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Weiß Gott was!By Stefan Preiml on June 28th, 2005 · Filed in General Magic · 29 Comments
 (C) Wizards of the Coast In the following years, from Invasion until now, these shifts were applied, and White was the color most shaken up in this process. White, bearing staple mechanics in lifegain and damage prevention that are more often than not too weak for constructed play, at the time had only real constructed worthy cards in Wrath effects and the rebel mechanic. The following T2 formats were too fast for the Wrath and White was too weak to compete. Something had to change. The Great White Hope To solve the problem we will have to examine what White is about first. White sets rules to everything, and wants to make every being in the multiverse obey the rules. White sees itself as the color to protect the weak from the strong and values the interests of many over the interests of one. White's tools to accomplish this are rules, religion, and military. It wants to keep everything in order and in a steady flow. White's aggressions come from its hatred of people that don't obey their rules and are more concerned about themselves than about the group they're in. Putting this into game mechanics, white approves its rules by suspending outlaws (removing from game, tapping down) and treating everybody the same (symmetrical Wrathing). White is also the color that shields itself from the others the most as it is the color of CoP and Protection. This also defines one of the dark sides of White: fascism. If it's not White, White doesn't want to get bothered with it. Operation Naturalize Something that most people hadn't realized by then was that in the block before, White was made the enchantment killer No. 1, as Tranquility was put into White. In the same set as the Naturalize change occured, White got the most efficient enchantment removal spell in Standard, Demystify. This change was mostly overlooked, since enchantment removal is overall weaker in the game, and players tend to try to play around enchantments rather than take them out. The fact that Mirrodin, an artifact-heavy block, was following up, made this change seem even worse. This is not a test of the emergency broadcast system (Ed. Note: The only white card with the phrase "destroy target land" is Benalish Emissary, but it requires a kicker cost of green mana.) But don't fear. White still gets land restriction, but in another way that will be adressed later. It just won't destroy them. Not without a cause it holds Sacred Ground and Sheltering Prayers which are basically the antithesis of land destruction. I hate everybody equally, but I especially hate Yankees White pretends to cut all people equally as it restricts everybody to the same basics. This can be easily seen in the card Cataclysm and the new tournament staple, Hokori, Dust Drinker, which has a mechanic that was always in White: tap and untap restrictions. White has now gained new strength in it as it centers on this mechanic, which is validated with the return of Marble Titan in 9th Edition. But White also tends to use the "treat everyone by the same rules" system as a front, and falls into a state of fascism. Obey my rules or die. If you're not with me, you're against me and need to be neutralized. One of the newer cards that shows this is Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker. This is a reincarnation of No Mercy in a new way and follows a line of new achievements that can be seen on Retaliate and Reciprocate. Push me and I'll push you back with a bullet. Taxes Cowboy Something that was easily recognized about the color wheel was that Blue had way too many mechanics. Mechanics needed to be taken from Blue and one that was moved was taxing and restricting. As you see, White was holding cards like Null Chamber and Arrest before and one of White's roles in the game is to impose rules. So it was decided to move Arcane Laboratory and Propaganda away from blue and center them into White. But when did this progress happen? The most obvious is Rule of Law, but it started way before in Planeshift with Orim's Chant and everybody's favorite weenie: Meddling Mage. Since then, the taxing and restricting theme grew stronger into white with Windborn Muse, Cease-Fire, and others. I can't get a life in all this mist OK, this is probably the most subtle change in the color wheel that concerns White. Since the changes are based on a long term plan, this change began to show just recently and doesn't involve Blue or Black. I'm talking about life gain and damage prevention. Maybe you noticed that at the moment, White only gets conditional life gain effects such as Spirit Link or Presence of the Wise where certain things have to happen or apply for White to gain life, that can easily be undone or prevented. White's lifegain tends to be way more conditional at the moment. Green, on the other hand, gets spells where the amount of life you gain is predetermined, like Nourish or tied to the most basic resource available, lands. Don't get me wrong. At least at the moment, White is still the number one color in life gain, and I don't think this will ever change, but it seems like White's lifegain tends to be weakened, and it is now focused more on damage prevention, as Holy Day returned in 8th and Invasion to replace Fog. One thing to notice is that Green doesn't have a single card in the current T2 format that prevents damage without spending another resource. The inclusion of Mending Hands over Healing Salve in 9th Edition is also a dead giveaway at this. Conclusion I have to say that I'm happy with the way White is shaping up right now. White seems to be rid of its identity crisis it was struggling from before holding to many shallow mechanics. White seemed to try much, but didn't finish all of it, and only barely touched some of its mechanics. In my humble opinion, White finally feels more White than before, and it has finally something to hold on to, as mechanics other than small creatures and fliers have centered into White, which can impact tournaments. The plan also seems to work, as Extended and Standard which featured only very few decks with White has now at least playable, if not Tier 1 Decks such as Life or Solution in Extended with that color. For further Education For people that want to dig deeper into this Material, here is some stuff I took information from and some overall nice reads: The Great White Way by Mark Rosewater The Troubled One by Mark Rosewater The Value of Pie by Mark Rosewater The Past and the Future of White by Randy Buehler 18,000 Words: Why do you hate me Randy Buehler by Ben Bleiweiss 18,000 Words: Randy's Game by Ben Bleiweiss Hidden Bonus Section If you're wondering about the title of this article: "Weiß Gott was!" is German for "only God knows" but is also used kind of like "whatever" as in "He's playing baseball, basketball or whatever." In German, this is "Er spielt Baseball, Basketball oder weiß gott was". But while "Weiß" is the 3rd form of "to know" in German, but it is also the word for the color white. Some might also wonder who's the "Sandman". Well, did you take a look at Hokori's art yet? By Stefan Preiml on June 28th, 2005 · Filed in General Magic · 29 Comments |
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