That’s right gang, today we cover the last but not least color, White. Usually, my last, but not the least by any means – that’s Green, though not here. Planar Chaos gave us some chaos all right. Green is way strong in this set, even though my spider senses tell me that Wizards intended Red to get a boost.

This time around, White gets some interesting concepts for it, such as direct damage and counter spells, but it just doesn’t seem to have the same feel as colors like Blue, where it gained Discard, and did it better than Black. White’s counter spells are rather limited in the actual use of them, and the direct damage spell… well; wait until we get to it. It is rather humbug-ish.

Aven Riftwatcher Common 2/3 Creature — Bird Rebel Soldier 2W
Flying
Vanishing 3 (This permanent comes into play with three time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter from it. When the last is removed, sacrifice it.)
When Aven Riftwatcher comes into play or leaves play, you gain 2 life.

A 2/3 flier for 3. I should say temporary flier. The good thing is that you’re going to get four life for 3. I guess in Limited that he would see play as a Soldier (or perhaps as a Rebel, so he can be fetched as a surprise blocker) and a life boost. He has uses.

Grade: B

Benalish Commander Rare */* Creature — Human Soldier Lord 3W
Benalish Commander’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of Soldiers you control.
Suspend X-<X><W><W>. X can’t be 0.
Whenever a time counter is removed from Benalish Commander while it’s removed from the game, put a 1/1 white Soldier creature token into play.

Ah, Kjeldorian Outpost makes a triumphant return. The final card in the Suspend Cycle, it replicates the Outpost’s ability to churn out creatures. Played in a control-style deck utilizing Urza Tron lands, floating a few of these creates an instant army each turn.

Grade: A+ Instant army; just add water!

Crovax, Ascendant Hero Rare 4/4 Legendary Creature — Human Lord 4WW
Other white creatures get +1/+1.
Nonwhite creatures get -1/-1.
Pay 2 life: Return Crovax, Ascendant Hero to its owner’s hand.

While his first incarnation was fairly playable, this time around, Crovax is much more player-friendly. For a mere 6 mana, you get a boost for White creatures, which is ‘aight’, but more importantly, you get a -1/-1 for all non-White creatures. Couple that with the evasion ability of Selenia, Dark Angel, and you get a nice 4/4 beatstick.

Grade: A

Dawn Charm Common Instant 1W
Choose one - Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn, or regenerate target creature, or counter target spell that targets you.

Another Charm, and another good card. In fact, this is a way good card. Think about it. Against a Boros Red/White deck, you get a Fog for all of those stupid Lions and a counter for that finishing Char that is aimed at your head. On top of this, this brings our count of Fog spells in the format to four (however, only three are really usable).

Grade: B+

Dust Elemental Rare 6/6 Creature — Elemental 2WW
Flash (You may play this spell any time you could play an instant.)
Flying, fear
When Dust Elemental comes into play, return three creatures you control to their owner’s hand.

What can you get for four mana these days? How about an improved Yawgmoth’s Demon? You get a 6/6 fearful body that flies around, and arrives at the end of the opponent’s turn unexpectedly. The drawback for this is that you must return three creatures to your hand. With Benalish Commander, you can get those creatures without much trouble. Dust Elemental could be a finisher for control decks.

Look out Akroma, you may have some competition.

Grade: A

Ghost Tactician Common 2/5 Creature — Spirit Spellshaper 4W
<W>, <T>, Discard a card: Creatures you control get +1/+0 until end of turn.

Another Discard Engine that doesn’t have a real use other than making Madness work. True, this creature does make your attacking creatures one point bigger on the offense, but it costs you a card, plus a possible attacker.

Grade: C

Heroes Remembered Rare Sorcery 6WWW
You gain 20 life.Suspend 10-<W> (Rather than play this card from your hand, you may pay <W> and remove it from the game with ten time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, play it without paying its mana cost.)

I like this card, but for selfish reasons. See, I love to Mirari things. I like to copy Compulsive Research, and Wheel of Fate, and Cunning Wish, and Burning Wish, and Consume Spirit, and Diabolic Tutor, and Castigate, and Curse of the Cabal, and other such spells. Heroes Remembered quite possibly could be my most favorite spell in the world to Mirari. Each copy resolving nets me 20 life… all right, I’ll take it!

Grade: A

Magus of the Tabernacle Rare 2/6 Creature — Human Wizard 3W
All creatures have “At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice this creature unless you pay <1>.”

This Magus is… I don’t know, something. It has potential as a creature hoser, as it does keep the number of creatures possible on the table to a minimum. However, it requires an upkeep as well. It does put Boros in a tight spot, as that deck does not generate a lot of mana – mainly 4 or 5 mana tops – and it provides a huge backside that requires two burn spells to kill. It also is just big enough to kill most creatures coming its way. Since this is not a legend, you could play a second Magus and make all creatures require 2 mana every upkeep. It practically counters the Benalish Commander, as well. When those tokens are coming into play costing 1 each a turn, it won’t be too long until those tokens become a liability and the upkeeps stop being paid.

Grade: B

Mantle of Leadership Uncommon Enchantment — Aura 1W
Flash (You may play this spell any time you could play an instant.)
Enchant creature
Whenever a creature comes into play, enchanted creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.

Oh wow! I always wanted to make my Savannah Lion a Herd Gnarr. (Surprised that I actually knew the name of that creature? Don’t be, I looked it up, but I did know that there was a creature that had that ability.)

Not really. How big could your enchanted creature possibly get off this enchantment? Perhaps +4/+4 and then be chump blocked. Look! Now I have no hand so he is a simple +0/+0.

Grade: D

Pallid Mycoderm Common 2/4 Creature — Fungus 3W
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a spore counter on Pallid Mycoderm.
Remove three spore counters from Pallid Mycoderm: Put a 1/1 green Saproling creature token into play.
Sacrifice a Saproling: Each Fungus and each Saproling you control gets +1/+1 until end of turn.

A White Fungus. Lovely. Here is a question for you… how come Green doesn’t get good Thallids? How come they wait until Planar Chaos and until White gets control of Thallids to finally create some good Fungus?

How does that taste, Green? I thought Fungus was a main staple of your arsenal. Oh well, just like Blue does discard better than Black, White does spore counters better than Green.

Look at this guy for example. Sacrifice a Saproling to give all Saprolings and Fungus +1/+1 until end of turn. Well, am I the only one thinking that this goes really well with Life and Limb? Green can get tons of Forests into play, fairly easily. Then when you play Life and Limb, all your Forests become 1/1 Saprolings. Sacrifice one of those Forests, and all your other Forests become 2/2’s. Continue this trade off and you will find that your four attacking 5/5 Forests will combine to do 20 damage. A decent finishing combo.

Grade: C Needs help to be actually playable.

Poultice Sliver Common 2/2 Creature — Sliver 2W
All Slivers have “<2>, <T>: Regenerate target Sliver.”

It is official now. I had a feeling before, but it is coming to me full speed ahead, like a freight train out of control, tearing up the landscape as it slides on its side, digging up dirt, trees, concrete pillars, bridges, houses, cars, and everything else on its way, and all the screeching and moaning of bending steel in a cataclysmic destructive force speeding towards my face.

That impending disaster would be more favorable than trying to grade one more completely wretched, disdainful, putrid, diabolic, heinous, USELESS Sliver.

Someone please tell these people that there is a suicide watch out for a guy who promises to tear his own arm off and beat himself senseless with it if they even curl their lips to say, we are making more Slivers. I hate Slivers, I want to get every Sliver card (exceptsliverqueencrystalinewingbroodandnecroticsliver… gasps for breath) and burn them all in one large bon fire so as to save the world from ever having to look at another wasted piece of cardboard again.

Grade: F …for make ONE more F… Sliver again! Do it, make one more Sliver! I dare you!!

Rebuff the Wicked Uncommon Instant W
Counter target spell that targets a permanent you control.

This has the makings of a sideboard card. It rings of Shadow of Doubt, where it has purpose, but unless your playing against a deck that has plenty of targeting spells, or if you are playing a deck that needs to protect a permanent, then this card has limited playability.

Grade: B

Retether Rare Sorcery 3W
Return each Aura card from your graveyard to play. Only creatures can be enchanted this way. (Aura cards that can’t enchant a creature in play remain in your graveyard.)

This card falls in the interesting column. Please do not fool yourself and think that this is a reprint of Replenish, because it is far from Replenish. Those enchantments could come into play and stay by themselves. With Rether, you could spend four mana to watch your opponent pay five mana and play Evacuation, and put your creatures back into your hand, which in turn puts those Auras back into your graveyard.

Don’t get me wrong, it is possible to catch your opponent tapped down, and pull an all-out blitz and get the kill while he is tapped, but more likely than not, I’d guess you won’t be able to pull that play too often.

Grade: B+ I would love to see the look on the first person’s face when this does resolve and creates a Transformer that turns into a 42/42 creature with all possible abilities and stomps on someone’s toes.

Riftmarked Knight Uncommon 2/2 Creature — Human Rebel Knight 1WW
Flanking, protection from black
Suspend 3-<1><W><W>
When the last time counter is removed from Riftmarked Knight while it’s removed from the game, put a 2/2 black Knight creature token with flanking, protection from white, and haste into play.

This is a really good card. Remember that White Knight was a 2/2 for WW and he had first strike and protection from Black. While this creature costs 1 additional, you are paying that amount to have Suspend added to it, in which we fall back to the Call of the Herd rule.

That rule, in case you had forgotten, is: if a card that produces two creatures is good, then this card is good. So since that is the rule we go by, then this is a really good card. Think about it; turn four is typically when White is going to board wipe. That means that turn three you can suspend this card, next turn remove a counter and Wrath of God, then two turns later, you are going to get two 2/2 flanking creatures with haste.

Grade: A …for Really Good!

Saltblast Uncommon Sorcery 3WW
Destroy target nonwhite permanent.

That is exactly what White needed, access to eight Vindicates in one deck. What color are artifacts? What color are lands? Oh, so White can kill all creatures with Wrath of God, and now White can Vindicate eight times in a game. Which White cards are you scared of that Saltblast cannot handle? Akroma, Dust Elemental… Wait, those are creatures.

Grade: A+

Saltfield Recluse Common 1/2 Creature — Human Rebel Cleric 2W
<T>: Target creature gets -2/-0 until end of turn.

What is with all the salt? Salt is good on pretzels and French fries, but Magic cards? (There is your food reference Streetz, didn’t want you to think I had forgotten about you.)

Anyways, this is your White throwaway card. It is ‘aight’ in Limited, as it will keep a creature from attacking for a turn, maybe two. However, if you really look at it, you’re paying 3 for a 1/2 body that happens to be a Rebel and a Cleric, and you can tap it to give a creature a power debuff.

Grade: F

Serra's Boon Uncommon Enchantment — Aura 2W
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +1/+2 as long as it’s white. Otherwise, it gets -2/-1.

Serra’s Boon is a moderate, late round draft pick at best. I say that because you most likely will never see it in a Constructed deck, and in Limited, it has potential to keep a creature alive, or kill a stray Utility creature. It might kill a discard engine or something equally as annoying.

Grade: B- Limited Use.

Shade of Trokair Common 1/2 Creature — Shade 3W
<W>: Shade of Trokair gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
Suspend 3-<W> (Rather than play this card from your hand, you may pay <W> and remove it from the game with three time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, play it without paying its mana cost. It has haste.)

I like the Shade of Trokair. He might not be the biggest, or best Shade. He does not really compare to Nantuko Shade, however, if suspended on turn one, on turn four you get a hasty Shade that can be pumped to a 5/6. The Nantuko Shade provided information to us that we did not have previous to him. If I can dominate the board with one creature (and keep it alive), I can hold a player in a standstill for a few turns.

What that means is that as long as I keep sending Shade of Trokair at you, and he survives the first attack, the following turn he will be a 6/7, then a 7/8, then an 8/9, and you get the point. He gets tougher and tougher to deal with. He must be dealt with before you even have to cast another spell, and if my experience means anything, you may even send three or four cards to the graveyard before the Shade joins them. Last time I checked, that was called card advantage.

Grade: A

Stonecloaker Uncommon 3/2 Creature — Gargoyle 2W
Flash (You may play this spell any time you could play an instant.)
Flying
When Stonecloaker comes into play, return a creature you control to its owner’s hand.
When Stonecloaker comes into play, remove target card in a graveyard from the game.

Here is a good little Utility creature. He has three uses.

First, you can play him as a surprise blocker; perhaps you need a three-power creature to kill that annoying Kird Ape. Second, you can return a creature to your hand to be saved or be replayed (recurrence). Lastly, you can play him and return himself to your hand for the sole purpose of removing a card in someone’s graveyard from the game.

Grade: B+

Stormfront Riders Uncommon 4/3 Creature — Human Soldier 4W
Flying
When Stormfront Riders comes into play, return two creatures you control to their owner’s hand.
Whenever Stormfront Riders or another creature is returned to your hand from play, put a 1/1 white Soldier creature token into play.

Fancy that the Stormfront Riders would come after Stonecloaker, as they end up making a pretty good team. The Riders come into town and make two of your creatures disappear, but when they go away, they make two 1/1 soldier tokens. Then you can play your Stonecloaker and return himself, netting a Soldier token and card out of your opponent’s graveyard.

Soldier tokens… where have I heard that before? Ah! Why not also couple him with Benalish Commander? The Commander creates tokens during your upkeep as long as he is suspended. When he finally comes into being, should you want more tokens, you could cast the Riders, returning said Riders and said Commander to your hand, and creating two Soldiers.

Grade: A I can’t believe he is only an Uncommon.

Voidstone Gargoyle Rare 3/3 Creature — Gargoyle 3WW
Flying
As Voidstone Gargoyle comes into play, name a nonland card. The named card can’t be played.
Activated abilities of permanents with that name can’t be played.
Activated abilities of cards with that name that aren’t in play can’t be played.

My last comment was to say that I couldn’t believe the Riders were uncommon, whereas I fully understand why these are Rares.

I love Gargoyles. I love the cartoon, I love the DnD stone creatures, I love real life stature gargoyles; I love ’em!

Traditionally, Gargoyles suck, which brings a tear to my eye. I love them so! But look what we have here. A good Gargoyle! This Gargoyle is basically a remake of Meddling Mage, however, this creature is not just a 2/2 body that avoids contact. This version is a 3/3 with evasion. The one thing that the Mage still has going for it is that it is a turn two creature, while this guy needs to hang out for a while until he can come into play.

Grade: A+

Whitemane Lion Common 2/2 Creature — Cat 1W
Flash (You may play this spell any time you could play an instant.)
When Whitemane Lion comes into play, return a creature you control to its owner’s hand.

This is a land-based version of the Stonecloaker. It has a nice body for cost ratio, and has flash, which lets you get a blocker or targeted creature out of a sticky situation. I like this creature, perhaps more than the flying version, and I anticipate his getting some playtime in the Constructed format as well as Limited.

Grade: A

Calciderm Uncommon 5/5 Creature — Beast 2WW
Vanishing 4 (This permanent comes into play with four time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter from it. When the last is removed, sacrifice it.)
Calciderm can’t be the target of spells or abilities.

Can I get a wha wha?! It’s the return of the Blastoderm – commonly called in my circle, the Blastodizzy.

I guess that would make this the Calcidizzy, right? Well, we thought it was funny. Anyways, the Blastoderm was always like an anchor. Why an anchor? If you imagine fighting someone and reaching out for any weapon you could find, and grabbing a big ole steel boat anchor (pretending that you could actually lift it in one hand) and swinging it with all your might three times, then dropping it, that was the Blastoderm.

The Calciderm has a really good thing going for it that the Blastodizzy did not have, though. The Calciderm has four brothers that return creatures you control to their owner’s hand, and this does not target the Calciderm either.

Grade: A+ The White Beast could rumble and stumble its way to your doorstep this summer.

Malach of the Dawn Uncommon 2/4 Creature — Angel 2WW
Flying
<W><W><W>: Regenerate Malach of the Dawn.

How Ghost Ship became a poor angel I will never know. I don’t think the card will see much action in Constructed, but it should be a strong critter in Limited.

Grade: B Good Limited creature.

Mana Tithe Common Instant W
Counter target spell unless its controller pays <1>.

I just started missing Force Spike too. Hmm… as a White card though? I guess beggars can’t be choosers…

Grade: B+

Mesa Enchantress Rare 0/2 Creature — Human Druid 1WW
Whenever you play an enchantment spell, you may draw a card.

Wowzers, we get two copies of this in Standard? Is Wizards trying to coax us into playing Enchantress decks? If so… I think it’s going to be working soon. It won’t be too long until you see huge Enchantresses running amuck, drawing a plethora of cards, and trampling big creatures on ground on the way to pay dirt.

Grade: A

Mycologist Uncommon 0/2 Creature — Human Druid 1W
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a spore counter on Mycologist.
Remove three spore counters from Mycologist: Put a 1/1 green Saproling creature token into play.
Sacrifice a Saproling: You gain 2 life.

Another Thallid for White, and this time it is the Elvish Farmer. Which one is better? The Farmer, but only because it is an Elf.

Grade: C+

Porphyry Nodes Rare Enchantment W
At the beginning of your upkeep, destroy the creature with the least power. It can’t be regenerated. If two or more creatures are tied for least power, you choose one of them.
When there are no creatures in play, sacrifice Porphyry Nodes.

When I was still a youth Magician, I only had a few cards that I did not have access too, but I remember dreaming of owning just one Drop of Honey, and I would never ever play it, but put it into a hard case and taunt my friends with it. Now that I am older, and I can get a cheap version, I’ve lost the luster and desire for an old card, and will just taunt my friends with the White version.

Grade: A+

Revered Dead Common 1/1 Creature — Spirit Soldier 1W
<W>: Regenerate Revered Dead.

Drudge Skeletons suck. They sucked in the time of my youth, and they suck now still.

Grade: F-

Sinew Sliver Common 1/1 Creature — Sliver 1W
All Slivers get +1/+1.

Ah! They called my bluff and duped me. Well, I will show you! I’ll keep my arm, and not beat myself. I’ll just say that this is a good Sliver for a change, and ask a question.

How come you make this Sliver only cost 2, and make it a common, and it is the second best Sliver perhaps in the entire block?

Grade: A

Sunlance Common Sorcery W
Sunlance deals 3 damage to target nonwhite creature.

Umm… White Shock huh? I don’t think so Chief. How about a pauper’s Lighting Bolt? And talk about limited… target nonplayer, nonwhite creature. Might have been easier to just type, “Sunlance W Suck.”

Grade: D- Still works as creature removal in Limited, as people are forced to play bad Blue creatures there.

Wow, all done with the individual card evaluation. Now we need to collect the grades and get an overall score for White:

A’s – 14
B’s – 9
C’s – 3
D’s – 2
F’s – 3

Which yields an average score of 2.93, a C+. Not bad. White surges out ahead as we see from the collected scores below:

Land – 3.00 (B-)
Multicolor Cards – 2.91 (C+)
Black – 2.56 (C)
Blue – 2.54 (C)
Green – 2.90 (C+) *Bumped up to 3.90 by me. (B+)*
Red – 2.54 (C)
White – 2.93 (C+)

Had Green not gotten the score inflation by me, White would have been the winner by our standard scoring system. However, since Green sucks in all other stuff, I thought I would be nice. Besides, White should be used to being cheated and robbed by now. Armageddon was not that bad, and neither was Balance… right?

Lastly, we tally the Color scores above and we get an average of *drum roll* … 2.76, or a C+. I think that is around the ballpark that I would have guessed without using some scientific formula, as I did. I think if I had to just guess without use of it, I would have guessed no higher than a B or a B-. So a C+ seems to be close.

I must be honest with you. I did have to go back and edit my First Impression of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. I originally tore it apart as being a piece of crap card, however once I got to Life and Limb, and I did my research, as I should have done in the first place, I discovered the rule that I quoted in part one of this series. That rule alone makes the card twice as good as I had originally had it, changing it from a D- to a B-. Funny how a few words can change a card entirely.

At any rate, there you have the conclusion to my long and lengthy look at the second set in the Time Spiral Block, Planar Chaos.

I leave you now to go run amuck amongst yourselves, making brand new decks and breaking the Standard Construction metagame. I know I will be dreaming of Mono Black decks Mirari’ing Temporal Extortion, and Blue decks using Aeon Chronicler as a Phyrexian Arena, and Green White decks drawing millions of cards with the Enchantress Sisters.

Until next time, take care.

cpn

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Articles Spotlights from 2007:
Lorwyn Theme Week Intro & Schedule of Events
Blink And Bounce: Timing is Key
Going Blind: XCB Metagaming - A Prolonged Conclusion.
The Science of Magic: Genetic Engineering, Part Two.
Shifting Lineaments: Casual Metagaming (Pt. 2).
The Dungeon Of Malefict: Pure Evil!
Land Week Introduction & Schedule.
Combofusion: Legends Timeshifted.
One Card to Rule Them All: Coastal Piracy
Irrational Love: Chimeras. The Lego's of Magic.