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Magic: The Gathering White Color Pie Expanded More in The Last 2 Years (R&D TIme)


Out of the five colors of Magic: The Gathering, white has been criticized to be underpowered in Commander and other constructed formats for its lack of ways to get card advantage, but the card designers at Wizards of the Coast are aiming to fix that problem to help balance the game's color pie more. When a fan of the popular trading card game complained about how white is "being far more restricted in what it's allowed to bend for flavourful mechanics", Magic head designer Mark Rosewater has confirmed their continuing efforts to expand white's color pie.

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Credit: Wizards of the Coast

"We have expanded white's color pie more in the last two years (R&D time, not the real world) than any other color," Rosewater said on his Blogatog.

Since they design Magic cards for sets they're planning to release years from now, this means that we should expect to see white become more powerful in the upcoming expansions. In fact, we've seen already seen some strong white cards from recent Magic sets like Core Set 2021 and Commander Legends. Even the upcoming Norse mythology-inspired set Kaldheim has a powerful board wipe card with Foretell called Doomskar:

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Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Hopefully, many of the white cards in the upcoming sets will also be viable in Standard and Historic formats, not just Commander.

Last June, Rosewater made an insightful comment about his thoughts on white card design: "I've come to realize that I needed to reframe how I thought of white," Rosewater said. "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."

As a player who often plays white decks, I'm excited to see what they are doing to expand white's color pie in the upcoming sets, and Rosewater's comment about their efforts to bring more balance to the game is a good sign that the creative minds at R&D are listening to what players want.

Related: Kaldheim Trailer Will Premire at The NY Game Awards

How would you like to see white's color pie expanded?

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