Battle for Zendikar
looks to be a Limited format soundly rooted in archetypes and synergies with a lot of per-card depth. It’s even more important than ever to step back from
a card-by-card level and look at the format as a whole. What is each color doing, what packages do they have to build to, and what are they missing? Today,
we’ll start to figure that out by looking at the white cards:

Common Creatures By Curve:

One Mana:

Two Mana:

Three Mana:

Four Mana:

Five Mana:

Six Mana:

Removal:

Tricks:

Other:

Now that we have reached the actual colored spells, I want to make a quick point:

For those who played Lorwyn or Modern Masters 2015 Limited, do you consider Mulldrifter a creature? What about Aethersnipe? The answer is
probably yes.

Awaken spells are no different. They are creatures disguised as instants and sorceries, and I have listed them as such. There’s also a ton of additional
modularity to them beyond just the baseline pseudo-kicker/evoke as you can stack counters on an already Awakened land or even just between playing it on
curve as a “tapped” creature or waiting to immediately attack with your untapped land. The immediate attacker is also a huge thing, as now colors that
traditionally don’t have haste have access to it on the high end.

Why am I going on about Awaken when white only has one Awaken spell at common? They printed a freaking common Shriekmaw! Sheer Drop might seem initially
unexciting, as Assassinate has always been mediocre removal, but not only has removal gotten worse since the last time Assassinate was printed, but this is
two-for-one removal at common with a low cost mode when you just need to not die. I’m actually blown away that this exists, and if it isn’t a top five
common, I’ll be shocked.

Not even counting Sheer Drop, white has good removal. There’s a bit of a divide in creature sizing between 3/3-4/4s and much bigger, but white has both
handled. Gideon’s Reproach is much more efficient than we are used to for the Neck Snap-style effect which evades a lot of the “holding mana up sucks”
issues associated with it, while Smite the Monstrous is one of the few ways to straight up kill an Eldrazi in the format. I will remind everyone that you
do have a sideboard, and often one of these cards will be finding its way out after game 1, but both are strong starters.

The white creatures are a bit on the small side. If you look across all colors, creatures that aren’t Eldrazi monsters cap out around 4/4. A 2/2 gets
outclassed pretty fast, but a 2/3 at least does some work.

This means I think a lot of the low drops here are bad. Kor Castigator is a good rate, as there aren’t a lot of non-Scion 1/1s for the usual 3/1
punishment, but the next best one or two might be Cliffside Lookout, which I’m not even sure is actually good. This is not a 1/1 flier format for Kitesail
Scout–see my previous comment about 2/2s for Felidar Cub. Unless my opponent has a bunch of uncommon enchantments I want to kill, Stone Haven Medic is
only good in specific decks and even those are mostly uncommon-based.

Maybe Fortified Rampart is pointing more in the right direction. Classic defenders and fliers combo. The 0/6 blocks all of the common ground idiots that
aren’t Eldrazi, and white has three relevant fliers at common. Shadow Glider, Courier Griffin, and Ghostly Sentinel are all fine for their cost and do a
fine job of ignoring Eldrazi. Blue is the only other color with common fliers, and the third toughness on Griffin and Sentinel means they bounce off the
green reach creature in combat (Giant Mantis).

The odd Beast out is Ondu Greathorn. I’m going to have to play more of the format to see, but this card will either land in the realm of solid blocker that
brawls well when needed or more likely will be mediocre blocker that gets tangled up when trying to attack since all the other white creatures don’t care
about the random ground dorks that get in the way of a 4/5 Ram-Ankylosaurus thing

As a result of this and the strength of the white removal, I’m pretty soft on the non-Inspired Charge combat tricks. While Charge can be worth four damage
pretty easily, I don’t foresee a lot of creature brawling occurring where I need to save my random white creatures. This is sad because both of the
non-Charge tricks are really good rates. Pumping multiple creatures and gaining life for two with Tandem Tactics can lead to a ton of crazy blowouts,
almost comparable to how Dauntless Onslaught actually had the third highest win/cast ratio in Theros Draft behind Elspeth, Sun’s Champion and
Stormbreath Dragon. Lithomancer’s Focus on the other hand looks pretty innocent, but +2/+2 for one mana jumps the curve a ton on fights, giving you a ton
of tempo for one mana. The whole colorless Enshrouding Mists thing is mostly just a cute bonus on a hyper efficient card.

Looking through, it seems the bottleneck on white based off the commons is going to be solid playables, specifically bodies. You have great spells, but no
really exciting creatures.

Uncommon Creatures By Curve

One Mana:

Two Mana:

Four Mana:

Five Mana:

Six Mana:

Removal:

Other:

Seven of the eleven white uncommons are Allies. The other four are removal spells or Awaken spells. There is not a white common Ally I’m actually excited
to trigger. What?

I do like triggering Kor Entaglers and Kor Bladewhirl over and over as they seem to make combat miserable for my opponents. Both seem to be real reasons to
up your Ally count. There are also uncommon Allies in red and green and a common in each green and black that I want to Rally. There are no blue Rally
creatures… at all? All worth noting for later color pair thoughts.

The enabler-only Allies are all solid minus the mechanic though. I remember Goldnight Redeemer being pretty solid, and while Angel of Renewal is a bit
worse on the trigger, a 4/4 flier is a bit more dominant in this format than it was in the all Angels format. Serene Steward is a 2/2 that I actually like,
as a trigger or two adds a lot of value. Expedition Envoy is pretty simple, again you have a low drop that really pushes the tempo that has an added late
bonus via any Rally triggers you assemble.

There is one exception. Join the Ranks was exciting last time around as the Ally abilities all stacked well. This time around, most of them don’t; it’s
like giving first strike twice. Without that, Unified Front isn’t even that exciting unless you are always making four tokens, which seems difficult.
Retreat to Emeria is basically the opposite. There’s a reason this one costs four and all the other Retreats cost three: Every turn you hit a land drop
lets you Rally, and eventually, you Anthem for the win.

Stasis Snare is a contender for best uncommon, but Roil’s Retribution is back to the “awkward and clunky” range of combat removal effects. The ability for
a two-for-one is there, but if I remember playing against Arrow Volley Trap correctly, it was easy to figure out it was there and not make bad combat
decisions as a result. If you play against someone good, this card will too often be “3WW: Destroy your opponent’s second best creature at a time that
isn’t convenient for you to tap out.”

It feels almost misleading to list Encircling Fissure as a creature, but it was the only Awaken spell I actually felt was more of a spell with kicker than
a creature with evoke, so I decided to not break the pattern. Either way, Safe Passage is still a blowout regardless of whether you kicker it for a 2/2 or
not. The other Awaken creature… I mean spell, is a little less exciting in the default mode. A 4/4 “haste” that gives your team lifelink isn’t terrible
for six, but it feels like Ondu Rising is more of a mid-pick than a slam dunk.

Rares

Great:

Good:

Yea, these are all strong first picks. The worst white rare is probably Lantern Scout, which is still a cost effective three-drop that repeatedly gives
your whole team lifelink.

Felidar Sovereign is super messed up, as most giant lifelink creatures are. I would like to state that I have only been triple killed once in Magic and it
was in Zendikar Limited as the result of that card. I was going to deck as I couldn’t break a board stall, except I was going to die to a flying
attacker the turn I passed with zero cards in deck, except the flier was a Felidar Sovereign with Celestial Mantle on it and my opponent won on their
upkeep via the trigger.

Continuing with the trend of “anecdotes because these rares are so good I have nothing to say,” Planar Outburst reminds me of Martial Coup. I once played
in a Conflux Fat Pack Sealed event, and the six of the top 8 players had Martial Coup. One of them had two. Watching Joel Larsson in the Community
Cup this last weekend with two Planar Outburst brought back memories of watching that person’s opponents complain.

I originally had Quarantine Field as just “good,” but that was clearly wrong. The “slow” 2WW Oblivion Ring is still good and the 4WW double Oblivion Ring
is obviously insane. I can’t imagine what happens once you get to 6WW and basically have Plague Wind.

I may still be underrating Hero of Goma Fada. While I think there won’t be as many trades or alpha strikes as Gatecrash, Frontline Medic was
bonkers, and this card has a very similar effect.

Takeaways From White

There aren’t a lot of enablers here to cast your eight-drops. Not to say a white deck won’t play an Eldrazi Devastator, but in certain color combinations I
can easily see capping your curve at a normal number. I’m not desperate to have one, and I would rarely expect white decks to play more than one massive
creature.

White has a solid amount of removal. Not wanting to play your own Eldrazi comes with the benefit of needing to duke out less monster battles.

There are a fairly large number of white cards I can see people first picking at all rarities. The color also dries up fast at common. Be very willing to
move out of your first pick Stasis Snare if the cards aren’t coming to support it.