11/7/14 Episode 173: White/Blue

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater

I’m pulling out of my driveway! We all know what that means! It’s time for another Drive to Work.

Okay. So today, I’m going to start a new series that people have been asking me to do for quite a while. So way back when, I did a series on color philosophies, did five different series, one for each color. And people were like, “When are you going to do the two-color podcasts?” Well, today is the start of the two-color podcasts. And we’ll begin with white/blue.

So what I’m going to do when I do these, they’re not going to be consecutive, I’ll do them over time, it’s a series. And I’ll go in WUBRG order. So what that means is I’ll do the allied cards starting with white, so today will be white/blue, so it goes white/blue, blue/black, black/red, red/green, green/white, and then I’ll do the enemy colors, which will be white/black, blue/red, black/green, red/white, green/blue. So that’s the order of the series for those that care.

So the idea here is that I want to talk about what the two colors have in common and what the two colors don’t have in common. So I’m going to sort of talk about each two colors, but obviously I have a whole podcast about what the colors represent unto themselves. So this podcast is talking about, let’s examine what each color wants, and look why there’s overlap, and look why there are conflicts.

Now obviously, if you are ally colors, you’re more likely to have more in common than against each other. And if you’re enemies, you’re more likely to be against than together. But no matter if you’re ally or enemy, each color believes different things. So every color has agreements and disagreements with every other color. So today we begin with white and blue.

And white and blue are allied colors. So obviously, they have more in common than they have against each other, but they have both. Okay. So let’s talk today, let’s start with what do they have in common. As they’re allies, you know, a bit.

Okay. So what does white want? White wants peace. How does white want to get peace? Through structure. So basically what’s going on is, white is like, I would just like the whole world to get along. We have the resources and means such that everybody can be happy. We should take steps to do that.

And white is very much about wanting to help the group as a large. Blue wants perfection. And it wants to do it through knowledge. Blue is like, Any individual has the ability to do whatever they want. The only thing that stops you is not knowing how to do it. Well, if you learn how to do it then you can become whatever you want to become.

So blue and white have different goals. But they overlap. Okay. Let’s start where they overlap. For starters, white and blue both want to create change. White wants to help the group. And blue wants to advance not just the individual--                where blue and white overlap for starters is, just like blue wants to perfect the individual, blue also wants to perfect the group.

Remember, blue is sitting in between white and black. So one of the things I always say is, one of the ways to find internal conflicts to the colors is to look at the two colors that they’re allies with. Because every color, their allies are opposed to each other.

So blue’s allies are white and black. What does that mean? Well, white’s very much about the group, and black’s very much about the individual. Blue is kind of in the middle. Blue believes in perfection for both the individual and for the group.

So when you get to white, the overlap between white and blue is blue wants to better the group. That’s part of what blue wants to do. White wants to better the group, blue wants  to better the group. Now, blue also wants to better the individual, and blue and black can agree there. But let’s talk about blue and white today.

Now, white is sitting in between blue and green. So blue and green have a conflict. Right? Blue and green’s conflict is the nature/nurture conflict. Blue believes that you have the ability to become whatever you want, green believes that inherently within you there is—what you have comes from within. It’s not something you gain, it’s something you were born with. It’s in your genes. It’s in your makeup. It’s in who you are.

And white has a little of that. White definitely believes that you have the ability to change things externally, but white also believes that there’s internal truths. Things that just are. Okay. So as you can see, as I label things and start setting up, you start seeing where the conflicts come from. We’ll get to the conflicts in a second.

Okay. So where do they agree? Well, white leans toward the blue side in believing that people have the ability to create change. White does believe in the ability to change, and blue is all about change. Blue believes in the group, and that white is all about the group. So that’s where they start to lean together is, how can we perfect society? That  how can we use the tools available to us to make society a better place?

And that the way to think  of this is blue/white, when they get together, is like, We want to create a perfect society. What can we do? What steps can we take? How can we, through knowledge, improve society for everybody? How can we make everybody’s lives better?

So this is where blue and white get together. So now, I’ll say that there’s a positive and a negative. I’ll put it this way. The positive side of blue and white is, honest to goodness blue and white wants to make a better world. They believe it’s capable to make a better world, they want to make a better world.

The downside is that what white and blue believe is the better world isn’t necessarily what everybody else believes is a better world. Because white and blue make use of the tools at their disposal to help make a better world.

So one of those tools, obviously, is the structure of white. Right? So if you look at the tools of each, blue has the tool of knowledge, and white has the tool of structure. That’s how they get the job done. Well, blue and white use the combination of knowledge with structure.

Now, positively, that means that we can use all the resources we have to create structures that will improve society as a whole. That when you use the knowledge of blue combined with the structure of white, you create very—structure can lead toward change. Structure can make things better. That if you want society to act a certain way, well if you set up rules and laws to do that, you can guide society in the direction you want.

So a positive view of white and blue is they are trying to make a better world. And they are trying to use the tools at their disposal to make it a better world. The critics of white/blue will go, Hey, who are they to decide what a better world is? Who are they to decide what the rules are?

And the people—so the easiest way to look at the opponent is there’s one color that—allied color have a shared enemy. So let’s take—it’s red in this case. So blue and white are both enemies of red. So if you want to see blue/white in a bad light, you look at red.

Red sees white/blue as fascist. Red sees white/blue as just creating a complex rule of laws that are—using intellect as a weapon, and red just wants to do what it wants to do, and live free, and have everybody have the emotional freedom that it wants, and people can follow their hearts and do what they want.

But white/blue, oh, no no no. White/blue looks down on that, they stick their nose up at it, and they try to create rules and laws to prevent red from doing that. They want to keep red locked up within their rules. They’re the man. They want to keep red down.

Now, on the positive side, I think white/blue very much is trying to do what it considers to be best for all. I don’t think white/blue—I mean, obviously you can interpret anything. I mean, there is a white/blue that can be very controlling in a bad way. But I believe white/blue in their mind, that they’re trying to figure out how to improve things. And that the combination of white’s rules with blue’s intellect, and blue’s sense of knowledge, is that they are trying to figure out what they can do that will help everybody.

Now remember, white left to its own resources is trying to create a larger structure to keep everybody safe. And keep everybody on equal footing. Blue on the other side, blue definitely understands the idea of merit and the value of merit. And this is where blue obviously is also allied with black. Right?

So let’s talk a little bit about the conflict here as we get into this. So blue believes that part of making a society better is understanding that some people in society are better at things than other people in society. And blue definitely leans toward a… meritocracy? Is that the correct word? [NLH—Yes.] That those who have the merit should be ruling.

Like, white for example very much believes in democracy. White is like, “Everybody should have a voice. Everybody should say what they want.” And in fact, when you lean to white/green, when you get to some like Selesnya, the white/green combination, they’re like literally, like everybody should have equal say. Everybody in the group should have equal say.

Where white/blue, blue definitely believes that you want to lean toward the people that are the most knowledgeable.

And so when white and blue get together, blue pulls white a little more toward the idea that you’re trying to benefit everybody, but trying to benefit everybody doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody’s always treated equally.

Now, that’s where some of the conflict comes between blue and white. So like I said. One of the ways to show conflict is each color believes in—has an ally with an enemy of the other one. So blue is allies with white, but it’s also allies with black. White is allies with green, but also allies with blue. Right?

So the black part of blue, the black-leaning part of blue is where white gets in conflict with blue, and the green-leaning part of white is where blue gets in conflict with white. So the black-leaning part of blue is this idea that you know what? Individuals needed to be advanced. That just like I’m trying to perfect the group, I’m also trying to perfect the individuals.

And you know what that mean? Some individuals deserve different rights than other individuals. And so what blue really pulls on against white is, blue believes that certain individuals have—that everybody isn’t exactly equal. Because blue’s goal is not equality, blue’s goal is advancing society and creating perfection. So blue says, you know what, these subset of people are just smarter. They probably could run things better. These other people, they’re idiots. Let’s let the smart people run it and not the idiots.

And white is like, whoa whoa whoa whoa. Why are you judging? Just because this group is smarter than that group doesn’t mean it’s better in any way. Everyone has their own values and their own things, and that fine, maybe these people are smarter, and maybe these people have more understanding or more compassion. That everybody has different attributes, and you shouldn’t value certain attributes over the other attributes.

Blue though, looks at this, and blue’s sort of like, okay look. I got tests I can run. Everybody’s not equal, I know everybody’s not equal, if you pretend that everybody’s equal and act as such, you are not maximizing your ability to perfect things. If you do not play into their strengths—blue believes, look. Test people. Understand their strengths. Person A, he’s good at this. Person B’s better at that. Is Person A better at leading than Person B? Yes, yes they are. And blue very much analyzes things and says, “Look. This person’s better than that person.”

But white, white’s whole take on it is, hey blue, that… this is the influence of black on you. You very much want to prioritize some needs over other people’s needs, and that is dangerous. Be careful with that, blue. Don’t do that.

Meanwhile, green, being the ally of white, green is all about the idea of inherent truths. That you are just born a certain way. Green doesn’t believe that you can change—green believes that you have to accept who you are. That you are who you are. You’re born who you are. Green believes in destiny.

So the white part that leads toward green is, white believes that there are certain constants. There are certain givens. For example, white believes that morality is not a subjective thing. That morality is objective. There are rights and there are wrongs, and those are inherent.

And that is something that you can’t—I mean, as far as white it’s like, there’s no questioning whether there’s good and evil. There is good and evil. And so blue’s like, whoa whoa whoa, white. White. Why are you assuming—why are you preassuming anything? Maybe there are things that lean toward good or lean toward evil, but do we know of an inherent good and evil?

And that blue is much more willing to question things. That as soon as white goes, “No no no, I know this to be a truth,” blue’s like, whoa whoa whoa. How do you know this to be a truth? Have we studied it? Do we know it?

And white for example is very big on faith, which leans toward green. White believes there are things that are just unprovable. And blue’s like, whoa whoa whoa. Unprovable? So blue very much believes in the sense of everything is provable. That blue believes that intellect’s the most important thing, that knowledge is valuable. And that you have to understand things to wrap your head around them. The idea that you’ll blindly believe something is antithetical to what blue is up to.

So it sees white kind of believing some stuff without any backing. Because when white leans toward green, white leans toward spirituality. Green is very spiritual. Blue is trying to improve, and green’s being very spiritual. And religion has both those qualities to it. Religion very much, it says, hey. We can move toward a better place. People can become better. So blue—it does have a blue aspect to it. But it also has a green aspect, which is a sense of spirituality. A sense of they are the way things are and you have to accept the way things are.

So, so like blue and white—like I said. They definitely get together, and they understand a shared belief. But at the same time, they have their differences. So now, let’s look a little bit at when they work together.

Like, so let me talk about like mechanical overlap. Okay? So when blue and white get together, what do blue and white have in common? Now, the interesting thing is, from a creature type standpoint, they don’t have a lot in common.

They obviously are the top two flying colors, I mean that’s one, which is blue and white are—so for a long time, blue was the best flying color. And white was number two. And then we realized that we just needed more out of flying. And that the problem was, blue wasn’t supposed to have efficient small fliers. But white, which was the army-building color that did have efficient small creatures, it did make sense.

So what ended up happening was, white ended up getting the slightly stronger fliers, especially at the smaller levels, where blue tended to get the larger fliers. Blue gets bigger fliers at lower rarities. And the idea is that white and blue are both (???). White has the slightly better creatures, from a power level, especially at the smaller end, especially at common. Where blue is more easily able to grant flying. Not that white can’t do it some, but blue does it more often and usually slightly more effectively than white.

But anyway, so white and blue are the flying colors. White and blue also overlap in that blue is center of counterspelling. White gets a little bit of counterspelling. White has taxing. And so white for example can do like, I will counter your spell unless you pay a little amount. Doesn’t do a lot of it, but it can get in that ballpark.

White also has proactive spells that counter things proactively. Like, I will name something and then stop you from being able to do it. White is much more proactive in its counterspelling, where blue is more reactive. White is kind of like, “I will set up the rules, and the rules I set up might keep you from doing things,” where blue is like, “If you do something I don’t like, I will stop it.”

Blue and white also overlap in flickering. So flickering is the term for taking something, a permanent, removing it, and bringing it back. And there’s what we call instant flickering, which is you bring it back right away, and there’s normal flickering, where you bring it back at end of turn.   And that white and blue both have the ability to do the flickering.

White and blue also are the two most defensive colors. White and blue tend to have the most defenders. White and blue more often will have like low toughness, really high power things to block. It’s very common, at common for example white and blue are usually the two most likely to have defenders at common. That they are the ones who have the defensive nature.

Another place that blue and white definitely overlap philosophically is the idea of, they’re the long-term planning colors. Their shared enemy is red, which is the short-term planning color. And the idea is, blue is like, “Intellect’s important. You should think through every decision before you make it.” That if you think through every decision, you will make the right decisions. And that you shouldn’t rush decision-making.

White is all about planning. White believes that because structure is key, you need to plan things out ahead of time. Well, white likes structure, and blue likes thinking ahead. Well, you combine those together, and you have somebody who plots everything out ahead of time. So Azorius, the white/blue, is very much about thinking about what I need to be doing and planning and plotting and using that strategy to sort of like—one of their beliefs is, I will control the future by controlling the present. That I will set up rules now that get society and things where I want them to be later.

Now, one of the interesting things is, blue happens to be king of card advantage. White is the worst at card advantage. White now is very good at answers, so blue has less answers. Although—I mean, blue has answers, but they tend to be reactive. And blue doesn’t destroy things, where white is very good at getting rid of things. White can get rid of any permanent type. Blue can get rid of really no permanent—it can’t destroy anything. And it doesn’t exile very often.

Now, blue does have its tools. It can counter things. It can bounce things. It can steal things. It can copy things. Blue has a tool to deal with things. But blue does not have a lot of white’s arsenal. But, because white has all the choices of how to destroy things, it’s worse at card advantage because it’s sort of like, “I have lots of answers, but I don’t have the ability to get the card advantage to constantly have the answers I need.”

The other thing that white and blue do have in common, to jump back and forth here, is that white and blue often have answers with answers. So white tends to have things like Pacifism, or things that—like Banisher Priest that exile something, and if you can get rid of the thing that exiles it, you get it back.

So white is like, “I remove your threat, but you can deal with my [removal.]” Blue has some of that. Because blue for example has things that will lock you down. Blue has things that steal. A lot of times blue’s answers come in the form of enchantments that you can deal with. And if you deal with them, then you get back the threat that blue has eliminated. Or temporarily eliminated.

Creature-wise, it’s interesting. For a while early on, we teased the idea that blue might have vigilance. If you back to like, Legends and stuff, like Zephyr Falcon for example had vigilance. And the reason we ended up putting it in green and not in blue is because blue and white’s creatures were so similar, that we were afraid we’d get a lot of the similar vigilance-type creatures, which would be, a lot of white’s vigilance is low-power, high-toughness vigilant creatures and some flying vigilant creatures. Which is what blue would have if we gave it to it. By giving it to green, you got some big beefy vigilance creatures, which is a different thing.

So what else? Now, one of the places that’s definitely different is the style of attacking. So I mean blue and white both have fliers. That when blue and white get together, a very common—so one of the things we do when we build Limited environments these days is we’re trying to make sure that every color pair has something it’s doing. And the way it works is, every color pair has kind of their default strategy, and then some of the time it will have a strategy that’s based on that environment.

 

So for example, white and blue’s fallback is a very controlling deck. That white and blue when they get together, blue is reactive, white is proactive, get them together, and they can sit there and stall. Because white can set up resources that—white is very, very good at stalling, blue has lots of reactionary things. And you put them together, for example, white has board clearers. White has Wrath of God-type effects. Blue has a lot of counterspells.

Well, one of the answers is, stall stall stall stall, your opponent gets the advantage on you on the board, wipe the board, now sit there with counterspells, as they try to rebuild, you now have the mana to stop them. And that a white/blue deck tends to be very controlling.

Usually the route to victory for white/blue tends to be in the air. A common draft archetype is you stall on the ground, and then you in the air manage to outnumber them in the air. Because white and blue have the most fliers by far in Limited. Because white and blue—black usually has a flier or two at common, but red and green don’t. And white and blue have multiples at common. At least two, sometimes three, sometimes four. Also at uncommon, white and blue tend to have the fattest fliers. Blue a little bigger than white, but white also could get them.

So the areas where they are a little different. Mechanically speaking, like I said, white tends to have answers. White can destroy anything. Where blue has to work around a little more. White is a little more direct. And blue’s a little more indirect.

I think that comes to the idea that the way white wants to deal with problems is see them as all being the same thing. That white is like, very structured, and like, “There are problems, we have to deal with them, when they come up, I will deal.” And that white doesn’t tend to—white’s answers are very direct. White is a very direct color in some ways. In that it’s like, “Okay, I have answers, you get something, I will get my answers, I’ll remove your thing.”

Where blue is like, “Okay.” Blue has counterspells, and that sort of directly answers some stuff. But blue is more like, “I gotta deal, I’m not quite as direct.” White can get rid of any permanent type. Blue can get rid of no permanent types. So blue is like, “Okay, I need to be a little smarter in how I deal with things.” And the way I like to think about it is, blue’s like, okay. I’ve given up destruction, because I believe I have other tools available to me that will allow me to play a smarter game. Okay, I can’t destroy creatures, but you know what? I can steal creatures. I can clone creatures. I copy them. I can lock them down. Blue’s like, I can do things to deal. And it’s a different way, but my way allows a versatility that maybe just destroying them wouldn’t allow.

So that’s another fundamental difference between the two of them. It’s just a philosophical thing. Which is, white looks at anything it considers evil, and it wants to excise it. It’s like, “This is bad. I need to get rid of it.”

Blue looks at things and says, “Everything’s a valuable tool.” If something comes along that’s bad, blue goes, “Okay, right now it’s bad. But is there a way to use it to my benefit? Is there a way that this bad thing might be a good thing?”

And so blue’s attitude is blue doesn’t want to get rid of things. The reason blue is not a destructive color is, blue’s like, I’d much rather steal it. Or copy it. Or lock it down, so that later I can copy it. That blue is like, why would I destroy things? That makes no sense. I want to make use of things. If you have a very powerful creature, maybe, hey. Me taking your powerful creature puts me in a better state than me just destroying it.

But white’s philosophy is, like, there’s badness in the world, there is evilness, there’s things that are wrong. You excise them. You get rid of them. So in a funny way, this is where—one of the things we’ll talk about when I get to the enemies is how the enemy colors, as much as they oppose their enemy color, that there’s some things that they’re alike. In some way their enemies are kind of alike.

And it’s funny that black and white both have this attitude of just… “Whatever is wrong with it, kill it. Let’s get rid of it.” Okay, white might not kill it, white might lock it in jail. But white and black, interestingly, share this idea of “Just get rid of the threat.”

Where blue is like, “Whoa whoa whoa whoa. Maybe we could use the threat.” Likewise, blue and green really have this interesting attitude of wanting—like, blue and green for example are the two colors that can clone things. Blue and green are the colors that mess with hexproofing stuff. That mess with you trying to affect them.

And interestingly, blue and green that are enemies, both have the attitude of, “Hmm. Can we adapt?” Those are both colors that believe in adaptation. Now, green believes in natural adaptation, and blue believes in more of an artificial I guess adaptation, but white does not believe in adaptation. White is, “You are the way you are.” And that white is, “I see no reason to change.”

And the other thing that’s interesting is, white is the most stubborn of the colors. So let’s for a second talk about the biggest weakness. So the biggest weakness of blue is inaction. Is that blue, in its desire to try to figure out what to do, does nothing. White’s biggest problem is inflexibility. That white can’t see exceptions. That white can’t understand that maybe there’s greys. That white wants to see everything, interestingly, in white and black.

So when you get together white and blue, (???), sort of the fatal flaw, if you will. Well, blue is indecisive as its fatal flaw, and white is inflexible. So what happens when you get indecisive and inflexible is, you can create—white and blue at their worst, like makes a whole bunch of rules that sort of muck everything up, and they’re not quite sure where they’re going. That they’re sort of like, “Well, I’m just going to make sure nobody else can do anything.”

I mean, it’s funny. If you look at the white/blue deck, there’s some of that strategy to it, that’s like, “I’m going to make nothing happen. And then at some point I’ll make something happen and I’ll win.” But there’s different times in a white/blue game where you’re like, “Nothing’s happening! Come on, just beat me! What are you doing?” That white/blue almost sometimes—like, a bad white/blue deck is a deck in which I stop you from doing anything, but I just don’t create the tools to defeat you. Where it’s like, eventually I’ll defeat you. It’s like, come on, just beat me now. You have this game locked up. Just do something.

But white/blue is like, “I’ve got to be defensive. I don’t want to put extra cards in my deck that aren’t going to help me be defensive.” And so sometimes white/blue’s weakness is, it isn’t doing anything. It’s like, yeah, it’s stopping things, but it’s not progressing.

And that is white/blue in my mind is its biggest problem sometimes, which is, it stops things and it doesn’t progress things sometimes. Because you get blue’s inability to—its freezing up sometimes, with white’s just sort of inflexibility to ever change its plans.

Because when you have white and blue together, blue’s like, “Okay. I know there’s a best answer.” And white’s like, “I’m not going to deviate in finding the best answer.” And so they sit there and sit there for a long time.

I think white/blue at its strongest, the overlap where it’s most powerful is, it really has a potent tool that it can use very effectively. That if you can control what is allowable, if you can control the rules, that’s a very potent thing.

If you look at the Azorius in Ravnica, they’re in charge of the government. They’re like, you know what? Let’s take a really potent force, and use it on some level almost as a weapon. That’s the Azorius. They’re like, we have fine-tuned the law to such a sharp point that it is our sword. It is the weapon that they use. And that white/blue can be very, very effective. At their strongest, they can wield rules stronger than any weapon.

So anyway, I am now pulling into the parking lot. So that was my first podcast—whenever I do the first of something, it’s always interesting because I’m like, you don’t quite know where you’re going to go. But that turned out pretty good. So I guess I’ll do nine more of these.

So anyway, like I said, each of these I’ll take a look and look at sort of where the colors ally and where they sort of fight with each other. And what it means. And the strengths and weaknesses of the color pair.

But that, my friends, is all I could say, or all I wanted to say, or all I was going to say during my drive about white and blue. But I’ve just parked my car. Which means this is the end of my drive to work. So thanks for joining me today, guys.