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Magic: The Gathering Designer Explains What They're Doing To Make White Stronger in The Game


Many Magic: The Gathering players would agree that white is the weakest color in various formats, especially Commander, Pioneer, and Standard, and many are wondering if the Magic designers are making white cards underpowered in purpose while green is getting a lot of powerful cards recently. Now we know what Wizards of the Coast is doing to fix this problem.

Today, Magic head designer Mark Rosewater has answered some new questions about the new set Theros Beyond Death, and one fan asked if we'll great mono-colored cards, and Rosewater hinted that there are great mono-white cards in Theros Beyond Death.

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"The short answer is yes, you will," Rosewater said in his latest article published on the official MTG site. "I'll even argue some great mono-white cards might be sitting in Theros Beyond Death. (We'll have to see how those shake out.) That said, while some of what's going on is the pendulum swinging, R&D does recognize that white could use some attention. First up, white has some issues in Commander as the format naturally weakens some of white's strengths while highlighting white's biggest weakness. As a result, white is behind the other colors in how much it's played. We are taking care to explore what we can do with white that will help make it better in Commander."

Is he talking about the new "Heliod, Sun Crowned"? The white god card is one of the best Theros Beyond Death cards worth money now. It's definitely not the new Elspeth card.

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Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Rosewater went on to explain what they're doing to make white stronger in various formats like Limited and Pioneer. You can read his explanation below:

"Second, white has been on the weaker side in many of the recent Limited formats. Play design is working to figure out what choices being made are causing that to happen. Third, white is not seeing much representation in the new Pioneer format. We are also examining Pioneer to figure out why that is happening. Interestingly, early exploration is showing that problems in each of the formats is not stemming from the same thing, meaning that finding solutions is going to require thinking format by format. R&D is dedicated, though, to figuring out what is going on and tweaking white accordingly. As always, we work far ahead, so it will take some time to see what we're currently working on (although you will see a few things we'd previously been working on come out in 2020)."

It sounds like R&D are working hard to ramp up white's representation in various Magic formats, and I hope their efforts will achieve balance of power levels in MTG's color pie.

Do you think white is the weakest color? What white cards from Theros Beyond Death do you think are great? Let us know in the comments section below.

Theros: Beyond Death is now available worldwide and digitally on Magic Arena and Magic Online.

Related: 7 Best Theros Beyond Death Magic: The Gathering Cards Worth Money Now

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