Magic: The Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater has recently answered some fan questions about white's design space, and the possiblity of seeing certain abilities for what many considers an underpowered color.
Earlier this week, Rosewater revealed on his Blogatog that the white color pie in Magic: The Gathering has been expanded more in the last two years (R&D time), and that was followed by questions from various fans about what the designers at Wizards of the Coast are doing to help balance out white's power level more, especially for Commander and other constructed formats. White has been criticized for its lack of card advantage, and some of the questions are about the design possibilities of giving the color more of that power. Rosewater has shared some insightful responses on his Blogatog, which you can read below:
Decynicalrevolt asks: "Years ago, you mentioned on a podcast that you believed White should be primary in scry. Do you still believe this to be a possible exploration of white's identity?"
Rosewater: "We just had a discussion yesterday in a Council of Colors meeting about white and scry, I still believe it's a good fit for white."
Tel-stories-blog asks: "Why not give white card draw a unreasonably high mana costs, costs that only the commander format could get to? Or if not in white an expensive artifact that gives the card draw white is looking for."
Rosewater: "The goal is to find a flavorful way to give white card drawing, not have it do what other colors do, but worse. Impulsive draw in red is an example of us doing this in red."
Clarks2009 asks: "Why doesn't white get more counterspells it's #2 as far as counter magic is concerned but it has virtually none since mana tithe. I've tried a dozen ways to rephrase this but that's as simply as it can be put."
Rosewater: "The Council of Colors has said that white can do mana taxing counterspells and delaying counterspells (like Memory Lapse). The teams making the sets haven't seemed particularly interested in making any. We can lead the proverbial horse to water…"
Shadowman2099: "Would you be OK with giving Howling Mine to White? Blue usually does shared card draw, but it's not something Blue doesn't us it often anyway and sharing is way more White than Blue."
Rosewater: "It's being talked about."
Evanopheusden asks: "I've heard people say endlessly that white is bad at mana ramp. Does R&D agree with this idea? It seems to me that white is the best color after green for getting extra lands into play, miles ahead of blue or black."
Rosewater: "White can only get plains, but it does that with some frequency."
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What do you think about Rosewater's responses about white's design space? Would you like to see more powerful white spells or do you think the color is currently well-balanced? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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