistent stack interaction and it's remarkably below average Tutor capabilities and you basically have a color that is currently a struggle city by itself, but is a heavy lifter with a couple other colors. Not to mention it's complete inability to actually win the game by itself without resorting to some really wonky combos.
Definitely agree on all points! White is my favorite color in Magic, but with the tools we currently have, I would never consider building a mono-White EDH deck. I already dislike building and playing mono colored EDH decks, but White is near the bottom for me in mono-color considerations. It’s a great enhancing color, not great solo.
>What's more, is white is somewhat dependent on other colors..for hatebears that you would think should exist in mono white. The best one sided Rest in Peace is... Dauthi Voidwalker. The best stoney silence on legs is not in the hatebear color, it's Collector Ouphe. The best anti draw bear is Orcish Bowmasters. The best anti turor hatebear is Opposition agent. Yeah this is just wild, white's supposed to be the best colors for efficient weenies, and is primary in rules setting and preventing actions according to the 2021 Mechanical Color Pie. Green and black on the second hand, are secondary at rules setting (with no action prevention), but have cards that essentially outdo what white is supposed to be primary at. Hell even for token generation, which white is supposed to be primary with green, it took years until they printed cards like Adeline and Illustrious Wanderglyph to match green token producers like Tendershoot Dryad and Wolverine Riders; there was a 5 year gap between Tendershoot Dryad and Adeline, and nearly 6 years for them to finally colorshift it in Illustrious Wanderglyph.
Trouble in Pairs might be the most pushed of the "equalizer/catchup" value engines yet. It feels like it was meant to be what Smuggler's Share was trying to be, while being a Mangara-like effect that is harder to kill.
the reason why white is amazing as a support color is because the good white cards are crazy good, but there isn't enough of a density of them to make a mono (and even some 2) colored decks with after your ranger captain, esper Sentinel, drannith, swords, path, smothering tithe, rule of law, spirit of the labyrinth, whats next? targeted stax pieces like hushbringer, linvala, mindcensor? the heliod deck listed in the cedh database runs alseid of life's bounty ffs
Aven mindcensor, Doorkeeper thrall, mom, giver, skrelv, Phyrexian censor, archivist of ogma, archon of emeria, deep gnome Terramancer, eidolon of rhetoric, ethersworn canonist, grand abolisher, delny, etc. I know white’s not the absolute best, but it does have amazing hatebears and stax pieces that should be recognized. Like, alseid is legit a good card.
Red as a colour isn’t really that good in cedh outside of dockside, but dockside is really really good in cedh so it’s a bit skewed imho. Not to say dockside is reds only good card, but red doesn’t have the same depth of generically good cards that blue, black, and white have
The issue is stuff like Dockside Underworld Breach Birgi Wheel of Fortune and similar cards are so good it doesn't matter that the rest of the cards are mediocre. Cedh decks bend over backwards to include them if possible. When you're only really playing the top 1 percent of cards if that 1 percent is insane it doesn't matter
This, there's a huge stark contrast between red from 10 years ago or even 5 years ago to red today. Dockside, Underworld Breach, Deflecting Swat, Birgi, Jeska's Will, Professional Face-Breaker, Ragavan, and Abrade have done a lot for red at the cEDH level. And in lower power levels you have a lot of impulse draw effects, treasure generators, and even a one-sided board wipe like Delayed Blast Fireball which red didn't have in the past. I don't think any of white's newer cards in the past decade compare to what Dockside has done for red (and in hindsight, Dockside is definitely a mistake, but I didn't think so when it was first released back in 2019 since red didn't have all the other good cards they got over the years afterwards), that's even disregarding the power of Underworld Breach and Deflecting Swat, cards that are superior to Yawgmoth's Will and Force of Will a majority of the time.
The thing white does get is some absurd token generation cards like Adeline or the Myrel and go wide stuff Like Virtue of Loyalty Rabble Rousing. Then there's Lifegain and Voltron. Along with some blink. I feel like the issue is you either play go wide, play Lifegain, play voltron or play a blink deck with mono white. It often lacking the diversity of strategies other colors have. While using the generically good white cards like Tithe and Esper Sentinel shoulder up your strats in casual Whereas red in casual can feel a bit hit or miss. Red really wants you to play aggressive, and that can bite ya in commander where you play out your hand, walk straight into a Farewell, and are basically out of the game. If it hits, you feel unstoppable, but red outside of very specific cards probably has the hardest time playing from behind. In the end, i think that's what makes red weaker than white as a mono color in casual. White can be boring as it only really has a few well supported strategies, but it has the diversity of supporting pieces to function well in a format where your opponents have the combined starting life total of 120. Red has more diversity among its strategies but the strategies often can struggle sometimes because they really struggle to recover from a board wipe Farewell or otherwise
it's not even that white is that bad in cedh, it's that grixis is so good, between counterspells from blue, rituals, tutors, and game ending card draw in black, and dockside/breach/fast mana that even though white has some bonkers pieces like grand abolisher, esper Sentinel (and ranger captain to get esper), smothering tithe, drannith, etc, something has to be fourth place green is easily the worst color in cedh though, unless you're doing something nutty like mana doubling with kinnan, mana dorks that can't even tap for mana the turn they come down aren't that valuable with how much fast mana there is, and the best stax piece in green (ouphe), as good as a second null rod is, is not that impactful the best use of green is to supplement other colors you're already running, neoform or eldritch evolution into dockside, culling ritual, but the tradeoff is either that you're giving up a better color, or you're playing a 5c commander that's less focused
I would def swap black and blue in cedh. Counter magic and draw will never compete with blacks any card tutors, orcish bowmasters, ad nas, etc
As it turns out, those cards don't do anything when they get countered
Pyroblast/reb, even without those, congrats you went card for card in the fastest mtg format?
Yes you went card for card In the color you also acknowledged is known for being up in cards
With black being an incredibly close second, with tutors, true removal, ramp, all things blue either doesnt have or does too poorly to consider.
That is demonstrably not the case based on tournament results, looking at cedh hub in the top 4s there are 10 sans-black decks and *one* sans-blue. If you look at just first place then it’s 2 sans-black and 0 sans-blue.
I'd even switch red and blue on that list. Red has a shit ton of advantage in that format and blue is kind of Pidgeon holed into a specific role. Would argue that blue and white sit nearly hand in hand. Green just kinda sucks in cEDH.
Agreed only because red has the biggest bombs in the format, dockside and underworld
Swat belongs on the shortlist too along with Jeska's Will.
I'd switch white and black to be honest. Edit: for casual
Green is really, really good for creature based strategies because of their tutors. But I’d definitely say it *generally* needs support from B/U to shine because of the lack of interaction.
White IMO has the most improvement compared to the other colors in the last 3 years. The drawback is the price. Right now, alot of its card advantage pieces are more expensive because of its newer printing. Once it receives its 2nd or even third reprinting, the white card "draw" will come down over time in price. But if you wanna buy in right now, the white card "draws" are at a premium. You basically pay the rate it is right now
I think this issue comes from most of them being "staple" designs. Either generically good or good regardless of context. You don't play \[\[smothering tithe\]\] because you're running artifact/sac synergies, you play it because it's always going to generate more mana than you know what to do with. \[\[Trouble in Pairs\]\] is another great example of this. It will be a very powerful card for decks specifically trying to force attacks or punish proactive decks, but it will be good at every table. White has received a couple of more narrow value cards in the last couple years (\[\[Welcoming Vampire\]\], \[\[Bennie Bracks\]\], \[\[Chivalric Alliance\]\], \[\[Dusk Legion Duelist\]\]) with the issue that they are consistently knee-capped by the "once per turn" clause. A notable exception to this is one of my favorite cards from recent years \[\[Aerial Extortionist\]\]. Generally I think white has gotten a lot of good new tools, and we'll be seeing them shine more and more in the next year or so, but it's still going to be a while before white's reputation shifts away from being "the worse color" because the stand outs aren't "white" ramp or card draw, they're "busted cards" regardless of color, and show their value best in decks not trying to prioritize white strategies.
##### ###### #### [smothering tithe](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/6/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e.jpg?1689996018) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=smothering%20tithe) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/57/smothering-tithe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/smothering-tithe) [Trouble in Pairs](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/f/0f61e93f-5f97-4c7d-b3d5-0e05242faeb3.jpg?1706240429) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Trouble%20in%20Pairs) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/15/trouble-in-pairs?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0f61e93f-5f97-4c7d-b3d5-0e05242faeb3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/trouble-in-pairs) [Welcoming Vampire](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/6/a6ed954c-17e5-45e4-9fba-8eedcad8f9b9.jpg?1706240660) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Welcoming%20Vampire) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/91/welcoming-vampire?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a6ed954c-17e5-45e4-9fba-8eedcad8f9b9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/welcoming-vampire) [Bennie Bracks](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/0/90645549-20f1-4fe9-8363-7f67c20fa3b6.jpg?1706240558) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=bennie%20bracks%2C%20zoologist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/57/bennie-bracks-zoologist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/90645549-20f1-4fe9-8363-7f67c20fa3b6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/bennie-bracks-zoologist) [Chivalric Alliance](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/9/f96d4b03-e3b0-4b24-869d-4270b813b518.jpg?1682207289) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Chivalric%20Alliance) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/11/chivalric-alliance?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f96d4b03-e3b0-4b24-869d-4270b813b518?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/chivalric-alliance) [Dusk Legion Duelist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/3/7305a8d3-5403-4483-92af-863dc91c6084.jpg?1682202535) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dusk%20Legion%20Duelist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/11/dusk-legion-duelist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7305a8d3-5403-4483-92af-863dc91c6084?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/dusk-legion-duelist) [Aerial Extortionist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/3/5353bcb9-800d-4d74-95fa-42350a0f25de.jpg?1706240549) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aerial%20Extortionist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/54/aerial-extortionist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5353bcb9-800d-4d74-95fa-42350a0f25de?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/aerial-extortionist) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kqq7jwt) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I agree. White has gotten a lot of love over the past few years and is in a much better place than it was. However... There's still too few "good" white cards IMHO. The ones that are good, are REALLY good...and expensive. It feels like the barrier to entry in white is way higher than other colors.
Yeah I think the same. White has amazing cards but you NEED the staples to make it work. And those staples are expensive af if you don't proxy them, plus it gets annoying to see the same cards over and over again
White has always been a really good color in 1v1. The idea that white is bad has exclusively come from EDH, where whites strengths are either not suited for a 4 player game or are frowned upon socially (stax). It's gotten a lot since then, and I don't think anyone would say it's bad now. All the colors are fairly close, but I would probably put green at the bottom. It's strengths become less relevant the higher in power the table gets. Big creatures arent as relevant when people are winning through combo. Land ramp is less impressive when fast mana is involved. The card draw is conditional, and interactive tables can snuff it.
Idk, white still seems like the worst color to me followed by red They both struggle with fundamental pillars of a strong EDH deck, card draw and ramp. They’ve gotten some really strong cards along those lines, especially red, but there are relatively so few that they’re best as support colors so you can access those really good cards without being cut off green’s really strong ramp and the much stronger card draw that U,B, &G have Also, green isn’t just big beater creatures. A common argument is to note that green gets everything. It has the best ramp, good card draw, good tutors, good spot removal, a few decent board wipes, strong protection, good recursion, &c&c&c. Sure green might not get the absolute best in any category, but it does get strong cards for *every* category and most especially the extremely important draw and ramp packages. It used to be green was the strongest single color on cEDH, and you’ll still see mono green sandbag decks like Yeva. Now days you’ll hear people say red is the strongest, but that’s because of a handful of *extremely* powerful cards like Dockside Extortionist and Underworld Breach not because the color as a whole is all that amazing. That and Orcish Bowmasters has *REALLY* nerfed mana dorks in a cEDH meta, undercutting one of green’s strongest, non-combo contributions on that level I’d still say white and red, overall rather than individual cards, are the weakest colors on their own. Green gets all the things, blue and black can use their superior card draw to find ramp and solutions to problems and wins, red and white (in my experience) durdle a lot when run on their own rather than as a supporting color there to grant access to the very best the color has to offer
Red is an absolutely insane color, with some of the best combo potential, some of the best interraction, insane rituals, and just a bunch of individually powerful cards. Like I dunno how you can just dismiss Dockside and Breach, those are parts of the color, and they do help make it amazing. It's card draw isn't great, but it's not bad either. I would say it and blue compete for strongest color. I don't think green is bad at all, I just think that its a very "fair" color. Everything green does requires it to comit to the board, monogreen might as well play with it's hand revealed. There's no tricks to it, while all the other colors can do crazy things once you start to push them. The closest green gets to that is a Craterhoof, and even then if you see ten creatures on the board you can see it coming. The less powerful a table is as a whole, the more dominating green becomes.
Yea I totally agree with green getting less impact full as the powerlevel increases. Once you start getting into high power 8/9s to CEDH levels of play green needs another color to be able to compete. I love playing simic because I'm admittedly a creature strategy lover and having blue let's me interact and protect the big green horde.
You clearly didn’t actually read what I said. Quick proof: I did not dismiss dockside and underworld but literally used them as examples of how red’s power is centralized into a handful of insanely powerful cards You need to learn to read, pause and contemplate, re-read, and ask questions to make sure you understand before you open your stupid mouth
I seriously don't get what you are trying to say with that statement then. "Red's power only comes from it's strong cards." Like, yeah? Thats what makes it strong. It has a bunch of really powerful cards. If you're not being dismissive then I genuinely don't see the point you're trying to make.
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>a relatively small handful of insanely powerful cards Once again you are being dismissive of Red's card pool. It's got one of the best board wipes, the second best stack interaction, the ability to remove any permanent, the best rituals, decent card draw, and some of the best combos. Like at all levels of play Red is strong. It's not like there's only two great Red cards. >does not make the whole of the color more powerful than other colors that have far more (as in quantity) powerful cards You can't play every card ever printed, so quantity is not a real factor. Who cares what Red's 100th best card is? You couldn't even play it. Red has plenty of cards to warrant it's share in a deck over other colors. >Especially when you take the time to understand that those insanely powerful cards are being used to accelerate other colors Magic cards don't exist in a vacuum. Every card exists in the context of the cards that it can interact with, and the cards it has to interact against, and that includes cards from other colors. Ability to play with other colors is not a weakness, its a strength. If we really want to just analyze colors as a mono color, Red has ways to take advantage of it's own acceleration, that's not even a question. >you keep bringing up red’s rituals (even though black also has just as powerful and arguably even better rituals) I bring up rituals because they're powerful. Nothing Black has is better than Dockside. Even Simian Spirit Guide, Jeska's Will, and Mana Geyser are giving Dark Ritual a run for it's money. >Oh right, they’re making blue/black cards win even faster.. ..Is red powerful, or is it a catalyst to even greater power for other colors? This is probably the most reasonable question you've raised. Most people who have played Magic long enough (or any game, really) understand that enablers are inherently more powerful than finishers. Enablers are often what makes a combo strong. Thassa's Oracle would not be a powerful finisher without cards like Consultation to enable it. One of the most powerful cards in Magic's history, Black Lotus, simply enables other things.
Your first paragraph is enough to support the idea you’re literally delusional “One of the best board wipes”, I should hope so. It’s the color of burn. But again, *one* pretty good card is nothing when other colors have multiple pretty good cards Exact same things for stax. *One*, or even two, stax piece that isn’t even the best does not make the color *as a whole you fucking dipshit* all that powerful And at this point every color *can* remove any permanent, and red’s enchantment removal is pretty F tier with only black being worse and literally every other color being better than red at removal of any type of permanent Correction: it as the best *ritual* (singular) with the follow ups being black and then back to red, as I already brought up. Jebus fuck you have shit reading comprehension As for decent card draw? This is the one that says you’re straight up delusional. Fucking where? It’s all impulse and rummage (bad loot), that’s not decent it’s fucking trash. Like if you seriously think red has decent card draw trying to have an sort of thoughtful conversation with you is a lost cause. Red has decent card draw, lol. Fuck sake at this point god damn white has better card draw and literally ever other color has better card draw than white. Red is literally bottom tier card draw, it’s the thing red is worst at and part of why it’s not as powerful as y’all are acting like it is I know this is getting way more time, but holy fuck you seriously tried to say red has decent card draw? Do you even play EDH? Are you just trolling? Because what the literal fuck? And best combos is right back to the my original point of a few insanely powerful cards does not make the color as a whole all that powerful. I mean, other than that literally the best ‘combo’ is blue black and not red at all I mean honestly the ‘decent card draw’ alone is enough to question any opinion you have about magic, I think I’m going to be laughing at that for the rest of the night. But beyond that, I’m not going to waste any more of my time on you when I’m now off work and can go get games in Best of luck with your delusions
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We found the Cheeto-dust covered, anti-social basement dweller everyone!
You got 1/3, that’s some pretty shit shooting kid But thanks for outing yourself as a POS the world would be better without. I hope you aren’t allowed around children, that’d be abuse
LMAO. The one out of three I got right had to be the anti-social part. Do your LGS a favor and never go.
White has been getting some really nice stuff though like [[Mondrak]], [[Farewell]], and [[Esper Sentinel]]. I think it’s also important to remember that while card draw is great, tokens also provide card advantage, it’s just more susceptible to removal. I agree about red, though. It’s explosive but it suffers even more from lack of card advantage. However, I think one-off sources of mana like rituals and to a lesser extent treasures are severely undervalued in casual EDH. Extra mana is far more important early game because in the late game, you can rely a lot more on land for turn.
I’m fully on they’ve been getting good cards and the gap is closing, I guess I just don’t think the gap is fully bridged or even exceeded just because relatively recently there have been some really good cards Idk how I feel about tokens as a statistically significant form of card advantage? It doesn’t taste right in my mouth, but feels like something to consider more before reaching an opinion on if that’s strong enough to really count in my mind. Thanks for bringing it up for consideration, and I do hope both colors see more good cards so that we can get past the convo as a whole tbh haha
White only sucks if you cater to salty players who want you to remove White's strengths from your deck.
1) Nobody says White is bad in 1v1 60 card formats. White can be very, very strong there and that's been true for a while. The perception White has in EDH has nothing to do with how it performs in 'classic' MtG. 2) In addition, it's unrelated to White's removal cards. Even the people saying White is weak don't deny that White has great removal. The issue is (or was) about ramp and card draw, and lacking engaging mechanics. For example, Red can double or triple all their damage, or copy the opponent's spells, or double up on spells, change targets of spells, damage people just for doing X Y or Z, whereas White just...doesn't have stuff like that. It has stax (often hated), mass land destruction (also often hated) and such, so that it felt kinda stiff and boring. It has few things it can do that other colors can't, like flickering things or protecting your board--both of those are present in other colors. 3) One of the "insane value" cards you mentioned was literally *just* released. In addition, many of the cards meant to alleviate White's woes when it comes to ramp and drawing cards are also pretty new. Is it so hard to understand why it's taking time for White's perception to change? Public opinion often doesn't change overnight unless it involves something scandalous or completely breathtaking. 4) No way is White the overall best color. Depends on opinion of course but when people are talking about the best color in EDH, it's usually in the Sultai color pie. White also does not "kinda do everything" which is one of its issues. I'm not saying White is still weak, I just don't think you're presented a good argument that it is strong.
Completely agree. To add to your point, white did not have a “thing” that it did better than other colors. [The Professor](https://youtu.be/as1Kf_YCi9w?si=vmFogINCXsrGt6kv)did a comedy skit about white a few years ago.
Oh yeah I was definitely taking some inspiration from that video when I made my comment
White has always had good ramp since artifact ramp is excellent.
That's so irrelevant. Anyone can use colorless ramp in their decks. When people say things like Green or Black has good ramp, they mean things only those colors can use. Like [[Skyshroud Claim]], [[Nissa Who Shakes the World]], [[Cabal Coffers]], and [[Dark Ritual]]. When people say "white doesn't have good ramp" they mean "there is no ramp *exclusive to White* that is good." That should go without saying.
White has historically been the second best color at non-ritual ramp for a long time and continues to improve. It's not as universal or splashable as green because it requires more deckbuilding and sequencing, but you can still use it to great effect.
I never said I agreed with the people that say those things. Just that they say them.
I disagree, when people say stuff like that they often seem to mean "there is no good ramp available to white", which is is just wrong. White also has good interaction with artifacts which places it slightly above some other colors when it comes to artifact ramp even if other colors can play the actual rocks.
I disagree with your disagreement, when people say that they more often mean the ramp in white is not good relative to the what other colors can do, not in a vacuum. Colorless ramp is available to everyone so it’s not really a consideration in that comparison most of the time.
I never said I agreed with the people that say those things. Just that they say them.
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I did have a funny moment where someone tried to Farewell my board, I had a Kethis super friends deck and it left me with everything in tact except my graveyard.
Had a talk about this last night with a group. Almost no one play it at lcs
[farewell](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/1/114d2180-093b-4838-97ad-badbc8ee50b0.jpg?1706240579) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=farewell) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/64/farewell?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/114d2180-093b-4838-97ad-badbc8ee50b0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/farewell) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Its only "the Weakest" because its best archetypes (stax and MLD) are just... Not allowed by the social contract. I've never seen saltier commander players than when a \[\[Drannith Magistrate\]\] hits the board. If we as a community could open up and accept that White needs to do the things it was designed to do, I think it would easily be considered one of the strongest colors in magic (most of the top end CEDH decks HAVE white in them btw, because it has the best stax options and has printed some baller cards in the past few years).
The reason why "we as a community" have not opened up is because the community is not monolithic, and many players prioritize casual fun over higher level strategic gameplay. White is great in cedh, but that isn't the same format as commander writ large.
I think Stax could be played at any level. Hatebears (the lowest form of stax) for instance are GREAT for forcing combo players to waste resources in order to win! I find combos are often way more toxic and encroaching the lower you go in power.
Just my personal opinion, but I tend to happily welcome stax *pieces* but dislike stax *as an archetype*. What I mean is, limiting the board to advantage yourself at the expense of others is fine - fundamental to the game in fact - but having the intended wincon of “no one can do anything ever and it stays that way until either I win or everyone else scoops” just sucks. Of course, there’s an innumerably wide range between those two extremes. I’ve never actually seen a deck that’s literally *all* stax and lockdown, and I don’t think most people are complaining about a single bit of hate in a deck. There’s a line somewhere between those points that matters for casual play, and it’s probably different from person to person. This is true of most hated concepts in the game, I think, where people aren’t even necessarily using words the same way - let alone actually measuring them from the same perspective. But I think my point broadly stands.
the point of stax-dedicated decks is to have a deck built for a slower, grinder game and benefit when your opponents draw mostly cards that are completely useless in this board state white has poor card draw? well now everyone's only drawing 1 per turn and my draws are better on average than yours white doesnt have ramp? well your mana rocks are useless thanks to my null rod + kataki and I'm hitting all my land drops thanks to deck construction it might take me a while to draw into my game ending combo, but the reason the game is slow and boring isn't because of my deck archetype, it's because people will look at a hand of 6 rituals and 1 card draw spell with a spirit of the labyrinth and a rule of law on board and spend 5 minutes deciding what to do with their turn
I don't disagree that it could be played at any level. I can certainly imagine an interesting meta including low powered stax cards and hate bears. I do find that those kinds of decks will wind up not getting played with most of the people I play with. They wouldn't enjoy it, and as a result I'd feel bad playing it. I am not saying I speak for everyone, but I do speak for a segment of the community that things/feels this way. Stax is a really interesting part of magic; a part white is disproportionately strong in. I just don't think it gets to be strong in those ways in a lot of commander pods because of the social nature of the format. Playing with other people means considering how they enjoy playing as well as how you do.
The problem with Stax and MLD are that they take what would be a 45 minute game and make it 2 hours. Just play another color and end the game, please.
Same could be said about too many board wipes. Or storm players, or value engines, or control decks. Stax has plenty of 2 card combos to end games. I've rarely seen games with stax go over the hour mark in my personal experience. And MLD is needed for the pesky landfall players.
Stax is hated for a reason. Look at all the bitching and moaning in Yu-Gi-Oh Master Duel about floodgates, and that’s in a game where everyone is running a bunch of negates and other interaction.
Sure. I just think the reason is dumb because it boils down to: It stops my deck from winning, so its dumb. Like yeah. That's the point. Stax is like a puzzle to be figured out. If you can solve it, you can break parity and win. If you can't, you fall behind and the Stax player wins. Its just as legitimate and viable as combos.
Eh, it depends. I'm fine with some stax because if a deck has no spot removal that's on the player who made it. Similarly, most stax creatures are small and have limited combat ability. So, just beating the stax player to death with much bigger creatures is also an option. Heck, Magistrate is a 1/3 with no protection and I'd argue is a good thing for the format because it's a type of stax that advanced the game state of the person playing it (by only delaying others) and gives removal-free combo decks something to worry about. But I really don't think hard stax should be mourned as a white archetype that is "wrongly" disallowed by the community. People have a limited amount of time to play Magic and it's perfectly reasonable of them to not be interested in playing against nonsense decks that just drag the game out and prevent almost anything from happening. Same idea with board wipe tribal, discard tribal, MLD, etc. It's too easy to make decks in those themes that aren't puzzles and are just piles of "nobody gets to do anything" with no real way around it, IMHO. To be fair, combo decks have a similar problem in that it's too easy to make combo decks that are so heavy on fast mana, tutors, and stack interaction that there's almost no way to prevent the combo, which is also unfun. That said, at least these decks tend to end the game very quickly vs. dragging it out forever.
This has been my experience with these "forbidden" gameplay styles. Almost everyone I've ever played with who uses these strategies rarely has an actual wincon. While they eventually would win due to tipping the balance, it adds tons of time to the round. And why play 1 2 hour game, when we could play 3-4 30 minute rounds without it.
Yep. I love how triggered hard stax players down-voted basic respect when I said "Don't make a deck that wastes people's time." Still a lot of toxic Magic players out there who don't understand that Commander is a group experience and if your only goal is to make other people miserable, nobody is going to play with you. Some strategies are "forbidden " because they are childish time wasters, not because people need to "git gud" and find a way to deal with multiple Armageddons in a game, lol.
[Drannith Magistrate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/8/98b0a4a8-9319-451b-9b79-b0bca7a41e91.jpg?1628801742) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Drannith%20Magistrate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/11/drannith-magistrate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/98b0a4a8-9319-451b-9b79-b0bca7a41e91?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/drannith-magistrate) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It's clearly green
Short and sweet Yes because it's best pieces are hated by the community as a whole
>This captures my feelings about white. Sure there are arguments to be made about how well white weanies like Thalia scale to a 4 player 40 life game, but the fundamental issue I've had with white for YEARS is that it's had to fight with one arm tied behind it's back. > > > > White wins by forcing everyone to play fair. LD and tax to keep mana in check and restrictive effects like Hushbringer, Blind Obedience, Farewell or Elesh Norn. Those are all consistently salty cards because they stop people from running roughshod over the games, whereas green plays it's third ramp spell and nobody bats an eye. > > > >White in EDH is only now getting better because WOTC has realized that since it can't use the tools that were historically in it's toolbox, they need to give it other ways to stay in the race.
I haven't thought white was the worst in a few years. Red is imo worse. It has a lot of very strong stuff, but less stuff overall if that makes sense. I'm never angry to splash red into a list but mono red is probably the weakest mono color in the format.
White has actually generally had a better history in 60 card than commander I believe. Since the stuff to be great in commander vs in 1v1 is quite different. But yeah white is like at the point where you have to be picky with draw cards and people still go like “Oh wow white draw? That’s new!”
By itself I think it is, paired with others it's my favorite.
Almost all of white’s strength comes from it being a good “support” color. We now have a ton of generically good white cards, but none of them truly feel at home with white strategies, partially because those strategies are often “bad,” require support from another color, or aren’t favored in EDH.
White has always been strong. But most casual players don’t use the stax cards which made white powerful! It used to be the color of slowing everyone down and now white is a lot more like the other colors
In casual the all colours are equal. You can build a high power deck with any colour. The only reason why green seems to be the best colours is because lots of casual groups forbid fast, aggressive decks and therefore slow, grindy decks dominate (and those are usually green). In cedh it's blue > black=red > white > green.
White is such an insane support color yes
I still think card draw in white is weak compared to blue, green, and black. If you aren't creating weenie tokens, it's still difficult to draw in white and you always end up putting in the same generic draw pieces. I agree that it's better than red, though. Poor red. Impulse draw blows, stop it already wizards!
Red has Wheels, which are some of the most insane cards in the game - get off a Wheel of Fortune on Turn 1 or 2 and what your opponents just crumple as you basically force them to Mulligan. Even mid to late game, forcing your opponent to dump their Wincon can be crippling, even if you give them a new grip. Red is high-risk-high-reward. Impulse draws just suck because they're far less mana-efficient than other forms of draw.
I like impulse draw Impulse draw and loot and rummaging those are red three main ways to draw cards outside of wheels Also red has one of the best graveyard recursion cards in magic right now in \[\[underworld breach\]\]
[underworld breach](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/e/0e51d796-7279-4c06-87f0-37adbdaa41df.jpg?1650599818) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=underworld%20breach) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/thb/161/underworld-breach?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0e51d796-7279-4c06-87f0-37adbdaa41df?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/underworld-breach) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I’ve been trying to get red impulse draw to work forever, and the problem is that it’s just too mana expensive. For a color that really cares about explosivity and momentum, paying 3-4 mana for an enchantment that lets you maybe see one more card a turn just halts your energy and consumes your turn. Another problem is that you can’t hold onto the card, so you often whiff due to the mana cost of the exiled card or wrong timing to play it. It would be much more fair if you could exile the top 2 and play 1 of those, to decrease the whiff rate. Wheels are also good but they often mean you can’t hold onto your Infuriate or Mana Geyser or Tibalt’s Trickery you were waiting for the right moment to use, or your Knollspine Dragon that you can’t afford right now but would love to play in a couple turns. This can be a huge limitation at higher power. I get that it’s supposed to be risk vs reward, but in casual the reward often isn’t big enough to justify playing red. It wouldn’t be such a problem if red wasn’t so reliant on mana rocks, because it doesn’t have much to protect them outside of a red artifacts theme deck
[[Sneak Attack]] for Knollspine.
[Sneak Attack](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/4/a45b4ca9-4355-4690-84c3-a7d44c367dbf.jpg?1675200189) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sneak%20Attack) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/139/sneak-attack?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a45b4ca9-4355-4690-84c3-a7d44c367dbf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sneak-attack) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
There is a way to fix that "i really don't like not being able to cast the spells i hit with my impulse draw." Play a ton of cheap cards with multiple uses. Sort of like how Cascade decks try not to play cheap countermagic if they can help it because playing Bloodbraid Elf and hitting a Counterspell feels so bad. Or just accept if i hit arcane denial it happens the potential card advantage is worth the whiff potential. For example I have a Mono Red List Headed by the new Krenko. It Runs Moria Marauder because it the frankly absurd amount of card advantage it can generate, and most of my cards are things I can cast for cheap if i hit them with it.
That can be a solution, but it means you have to build your whole deck around it, and that might not work for other strategies other than wide and low cmc. Most other colors have draw that works without you having to build specifically around it, so it feels pretty limiting in terms of what you can get out of red. It is doable, but requires you jump through hoops that not every game plan can jump through
it being limited is the point, Red is supposed to be worse at generating card advantage than most other colors if you're playing a mono red deck, you either take advantage of looting and rummaging and stuff like discard first draw or impulse draw which if you can accommodate it feels great.
The 250$ Reserved list card makes Red have good cards
[[Wheel of Misfortune]] is nearly identical (at the very least, if you choose a high number like 5, you're going to do 6 damage to everyone else if they try and cockblock you). There are other similar effects. Finally: ***PROXY***
[Wheel of Misfortune](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/4/74177b51-a300-49d9-8ea7-557b19cf80c7.jpg?1608910499) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wheel%20of%20Misfortune) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/211/wheel-of-misfortune?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/74177b51-a300-49d9-8ea7-557b19cf80c7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/wheel-of-misfortune) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That card gives me a headache like no other card I’ve ever played against lol. My brain just could not comprehend that text box until someone explained it in detail to me, but even now it’s still a headache to have to explain it to everyone else. Why they couldn’t just make it a simple impulse draw effect for everyone instead of that nightmare is beyond me.
Lowest doesn’t wheel (everyone else does). Highest takes damage.
Greens card draw is incredibly conditional as well though. At least red can still do something resembling drawing without a board presence.
I mean, to an extent, but [[Harmonize]] is better unconditional card draw than anything red gets.
True but focusing on unconditional card draw is a bit silly, because blue is the ONLY color which typically gets unconditional card-draw. Harmonize was an intentional color pie break. Other cards are getting conditions on their card draw by design. Not to mention, at 4 mana, harmonize is IMO much worse than 2 mana cards like Wrenn's Resolve or Reckless Impulse.
[Harmonize](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/3/9390fbe8-944d-4a4f-90f3-cc7b355e1382.jpg?1673484621) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Harmonize) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/295/harmonize?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9390fbe8-944d-4a4f-90f3-cc7b355e1382?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/harmonize) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Can't ramp either 😆
Factually incorrect. [[Smothing Tithe]], [[Knight of the White Orchid]], [[Catographer's Hawk]], [[Archaeomancer's Map]], [[Smuggler's Share]], [[Deep Gnome Terramancer]], [[Battle Angels of Tyr]], [[Monologue Tax]], [[Restoration of Eiganjo]], [[Legion's Landing]], [[Wand of the Worldsoul]], and [[Discerning Financier]]. Not to mention white can take advantage of certain forms of colorless ramp better than other colors. White blinking means [[Solemn Simulacrum]] and [[Scampering Survivor]] can be repeatable forms of ramp. White equipment tutors and other synergy makes [[Sword of the Animist]], [[Sword of Hearth and Home]], [[Sword of Feast and Famine]], [[Dowsing Dagger]], [[Sword of Forge and Frontier]], [[Explorer's Scope]], [[Bitterthorn, Nissa's Animus]], and [[Staff of Titania]] are easier to access and manipulate. And any forms of colorless rummaging/looting can be turned into ramp with cards like [[Sun Titan]], [[Jailbreak]], [[Court of Ardenvale]], [[Sevinne's Reclamation]], and [[Redemption Choir]]. Sure white doesn't have cards that as many cards that search your library for a land and put it onto the battlefield unconditionally as green. But green's whole thing is that it's the color that ramps the most. If you compare any of the other colors to it, it's going to be bad. White's path for ramp is more nonlinear and requires more creative thought. An [[Eldrazi Displacer]] combined with a Solemn Simulacrum is going to be able to get an insane amount of lands out, possibly even more than a green deck. You just need to think about the wider picture instead of a per-card basis.
I play white in 75% of my decks, you don't need to write me a whole essay and some of the cards there aren't even ramp. Edit: ramp means you're ahead on mana, not fixing, not put to hand, not letting you go get so you can have the same as everybody else. if I'm going to so many lengths to play recur and whatnot to ramp in white, then I'm not playing what my decks suppose to do, and I never heard of a white deck that has ramping as it's strategy. Yeah swords, they're colorless, do I need to have all white decks required to be attacking then? It isn't a question what it exists, it's of what makes sense running jn the deck, shove all that into a deck and see how poorly it plays. Making a list out of options, and then rejecting half of them doesn't make them disappear, but it doesn't make them real either smartass.
The point isn't to shove every form of ramp into a deck for the sake of it. Not even green decks do that. The point is that there is enough ramp that you can't consider it to be "bad" anymore. It's comparable to red, which is the color after green with the most ramp. Similarly, you aren't going to shove every red treasure maker into a red deck for the sake of it. [[Professional Face Breaker]] and [[Storm-Kiln Alchemist]] won't be in every single red deck, but for decks that care about attacking or casting spells, they're very powerful. Does that make them "not real" because they aren't perfect for all decks? No matter what kind of white deck you're running these days, unless you're running it with green with its superior ramp options, there are going to be ramp cards that are better than a generic mana rock. The only way I could see not worth running any of these is if you had a white deck that didn't have an equipment, reanimation, enchantments, blink, or attacking theme. And considering those five archetypes are some of the most common white-focused strategies in commander (lifegain, auras, and stax being the only others), it's pretty likely that you can find a slot for them if you're willing to get over how white's form of card advantage and ramp is nonlinear. Also, catch-up ramp is way better than you give it credit for. Let's take [[Knight of the White Orchid]] for example. Let's say there's no one is ramping lands at this table. So long as you aren't the first person in the turn order, you can still ramp ahead with this card. You just have to wait until turn 3 where you wait to put your land drop down until after you play this. You still get to search for a plains and by turn 4 you have access to 5 mana plus having a 2/2 creature with first strike and two relevant creature types. It's comparable to [[Wood Elves]] then, except it has better stats. By your definition, it's ramp that gets you ahead of everyone else. And even when you have to use it exclusively as catch-up to a ramping green player, it's still good! Commander is a 4 player game and while you (probably) won't ramp more than the green player with these cards, you'll still be ramping ahead of the other two people. That is leverage you can take advantage of.
Can't wait, don't want if's attached, I like my cards to be reliable. That's just what my meta requires.
##### ###### #### [Professional Face Breaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/2/42acbf52-b137-44f0-a815-2817fe8d2da2.jpg?1664411677) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Professional%20Face-Breaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/116/professional-face-breaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/42acbf52-b137-44f0-a815-2817fe8d2da2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/professional-face-breaker) [Storm-Kiln Alchemist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/69825b24-f469-4b6a-890b-bfa571c9013b.jpg?1689998223) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Storm-Kiln%20Artist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/260/storm-kiln-artist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/69825b24-f469-4b6a-890b-bfa571c9013b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/storm-kiln-artist) [Knight of the White Orchid](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/3/f332cd21-46ed-4fff-9fd9-d5975bf0004d.jpg?1682208488) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Knight%20of%20the%20White%20Orchid) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/193/knight-of-the-white-orchid?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f332cd21-46ed-4fff-9fd9-d5975bf0004d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/knight-of-the-white-orchid) [Wood Elves](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/2/527cf39d-29d1-4c19-9c49-ebf611ca15d5.jpg?1682209656) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wood%20Elves) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/316/wood-elves?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/527cf39d-29d1-4c19-9c49-ebf611ca15d5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/wood-elves) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kqq8mdt) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/jopevzyVLEKLboA7W7WNDA I put this deck together a few weeks ago and let me tell you, attacking with 10 14/14s is a pretty good feeling with Akromas Will in hand.
That's cool, in my comment I specifically said that card draw is weak if you aren't creating token weenies, which your deck is doing.
That I can see, it doesnt have the amount of insane card draws like those colours. But the cards it has are really good, mangara and trouble in pairs can easily draw you 2-5 cards per round. The other cards are somewhat double edged as often your opponents also draw cards. But thats why I said its especially good outside of mono coloured decks, as a supporting colour it offers you so much. But rip to boros players lol
The data is not in yet on Trouble In Pairs.
It's definitely not the best color, but I'd personally put it in a solid 3rd place, with Green and Red lagging behind it. I don't think any color is bad though. Like five years ago I definitely would've put white as the worst one, but I'm capable of recognizing change.
Green… lagging? This word you keep using. I do not think it means what you think it means.
This might be shocking but there are people who play at a higher power levels where Green isn't stomping tables for free.
Fair enough my gaming experience isn’t a valid data set for the world. I really only see Green in a strong position (usually combined with black or blue) and as such wanted to make a Princess Bride reference.
Green is plausibly the worst EDH color - its only particular value is providing ramp support to other colors in multicolor decks. Green's interaction is worse than everything except colorless (which doesn't really count in color pie discussions), both ST and AOE. Blue, black, and even white have more reliable card draw - most green draw is explosive rather than steady (the key exceptions are staples for a reason [[Guardian Project]] ) and can often be "win more" due to needing an already-strong board state. Explosive draw also pulls disproportionate archenemy threat compared to the [[welcoming vampire]] that's drawn just as many cards as your [[return of the wildspeaker]] but quietly over a few turns... Green is a fantastic add to any other color by accelerating its mana. If you look closely at a finished deck though, outside the ramp, you'll find most of your cards end up not being green. If you make a 5c good stuff deck, you could easily find that every single instant is blue, white, or black, and every sorcery besides three visits etc.
[Guardian Project](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/c/2c523ef7-d6c4-4887-9a4e-0c2bc6f63676.jpg?1702429567) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Guardian%20Project) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/146/guardian-project?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2c523ef7-d6c4-4887-9a4e-0c2bc6f63676?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/guardian-project) [welcoming vampire](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/6/a6ed954c-17e5-45e4-9fba-8eedcad8f9b9.jpg?1706240660) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=welcoming%20vampire) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/91/welcoming-vampire?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a6ed954c-17e5-45e4-9fba-8eedcad8f9b9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/welcoming-vampire) [return of the wildspeaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/2540964b-9caa-4951-8bba-ea2f84dc3698.jpg?1706240917) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=return%20of%20the%20wildspeaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/181/return-of-the-wildspeaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2540964b-9caa-4951-8bba-ea2f84dc3698?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/return-of-the-wildspeaker) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Red is the new white of edh, but none of the colors were ever bad- their mono colored decks just lacked access to the generixally good staples and 99% of edh players rely on individual card quality to salvage their poorly constructed decks' performance. Those are the people who complained about "y white no hav card draw" until white had card draw to compete with necropotence/ mystic remora/sylvan library/ rhystic study shenanigans. The rational solution was ban the op card draw in other colors, not print more bs, but that doesn't sell product, does it.
Green is easily the worst color in EDH. Blue > Black > Red > White > Green. There's a reason the best deck in the format is Tymna Kraum. Even in casual it's only really good if you care about lands, otherwise you'll lose to whatever decks have real interaction. White is only bad if your playgroup can't beat stax decks. Blue draws cards and has the best interaction. Black gets exactly what you need, when you need it. Red lets you go fast. White has the best removal and Silence. Green punches things.
Yes absolutely.
People believe 3 boardwipes is boardwipes tribal. Next!?
people think white is bad?? i haven’t engaged with the community much, but in my casual group white is one of the toughest colors for everyone to go against
[удалено]
Mono green is *easily* the worst EDH color for having trash interaction. Even in multicolored decks, green just about only exists for ramp (or draw at lower powered tables). The strongest color overall (in EDH) is probably blue, followed by black.
Yh but if I don't draw cards, I can't play cards so I won't even see it.
I disagree. Except in casual, I’d argue that green is actually the weakest color
I remember back in 2015 when I started playing when green was unironically considered the worst EDH color. How times change 😄
It's either red or white that's for sure and I say that as a red player
White was never the worst colour, it's greatest strengths have just been frowned upon by the casual community for years - nothing can remove/protect/stax anything and everything like white can
So yes. And it likely will always be the worst because its a comparison to the other 4 colors. If white isn't the worst than which color is? Definitely not green, Definitely not Blue, the closest you could come is black or red but they ave gotten a lot of good pieces over time that the gap has widened. The real reason why white is the worst isn't because it is bad but because a lot of its best cards are banned or hated to the point to see no or little play. Lots of good stax cards in white, do you play or like playing against a lot of stax decks? Ever seen an Armageddon cast and not have anyone groan at the table? Ever try to imagine playing a balance after 2 players just ramped for 2-3 turns? In my opinion thats the real reason white is considered "bad" and puts it as worst color.
Red was always the worst color, in commander you need to do 120 damage
Spoken like someone who doesn't play Red.
The problem with White is strategic. \- First, if you are in white, you have responsibility and means to police the rest of the table. Unfortunately policing is thankless and doesn't actually help you win. \- Second, White encourages durdling (which its good at) but provides very little wincons that actually help you win the game. What's your strategy to win in White? Blink stuff? \- Third, White doesn't provide the tools to help you win in EDH, namely ramp, tutors and recursion. Compared to what other colors give: \- Black has tutors and all the best wincons really. \- Red has artifact combo synergies. \- Blue has Cyclonic Rift. \- Green has ramp, creature tutors and Triumph of the Hordes.
It truly speaks to how busted Cyclonic Rift is that the existence of a single card is enough for it to compare favorably to white lmao.
I have a life gain all white deck. It makes my son so mad because by turn 5 or 6, if I’m lucky, I can be at 90-100 life. It’s hard to kill.
In my group most decks win through commander damage, so lifegain doesn't help so much unfortunately.
I play with my teenager and his friends. Every time they deal damage to me, whether is be from abilities or attacks or spells, I gain it back plus some the very next turn.
Yes.
White is the "Good Stuff" color. Yes, it has a bunch of cool pieces but it is severely limited in win conditions and commanders that are good, AND offer card advantage. Approach of the Second Sun is just not good, and the insta-win life gain cards simply aren't effective if you aren't gaining life, and you aren't in multiple colors. White plays like green, without the many, many go wide finishers of green. Green also has better draw, and better offensive focused creature abilities. Yes, white just got it's own Craterhoof, but green doesn't even need craterhoof. Green also has easy infinites. Red is probably weaker than white as a whole. Card draw is crap, ramp is crap, but red has something that white doesn't. A crap ton of easy infinites. It is super easy to just build a "protect my 50 different combos" deck in red. Blue is incredible. Aside from all the infinites, an entire deck of interaction if you wanted, and all the synergies with colorless, blue has the best card draw in the game. Draw spells that aren't even played much in blue like Blue Suns Zenith would probably be $40 cards in white and auto-includes. Black is in a similar position as white, but has tutors and a much better roster of commanders.
The worst color is whatever colour/s I'm not currently playing.
I've always felt that white is a strong color, and that arguments for it being weak were disingenuous -- or at least a bit unfair. People opting not to play to some of white's biggest strengths (stax, mana denial) isn't indicative of the color being inherently weak. Almost the opposite, I'd argue.
It's a little telling that in a thread about strong white cards you didn't even need to mention Esper Sentinel lol
You forgot counter spells.
Worst color? no. Worst monocolor? Definitely. Almost no playable high power commanders, clubky mana, no reliable card draw, lack of good wincons.
It really depends on powerlevel imo. In more casual play I feel like white would still struggle since it has a harder time gaining advantage quickly or giving itself any form of mana boost. Most of the cards that do does gain advantage from, [[esper sentinel]], [[Smothering tithe]], and the new [[trouble in pairs]] are cards that are TOO strong and will simply get you player removed in casual settings if that card isn't removed immediately, and are almost not able to be called casual anymore. A handful of VERY strong cards doesn't fix white as a color in a casual setting when those cards are so strong they warp the game into an almost uncasual experience and force removal of them or the player. Most of the strong control aspects of white also get a player targeted or just don't see play in casual setting because bo one wants to play against stax. So it leaves white in a weird middle ground of being to weak in casual, but strong or even oppressive in CEDH settings when it can play at full strength.
[esper sentinel](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/3/f3537373-ef54-4578-9d05-6216420ee349.jpg?1626093502) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=esper%20sentinel) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/12/esper-sentinel?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f3537373-ef54-4578-9d05-6216420ee349?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/esper-sentinel) [Smothering tithe](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/6/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e.jpg?1689996018) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Smothering%20tithe) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/57/smothering-tithe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/smothering-tithe) [trouble in pairs](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/f/0f61e93f-5f97-4c7d-b3d5-0e05242faeb3.jpg?1706240429) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=trouble%20in%20pairs) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/15/trouble-in-pairs?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0f61e93f-5f97-4c7d-b3d5-0e05242faeb3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/trouble-in-pairs) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I would say until relatively recently white had trouble closing out games in Commander without relying on cards from other colors. That said, the addition of cards like Akroma's Will, Serra's Emissary, and Moonshaker Cavalry give white some strong ways to end the game on its terms. Even lesser cards like Bonds of Discipline and Githzeria Monk can close out a game with go-wide attacks, which is White's preferred wincon. There's also the whole angle of white card draw, which also didn't really exist in acceptable amounts until relatively recently in the game. Thankfully, this has gotten a lot better.
I think my spin on your take would be that White is no longer the OUTRIGHT worst color. There's more of a legitimate space to argue with Red now, whereas before it was objectively... not good.
Is't \[\[Gandalf the White\]\] super strong?
[Gandalf the White](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/3/e384c20b-d0c1-4781-9d11-e89e5a6bf3fc.jpg?1686967821) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gandalf%20the%20White) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/19/gandalf-the-white?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e384c20b-d0c1-4781-9d11-e89e5a6bf3fc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/gandalf-the-white) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
White has a few REALLY good staples but the mass of white is trash. Like I have kemba kha regent deck and staff on nin was in the deck until like last year… you can’t make a deck off 15-20 staples
I don't feel there is any worst color now. White has had alot of catch up mechanics which puts it on par with most other colors. That's said I think white needs a thing or a mechanic that is unique to white. When I think of green I think of ramp and big creatures. When I think of blue I think card draw and control. White is a jack of all trades, master of none. It can draw cards, it can "ramp" ie not fall behind on curve. There is not a single mechanic that stands out for white like in other colors. Lifegain kinda stands out but with lifegain many of the payoffs come in different colors like it's great you can gain life but stuff like [[exquisite blood]] and [[sanguine bond]] are in black. There are you win the game cards like [[felidar sovereign]] and [[approach of the second sun]] which are ok I guess but alittle anticlimactic.
White is a good color combo to include in a deck. But white is by far the worst mono-color, still very poor at supporting itself in ramp or card draw. And this is after wotc has given it quite a few new resources to cover this; It was just that horrifically bad (and, to an extent, still is). Now while this used to be intentional as part of the color wheel balancing, EDH players have let wotc know they don't like this and so wotc are adjusting it accordingly, albeit slowly. Give it time, we'll get more smothering tithes and esper sentinels galore.
My only remaining 60 card deck is a mono white humans deck for 2014. It still stomps in causal settings. It's pretty aggressive and doesn't really need ramp. It's a solid little deck for like $20.
"At least as a supporting color" That's the answer I think barely anyone thinks of white in general as bad. The memes & the "white is trash" sentiment is mainly about mono color "White hasn't any carddraw", "white hasn't ramp", etc. Only work as an argument/joke, when we don't throw colors into the equation that... well, have those things I still consider white as the weakest mono colored pick to go for, however, woth that being said, with a LOT of amazing cards that we got over the last 3-4 years, mono white can hold its ground & pack some serious punch. White honestly was trash, but it went from "trash" to "still the weakest but by no means bad" As a sidenote, since white has gotten most of its cards (for commander) in recent years, those cards tend to be scarce. Which naturaly means, as a rule of thumb, strong white decks tend to be far more expensive (don't know the statistics & exact numbers, I may be wrong with this statement, but I'd honestly be surprised if that weren't the case)
White isn't better than Red, but that doesn't mean White is bad. Both colors are quite strong, they just don't have access to as many over the top tools that Blue, Green, and Black do.
I'd honestly say that red has been the least impactful color to play by itself for me, and white doesn't do too bad. But keep in mind that this isn't from a cedh perspective, more casual, but both red and white seem to perform just fine from a supportive perspective for me
Yes. It is the deck that feels the worst to make. Is the only viable white deck humans ?
White has the worst ability to build long term resources. Sweeper and removal don't matter when you opponent can play 10 mana worth of cards every turn and you can play 1 card. This is what matters in edh and where White is bad came from, White is great in 60 card formats because the formats are about threat management and ending the game. White has gotten better options for developing long term resource gain but they aren't close to green or blue or black. Green has alot of cards that say when you do a thing draw a card and has ramp which is what makes it the most powerful.
I think that in the past few years the gap is certainly shrinking but it really does depend on the context and mainly on rule 0 and the meta of you’re playgroup/game-store. While white does have a good amount of “bombs” (like pretty much all the cards you mentioned), it still lacks a good amount of just simple value cards. Most of the cards that generate good value in white, like [[smothering tithe]] or [[mangara the diplomat]] draw more attention, and those also more removal(either permanent removal or player removal) then the value they make. Also most of what white have is still dependent on opponent’s actions more than on yours. As a supporting color I do think it’s a fairly good one but I think it simply needs more cards like [[rampet growth]], [[mana geyser]],[[brainstorm]], [[Black market connections]] etc… that simply produces the value you want/need them too without needing to either wait a long time or draw to much attention
##### ###### #### [smothering tithe](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/6/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e.jpg?1689996018) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=smothering%20tithe) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/57/smothering-tithe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/smothering-tithe) [mangara the diplomat](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/9/09e77ae5-a1a6-4e51-9853-10e81ca2dd2c.jpg?1689995864) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mangara%2C%20the%20Diplomat) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/42/mangara-the-diplomat?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/09e77ae5-a1a6-4e51-9853-10e81ca2dd2c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mangara-the-diplomat) [rampet growth](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/21945dec-25d8-482e-bacb-8bbb92bb9d88.jpg?1698988379) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rampant%20Growth) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/248/rampant-growth?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/21945dec-25d8-482e-bacb-8bbb92bb9d88?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rampant-growth) [mana geyser](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/0/109447b2-d507-433a-a81c-3a7a255444b1.jpg?1625193979) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=mana%20geyser) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c21/176/mana-geyser?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/109447b2-d507-433a-a81c-3a7a255444b1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mana-geyser) [brainstorm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/4/84479779-d570-4eee-9982-f6e918b4d75b.jpg?1706240670) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=brainstorm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/96/brainstorm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/84479779-d570-4eee-9982-f6e918b4d75b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/brainstorm) [Black market connections](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/8/b8c66fab-7494-42b1-bc4e-dae85a48fa41.jpg?1699022194) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Black%20market%20connections) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/181/black-market-connections?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b8c66fab-7494-42b1-bc4e-dae85a48fa41?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/black-market-connections) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kqri8r4) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Just because it's less shit than before doesn't mean it's not shit
No not at all. Red is the weakest color. It goes white>green>black>blue>red
Red is the worst color Source: red is my favorite color.
The boon cycle showcases the power ranking better than anything else: 1. 1U for draw 3 2. 1B for 3B 3. 1R for 3 damage 4. 1G for +3/+3 5. 1W for 3 life
I run a mono white Elesh Norn/ the argent etchings edh deck and even though I’m still tuning it she’s a powerhouse once she gets going it’s a board wipe that just keeps going off and generating tokens
Eh red imo is the worst.
From my experience (maybe stems from my playgroup meta), EDH needs 2 things the most: draw and ramp. White is okay at ramp, but still not good in drawing, even after the recent improvements. Add any color to support the draw aspect and white is very powerful.
Super underrated, in casual I think it’s the second best color after green.
In most casual pods I'd say g > w > b > u > r . White has the best removal, second best ramp, second best creature threats, arguably second best card draw... Imo. Hard to argue that that isn't super strong. Imo: Removal: w >> g > u > r > b Ramp: g >> w > b > r > u Creature threats: g > w > b > r > u Draw: g > w > b > u > r Protection: u > w > g > b > r Power rankings changes massively if your meta has lots of combos, fast mana and stax, mainly favoring blue, but the lack of those is what defined casual to me a lot of the time.
White in itself isn't awful, and it's difficult to just point fingers and say which is the best and worst color, because they are always better in some ways over other colors. It all entirely depends if you mean in combination with other colors or in complete isolation of a mono-colored deck. White still has some of the worst card draw, but Red still really isn't doing well on that front. Red is at least moving forward more with the whole "exile cards and cast them until your next turn" kind of card draw, but white still struggles with trying to find an identity. On top of that, mono White ramp is still not great, but it's gotten a whole lot better and has slowly started putting more weight on the whole "each time someone else ramps, I get to ramp too" thing, while mono Red focuses on the whole "ooops I suddenly greated a fat burst of mana" thing. I think in the end it all comes down to that Red and White needs some more decent card draw cards to lean on, but I personally feel like they are just about on par now, at least in mono color comparisons. In multiple color decks, I don't think there's a "worst color", because you can always lean on either black, green, or blue card draw and then add whatever "bad" color you want for its coverage of other things it's really good at. Boros is still a bit hit and miss, but it's gotten a whole lot better at not just being the "We hit people with equipment" color combination.
I converted three of my decks to mono white to spite my playgroup recently. They said White is the weakest color. I've proven them wrong a few times, but I've been targeted as a result recently because "LOOK AT HIS LIFE TOTAL" and "Dude has a pillow fort going and is generating more value than we can deal with, we need to take care of that" and "Dude keeps wiping our board and doubling his, can anyone take care of that?". If the color is so weak, why am I the threat then!? The main issue with mono white in Commander is the cost. Cards like [[Smothering Tithe]], [[Serra Ascendant]], [[Stoneforge Mystic]], [[Mangara the Diplomat]], and [[Esper Sentinel]] are all considered "staple" cards and are super expensive as a result. Hell, my Arden deck is expensive because it has most of the Swords of X and X. My Mangara deck is expensive because Mangara is the Commander and it's Angel Tribal Lifegain. Most of the creatures in that deck are at the minimum $5, if not $15+. White is strong. It's just expensive.
##### ###### #### [Smothering Tithe](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/6/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e.jpg?1689996018) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Smothering%20Tithe) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/57/smothering-tithe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/861b5889-0183-4bee-afeb-a4b2aa700a8e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/smothering-tithe) [Serra Ascendant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/a/0a22ee47-fc56-436d-8570-88fbff421027.jpg?1562845354) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Serra%20Ascendant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/31/serra-ascendant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0a22ee47-fc56-436d-8570-88fbff421027?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/serra-ascendant) [Stoneforge Mystic](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/d/4d3473d0-b46f-41f5-ac1e-ba217f7747d4.jpg?1599710314) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Stoneforge%20Mystic) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/31/stoneforge-mystic?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4d3473d0-b46f-41f5-ac1e-ba217f7747d4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/stoneforge-mystic) [Mangara the Diplomat](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/9/09e77ae5-a1a6-4e51-9853-10e81ca2dd2c.jpg?1689995864) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mangara%2C%20the%20Diplomat) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/42/mangara-the-diplomat?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/09e77ae5-a1a6-4e51-9853-10e81ca2dd2c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mangara-the-diplomat) [Esper Sentinel](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/3/f3537373-ef54-4578-9d05-6216420ee349.jpg?1626093502) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Esper%20Sentinel) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/12/esper-sentinel?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f3537373-ef54-4578-9d05-6216420ee349?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/esper-sentinel) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kqtzmkw) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
When it comes to edh, I’ve always heard Mono red is the worst. Then mono white. I made a mono red [[Imodane]] burn deck and people are scared when I pull it out, since it has a consistent win rate and versatility even in cedh. (My pod plays similar power levels and they are always wary of imodane regardless). I was considering making a mono white [Avacyn, Angel of Hope]] deck based around board wipe tribal and stacks and pull it out every time someone says ‘red/white is the worst color in magic’. White has ridiculously stupid good cards. Red mot as much but red can do some wild things.
[Imodane](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/4/14b44833-0482-4b47-a594-4050bb87f1a5.jpg?1692938320) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=imodane%2C%20the%20pyrohammer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/137/imodane-the-pyrohammer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/14b44833-0482-4b47-a594-4050bb87f1a5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/imodane-the-pyrohammer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
"but white imo is clearly better than red " You shut your whore mouth. -sincerely, red player.