There’s something that’s been on my mind lately, and it’s white card draw. I promise that this article isn’t about beating a dead horse. Quite the opposite, in fact – I do believe that white is now “fixed” in the sense it has more card draw options. There’s just a deeper issue here about deckbuilding.
WHITE CAN DRAW ALL THE CARDS… AS LONG AS YOU PLAY THESE CARDS
When I say I am sick of seeing and playing Trouble in Pairs and Esper Sentinel, believe me that it comes from a good place. I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth – especially having played white back when draw barely existed outside of artifacts – but I truly am tired of playing the same cards in my white decks. The most reliable draw that white has (and that it wants in every deck) will set you back a combined $70-80.
Other colors have a wide range of “top” draw spells. Green has dozens of ways to draw off of any creature entering, or typal creatures. Black is the same with dying and sacrificing, and paying life. Blue can draw the most, sure, but it also has many, many redundant effects and cheap options on the curve that can do other things. A great example being Faerie Mastermind, who can draw you cards but also wear auras and equipment or trigger Coastal Piracy effects to draw even more cards. Heck, even red has more impulse draw and wheels than you can shake a stick at.
When it comes to White, it still doesn’t do hand refills very well. You can jump through hoops to refill off of Pursuit of Knowledge or Well of Lost Dreams, but your best source of multiple cards in a turn (cycle) remains the expensive white draw options. (White also doesn’t turn the corner with tempo-breaking big turns either, but that’s a deeper issue than we can cover in this article about card draw).
WHITE’S BEST DRAW IS STILL THE SAME DRAW EVERY DECK CAN RUN
When I sit down to build a white deck, I can’t guarantee typal draw effects for my Soldiers or my Angels. I can’t draw off of creatures bigger than three mana, and I don’t have any ways to refill my hand when I run out of cards.
White’s best draw options outside of the pricey staples are still the likes of Mask of Memory, Skullclamp and Idol of Oblivion. Don’t get me wrong – these options are stellar, and I think they help you win games by providing good draw.
The issue is that these cards tend to be overplayed in every white deck. No matter your strategy, you’re still pulling from the exact same pool of draw spells.
NOT ALL WHITE DECKS CAN DRAW EQUALLY
If you’re attacking, you get access to Chivalric Alliance and Glimmer Lens. Equipment decks can utilize the latter along with Puresteel Paladin or Sram.
If you’re on tokens, you probably take the artifacts mentioned above first, and then you jam Tocasia’s Welcome and Welcoming Vampire, and a Bennie Bracks if you have one (I hope he keeps being reprinted!).
When you move away from a low to the ground strategy with cheap creatures and a lot of attacks, you tend to run out of reliable ways to draw cards.
White had a promising potential to expand more into Enchantress, but so far, we’re still stuck largely with the same draw creatures we’ve always had. Pearl-Ear was a welcome addition, but was quite narrow. It’s still Aura focused with Kor Spiritdancer and Sram, but we don’t have white ramp auras for lands like in Green, so deck quality ends up diluted by adding ramp in other ways. Mesa Enchantress remains the only white “true” Enchantress, and that’s kinda sad.
ALL OF MY DECKLISTS JUST LOOK TOO SIMILAR
The real tragedy here is that white decklists just end up looking so similar. We often complain about how Commander is a format with an ever-shrinking amount of personalization and deckbuilding. Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Command Tower… how many more cards are prescribed in your shell before you get to add a personal touch?
Well, when you’re in the Sultai colors at least, you have dozens upon dozens of options for a broad swathe of archetypes and strategies. No two decks have quite the same risk of looking the same, especially comparing a more budget build to one full of gamechangers. A budget build in those colors can draw plenty of cards, where a budget deck in white still struggles and has to play the exact same draw spells regardless of strategy.
THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE
While I might be sounding like I’m a little fed up of seeing so much repetition in decklists (both in those I build and those across the table), I am hopeful that things will eventually get better.
When we look to Universes Beyond, we can see cards like Rammas Echor, Ancient Shield. This one fits into basically any white deck and provides a key additional option that isn’t Trouble in Pairs, Esper Sentinel, Mask of Memory or Skullclamp. I like it a lot and I’m always happy to play with it. It also attracts way less ire than the “are you paying the {1}”, which helps.
Lifegain has started to get more draw, too. The Gaffer gave us the 3 or more life clause, and Haliya came along with Edge of Eternities to give us a Soul Sister in the ‘zone, that also draws cards, which is pretty neat.
Final Fantasy also asked us if we’d like to play Legends-Matter in white, with Venat, Heart of Hydaelyn. All of these options prove that there’s plenty of design space in white that can be given over to new and interesting resource generation cards.
END STEP
White has a lot of ways to draw cards, and you really shouldn’t have any issues keeping up if you build your deck right. We have a list of the Best White Card Draw Spells for each strategy, if you’re wanting some ideas.
The issue is just that I’m sick of seeing the same cards every game. Variety is the spice of life, and we need more options.
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.