For the longest time, white has been a color that felt like it lagged behind the others in terms of card draw and mana production. The white card in a cycle was often a bit of a “dud”, balanced primarily around Limited and sometimes Standard. With The Hobbit, it’s clear to see that those days are now behind us – and arguably have been for a little while. The busted two-drops of The Hobbit are pushing white’s power level ever higher.
THE HOBBIT HAS SO MUCH GOOD WHITE CARD DRAW
The first card that truly signposted what to expect in HOB was The Queen of Dale, and she’s recruited us to her cause for sure. Streets of New Capenna’s Connive was always a strong ability, and it thrust Ledger Shredder into the limelight across multiple formats. We’ve now got a Connive-adjacent ability in Recruit, which trades off the +1/+1 counter for making a 1/1 Human Soldier token. While that +1/+1 counter was always crazy-good on a flyer like Ledger Shredder, it was a little less yoked on some of the other creatures that featured it.
The same can’t be said for Recruit, which feels like it has a much higher floor, particularly in white, which loves to go wide and make tokens, and also in white which loves to eek out little bits of card advantage where it can.
The Queen of Dale triggers whenever an opponent casts their first noncreature spell of a turn, which means it should trigger against control quite frequently, meaning at the very least your two-drop replaces itself with a 1/1 token and you got to dig for the next best card to address the current board state. And that’s just in 1v1 Magic, right? When you consider her ability to trigger multiple times a turn cycle in Commander – with all of the access to Sevinne’s Reclamation et al to recur your yard – she becomes quite the potent engine indeed.
BELLADONNA TOOK THE BATON, AND RAN WITH IT
It was pretty wild to see another two drop that gives card advantage in the same spoiler season of the same set, but it’s true – Belladonna Took is a second breakfast of value for white decks in HOB. Belladonna took is a reward for being in a tokens deck, and it’s quite the reward. Not only do you top up on life the first time you make a token, but you also get to draw a card if it’s the second one you’ve made in a turn. If you do manage to hit that ceiling of three tokens in a turn? Well, you’re laughing, because you get the +1/+1 counters across your board value of Cosmogrand Zenith, too.
This one requires a little more focus than Queen of Dale to get going, but without a doubt has a higher ceiling, in our opinion. Just in current Standard alone you can Hop to It to get full value, while in Pioneer you can use Gleeful Demolition. And then there’s Commander, of course, where any number of token spam decks are looking to snap this right up.
And like, bear in mind… this, like every card in this article, is on a two-drop.
DID THEY ALSO FIX SOME OF THE MOST HATED CARDS IN COMMANDER?
Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study are definitely up there as some of the most hated cards in Commander. They provide unparalleled “free” value – except for the part where you are actually exchanging the good will of the table for your poisoned plunder.
Enter Gleaming Splendor, another watered down Smothering Tithe effect – but this time, at the really attractive entry point of two mana. This is automatically way more enticing than a Monologue Tax or similar and also will trigger more or less as often as a Tataru Taru, while being an Enchantment, which should stick around for much longer.
If that wasn’t enough, there’s a way to trigger it stapled to it: an activated ability to have two players draw a card. Gleaming Splendor is really hot for Commander, and I expect to see it in a lot of decks post-HOB release.
FINALLY, A LEGENDARY PURESTEEL PALADIN
Puresteel Paladin has long been one of the best equipment synergy creatures in the game, and we haven’t really come close to one that can go in the command zone. Enter Kili the Resourceful, a dwarf scout that does a great impression of Metalcraft and has a good amount of card draw stapled to it. While you won’t keep drawing past the first equipment you play each turn, you do get to draw off of playing a Dwarf, and you get a much easier to achieve version of Metalcraft in Storied – which starts at one with Kili himself.
Bear in mind that if Kili dies, you keep Storied status – so rebuilding through removal is easier, making Kili an attractive pickup for Hammertime decks in 1v1 formats. It’s also much easier to cast at {1}{W} when you’re stuffing your manabase full of Urza’s Saga and Inkmoth Nexus.
SILENCE, FOOL
Who knew we’d see a Silence attached to a Reprieve? Gifting a treasure is a non-zero downside, but the prospect of hitting opponents with a soft-counter attached to a Silence is quite the prospect. While in Modern it might be a so-so sidegrade to both Reprieve and Orim’s Chant, it’s still got the potential for sideboard play – and is one that will see extensive play in cEDH.
END STEP
The Hobbit has so many great white two-drops, and we’ve not even scratched the surface of the other card advantage it enjoys at different mana values in the set. It’s fair to say that white has now seen a great amount of “fixing”, and that can be seen in the dominance of RW in formats as diverse as Modern and Canlander. With Settle the Wreckage being printed back into Standard too, we’re potentially looking at a hot run for white in all corners.
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.