Magic: The Gathering Head Designer Explains Why He Needs to Reframe How He Thought of White

The Magic: The Gathering designers at Wizards of the Coast are giving white unique ways to draw cards, and the new Mangara, the Diplomat card from the upcoming Core Set 2021 is a start.

When a fan asked Magic head designer Mark Rosewater about how Mangara's ability contradicts what Rosewater thought about white's "intentional downside", here's what he said on his Blogatog:

I've come to realize that I needed to reframe how I thought of white. Card draw is too fundamental to the game to cut out of a color.

We're still going to keep it fifth in card drawing, but we're working to figure out how to make card draw organically white in a way that doesn't undercut its philosophy or flavor

Many MTG fans have criticized white as being the most underpowered color in Magic due its lack of cards that could draw cards, so it makes sense that R&D are giving white more card draw power to help balance Magic's color pie.

Magic designer Ari Nieh, a.k.a. the "White Council of Colors representiative", recently confirmed that Mangara's reactive draw ability is not the only white card draw experiment you will see in the next few years.

Core Set 2021 is set to release on July 3 with Prerelease events scheduled from June 26 to July 2.

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