Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #26 - White

Episode Date: March 22, 2013

Mark Rosewater talks about white and its place in the color pie.

Okay, I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today, because I like having a lot of balls in the air, I'm going to start a different meta-series. Yes, multiple meta-series all going on at once. So one of the things I've been wanting to do is do a podcast on each of the five colors and talk about color philosophy. Why would I want to do that? Because I love color philosophy. I've talked about this. In fact, I had a color pie discussion not too long ago, a podcast,

and I talked about how important I think the color pie is. So I wanted to walk through the philosophies of each color. I think they're fascinating. It's one of my favorite things about the game. Underlying it, I'll talk about not only what white represents and the other colors on their podcast, but how the mechanics come out of that. Okay, so we're going to start with white. I'm going to go with Woburg. So we're going to start with white. Woburg, for those that have never heard of it, white, blue, black, red, green. We use U to represent blue

because B is black and L is land. So W-U-B-R-G, by the way, is the order of the colors that we do. And we call it Woo-Bird in R&D for those that have never heard the expression before. Okay, so what is white about? So one of the things I like to start with is talk about what does the color want?

You know, and white has a very simple goal. White just wants peace. White wants everybody to get along. White just wants everything to be good and be simple. And white just wants everyone to live in harmony. That's what white wants. But white understands that that's not so easy to do. And why? Why is it not so easy to do? Because it's easy for people to get lost. And that there are a lot of forces in the world that white understands can get you to drift. And so white says, okay, what you need is the individual needs structure.

Structure will help you. Well, how is that? Well, there's two major kinds of structure that white believes in. One is a moral structure, that white believes in a sense of good and evil, a sense of right and wrong. You know, white believes that there is a correct way to live and that there's a sense of morality. White believes in morality, that it's wrong to do certain things. And by having a clear-cut, spelled-out morality, it helps teach people what the right thing is.

Because some people don't know, and if you just teach people, here's what's right and here's what's wrong, that's how you can make sure that they do right and wrong. Now, White also believes that you need a firm set of laws. And not only do you need a spiritual guidance, but actually a civil guidance. You need laws to outlaw things that are wrong, punish people for doing the wrong thing.

And so morally, you can teach them right from wrong, and then with the law, you can sort of teach them through punishment. You know, look, you break this, this is a law. You can't do it. You break it, you get punished. And through a moral and a civil means, white can sort of craft things to help. Now, white's largest goal, once again,

is when it says peace, what white means is it wants everybody to be happy. Not just itself. White is not looking out for itself. White's goal is peace for everyone. And in order to do that, right, it has to make a structure to allow people to coexist. And White believes, by the way, that the good of the group outweighs the good of the individual.

That if you allow individual desires to rule things, that will create a lot of unhappiness and won't be good. If you want to make peace for the world, you can't value one person over another. You have to value the good of the whole thing, of all people. And part of that white mix is very dedicated toward society. You know, that society is yet another way to structure things.

You know, that white realizes the more you lay down for people, that humans can get lost. Humans are guided by all sorts of things. And a lot of things that can lead them astray. And so if you just lead them and tell them what to do through your laws, through your, you know, commandments, through the different sources you have available to help teach people and lead people,

then you can make a world where everybody is working together and everybody is happy. Okay, so if you look very carefully, the two major way white structures, it has enemies that are very clearly opposite of that. Okay, so white wants a moral underpinning. White wants a sense of right and wrong. Black, completely against that. Black is amoral.

Black's not immoral, by the way. Black is amoral. Black does not believe in the sense of morality. Black believes, you know, very much in the sense of self. You do what you need to do. And that morality is a creation of people that there's no, you know, white actually believes that there's this inherent, you know, you know, greater good going on and that what they're doing is for the greater good of everything. Black is like looking out for itself and it's like, look, there is no sense of morality. Black is like looking out for itself and it's like, look, there is no sense of morality.

That's just a human-created thing. It's, you know, we don't need to live by any code. And so black is the antithesis of white there, you know. White's all about you need some sense of spiritual guidance and that you need morality as a compass to guide you. And black is like, you know, black does not care. So white sees black as evil, you know. Now, black doesn't see itself as evil, and I talk a lot about good and evil,

but by white's sense of morality, by white's sense of how it defines the world, and be aware, humankind follows white more than it follows any other color philosophy. Black is evil by that goal. If you judge evil by the means of

looking out for one's own versus the good of the group and not caring about the group, then black, and white truly believes this, black is evil. Now, on the other side, white believes in civility. White believes in laws. Red does not believe in laws.

Red wants anarchy. Now, to be fair, it's not that red wants anarchy. Red doesn't want rules. Red wants to do what red wants to do, you know. And red is very all about freedom. We'll get to red. But red wants to do what it wants to do. It doesn't want things telling it it can't do it.

And so red is all about civil disobedience. Red's about, look, if there's a law that says you can't do something, then, you know, whatever, break the law. You know, red does not follow the laws. Because red is guided by passion and by its emotions and by its impulses. And that is the antithesis for white in that regard. White's like, how do you have civility if people just break the rules? You can't break the rules, you know. And so white sees red as the rule breaker, you know. Black is evil. Red is chaos. And, you know, both of those

forces will doom society. You know, black will eat away at the moral founding. Red will eat away at the legal civil founding. Both are bad. And so, White has this very defensive quality that says, look, you know, White doesn't want to be the bad guy. White's kind of like the Federation in Star Trek in that White kind of doesn't like to hit first most of the time. But, and this is where White's a little different than the Federation,

White does believe that some things are such, are so bad, Black is so evil, Red is so chaotic, sometimes you have to lead the fight. You recognize that they're the problem, and you have to be aggressive, you know? And that's where white weenie strategy comes from, is white has this knowledge of sometimes you just have to build the army, you know?

So white obviously is the color of the army, because white believes in the good of the group. What is an army? It's a lot of, you know, individuals coming together. And the idea in white is white's individuals aren't particularly strong. You know, one of the things in common,

white has the smallest creatures in common. White is about making it good for the little people because the only way the little people can sort of survive

is banding together. You know, if white was filled with giants that kind of could watch their own, well, maybe white's velocity would have come differently. But white's, it's got humans,

it's got, it doesn't have giant big creatures. I mean, it's got a few. Those tend to be trained. A lot of white's larger things are, I mean, angels come about because angels have a sense, a shared sense of morality. And that they, too, sort of are trying to uphold the sense of

goodness in the world. And a lot of other white's bigger things. White doesn't have tons of bigger things. Tend to be things that are trained or, you know, I mean, white definitely has some animals that are domesticated. But anyway, so what white is trying to do is white is saying, I believe, I want peace in the world. And to get that peace, I'm going to create rules, I'm going to create structure,

I'm going to create order. And then I'm going to punish those, I'm going to punish those that break that order. Now, one of the things about white, I mean, this is a big debate in R&D, but the thing I like about white is I like white's defenses to be the following. A, if you

break a rule, we talk about messing with me and my boys, but you attack White. Well, White's like, hey, you attack me. Fair game. Like the Federation thing. You attack me, fair game, I can defend myself. You're not only attacking me, you attack my creatures, you attack my things.

You mess with me, okay, attacking my creatures you're attacking my things, you mess with me I can defend myself White also believes in, okay if I see a problem White doesn't like to kill, now the White won't kill White will kill and White believes that sometimes it's a necessary evil

but White doesn't like to kill and so one of the things I like about Oblivion Ring, pacifism type of thing, is white going, you know what? Well, I'm going to stop the thing. I'm not going to kill the thing, I'm going to stop it. And the thing I love about that is it gives white a lot of utility,

but it didn't kill him, it didn't get rid of the problem. So I could lock something in jail, you know, or I could put enchantment on it to change how it is. I mean, pacifism, if you're ever aware, says, I'm going to give this creature a desire not to want to fight. So it's not that they couldn't fight, but

they don't want to fight anymore, so they don't. The problem, though, is that stuff can be undone. You know, auras can be broken, locks can be, you know, opened. That one of White's answers is kind of trying to lock it away, and that

White's answers have answers. That's a very interesting part of White for me. That White can deal with most things, but White's the one that most often is not willing to take the steps to permanently rule things, so they can come back to haunting. I think that's a cool part of White

not wanting to you know, having this moralistic stance and trying to live by its own morals. So real quick, I'll talk about Superman. So there's a lot of talk about Superman's weaknesses, okay? And I know people love to book up Kryptonite and they find Kryptonite there. That isn't really Superman's weakness if you understand Superman the character. Now, Superman is a mono-white character. Okay? So what is Superman, what is his greatest weakness? His greatest weakness is he has

a strong, bleh, a strong moral compass. You know? And his problem is, his villains do not. And so one of his weaknesses is that he cares. He cares about humanity. He cares about particular humans especially. He cares about living up to a set of rules and laws.

He is the most powerful being on the planet, yet by his own desire, he won't do certain things. That is one of the biggest problems he runs into. It's not that he's incapable of solving problems, but he's incapable of solving them in a certain way. I think that's a fantastic... People love to pick on Superman as being a character that's hard to do. And I mean, he is hard to do.

But I think that's very neat that the most powerful man in the world has the strongest sense of morals, and that it's his moral compass that causes his problems. And I think that's very neat, you know. Yeah, Superman could rip the world in two, but no, no, he won't. He could easily kill, but he won't. And he's got to solve his problems not the easiest way because he's trying to live up to a higher standard.

And I'm fascinated. I think that's a very cool idea. And that's allotted to me of White. It's White saying, I'm trying to do what I'm trying to do. So now when you look at white, white mechanically falls in a couple areas that follow its philosophy. So one is, white is the defensive color. That's why it has circles of protection. It's why it has the most defensive creatures.

It's why it has more toughness. Of all the five creature colors, its toughness to power ratio leans more toughness higher than anybody else. It's why it's got mechanics like vigilance. all the five creature colors, its toughness to power ratio leans more toughness higher than anybody else. You know, it's why it's got mechanics like vigilance, you know, that it wants to be able to

be there defensively. But, it also has this proactive army quality to it of, I'm going to take the fight to evil. I'm going to take the fight to chaos. I'm not going to sit here.

I'm kind of crusade-ish, if you will. I see evil in the world. I'm going to go smite it from the face of the earth. That's what I'm going to do. And so white is willing to put together an army and attack. And white trains, because white cares about the sense of an army and understands. So white tends to have mechanics that help make... Like, one of the things I say, and Andy Banding did this in the early game,

is I like the idea that White has a lot of small creatures, but when you put those creatures together, they become more powerful than the sum of their parts. It's why, right now, Battalion, I think, is very cool. You know, that you have to attack with enough creatures and they get more powerful.

You know, it's why White has had a lot of mechanics that really sort of say, hey, you know, I mean, White, for example, has a bunch of things that say, look, I will reward you for having a whole bunch of creatures in play. You know, we recently, for example, moved the Kildin Warlord ability, the star, star equal number of creatures you have in play to White, Because we wanted to say, hey, who wants to have a lot of creatures in play? White wants to have a lot of creatures in play. So white definitely has this army

feel. It has a lot of instants and stuff that help it in combat. We give it small boosts. The bigger growths go in green, but the smaller ones, and we tend to give white the ones where not only do you get plus one, plus one, or plus two, plus two, but you gain an ability. White also is king of granting stuff to everybody. Like, the plus one, plus one to your team, that's a white thing, both in its instant form and its enchantment form.

So, let's real quickly talk about enchantments. So, white is definitely the person who loves enchantments the most. loves enchantments the most. And I think the reason is that white sees in enchantments the ability to sort of affect things and that white is the color that least wants to kill things. So it much prefers saying,

well, instead of getting rid of something, I either can change its nature or I can improve the things. And so white has a lot of sense of, a love of enchantments. And it's the color that, interestingly, it's both best at enchantments

and at destroying enchantments. And that, it is the one who really sees magic as a means to help it from breaking, to keep its morality. So,

what else about White? I mean, White definitely has a little bit of an eye for an eye feel uh i mean like i said if you attack white it has answers and you know it uh a lot of times it affects attackers and blockers which is supposed to be flavor of it attacks things that are you know if you're in combat it can help you um white has a lot of combat tricks, obviously. What else does white have? I mean, I think the thing about white in general is that white, here's the problem that white, the problem that white gives its enemies is, to black, white has a sense of, we are better as a group than as an individual. And I, an individual, I will do something that's more beneficial for the group than it is for myself.

I will make sacrifices for the good of the whole. And it teaches that. And all of white's sort of philosophy is along the line of, I should do what's best for the group and not for myself. Now black, who his whole idea is look out for yourself, he just doesn't get how white functions. Why would somebody do something that's not good for them, but good for others? And so Black doesn't get white. White functions in a way that Black can't understand. And so one of the problems Black has with white is that white does things that Black finds is irrational.

Why would you do something that's to your own detriment? That makes no sense to white. And that part of what black does is it tries to use the individual against the whole. But if the individual is selfless, that makes it a lot harder. For example, if black kidnaps somebody and says, give me information so that I can attack your city, other colors might go, okay, hey, don't hurt me. I'll give you the information.

But white's like, no, I'd rather you hurt me than I let others, you know, be hurt. You know, I'm willing to sacrifice myself for the good of others. And that baffled black to no end. Red's problem with white is, red sees white as just being, you know, a little too tightly wound, you know.

Red is like, okay, white, calm down. Like the red-white conflict, for example, is like the odd couple, right, where, you know, white is all fussy and tidy and wants everything as neat and clean as possible because white doesn't like anything messy. White wants things because white is looking for order. And messiness or lack of clarity leads to disorder.

So white will have nothing to do with that. And red, red just wants to do what it wants to do. It doesn't want to order. You know, it doesn't want rules. So it just doesn't do those things. So red, I mean, I think white sees black as evil. White sees red as dangerous.

Because if red's philosophy is spread, it'll hurt the danger of the group. If each individual just did what they wanted to do, rather than what was good for the group, that would be horrible. And so white does a lot to try to stop that. The other thing about white that I... It's funny because I think sometimes that people...

You get into the stereotypes, obviously. So everyone understands the goody two-shoes of white, right? I'm a chivalrous knight. I will fight the evil and I will stop the evil. People get that. Now, white also has a darker side, right? You know, white has a side that says, you know, I'm doing what I think is for the good of everybody, but it's what I think is for the good of everybody. I didn't ask their opinion.

And white definitely sort of at times will say, well, because I'm doing what I think is best for everybody, what I'm saying is okay. And that sometimes white doesn't exactly check with the group. White kind of makes decisions for the group. And that when you look at white villains, they're normally people who, their goals are very good. They are trying to do good things. They want to do good things. The problem is that they are not realizing that the problems they're adding. Yeah, they're getting rid of certain problems and they're accomplishing that,

but they're making other problems in the meantime. And so sometimes I talk about, when I say fascism, that's a little incorrect in white. White's not really fascism because true fascism, they know they're oppressing. And that's not white. White's form of fascism

is someone who is honestly God trying to do good for his people, but at the cost of other things and not realizing that cost. Like a good white villain is somebody who you can, you step back and you're like I see what they're doing. I see why they're doing it.

And I understand they're honestly trying to do something good. And maybe they're even accomplishing some good. But they just don't understand the amount of evil that comes with that good. And that's the issue. So mechanically, what else in white? I mean, white likes life gain. White values life.

That's another thing. And that white is the color of healing. You know, part of white's defensive nature is the idea of White believes that, I mean, White is willing to take offense, but in his heart of hearts, White also understands that a good defense is the best offense. That, like, if I'm prepared for the long game, if I'm prepared to, you know, if we can withstand whatever you throw at us, then we can survive. We will win. And so white does a lot of prepping to survive.

Part of that is white's interest in life gain. Part of that is white's interest in healing things. White definitely has a lot of flavor. I mean, white has a little bit of resurrection. Although, to differentiate from black, we tend to keep him on smaller things. The idea being that white is also a little more human-centric. So one of the things about white is, every other color has a real iconic race. And we've had problems with white. And by iconic race, I don't mean the big iconic, that's angels in white. I mean the small ones. Red has goblins,

green has elves, black has both zombies and vampires. And who am I missing? Blue. Blue's another one. Blue's merfolk, I guess. But what white's never really had. In some ways, humans are kind of white staple. I mean, I think white is the one, as I said earlier, the most ties to basic humanity. A lot of what we think of human processes is very much a white philosophy. I mean, humanity as a general does say, hey, let's look out for everybody. Let's make moral laws. Let's make rules, you know. And that humanity functions a lot like white. So I think white has a lot of the connection to humanity. And I think that the people who are attracted to white are people who like, I think in life, just, hey, kind of have that attitude of,

look, let's do the good thing, let's do the right thing, you know. And white is nice in the sense that it always tries. So white gets the defensive stuff, it gets the life-gaining stuff, it gets the combat tricks, vigilance, I mean, first strike is because of combatigilance is both a combat thing and a defensive thing. White gets double strike, obviously. First Strike and Double Strike are the same colors. White gets lifelink. The idea that

it's tied, you know, some of it's love of life and a passion and of sort of fighting for good. It is funny about the way that lifelink and a vacuum, if you really thought about it, is a lot more black in flavor. It has much more of a draining flavor.

And in white, we're trying to get sort of the act of doing good, you know, brings joy, brings that the wizard is closely tied to the creature. But it is interesting. They really started in black, and even though white kind of got it first as a regular thing, it is funny because to me it's a much more black ability than white. But we use it in white, and white's love of life gain makes it a lot easier for us to use. What else can I say about white?

Oh, the other thing in general about white is that we like... So white is the color that most will use enchantments to enhance things. It's the color that most often has enchantments in lower rarities. It usually has more auras, although green sometimes doesn't have as many auras as white. But, you know, white definitely wants to build a better world and use magic to build that better world. White has no qualms with that. Let's talk about white's allies real quick.

What does white see in blue and green? I talked about what white hates about black and red. So white looks to green and sees a lover of community. That green also understands the big picture, that we're not individuals, that there's a group, and that green shares a white sense of the group. Now, how green sees the group is a little different. White is obviously more civilized, and green is more of the wild.

But white and green overlap. They understand that you have to think of the bigger picture and think of all the things involved. Now, white and blue tend to ally in the sense of a desire for technology and to use your tools to make things better. Like I said, white likes to use enchantments

to improve things. And white and blue definitely have the sense of you need to build toward a better world and that and also I think the idea you need to build toward a better world and that, and also, I think the idea is that white and blue share the sense of

a need of forethought, of planning. You know, white and blue are the two colors that think ahead, you know, and that, you know, like, if you want to look out what's best for the group, well, you have to think long term. You can't just say,

well, what am I going to do today? You know, what am I going to do today? You know, what am I going to do today that's going to help tomorrow? In many ways, if you talk about the ass of the grasshopper, you know, the Aesop's Fable, I think it's Aesop's Fable, where the ants are working all winter, or all summer long, preparing for winter, and the grasshopper's just playing.

And the winter comes, and the grasshopper, the ants are not used to the grasshopper. I'm never sure about that one. I'm like, does a grasshopper ever learn? But, you know, the ants are the white, you know, that they're hard and working and planning ahead because they're trying to do what's right for them in the long term. And white, by the way, definitely believes in hard work. It believes in, you know, like, if anything,

white's the one that is least willing to let itself relax. It's one of white, like, oh, let's talk about that. What are the negatives of white? The negatives of white are white can be very inflexible, you know, that white sort of has its rules so set up that it has trouble making exceptions to its own rules, that sometimes it kind of gets cornered because it sort of made rules it has to live by, and it's not quite doing what it wants, but it's following its own rules. You know, and white

does not know how to relax. You know, white's kind of uptight. And that white also is the color that, at times, you know, is so caught up in sort of doing what it's doing that it doesn't enjoy the moment. You know, that white, I mean, white

clearly, clearly has a sense of happiness, has its loved ones, has its community. All that is very valuable and uplifts white. White tends to be more on the spiritual side. White definitely is happy in its own way because it's doing what it wants to do. But it is not willing to let go as much. And so white is just more inflexible.

I think inflexibility is white's biggest issue. But anyway, I see work, so I've got to wrap this up. Hopefully this is interesting today. I was trying to give you a little more sense of philosophically, mechanically kind of how things blend together. I mean, I think that the thing that is neat as you explore the color philosophies is that each color has a philosophy

that's completely understandable you know the idea that i value the group that there's people around me that i that i care about and i want to do right by them you know or the idea that i want to i want to not take the easy way but but work hard so that i get the correct way um or the idea that you know there's a need for structure that that you that a sense of morale is important laws are important I think everybody can look at that and go okay, I get that, that makes a lot of sense

and my hope with these podcasts is to sort of get you to see why each color has a value that makes sense but also how it can kind of go wrong that white can kind of become a little too anal about things and have too many rules and not be flexible enough.

So there's both a good and a bad to each color. Because I don't think any colors are inherently good or inherently bad. I think that there's positive and negative sides to every color. But anyway, that is my podcast for today. I hope you guys enjoyed learning all about white. And it's time to go make the magic.