Douglysium

Intro and Disclaimer

Welcome to the second article that attempts to be an extensive coverage of the flavor of White philosophy and mechanics in Magic the Gathering. Since this is indeed a part 2, you should probably read or reread the first part here(https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/douglysium/690564941578665984?source=share) if you haven’t already to avoid confusion. If you really feel up for it you can even start with my first article that aimed to tackle the Color Pie in general here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/private/672979718186975232/tumblr_r5hjo0WAWg1ycm9nu). I am also going to be assuming you have read the previous part so there is a lot of stuff regarding how mechanics and flavor work in Magic the Gathering that I’m not going to re-explain here because if I re-explained them every article the articles would be twice as long for no reason and each one would become obnoxiously repetitive for anyone attempting to read these articles in order. 

So suffice to say, despite the importance, I will not go over things like what primary, secondary, and tertiary keywords are since the information exists in the previously mentioned articles.

For the sake of clarity, this article will cover all the named mechanics and keywords present in Mark Rosewater’s “MECHANICAL COLOR PIE 2021” article(https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021-10-18). Things like specific faction related keywords are planned to be covered in due time and, as mentioned in previous articles, the mechanical color pie actually shifts over time so if you are reading this from the far future and there are all new mechanics that haven’t been included or mechanics that a color has gained and/or lost that is why. It is inevitable that this article will eventually become out of date to one degree or another. This is also super important when looking at older color pie articles because you may see mechanics and keywords in different places. These usually have their own interesting, often equally valid, flavor reasons for being like that in the past but I will not touch on them here. Also, any mechanics that have similar enough flavor I am grouping together to make my explanations less repetitive. With the disclaimers out of the way, we can finally get started.

Mechanics

+1/+1 Counters(creation and caring)– +1/+1 counter-related abilities are extremely common in White, to the point that White is actually primary in creating and caring about +1/+1 counters. They typically represent White’s emphasis on wanting to help, support, and uplift others as well as trying to save as many people as it can along with aiding in helping people prosper. 

Let me put it this way, -1/-1 counters usually represent permanently damaging, hurting, or corrupting something…

So their mechanical opposite, +1/+1 counters, usually represent the inverse, i.e. someone being permanently aided, helped, boosted, repaired, healed etc. So by having these +1/+1 abilities show up everywhere in White reinforces that said color’s goal and gameplay tend to revolve around aiding and uplifting over just destroying and damaging.

Plus, putting +1/+1 counters on something makes it harder to kill via damage, which means in certain cases it can be interpreted as healing a creature or making it healthier. Also, making things harder to kill and healing ties into White’s entire theme of saving as many people as possible and stuff, and is something that is further reflected in how White can remove -1/-1 counters from creatures as a form of healing of fixing.

+1/+1 counters can also represent improving something in order to make it better than it was before which ties into White’s themes of striving for improvement and making both people and things better.

Banisher Priest-like effects(When this card enters the battlefield, exile target creature/permanent until this card leaves play.)– I already went over these types of effects in my previous article but it wasn’t covered in the mechanics section so I’ll cover them here to keep things clear, concise and less confusing. White is primary in these kinds of effects. As mentioned in my previous article, enchantments in White often represent laws/rules and said laws/rules being enforced in order to help/reward or restrain people through the utilization of civil structures or magic in order to punish or restrain a creature. It’s a way of saying “Hey this artifact or creature is dangerous so I’m confiscating, jailing it, or containing it so it can’t hurt/corrupt people, or until I can reform it.” 

Interestingly, these Banisher Priest effects tend to be answers with clear answers. That is to say, while they do tend to do a good job of removing a wide variety of threats such a removal may end up being temporary or easily undone since they are permanents that can be destroyed or bounced(returned to their owner’s hand). This usually represents one of two things. First off, if the opponent is playing by White’s rules and doing whatever it deems to be the right thing then it’s usually going to get punished less harshly(if at all) or White may have a hard time fighting against it because it sees little to no issue or doesn’t really have enough of a moral high ground to justify continuing the punishment. White is all about morality, so if someone is doing something the right way or is morally just then there is probably going to be less White is willing to do about it. The second point is that White usually doesn’t like to permanently ruin things unless it feels like it has to or said thing is evil. Remember, White’s end goal is to try to help and save as many people as possible so it is usually trying to take the route with the least amount of destruction and suffering. Plus, White idealizes having a strong moral compass so it may prohibit itself from doing things like killing outside of self-defense(think Superman or Spiderman and how they refuse to kill). In a way, this can be thought of as an extension of how White philosophy can easily be inflexible or see the world in black and white, to the point where someone who is White aligned may refuse to do something a certain way because it is morally wrong. Which is something that can end up restraining themselves and limits how many ways they may be willing to approach a situation.

Bring back creatures/permanents that went to the graveyard this turn, “Reanimate” permanent, “Reanimation,” and Return target creature from the graveyard to hand– White is primary in bringing back creatures/permanents that went to the graveyard this turn, “Reanimating” permanents(returning a permanent card from a graveyard to the battlefield), “Reanimation”(return a creature card from a graveyard to the battlefield), and returning target creature from the graveyard to hand. I always find talking about graveyard recursion in other colors outside if Black interesting because I always see a couple of, typically new, players who seem to think Black has a monopoly on it but colors such as White also have a lot of ways to bring stuff back from the graveyard. Although, in fairness it tends to have more limitations on how and when it can do it than Black does. Which is a pretty good representation of how White is not usually going to want to do literally whatever it takes to get what it wants. While in Black graveyard recursion is usually flavored as a desecration of a corpse or creature to resurrect them as a harder to kill zombie, in White it it represents someone’s life being saved through more savory means. Remember, White wants to help as many people as possible so if it can save someone from dying, without resorting to “evil” magic, it will. It also tends to idealize things like mercy and kindness so saving things from permanent destruction or repairing things that have been damaged or destroyed makes sense.

White’s “Reanimation” effects are usually limited to smaller creatures, typically ones with mana cost two or less, to set it apart from Black. This tells us some things about each respective color. Firstly, that Black has no line it is unwilling to cross to win so it inevitably has less restrictions when it comes to bringing things back. Meanwhile, while White is all about saving people there are lines that it would argue one shouldn’t cross or certain actions that are immoral/evil. The fact that White tends to be restricted to smaller creatures is just a representation of how White usually has and cares about smaller creatures because it is all about people working together for the sake of a bigger picture more than any emphasis on the individual.

So by having a bunch of smaller creatures the player with said small creatures is usually going to be forced to play smarter and have all their creatures work together to achieve a larger goal that no single creature could achieve on its own. 

Black and White can both sometimes resurrect large swathes of creatures at once. In the case of White this just represents how it focuses on the needs and wants of the many over the few, and thus it wants to help and save as many people as possible in order to reduce suffering.

Rules setting, Taxing, Can’t be attacked, Can’t lose the game and opponents can’t win, “You don’t lose,” and Pacifism-like effects– White is primary in Rules setting, Taxing, Can’t be attacked(creatures can’t attack you), Can’t lose the game and opponents can’t win, Pacifism-like effects(enchanted creature can’t attack or block.), Preventing actions (Your opponents can’t cast spells this turn.), and secondary in “You don’t lose”(permanents that prevent you from losing the game while they’re on the battlefield, usually with an alternate means to lose). I ended up putting all these different abilities in the same section because they all basically represent some facet of White’s love of rules and laws as a way to keep people safe and on the right track. When it comes to taxing I’m just going to repeat what I said earlier “flavorwise the taxing style counterspells represent White’s rules and laws and basically radiate “Sure you can cast this spell as long as you meet these conditions, work hard and pay your taxes” sort of vibe. You can cast all the spells and abilities you want as long as you do it in a way White considers right or else the law, rules, or White itself will have to come down on you for being immoral or doing something wrong/dangerous.” 

All the other rules stuff represents pretty similar things “this thing is legal and this thing is illegal,” “this thing is immoral and this thing is not,” etc. These rules can also represent how White values long-term planning and thought over short-sighted spur-of-the-moment actions since these rules typically allow you to drag out the game and live longer or just slow down your opponent(s). The ability to make it so you can’t lose the game but your opponents can’t win the game further highlights this. Since leaving each player in a state where neither can win allows you to stall for enough time to find a way to win the game or just stall out the opponent until they give up or can’t do anything to fight back. “You don’t lose” effects have basically the exact same flavor(stall while you set up a plan).

Creatures not being able to attack represents White playing the long game by delaying attacks but also doing things like avoiding unnecessary conflict so people don’t get hurt or protecting your creatures from a fight since White is trying to have as few people suffer as possible in its ideal world.

Destroy target attacking or blocking creature, Deal N damage to target attacking or blocking creature, Deal direct damage to multiple targets, Destroy target creature and its controller gets compensation, Destroy target creature that damaged you or a creature you control this turn, Destroy target tapped creature, Destroy target creature with power 3/4 or greater, Destroy all creatures, and Destroy all creatures with power 3/4 or greater– White is primary in being able to destroy target attacking or blocking creatures, destroying target creature at the cost of giving that creature’s controller some sort of compensation, destroying creatures that dealt damage to you or a creature you control this turn, destroying target tapped creature, destroying target creature with power 3/4 or greater, destroying all creatures, or destroying all creatures with power 3/4 or greater, and secondary in dealing some amount of damage to target attacking or blocking creature, and dealing direct damage to multiple targets(usually targets that are attacking or blocking). Now destruction in White can be sort of a weird topic sometimes because there seem to be some people who think White can just do it without any sort of condition or prerequisite like Black can but this is a common misconception(I can only assume that when some people see a color do something with a drawback they assume it must be able to do it without the drawback too which is not always the case since some colors are limited in how and when they can do things as part of their slice of the mechanical, and even philosophical, Color Pie).

White ain’t about to just bust out a timeshifted Mono-White Murder, but there actually is a flavor reason for this. If you have read my articles so far then one thing you should know about White is that it tends to care about morality and its end goal is to create a world where there is as little suffering as possible, so running around justing murdering people is usually going to be a hard sell. This tends to make White in general, but not always, a defensive and reactionary color in both gameplay and philosophy because of the fact that White usually doesn’t want to go around punishing innocent people, so it tends to either reward those who stay in line or punish those who actively step over the line. Plus, White’s belief in moral and immoral actions means that it usually needs a moral justification to do something. Killing in self-defense is probably fine for most of those who believe in White philosophy but killing a person just because you felt like it isn’t going to fly. The fact that White’s creature destruction usually has some sort of caveat reflects this fact. It is basically destroying something that did something wrong/evil or something that it sees as a threat. In fact, I’ll go through them all.

I feel like the ability to destroy or damage target attacking or blocking creature is pretty self-explanatory. It basically represents self-defense. An attacking creature is one that will hurt you or creatures you control and a blocking creature is one that is basically about to fight, and hurt, an attacking creature you control. So when you are destroying an attacking or blocking creatures you are protecting either yourself or your creatures. Of course White can also deal damage to multiple attacking or blocking creatures.

Being able to destroy a target creature that damaged you or a creature you control this turn basically represents justice or the law. A creature is hurting you or your allies and you must remove it before it continues to hurt people or just because the way/reason it hurt you or your creatures was morally wrong and it needed to be punished.

White’s ability to destroy tapped creatures takes a bit of extra consideration to understand but I would argue that the flavor is not usually that much of a stretch. In order to understand you have to simply ask why a creature would usually be tapped. Sure, it can sometimes be due to a spell/ability but a lot of the time the reason a creature becomes tapped is because it either attacked or utilized one of its own abilities to do something. 

So what we have is basically White punishing a creature for presumably taking some sort of action that White it views as reprehensible in some fashion. Honestly, the flavor is pretty similar to the “destroy target creature that damaged you or a creature you control this turn” one.

Destroying a target creature at the cost of giving its controller compensation represents White’s themes of fairness or balance and often represents some sort of exchange. “You give me that creature and I give you something in return.” It can also be seen as some form of reparation or some such. Sure it may have destroyed something but it repaid the player with something that is, theoretically, of equal value to keep things fair and just.

The ability to destroy a target creature with power 3, 4, or greater is actually some pretty interesting flavor that I love to talk about. So White is typically a more defensive and reactionary philosophy but it can become very proactive since it is actively trying to make the world a better place. So by extension it definitely values actively doing things like getting rid of evil, taking actions to prevent people from getting hurt in the future, or removing what it may see as dangerous. What I am saying here is that the reason White can destroy creatures with power 3, 4, or greater is because it is basically seeing them as dangerous or a threat that could hurt others. This is further emphasized by the fact we are talking specifically about power here. Y’know, that stat that denotes how much damage a creature will deal to you, planeswalkers, or other creatures you control if it hits you. A stat that literally signifies how badly a creature is planning to hurt you. So it’s White basically going “wow this creature is too dangerous or too willing to hurt us so we must remove it to prevent people from getting hurt.” It also ties into the fact that White usually just likes utilizing small creatures to work together as a team over utilizing a few big ones. I guess a creature with massive power could also kill a lot more of your creatures than a bunch of small ones. White’s ability to destroy all creatures with power 3, 4, or greater has the same flavor, albeit mixed with some of its board wipe flavor.

I’ve already discussed White’s ability to board wipe things like creatures, enchantments, and artifacts so I’m just going to repeat what I said there. “White is also the undisputed #1 color when it comes to board wipes, also known as board sweeps(which are effects that destroy or exile all permanents of a certain type, ie. destroy all creatures). These board wipes represent two main things about White philosophy. First of all, that White cares about fairness and justice. So it chooses to destroy all things on the board and not just its opponent’s or something in order to literally even the playing field. It also represents White’s focus on the big picture. White usually wants to think on big scales and about the group over individuals. So when it’s board wiping it’s not just targeting one creature but engaging the opponent’s threats as a group(and thus taking care of them as one), and if you are board wiping you should usually be playing for the long game, i.e. it gives the player a better chance of winning down the line. You are potentially giving up your creatures and stuff now to be in a more advantageous position in the future. Unless you have no permanents of the type you are wiping but now you and your opponent have been put on an even playing field. You could also say this ties in with White’s themes of sacrifice, since if your board wiping your creatures are being “sacrificed(not sacrifice like the mechanic though)” to hopefully help you secure a win or not lose the game. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all that.” 

On rare occasions there exist cards like Devout Decree, which exile or destroy a creature that is Black or Red. All the colors have some form of mechanical hate for their respective enemy colors(even if it isn’t always in the same form), because they tend to ideologically oppose them. In White it should also be notable that it has themes of conformity and may often see philosophies like Black and Red as dangerous or evil and something that must be proactively stopped.

Deal N damage to creature, planeswalker, and/or player– White is secondary in dealing N damage to target creature/planeswalker and/or player.

You can probably guess based on the mechanics I just covered up above but a lot of people also don’t seem to realize that White is actually pretty decent at dealing direct damage. However, just like its creature destruction it can usually only do so in specific ways or when specific conditions have been met. As mentioned previously, the most common condition is a creature being tapped, attacking, or blocking in order to symbolize White punishing someone/something for doing something wrong or as a form of self-defense and/or protection.

However, White is also capable of dealing direct damage to a creature, planeswalker, and/or player based on how many creatures it controls. The fact that doing damage like this is based purely on how many creatures you control highlights White’s emphasis of the needs of the many and groups over the needs of the few and individuals since such an ability becomes more powerful the more creatures you have. So having one giant 10/10 isn’t going to synergize with this kind of mechanic at all but having an army of 10 1/1 tokens come together to allow this mechanic to take care of a massive threat will be very effective and can allow you to take down something a single individual could not take out on its own by compiling their strength together.

+N/+N(on Auras), +0/+N(on Auras), -N/+N(on Auras), +0/+N(on spells), -N/+N(on spells), +0/+N(on creatures), +N/+N(on spells), +N/+0(on creatures), +N/+0(on spells), +N/+0(on Auras),  and -N/+N(on creatures)– White is primary in having auras that grant +N/+N, +0/+N, and/or -N/+N and having spells that grant +0/+N, -N/+N as well as having creatures that grant +0/+N. It is also secondary in having auras that grant +N/+0, spells that grant +N/+N and/or +N/+0, and creatures that grant +N/+0 and/or -N/+N.

It’s important to remember that every color has some way of boosting creatures in some way mechanically. While some of these boosts are purely mechanical they can also come with different flavors or conditions that add some differentiation or tell us about the color’s philosophy. Plus, some colors have more ways of boosting or pumping up their creatures than others. One of the colors that tends to pump up and support their creatures the most often is White. The general reason is pretty obvious at this point, White prioritizes helping as many people as possible by trying to get them what they need or protect them in order to reduce net suffering. So White is one of the colors that is most likely to prioritize helping you without any strings attached due to the emphasis on aid and putting others and the group first(this is also why White has a noticable emphasis on things like +1/+1 counters). A lot of boosting effects also act as a form of defense or healing since the bigger your creature becomes the more it takes to hurt them via damage. However, let’s dive deeper into specifics.

First off, White having a lot of buffs relating to auras makes sense since it, along with Green, is the color that cares about enchantments the most. As told in my previous article “…enchantments in White are often used to represent, the often nonphysical, laws or rules being enforced via magic or other means… Another thing that White’s enchantments often represent is the part of its philosophy that wishes to make things better. Enchantments in Magic can often represent some sort of unnatural or natural change and in White’s case it can often represent trying to change things for the better or change something’s nature into something better…” Auras are an extension of this point. White’s being primary in auras, creatures, and spells that grant +N/+N, and/or +0/+N all help keep your creatures from dying through damage and helps keep them safer as a form of protection. This ties into White’s themes about trying to help as many people as possible. The fact that White has a lot of access to +0/+N effects and -N/+N effects shows its emphasis on defense and protection over hurting others due to White prioritizing the idea of keeping the amount of unnecessary suffering to as low of an amount as possible. 

-N/+N effects can not only be used to make your creatures harder to kill but in theory can also help protect them or yourself from an enemy creature by lowering their power. However, Mark states that this effect is typically a defensive trick, which means that it usually shows White sacrificing offense and damage to better protect those around it.

It should be noted that White’s pumping tends to be smaller than Green’s. 

Usually, because White prefers to use a wide number of smaller creatures working together as a representation of how it values the big picture and needs of the many over the needs of the few.

White’s aura-based +N/+N tend to cap out at +2/+2. Its ability to grant +N/+0(on spells) is stated to always cap out at +1/+0 and probably shows that White isn’t nearly as aggressive or offense-focused as Black and/or Red. 

It’s +N/+0 on auras tend to be +2/+0 or lower and send a similar message. The fact that White’s +N/+0 effects tend to be one time use upgrades of +1/+0 further reinforce this theme.

White doesn’t tend to get +N/+0 effects as often as colors like Red in order to emphasize the more defensive and protective aspects of its color philosophy. However, as mentioned before White does have a more proactive side to its philosophies and it would argue that it is good to actively fight back against evil. So being able to increase something’s attack like this might often just be a generic buff but can also represent White encouraging or rewarding proactively fighting and coming down on bad things. There’s also just the fact that having a bigger attack helps you fight better so it may just simply represent some form of support.

+N/+N to your team, +N/+N to your team(ongoing), and +N/+0 to your team- White is primary in giving your team +N/+N in the form of either a temporary one time affect or an ongoing affect, and it is secondary in giving +N/+0 to your team. If you’ve read the previous article or know even a decent amount about White’s mechanics, you are probably well aware that White tends to like to use a bunch of small creatures for going wide strategies rather than a couple of big creatures. These anthem effects don’t reach their full potential unless you control as many creatures as possible. So having them show up frequently in White is a good way of signifying to the player that White usually wants to reward you for playing many creatures and that philosophically White wants to help groups of people and it tends to value groups over individuals. In addition to this flavor, there is also the flavor from the previous section involving +N/+N being used as defense, protection or healing(due to making your creatures harder to kill), and +N/+0 representing proactivity or aggression.

-N/-N(on spells)– White is tertiary in granting -N/-N via spells, which may be a bit surprising to some since Black is probably the color most synonymous with these sorts of effects and Red sometimes dabbles in them. Typically, colors outside of Black are restricted to granting creatures -N/-N in the form of -1/-1 counters in place of normal damage on their creatures in sets with a -1/-1 counters theme or are otherwise prevalent in a given set or block. There’s not much to say about creatures dealing damage in the form of -1/-1 counters or -1/-1 effects because it’s usually just representative of a creature dealing damage in a more permanent and ongoing form.

White does seem to have the ability to grant large swathes of creatures -N/-N or give -N/-N to creatures that have met a certain condition(like attacking/blocking or being Non-White). I think in terms of flavor this comes from a weird combination of things. 

Firstly, White has the ability to shrink the power and toughness of creatures to 1. Which represents White’s proclivity for smaller creatures in order to emphasize it caring about having a large number of creatures and its philosophy prioritizing the needs of the many over the needs of the few. Furthermore, turning something into a 1/1 also makes it less dangerous and less appealing for its controller to swing with it. Meaning it can act as a way to “disarm” or discourage unnecessary combat without outright killing a creature. There is also White’s ability to destroy creatures by either wiping the board or destroying creatures that have met a certain condition as a form of balance or punishment. So when we combine the flavor of these two things we get the flavor of White weakening creatures to make them smaller, a weaker board wipe, or as a form of punishment or retribution for a creature doing or believing something wrong.

Damage prevention, Damage redirection and “Fog”– White is primary in damage prevention(effects that prevent the next N damage that would be dealt to target creature/player) and damage redirection(effects that prevent the next N damage that would be dealt to target creature/player before dealing damage equal to the amount of damage that was prevented this way to target creature/player). White is also tertiary in and tertiary in “Fog” effects(Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn).

The reason White is primary in damage prevention and similiar Fog effects is the exact same reason it is primary in the ability to grant protection to creatures. It emphasizes White’s idealization of helping and protecting as many people as possible. The damage redirection also emphasizes this but throws in a bit of justice, retribution and/or law enforcement by not only protecting you and/or your creatures but punishing the person who was attempting to hurt them in the first place.

“Enchantress” ability, Friendly to enchantments, “Tutor” for an enchantment, Animating Enchantments, Return target enchantment from graveyard to hand, Enchantment destruction, and Putting enchantments from hand onto the battlefield– White is primary in “Enchantress” abilities(Whenever you play an enchantment, draw a card), being friendly to enchantments, being able to “tutor” for an enchantment(Search your library for an enchantment card and put that card in your hand), animating enchantments(Target/all non-aura enchantment(s) you control become an enchantment creature(s)), returning target enchantment from your graveyard to your hand, enchantment destruction, and putting enchantments from your hand onto the battlefield.

White has a pretty heavy enchantment theme and I ended up grouping all these seemingly disparate abilities together because of that common thread tying them together. I’ve already gone into an in-depth discussion about White’s association with enchantments so I’ll keep this version of the discussion brief. White gets enchantments because they represent its non-physical laws, rules, and morality as well as the ways it may enforce those things(either physically or non-physically) in order to help protect people and make sure they are doing what’s right and what’s best for the group or the bigger picture. 

White’s desire to change the world to something better also means that sometimes its enchantments represent changing something for the better or improving upon something, similar to how Blue can use its enchantments to change things.

There really isn’t much to say about White being friendly to enchantments, being able to tutor for them, returning enchantments from the graveyard, putting enchantments on the battlefield from hand, and its “enchantress” abilities other than its just that White likes enchantments and how they can be used to set rules, laws, morals or improve upon things and by rewarding you for playing enchantments you as a player are more likely to lean into what enchantments represent in gameplay. 

Animating enchantments is probably just more “enchantment matters” theming but could represent the non-physical being given some sort of physical impact or form via enforcement or magic and enchantment tutoring or recursion could represent White coming up with new rules in some way or just reusing them. 

Notably, White’s enchantress abilities tend to be limited to drawing one card per activation but White’s card draw is something I’ll get to later.

Enchantment destruction probably represents White engaging with rules and morals on their level. That is to say, White doing things like abolishing unhelpful, bad, or outdated laws.

Exiling cards from graveyard– White is primary in being able to exile cards from graveyards. 

I would argue that this is probably some form of indirect hate towards Black, since hate towards mechanics a color’s enemy uses a lot or tends to heavily rely on shows up a decent amount in each color. The best example that I can think of is how some Red and Green spells can’t be countered as a form of fuck you towards their shared enemy color Blue since 99% of counterspells are Blue. So from that angle, it might make sense for White to have some way to counteract Black, a color that is #1 when it comes to many different forms of graveyard recursion and abilities revolving around the graveyard.

You could also argue that White being able to exile things from graveyards is representative of it preventing graves and/or dead bodies from being desecrated.

“Flicker”, “Gaseous Form,” and Return to hand– White is primary in “Flicker” effects(which are effects that exile target creature/permanent and then return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control, sometimes the creature/permanent returns at the end of the turn), “Gaseous Form” effects(which are effects that cause a creature to neither deal nor receive damage), and secondary in returning target creature/permanent to its owner’s hand. 

These all pretty clearly fall under White’s protective flavoring and its philosophy in regards to trying to save and help as many people as possible. These effects also offer a way to keep creatures from hurting each other or being hurt through more non-violent means. 

As a side note, White tends to grant the gaseous form effects to creatures while Blue is more likely to have the effect on creatures.

White’s return to hand abilities ultimately have basically the same flavor but require a little extra explaining. White is secondary in being able to bounce permanents(return permanents to its owner’s hand) because it is restricted to bouncing its own permanents to represent a way of protecting them. 

If you return something to your hand at instant speed whatever spell or ability your opponent was trying to target with it misses. Flicker has the same kind of logic as far as the reason for why White has the ability in terms of flavor(you can’t hit what isn’t there).

Similarly White also has the ability to phase things out(things that are phased out are treated like they don’t exist until they phase back into the battlefield).

Flickering and bouncing can also be used to “heal” your creatures. Since when a creature leaves the battlefield all damage is removed and so are all counters(which while that may remove positive counters such as +1/+1 counters it can also remove negative auras, counters, such as -1/-1 counters, and effects that an opponent might have put on a creature you control.

I should mention that there have been a rare occasions where White a card can bounce an opponent’s permanent which usually represents White taking care of things nonviolently or just stalling for time so it is more likely to achieve its long term goals. It should be noted that some flicker cards can target your opponent’s stuff in order to stall for time or temporarily remove them for a similar effect.

Friendly to creatures, “Tutor” for a creature, and Putting creatures from hand onto the battlefield– White is secondary in being friendly to creatures, being able to tutor for creatures(which is an ability that searches your library for a creature card and puts that card into your hand), and tertiary in putting creatures from your hand onto the battlefield.

White generally caring about creatures to a noticeable degree is no surprise since White is about trying to help as many people as possible and reduce suffering. This is further represented by White utilizing many small creatures working together in its gameplay in go-wide strategies. While White’s creatures may usually be smaller it is tied with Green when it comes to relying the most on creatures. The main reason why White isn’t primary in these abilities is ultimately because it is typically restricted to caring about small creatures to represent its go wide and good of the many ideology over putting all your eggs in one basket and putting one person’s needs above all else.

When it comes to tutoring for creatures there is also the additional fact that each color has ways to at least tutor for specific creature types that are typically within their colors, such as Red searching for dragons and/or goblins, etc.. Also, being able to tutor for creatures enables White to be able to go wide and gather more creatures together faster.

These reasons also sort of applies to White putting creatures from its hand onto the battlefield since all the colors dip their toes in this ability as long as it revolves around a creature type that is normally in their color.

Friendly to planeswalkers, “Tutor” for a planeswalker, and Putting planeswalkers from hand onto the battlefield– White is primary in being friendly to planeswalkers(it can also bring them back from the graveyard and tutor for them), being able to tutor for a planeswalker by searching your library for a planeswalker and putting it into your hand, and putting planeswalkers from hand onto the battlefield. Honestly, there’s probably an argument to be made that I could have combined this with the previous section but the reason White cares about planeswalkers in these ways is basically the exact same reason it tends to care about creatures. White wants to help as many people as possible for the greater good and since planeswalkers are people too they would fall under that umbrella.

Friendly to low mana value cards– In case you didn’t know a “low value” card in Magic gameplay refers to one with a mana value of 3 or lower. White is primary in being friendly to low mana value cards(it can even tutor for them and bring them back for the graveyard) and this is mostly due to the fact that White tends to use, rely on, and reward playing small creatures. Of course, most creatures with a low power and toughness tend to also have a low mana cost. I won’t go into too much of an indepth explanation here, but the reason White wants to encourage playing small creatures is because of its emphasis on teamwork, not elevating one person’s selfish needs over the needs of the group along with how it prefers to focus on going wide and looking at the bigger picture.

Friendly to artifacts, Putting artifacts from hand onto the battlefield, “Tutor” for an artifact, Return target artifact from graveyard to hand, and Artifact destruction– White is primary in being friendly to artifacts, secondary in putting artifacts from hand onto the battlefield, tutoring for artifacts(searching your library for an artifact and then putting into your hand), and primary in returning artifacts from the graveyard to hand while also being secondary in artifact destruction.

White being friendly to artifacts in various ways makes a bit of sense when you consider that even though it’s allies with Green, which has heavy themes of nature and artifact destruction, it is also allies with Blue, a color that embraces technology and artifice to achieve what is normally impossible(however, this is not to say Green hates all technology or can’t like certain forms of technology). 

White is a philosophy that wants to make the world a better place, help as many people as possible and reduce the amount of suffering and since it is not as considerate about living in harmony with nature or the natural world as Green is it is much more willing to jump at the opportunity to use things like technology to make things better even if it conflicts with the supposed natural order. 

White and Blue are also colors that Magic likes to associate with civilization due to White’s emphasis on community, Blue’s sense of progress and their overlapping values of laws, playing it safe and not caring about nature nearly as much as say Green. When it comes to putting artifacts from hand onto the battlefield White is usually restricted to caring about equipment, which represents the more military imagery it often has and it helping or bolstering its allies by giving them equipment to better help them survive and stuff. White’s artifact tutors also tend to be limited to similar subsets of artifacts, such as equipment and vehicles, for the same reason.

However, White is still allies with Green and both colors share artifact destruction, unlike Blue. White may not usually care about that natural order or ecosystem as much as Green usually does but it still idealizes having a strong sense of there being some sort of order or correct way the world is supposed to be and the existence of an objective morality. This in addition to the fact that most artifacts aren’t people or living things means White is way more likely to be willing to confiscate or destroy technology it sees as dangerous, evil, blasphemous, etc, and is overall less likely to embrace any technology it comes across than Blue is. In White’s eyes some forms of technology are just plain dangerous, evil or inhumane and cannot be allowed to be used by just anyone, and in some cases should just not be used at all. Plus most technology or artifacts that are destroyed could probably be repaired anyway.

Friendly to legendary permanents– White is primary in being friendly to legendary permanents. If you asked me why this is the case the first thing that comes to mind for me is White’s morality. Due to the fact that White believes in an objective morality it is also the most likely color to believe in things like heroes, villains, holy/sacred objects or demonic/evil items, etc. So White caring about legendary permanents could be a reflection of this. It is also more likely to elevate or admire those it sees as heroes or sacred as an example to uplift and follow.

Friendly to lands, Animating lands, Basic land counting, and “Tutor” for a land– White is secondary in being friendly to lands, primary in being able to animate lands(which is the ability to turn lands into a creature with a certain power and toughness until the end of the turn). and basic land counting(effects that scale equal to the number of basic lands you control). Finally, it is tertiary in being able to tutor for lands.

The important thing to remember about lands in Magic is that while Green tends to care about them the most(for reasons I will get to in a later Green centric article) all the colors tend to have some sort of land matters ability because they at the very least care about their corresponding basic lands or just lands that produce their corresponding color. 

For example White is going to have creatures that care about plains and Blue is going to have creatures that care about islands because those are the lands/leylines that produce white and blue mana respectively in gameplay. 

Ultimately, like 98% of land matters abilities outside of Green can probably be attributed to this kind of flavor. 

Interestingly, White does have cards that allow it to put extra plains on the battlefield like Green does but unlike Green this is only when there is another player with more lands than White. This ties in with White’s themes of fairness and equality along with the aforementioned leyline stuff.

Life gain, Lifelink, “Drain Life”– White is primary in life gain and Lifelink while being tertiary in Drain Life effects(which are effects that deal damage to a creature/player and gain you life equal to that damage).

White’s life gain is something that I have already talked about in depth so I’m just going to copy and paste what I’ve said before “White tends to be associated with life. This is most obvious in the healing magic and life gain which tend to represent how White is all about helping others and the group. White is trying to encourage all of us to look out for each other… White philosophy tends to care about the group and the masses so its connection to life also extends to the fact that it usually wants to save as many lives as possible and how White is all about the bigger picture and greater good. So it usually cares about lives on a mass scale… life gain also ties into White’s more defensive and long-term goals by helping people, the player, or the group withstand something they normally couldn’t or to save as many people as possible.”

Due to the fact White and Green are primary in life gain they can often just gain life with little to no hoops to jump through. Lifelink often represents a creature’s ability to heal or take care of others by taking action. You could see the fact that they usually have to attack or block to activate the lifelink the ability as also representing White’s selfless goals as these creatures will often have to put themselves in danger or tank an attack to heal others.

I imagine the reason why White is only tertiary in drain life effects is because a lot of those effects come off as parasitic or are flavored as draining energy from something which can easily come off as cruel or more Black aligned in flavor. 

However, White is still capable of healing or aiding people while punishing enemies(lifelink is technically an example of this).

A lot of the time when White gets a drain life affects it’s when it’s in specific factions, like the Black and White aligned Orzhov or for the portion of Phyrexians that are White aligned which come with their own layer of flavor connected to their color alignment. Being forced to pay life when you do something could also tie in with White’s laws, rules, and/or structures theme.

Token generation, Increasing counters and/or tokens, and “Warlord”– White is primary in token generation and “Warlord” cards(which are creatures that have a power and toughness equal to the number of creatures you control) while being secondary in being able to increase counters and/or tokens. I kind of went over most of this stuff so I’m just going to copy and paste the pertinent information

“White is pretty famous for its ability to make lots and lots of creature tokens as well as the fact that White’s creatures tend to be very small, including its tokens. White usually makes 1/1 tokens while a color like Green usually makes 3/3 tokens and Black typically makes 2/2 tokens and… in general White prefers “weenie” strategies(strategies that focus on using small and usually efficient creatures). So what does this all mean?… White having small creatures isn’t necessarily because it is physically weaker than other kinds of magic or colors but because ideologically it prefers to work as a team and views the group more important than the individual, but in fairness White is all about helping everyone(including the weak).” So having the ability to easily make or summon more small creatures and being able to go wide more often “forces the player to think of most of their creatures as pieces of a larger whole that work together instead of just sending a massive 10/10 with trample to smash the opponent’s face in… 

Trying to win with only a couple of big creatures in Mono-White tends to be an uphill battle because that’s not the way White would usually argue you should approach the situation. If you want to win you shouldn’t get hyper-fixated on one or three big creatures but take into account the bigger picture and goal of the group in order to get people to work together towards said goal. This also means that if a creature dies or sacrifices themselves the overall objective is probably not in vain since the opponent will probably still have to contend with an army of other creatures. 

So if you want to win with White you need to acknowledge the fact that individual creatures aren’t usually going to matter as much as the entire group of creatures and if an individual creature does matter the most it is usually going to still be dependent on, or at least benefit from, you have a large group of other creatures to back them up.” 

Warlord effects also reflect this philosophy’s theme of the good of the many by being a mechanic that rewards you for playing lots of creatures and prioritizing the group over just having a couple of creatures. Without the help of the group the creature becomes tiny and less helpful. It is the metaphorical power of your group working together being made literal. It should also be mentioned that while White’s tokens tend to be smaller it tends to make more of them than other colors do at one time.

White being secondary in being able to increase the number of one’s tokens either during or after they are made is basically the same flavor as White in general relying on the many and the group. So it of course has abilities that allow you to reach this goal easier. White having the ability to increase the number of counters either during or after they have been put on something relates to its ideals of helping and supporting others. 

It also makes sense when you consider White is primary in +1/+1 counters and how these sorts of counters can often represent things like healing or strengthening people. So with these effects put together you are increasing how much you can strengthen or boost a creature. Not to mention that White is just friendly to tokens in general and has ways of boosting them.

Playing cards off the top of your library and paying their mana cost– White is secondary in being able to play cards off the top of your library by paying their mana cost(You may look at the top card of your library and if it’s a (insert a type of card here) you may play it). 

This is another one of those abilities that literally every color gets to one degree or another since they can at the very least care about specific subsets of cards or cards with specific attributes, such as cards of a matching color, specific creature type(s), certain card type the color cares about(such as enchantments and some artifacts for White), etc. I think this ability is a bit too vague to have any specific flavor and probably usually just reinforces existing flavor by allowing you to play cards a color would care about philosophically or mechanically off the top of their library. 

The one exception to this COULD be why Blue does it but that’s for another time. I guess you could potentially see this mechanic as indicative of some sort of forethought or actively thinking, kind of like scrying or card draw, in some way if you really wanted to depending on the situation.

Rewards for death, “Lhurgoyf”, and Cast spells from your graveyard– White is secondary in having rewards for death(which are effects that trigger whenever you or another creature you control dies), tertiary in “Lhurgoyf” abilities(which just have your creature’s power and toughness be equal to the number of cards in your/all graveyard(s)), and tertiary in casting spells from the graveyard.

As mentioned in the previous article, despite how much people seem to think Black has a monopoly on sacrifice, White does actually have a bit of a sacrifice theme. 

White is a philosophy that is all about putting the needs of the group above that of individuals and putting others first. So sometimes one may need to make sacrifices or forgo things they want in order to help others or the group. White is a philosophy that would argue if sacrificing yourself saves a greater amount of people than it loses you should usually do it. Now to be clear White tends to lean towards self-sacrifice in both mechanics and flavor while Black argues you should have no qualms about sacrificing others to get what you want. 

This means while White may care about death mechanically sometimes, when it comes to sacrifice abilities White creatures almost always sacrifice themselves as opposed to others. 

White often does things like gain life, creates token creatures, or helps the dying creature go somewhere other than the graveyard(it may even save them by returning them to the battlefield). 

Gaining life can be seen as the creature’s sacrifice or death helping to heal you and aid others in order to help other’s survive, creating tokens just ties into White’s themes of the group and how a sacrifice may aid the group, and putting a dying creature somewhere other than the graveyard often represents a creature you control being saved from dying.

Discard as a cost, and Life loss as a cost– White is tertiary in both using discard and life loss as some sort of cost.

In Black this discard and/or life loss as a cost is representative of its philosophy of using any means necessary to get what it wants and in Red it often represents its reckless or shortsighted ideals but, similar to mechanics like scry, all the colors end up getting both these effects to one degree or another. In this case it is often used as a mechanical drawback or limitation on some of their cards or abilities.

I mean abilities like Channel and Cycling go in all colors and revolve around discarding a card to activate the ability. Let’s also not forget about Phyrexian mana which allows you to pay 2 life in place of paying a mana in order to cast a card. 

Often these colors may also pay these extra costs to do something that fits within their color pie. For example, White may discard cards or pay life to grant something indestructible, gain life, create tokens, etc. I guess it’s also important to consider that in the case of White discard and life loss as a cost tie in very well to the themes of self sacrifice. So to me, sacrificing a little bit of life or discarding a card to protect or save one of your creatures/someone else definitely has a strong flavor for White philosophy and mechanics.

Color changing– White is tertiary in color changing(Target/this creature becomes the color(s) of your choice until end of turn). This is sort of a similar case to lands where there is a specific color that has strong flavor reasons for being able to do it and thus also more access to color changing abilities and mechanics(in this case it’s Blue and its ability to change and creature’s color to anything and Green being secondary in the effect) but at the end of the day all colors have this ability to one degree or another because they can all at the very least change creatures to their own corresponding color. Such as a White card being able to turn a creature into a White creature. Not much to discuss other than the colors are more likely to synergize with those that have similar philosophies and changing a creature’s color may often represent it being converted to White philosophy and such.

Card draw– White is tertiary in card draw as it is typically restricted to drawing over time rather than all at once. This means that White is typically restricted to having effects that draw one card per-turn or abilities that allow it to draw multiple cards but also cause an enemy to draw that many cards. 

White being often restricted to one card being drawn per effect ties into one of White philosophy’s weaknesses that have been mentioned in the previous article. That being it’s a philosophy that can easily encourage inflexible or stagnant ways of thinking. White is by default the color that tends to offer the least wiggle room philosophically since it believes in an objective good and evil of some sort which means it has the fewest gray areas and it encourages people to see the world in, ironically, black and white terms. 

This can also stunt potential creativity and can encourage conformity to an unhealthy degree since White will obviously not want to do anything it sees as objectively evil and it wants to make sure everyone does the right/good thing. This can encourage a conservative way of approaching the world that is slow to change, slow to adapt, and slow to accept new ideas. This means that the limiting card draw may often represent White encouraging stagnation, being less open to new ideas and information, or having a philosophy that can make it hard to adapt. White’s ability to draw multiple cards if it is also causing someone else to draw the same amount of cards ties in with its theme of helping as many people as possible, and equality, fairness and balance. 

It also allows for interesting politics in multiplayer formats(like Commander) which can encourage you to work together with another player to solve a bigger issue or resolve an issue nonviolently for as long as possible. Which ties into White’s themes of wanting to avoid conflict where it feels like it can and focusing on teamwork.

Now I don’t mean to go onto a tangent but I know White is notoriously bad at card draw but I don’t think its current card draw limitations are as bad as most people think it is. Now I’m not saying it’s good, that Wizard’s couldn’t handle it better(good lord could they handle it better), or even that having card draw isn’t absurdly powerful mechanically. What I am saying is that there is actually a decent amount of wiggle room within White’s current card draw limitations and it’s not as suffocating as people think. Being able to draw one card per turn sounds terrible but it’s more like being able to draw one card each instance. Meaning White can draw multiple cards per turn they would just need to come from different sources or from different triggers. 

A card like Opt could actually fit into White’s mechanical color pie perfectly since it can scry and it only draws one card. On top of that there are other spells in White like Revitalization that have “draw a card” stapled on and cards like Archivist of Oghma that draw a card whenever a condition is met. 

Now just drawing one card is no substitute for card advantage and you’re still not net gaining anything if the trigger only goes off once but again White cards are typically restricted to drawing one card in each instance of their activation or ability and White can actually draw more than one card each turn in order to gain card advantage. Plus, there is plenty of potential card design space to expand on White’s card draw(like maybe drawing multiple cards if an opponent is ahead to represent White’s balance and equality).

Plus, who can forget about staple cards like Esper Sentinel. 

Speaking of which, while drawing one card per-turn or whenever a condition is met is the most common limitation White does also get tax effects that allow you to draw a card unless a certain amount of mana is paid.

Extra Attack– White is tertiary in extra attacks(Untap all creatures that attacked this turn. After this main phase, there is an additional combat phase followed by an additional main phase.)

This tends to flavor as White’s more proactive change the world ideals but also ties heavily into how White often has military theming due to its focus on all its combatants working together as a well-oiled machine to achieve something they couldn’t together and how armies are made up of these people working together. 

Plus, since White often has so many creatures it can reward you for having all those creatures by allowing you to swing with all those creatures again. It ends up being only tertiary in it because it does not lean into as much proactive aggression as Red does.

Prowess– White is tertiary in prowess, which is a keyword that reads “Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn” and started off as the signature keyword for the Jeskai Way in Khans of Tarkir before being turned into an evergreen word and then being demoted to a deciduous keyword(and just barely at that!!!). 

I’m probably going to do more of a dive into the keyword when I inevitably go over the Jeskai’s flavor and mechanics but considering it originated with a faction of monks who embody the aspect of dragons’ cunning and strive to reach a form of enlightenment I assume the flavor here is one of discipline and strategy(at least in the case of White). A creature with Prowess can suddenly get bigger when you cast a noncreature spell which adds a depth of strategy to using or fighting against them due to the fact they could get bigger at any time. Also, as mentioned previously, making creatures bigger with +1/+1 counters/effects makes them harder to kill and acts as a way to help keep your creatures safer. Plus, there’s still the effect of whatever noncreature spell your casting in the first place to consider.

The End

I apologize for the massive wait on this article and how long it took to make. The next article will be all about Blue philosophy and some of its mechanics. Although, I might choose to write an article about the flavor of angels and/or humans and why they are so often White aligned before then. My point is that I am still working on more articles to come and this isn’t the end, well it’s the end but not the end of the series. Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful day and feel free to tell me your favorite White keyword or mechanic either from a flavor and/or mechanical perspective. It doesn’t even need to be from this article and can be faction or plane specific.