Seems Playable…
SPOILER AVAILABLE HERE: http://mtgsalvation.com/m11-magic-2011-spoiler.html
Spoilers for M11, the newest edition of Magic: the Gathering, have already started up and it’s looking to be another solid core set in the same vein as M10. Today we’re looking at the color White in terms of its strength for limited in this upcoming set. Aside from the obvious hope to crack a Baneslayer Angels or Ajani Goldmane and force the color all day long, what we’re really looking for is some reliability in what was arguably once the weakest color in Magic. Does white go the distance here or is it too early to tell?
Jeff G:
From the cards we’ve seen spoiled so far for M11, White is shaping up to be quite strong in Limited. They have confirmed Safe Passage will return, the best fog ever printed, with an ability to destroy someone in a single attack phase. Pacifism is back, as well as the very solid tempo card Excommunicate. Additionally, there are three confirmed fliers in white at common, a 3/2 for four mana, a 2/3 for four mana, and a 2/2 for three, basically stripping Wind Drake and Snapping Drake from Blue and shipping them to white’s side of the pie. Two of these three cards are very aggressively costed, and make white an excellent color for evasive beats. Additionally, both Serra Angel and Armored Ascension make a return, both very powerful uncommons and a good incentive for jumping into the color early. Additionally, the new white Giant Growth Mighty Leap is also very nice. Definitely a color worth playing.
Jon A: I find the move of Wind Drake and Snapping Drake to white to be interesting, they are certainly a step up from Griffin Sentinel. Razorfoot Griffin has been upgraded to the newly announced Cloud Crusader, with an extra point of toughness in return for a more white-intensive cost, which makes this card a lot more powerful, and one which will likely be taken early and often. Given these new fliers I would expect there to be no Stormfront Pegasus reprint, but it seems a fair trade-off.
Additionally, the return of Condemn gives white a much needed answer to larger beaters, while not requiring you to telegraph it by leaving four mana up a-la Neck Snap (Divine Verdict). Lastly, Mighty Leap strikes me as a pretty good way of forcing through some extra damage, and seems perfectly costed for its effect. All in all, white will probably again be a great primary color for aggro based decks.
Chris G:
For years, White was the color to ignore, largely because a big part of White’s color pie was gaining life, something which has long been frowned upon when the other colors offer solutions which actually win games. What’s interesting though is how Magic design has worked to make lifegain appealing, and find fun new ways of designing white lifegain cards with a bit more power than Healing Salve. That’s why the cards Ajani’s Mantra, and ;more importantly; Ajani’s Pridemate, have me very intrigued. There’s a lot of design space left in the realm of rewarding players for continually gaining life, with Mantra enabling such a strategy and Pridemate taking full advantage of it. I’ll be very interested to see if this theme is explored further are more cards are revealed. Crossing my fingers for a Knight of Meadowgrain reprint here.
I don’t quite agree that white looks good for draft. Unless you open the bombs (which are BIG, I give you that), the commons have 6, maybe 7 draft-worth ones out of 14 spoiled so far. Compare that with blue (10-11 out of 14). Green and black also have better commons.
White is uber-strong at the uncommon/rare level, and has improved a bit in the common level. It looks to be the strongest “Main” color so far. I’d say Blue has potential as the best 2nd color, with red possibly tying it. Black has gotten the shaft, and green is quite as good as usual, but still a worthy first color.
the artifact section leaves much to be desired.