Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1009: White with Chris Mooney

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

This is another in my series where I sit down with color representatives from the Council of Colors. In this podcast, I talk with Chris Mooney about white.

I'm not pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another Drive to Work at Home Edition. So I've been interviewing various members of the Council of Colors. So today I have Chris Mooney with White. Hey, Chris. Hello. Okay, so I will start with, basically what we've been doing is sort of looking at how we've been looking at the colors. White is interesting that no color has had as much flux in the last couple of years as white. So we're going to talk a little bit about that and then talk about, well, first up, I guess, let's talk a little bit about what has white been doing the last five years? Like what has been white's major mission? been white's major mission right so over the last few years or several years ago we sort of noticed that white was kind of lagging behind uh in a variety of different formats some more than others

but we definitely looked at white across the spectrum and we looked for essentially uh sort of two different things that we wanted to do with white one was provide white some tools for certain kinds of effects that it white should be worse at or not so good at but it still wants some of it card draw being the a primary one where people were asking you know oh card drawing is fun it makes games play well but white is the color that kind of can't do it right now and so we really examined okay well the game probably would be more fun if white could draw cards but how should it draw cards what are the ways that makes card draw more white than just copying what other colors are doing um the other category was just sort of a um a reinvigorating um of some of the areas that white traditionally was the strongest at,

but over time, maybe other colors have started to encroach in the space. And how can we make sure that white remains number one in the areas that it should be number one in? A good example of that would be something like token making, where tokens are very fun. We've sort of allowed all colors to make tokens at a variety of rates but at some point we said hey white white is the army color it's the go white color it should have the best ability to make lots of little tokens and i think over the recent years we've seen we've tried to rein in other colors doing that and give more of that to white and it's just right it's not as if we don't want other colors doing any of it it's just just the message that white should be the best at it. And so when you look at all the available things,

white should be the strongest at it. I think that that's something that the color pie is a very, you know, complex, multifaceted, living sort of concept. And there are things, there are certain effects where maybe in paper or, you know, in a vacuum, you would say, oh, well, this color should be the token color and no other color should ever make any tokens. But when you're making a game and you want to have fun effects, some effects just are more fun to share with other colors. they make for great gameplay um just tokens do so many good things in so many different situations that we want to make sure that that tool is available for everyone that it's not so uh locked into just one color whereas other tools you know we're more okay with you know counter spells only existing in one color um or you know really primarily existing in one color um because we think that that is more fun that you know oh blue is the counter spell

color and i'm more safe playing against different decks yeah one of the things that i've noticed you've been very good at is when you see a card you're like this should be a white card why is this not a white card there is definitely i mean uh you know folks on the internet have also become very good at this game but um ari nie who was the white counselor before me, she was, you know, when she took over the role, she kind of sat down and made a list of cards that we thought, hey, this card is, everybody loves this card. But color pie wise, this someone made a sweet card and it's in a different color, but it should be white, we should be more active in saying, hey, let's make sure that white gets these cool tools and that it gets to be awesome at doing the things it's supposed to be awesome at. One of the interesting things about carving space is it's not that we want to steal abilities from other colors as much as can we find a way to let this color do it in a way that's its own, right? It wasn't that we wanted some other color not to be card drawing. We wanted to find a white.

What does white card drawing mean? Right. And tokens are a similar example where, you know, one of the things that we've tried to do is say is say hey let's separate white and green a little bit in their token making you know green can still make tokens but if a card makes you know 10 1 1s that is much more of a white card whereas a card that makes three three threes that's more of a green card it's it's those little distinctions that help to guide the colors even if they're doing somewhat similar things to have a very different feel and to you know synergize with different things in different ways um and that's really you know one of the important uh uh functions of the color pie is to make sure that those distinctions are there

so what what should white like what is white supposed to be good at that it should be better at than it is now like where is where is white um what be good at that it should be better at than it is now? Where is white... What does it have to reclaim? So I definitely think that we've done a decent job of this over time. So over the last couple of years, I'd say that making a lot of tokens or just sort of caring about tokens. We've started to make a lot more token doublers or you get a bonus when you make a token.

I think that's a very white space um white uh board sweepers are something that you know is very classically white and is oftentimes a defining characteristic of white in different formats and we've tried to make sure that white is you know getting not only just um a lot of board sweepers but also board sweepers that play into white's strengths, that maybe allow you to save some of your own creatures or to build around them in a certain way such that, you know, you can get rid of your opponent's stuff, but not your own stuff. So that's another sort of classic white area that we've tried to push in.

Another one. I have one. Yeah, go for it. This is kind of new space that wasn't in white, but like, why isn't this in white? Is the idea of counting creatures to determine the effect of something in which... Yeah, just dealing with the pure number of creatures

that you have. Right. So, for example, we put direct damage where the direct damage is tied to the number of creatures you have you target to a creature. We put that into white, which before it was a red thing,

it wasn't in white. Right. That's a good example of, you you know so outnumber is which is the red card that we often uh cite when we're making these outnumber was a red card and it was sort of okay so this is a burn spell it cares about how many creatures you have but uh over time it was sort of well red doesn't really need this card very much red already has know, the ability to have good burn spells. But the color that might want something like this is white. White, it fit with what white was already doing, where it's like, oh, have a big army that's good for you. This card scales with how many creatures you have.

So it's only a strong card if you're making a lot of creatures, but that's what white should be strong at. And white, unlike red, did have a use for having more of these sort of outnumber style effects. So that was an example of where things sort of shifted over to better suit the strengths of the colors.

And likewise in green, if you count how many creatures, that's more of a white thing now. And if you count how big a single creature is, that's more of a green thing. Because green if you count how big a single creature is, that's more of a green thing. Because green wants to go tall, and white wants to go wide. You know, Might

of the Masses is a card that, you know, we've printed into green, which is sort of like in a similar space, right? It's like, that is, that was a green card, it counts the number of creatures, but that could easily be a white card. And so that's another effect that we've talked about a lot, of like, oh, boosting your creatures based on how many creatures you have that sounds like something that white could be able to do you you had another i think yeah another another example i could give would be

um like protecting your team um so in general white and green share a lot of space. And typically both of the colors have, you know, instance that saves your stuff, you know, give them hex proof or indestructible or et cetera. And over time, we sort of realized that this is an effect that feels like the idea of I have a lot of stuff in play and I'm going to save it all from destruction. That feels very white and it plays into the white like the idea of i have a lot of stuff in play and i'm going to save it all from destruction that

feels very white and it plays into the white sort of game plan of putting a lot of stuff into play and having a very wide board um so over time we've sort of tried to separate those out and say white should get stronger cards that can protect all of its stuff at once and green should get stronger cards that protect you know one particular thing because as you said right it's like green you know should have things that reward you more for having one particular thing. Because as you said, right, it's like green, you know, should have things that reward you more for having one awesome thing in play. So it's like I played my giant creature and now I have a way to, you know, protect that one creature versus I've played a lot of different creatures and I'm protecting all of them at once.

That's another example of like, right, white sort of trying to reclaim some space that other colors have traditionally done well, but we feel like fits into white. You know, the thing that was happening a lot was that it would be something that white was supposed to be the slightly better version of it. And then the secondary color got the better cards. Like I know with flickering, blinking, white's supposed to be best at a blue second. And we kept making blue have the best ones.

We're like, why can't white have the best ones? And, you know, that's definitely a tricky line to walk because when we make an awesome card, we don't necessarily want to say, oh, don't make this awesome card. It's too awesome for this color. But nowadays, a lot of times what we'll say is like, hey, if we have a really strong card in a color

that's supposed to be secondary, we'll ask ourselves, could we make a really strong card in a color that's supposed to be secondary, we'll ask ourselves, could we make a stronger version in the primary color? Because as long as we have some room to maneuver, that means in the future, we could make sure that color gets the tools that it needs. Another example of another space that sort of white has recently,

we've given more and more space to is bringing stuff back from the graveyard um this is something that we sort of traditionally we've said like oh white can get back non-creatures and maybe some small creatures occasionally um but over time we we just felt like hey bringing rescuing stuff from your graveyard bringing stuff back from the graveyard um especially for a color that doesn't have a lot of sacrifice effects or doesn't have a lot of ways of milling. A lot of the times when you're bringing stuff back from the graveyard in white, it's when you're recovering from stuff getting destroyed, right?

You played a bunch of stuff, it all got destroyed, and now your cards are bringing it back. And we thought that was a very healthy play pattern for white. We thought that was a great way for white to be able to sort of reuse its material to make up a little bit for its, you know, weakness in the card draw area. So over time, we started to give white a little bit more and more of like, you know, oh, maybe it can bring back a larger creature every now and then. Maybe it can bring back multiple small things at once. And that has sort of definitely given it more resiliency and a different sort of way of playing that.

Right. Historically, white has been able to bring stuff back from the graveyard. given it more resiliency and a different sort of way of playing um that right historically white has been able to bring stuff back from the graveyard but i think for a long time we sort of shied away from it or we didn't really uh emphasize it as much as i think we're doing now it's just making more and more cards in that uh in that space of bringing stuff back yeah another good example and this is a recent change is we okay, white's supposed to be secondary in artifacts. You know, blue's primary. But we're like, okay, well, white should have something that's its own. And we said, well, if white's more about the graveyard than blue, let's let white bring artifacts back from the graveyard, not blue.

Let that be a white thing and not a blue thing. Right. We definitely were like artifacts being, you know, a pretty commonly featured, you know, theme in many sets. It was sort of, we really wanted to make sure that the colors were interacting with artifacts in different ways, that it wasn't sort of, oh, well, blue just gets every artifact effect because it's the artifact color. Well, it's like, if we keep making more and more artifact sets, that doesn't really make sense. We have to make sure that there's distinction there. And so, right, white being able to bring back artifacts and also enchantments is something that's sort of unique to white that I think that we lean on a little

bit more now in modern sets. Okay, so the next question, do you feel there's anything in white that somebody else is supposed to be doing that white's not supposed to be doing? Is white stepping in any areas that it's not supposed to be? That is a good question, and I think that my answer would be currently no. For the last many years, we've sort of undergone the quest of saying, hey, white's supposed to be good at these things. Let's make sure that white actually is being good at these things and that other colors aren't stealing the space away from white and taking away its specialness and its strengths. So I think that we have put in a lot of effort into doing that.

And generally, when I look at white, I think it's very rare that we see a white card and we say, oh, this should have been a different color compared to, as we said earlier, how often we see a card in another color and we're like, hey, that should be a white card. So my feeling is that right now white is in a pretty good spot in terms of having its own strengths and not necessarily taking away space from the other colors. taking away space from the other colors. Okay, so speaking of the other colors, let's take a look at that. I want to walk through the four other colors and talk about what does white fight with that color?

So let's start with blue. Where do white and blue conflict in the color pie? Are we talking about where they overlap? Yeah, where they overlap, like where they're fighting for similar space. Got it, got it. What do white and blue fight over? So, I mean, definitely one of the big ones that you mentioned before is blinking like both white and blue have a lot of blink and it's a thing that we bring up often for the two colors and ostensibly

white should be slightly better than blue at blinking but it you know a lot of times contextually different things will change and we'll have to you know shift the power around so i think that that's definitely one of the one of the areas where there's a lot of overlap, contextually, different things will change and we'll have to shift the power around. So I think that that's definitely one of the areas where there's a lot of overlap. And it's difficult to... We don't do a lot of... It's hard to slice it, I guess. Which that phrase means that it's hard to make white blink effects and blue blink effects be very different from each other. It sort of feels like they kind of all do the same thing um and so oftentimes when we have a blink deck the way that we try

to differentiate them is with like what kinds of enter the battlefield effects the different colors are trying to reuse but for the blink effects themselves that's definitely a place where there's a lot of overlap um i also think that another overlap that white and blue share is the sort of um and we were doing this slightly more and more with white, but we'll have some white cards that will exile things and let you recast them or they'll even spells on the stack. Maybe we'll have a white card where it's like, oh, well, we'll sort of temporarily get rid of this and maybe you can get it later. That traditionally has been more of a blue space and we're sort of allowing white to have it a little bit more and more i think it's still clear that white blue is the best at bouncing things or putting things on the top of the library

but we're starting to white let play in a little bit of that space and it's important to make sure that those two don't sort of bleed into each other okay so let's talk about counter spells because blue clearly king of counter, no one will argue that. I think white is secondary in that if anybody can do it, white's the one that gets to do it a little bit. It gets taxing, it could get delaying stuff,

maybe like a memory lapse-ish sort of spell. Right, yeah. But we don't see a lot of it. Why don't we see a lot of it? The main reason that we don't see a lot of it, it kind of comes back to something that I was touching on earlier which is that the there are certain effects that we are happy to do a lot of and to have be everywhere and sort of because we they're just very fun to play with and there's

other effects that we're a little bit more guarded and we're a little bit you know we don't want them to bleed too many places because you know for lack better word, they're not very fun to play against. Counterspells are like one of the biggest pain points for a lot of people, especially magic players that have been playing for a long time. You probably sort of, you know, you know how to play around counterspells. You understand why counterspells are important to exist in the game. But for people who are newer, not even just brand brand new but just for people who are at the beginning of their magic journeys counter spells are some of the most frustrating effects to play against and for that reason we like to say hey counter spells we should really try to focus them in this one color it

really helps newer players to be like oh you have a blue deck that means that i should be worried about counter spells whereas if there was a little bit of counter spells in all the colors that could become really frustrating really fast just no matter what who you're playing against you can never you always have to expect that they can counter your spell um so we do we do think that it's a it's an important tool, and it's nice to give white a little bit of it, but we definitely, even as we maybe dip our toes more and more into that space,

I think you'll always see a big gap between white and blue, because we don't want white to be sort of defined, you know, identifiable by having counterspells, the same way that blue should be. A couple of other effects, you know, fit into this space as well. Discard is another big one, where it's like,

other colors can maybe do a little bit of discard, but discarding can be really frustrating, and so we let black do it, but we try not to have too many other colors do it. Okay, another overlap between white and blue. Let's talk a little about flying. Because I know, technically, I guess blue is primary in flying, overlap between white and blue let's talk a little about flying um because i know technically i guess blue is primary in flying but i mean white does tons of flying too so uh how do we differentiate

who gets what in flying flying is is definitely a tricky one because in some ways it's definitely an identifiable iconic part of the two colors but also in a lot of other ways it is a like fundamental building block of magic like pretty much you know in almost every format like flying comes up it matters even in the the oldest of formats having a a cheap flying you know threat is important um and so we do make sure that white and blue have more flyers than the other colors. Between the two, we tend to have blue have, like, slightly better flying creatures than white. But honestly, I think it kind of just comes down to individual designs and individual sets as to, you know, which color has more flyers. Or, sorry, stronger flyers um or sorry stronger flyers right i think also at um at rare you know when we're

talking about like bigger you know stuff i think that while in a vacuum we might say that blue should have the bigger flyers the slightly better flyers in practice i think flying is such an important tool that we really see it deployed pretty much across the board like you know angels sphinxes demons and dragons we make these big flyers in all the colors and they're all very important you know green being the only one who doesn't get flying rares but i think that that also means that there isn't a clear distinction between the two because we'll oftentimes it's like well in theory blue should get a better flyer, but, like, hey, this angel, this angel needs to be awesome,

and, like, it needs to be strong. So I would say that there isn't a huge difference between the two colors when push comes to shove in terms of the strength of their flyers or in the quantity of their flyers. Okay, one other thing that got added to blue, so white is sharing something with blue it didn't as of a couple years ago, we added vigilance to blue. that's that's pretty new here's a question uh i don't know if there's an answer to this one how do you differentiate white from blue vigilance creatures

well that's certainly something that we talked about a lot when we were talking about giving vigilance to blue and i think ultimately where we came down was that when it comes to vigilance we kind of wanted to start deploying it wherever we thought it made sense and sort of see how it develops um unlike some other effects so one of the one of the things we talked about when you did the vigilance is we were saying it would be nice if you know white vigilance creatures and blue vigilance creatures and green vigilance creatures were all different from each other um but also sometimes a keyword is a keyword and the purpose of the keyword is to allow us to make certain kinds of designs or you you know, strengthen certain cards without having

to add a lot of complexity or restrictions or specifics. So we also said, hey, if it turns out that the kinds of vigilance creatures we want to make in blue look like the other colors, then maybe that's okay. Maybe it's okay if the vigilance creatures look like each other. Because at the end of the day, vigilance is more of a tool. It's something that we use to make cards, as opposed to some of these other effects, like card drawing and counterspelling and mass removal. These are things that are really iconic and really define what the strengths of various colors are. Vigilance doesn't really define the strength of a color.

It's more just something that's useful to make creatures that are better at defending. Okay, let's move on to next combinations so blue and black which i've mentioned on this podcast numerous times i think are the two colors that least overlap of all the color pairs white and black i'm sorry white oh sorry blue and black i'm not talking blue and black white and black how do white and black overlap that's right blue and black we're not talking about blue and black wrong right so uh white and black have a couple of, I would say, classic overlap spaces. I think the first is life gain. That's a theme that we break out pretty often. You know, white has more of just a typical, you know, it has various cards that gain life,

whereas black tends to gain life either through you know damaging an opponent or you know when your stuff dies or you sacrifice something um so they've got that sort of life component that they share but i think they do it in pretty different ways like it's very it's easy to tell you know oh this design feels more black because it's got that kind of evil or malicious bend to it yeah lifelink's really the only overlap. Like, black is draining or sacrificing and white is sort of gaining. But other than lifelink, they really don't, like, if you show me a life gain card in a vacuum,

I'll tell you whether it's white or black. It's not, they're pretty different from each other. Another space, and we talked about this earlier, but another space that they overlap more so now is with the graveyard. So as we've given white more and more ability to get stuff back from the graveyard white and black now sort of share this i can bring things back from the dead vibe obviously the flavor is very different you know a you know resurrection or a saving and white versus necromancy and black

um and typically we when we make these cards over time we've actually started to give black a little bit more of you know a cheap reanimating of small creatures this is something that white tended to do but we are sort of hey this is just a fun effect we like there being more reanimation and it's it's fun to be able to make really cheap efficient reanimator cards that can't get back your ginormous 8-drop so that they actually can cost a small amount of mana. So now white and black are overlapping a little bit more on how they reanimate things, but traditionally the separation would be that white can get back artifacts and enchantments and other permanent types, and black can get back, you know,

the large creatures that, you know, it's better at getting back, you know, your 8- creatures that you know it's better at getting back you know your your a drop that you discarded okay anything else on white and black um i think that those are two of the main ones uh i guess one other thing they don't really overlap per se but i think white and black often go together well in the sort of sacrifice death trigger morbid space white tends to provide a lot of tokens and then black tends to provide a lot of tokens, and then black tends to provide the ways to, you know, sacrifice the tokens for value. So they don't necessarily overlap too much from the kinds of effects, but more just in terms of strategy. Like the strategy of, I'm going to make lots of stuff, and then I don't really care as much if it dies, because I'm

going to get bonuses from that. That's definitely something that strategically they oftentimes line up well. Okay, let's move to white and red. Where do white and red overlap? White and red tend to overlap most in the sort of small weenie aggro space, right? They have cheap creatures that are good at beating your opponent down. They tend to have lots of ability to boost all of their creatures, you know, trumpet blast inspired charge kinds of cards that are rewarding you for having a big board of small attackers. From an actual mechanical level, though, I think that white and red are pretty different from one another. So it's like they both have small attackers, but, you know, red, they both share first strike i guess but like you know the red small attackers they might have haste they might have trample they might have menace the white ones might have

lifelink or vigilance or flying um when it comes to their removal they're very different like all the white removal is you know uh very uh you know there's restrictions on it or it's enchantment based or whatever the red removal is all damage based the um in terms of the way that they are you know rewarding and boosting their creatures like you know white tends to have a lot of more anthems and things that stick around whereas red might have more like temporary boosts um so i would say that and or even in terms of stuff like their like mass removal right like white like I'll destroy everything when red deals damage to everything like they maybe have served similar functions but aesthetically and the ways that they interact with other cards is is very different. So I think white and red is a good example of how you can make

cards that serve similar roles for similar types of decks, but by differentiating which colors do which versions of the effects, they come out feeling very different from each other. Yeah, it's not often you make a red card and go, this is white, or make a white card and go, this is red. They do a very different feel. Right. I think that the, maybe the only space that that ever happens is sometimes just token production you know like oh dragon fodder and raise the alarm like yeah like we kind of accept that either color could get those but for the most part i think that like um both aesthetically and mechanically the two colors are very distinct from each other with the only sort of uh with the main overlap being on a

strategic level strategically they oftentimes work well together. I think another thing that like adds to that distinction between the two colors is the sort of, the feelings of red wanting to be sort of very fast and white wanting to be very like methodical and planned out. Like, I think that that difference is highlighted really well in like the sort of different versions of card draw that we've given to the colors.

Like red gets, you know, impulsive draw or like I'll discard my hand and draw like things that are really encouraging you to like play in the moment. Whereas white gets a much more slower methodical, oh, over time I will amass a lot of cards by drawing one every turn. And so I think that, yeah, the colors

while playing well together are very distinct from each other. Okay, let's get to the last pair, green and white. The color pair that I think that, yeah, the colors, while playing well together, are very distinct from each other. Okay, let's get to the last pair, green and white. The color pair that I think overlaps the most of any color pair, black and red are probably the other ones that fight. Yeah, green and white. These are definitely the colors that we often have to talk about pulling apart the most because of how much they overlap. Like, they both love creatures. They both love producing they you know they both love like producing more you know tokens and stuff they both love protecting their creatures um

so uh there's a lot of sort of base level effects that will be like oh you know this naturalize is is this more green or is this more white well they, they kind of both get it. So maybe it's fine that, you know, and I think that's something that oftentimes when it comes up, we will often try to look for ways of separating them apart. You know, we've talked about this a little bit earlier in the podcast, but for white cards, we'll try to say, oh, is this card better at having a large board? Is this card better with having lots of small creatures?

Whereas for green, we'll try to focus on, is this better with having large creatures or can this make like one big token instead of several small tokens? And that's sort of various ways we can try to like pull them apart. You know, with the protection spells, can we have these white protection spells

protect everything and the green protection spells be more efficient at protecting one thing? Yeah, there's a lot of slicing we do in white green. So my example of this is granting power and toughness to things. Like, we've sort of made this cap on white. We sort of say, well, white shouldn't really do much more than plus two, plus two, but it can grant abilities and things, and so it can make combat-oriented things.

Where green is a little more, you grant larger giant growth effects and larger boosts. And then if you're doing your whole team, white can do plus one, plus one, or plus two, plus two to the team. But you want to do plus three, plus three to the team? Okay, that's overrun. That's green. And, you know, there's a bunch. White and green have a lot of, like, they're similar,

but we've tried to figure out ways to differentiate them, so they're not quite the same. Right. The more I think about it, the more I'm like, right, there's, like, team boosting overlap between white and green. There's enchantments matter overlap between white and green. There's life gain matters. Yeah, white and green there's like it matters yeah plus one plus one counters like yeah right and like we

talked about this earlier but it's like with white and black the black life gain cards are very distinct but with white and green they they both just sort of usually have a little bit of life gain on various effects and so it's hard to pull them apart um there are of course differences you know like white gets a lot of different forms of removal that green doesn't get. It has to use fighting. Green gets a lot of, you know, mana generation and ramping that white

doesn't get. So there's clearly effects that separate them, but I think just in terms of what they overlap on, they overlap more than any two other colors. Oh, so here, we're about out of time, but there's one interesting thing that white took from green we can talk about uh the cantrip creature let's talk about how we separated white and green's cantrip creatures that's right yes um so cantrip creatures

i mean we do a little bit in a variety of colors but traditionally we would think of like you know one g one one elvishary. That was a green card. And part of our explorations in white, we're thinking about, you know, a lot of our, when we talk about card draw, a lot of the card draw that we were looking at was kind of focused more on commander. It was focused on like long-term, big picture card draw that was going to allow you to get a bunch of resources over a long game. But we were also looking at limited and saying, you know, white is a little bit lacking in limited. What's maybe

something that can help it out in limited? One of the things that we really liked about doing like an Elvish Visionary in white was the idea that a cantrip creature, the main thing that a little cantrip creature does in your deck is it allows you to play more little creatures than you normally would. Like typically the problem with a little cantrip creature does in your deck, is it allows you to play more little creatures than you normally would. Like, typically the problem with a little creature is that if you draw it early, it's great. But if you draw it late, it's better than a land, but not by much. You might just be chump blocking or something.

So the cantrip creature, you know, is good if you're deploying it early. But if you draw it late, it immediately replaces itself and potentially lets you cast another spell. And you could potentially put many of those creatures in your deck. And, you know, that's a lot of additional little bodies in play that are not clogging up your deck we really enjoyed the way that that played and the way

that it played into white's sort of uh strategy of having lots of little things that you maybe boost with equipment or various other things or you're you know antheming them with your other creatures and putting plus or plus one counters on them or you're blinking them or you're bringing them back from the graveyard like so there were just so many little things that combined well with the cantrip creatures that we really enjoyed that being um something to focus on in white um for green you know some of that is still true with green but it was like white had more different ways of making use of these little creatures

and in general we thought that white it made more sense for white to have little creatures that it could play a lot of whereas for green if it wanted a cantrip creature maybe that should be a larger creature maybe that should be a four drop or a five drop something that's rewarding green for playing its game plan of having big stuff in play um and so we started to push you know green still occasionally gets a cancer creature but they're they tend to be higher up on the curve and more focused on you know allowing you to stay in the game um when you uh are playing some more expensive cards that you might not be able to deploy early plus green actually has more tools in the average limited environment for

gaining card advantage than white tends to have you know green we allow green to have you know a variety of different sort of card selection or card draw effects that are tied to creatures um that tend to be more of its bread and butter effects than uh whites so we get this really useful tool to use that like common and uncommon okay so i'm almost here at my desk so uh my final question for you is, any final thoughts on the state of white right now? I think the state of white has improved a lot over the last several years. I think that we are going to continue to see over the next few years, more and more improvements and more and more pushing into new space and interesting space in white. But I also think that what we've seen is that the response to some of these new effects in white has been very positive. And I think that there are a lot of players who love

white and they love that white has been getting these new tools that still keep the core identity of white maintained. And so I would say for fans of white out there that probably you're going to see some new exciting stuff, you know, on the horizons. But I think for the most part, we're going to be going into the same space and trying to emphasize the things that people already love about white. Okay, well, thank you, Chris, for joining us. It was fun talking white. Thanks for having me. But everybody else, I'm at my desk. So all that means is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to at my desk. So I don't know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic.

So thanks, Chris, for being with us. And I'll see all of you next time.