30 Great white cards released after Smothering Tithe
“Do you pay the 2?”
Smothering Tithe is likely the most famous white card released within the past few years. The card made its debut in early 2019 as a part of the Ravnica Allegiance set. Leading up to the set’s release, it was shown off by the design team as part of their ongoing effort to provide new tools to the color white.
It made a big splash because it forces your opponents to make difficult decisions about providing you ramp in the form of Treasure tokens any time they draw a card. This allows white to gain an advantage while punishing players for drawing too many cards.
We’ve all heard the discourse about white’s purported shortcomings and seen the memes circulated online about it - while I believe that many of these claims are exaggerated, I do believe that white needs some new tools for Commander. It seems like most new white cards that come out are automatically compared to Smothering Tithe, which does a disservice to many of the awesome cards that we’ve seen over the past few years.
I wanted to take an opportunity to showcase 30 of the best white cards that have come out since Smothering Tithe. It’s my sincere hope that reading this will encourage you to explore the many things that white have to offer in Commander.
This isn’t a ranked list. Cards appear in chronological order. This also isn’t a list focused on any one power level. Commander is about expressing yourself through deck-building, and not all cards play well in all situations or power levels.
(As always, cards are click/tap to zoom ~Exxaxl)
1. Generous Gift (Modern Horizons)
We often hear about how ‘this card or that card should have probably been white’. In the case of Beast Within, it looks like the Magic designers agreed. Generous Gift is simply a color-shifted version of that card, and it performs exactly like its green counterpart. This is just simple, versatile removal with a minor downside. The most important thing about Generous Gift is that it can hit any permanent type, including lands.
In Commander, single-target land removal is often invaluable because of powerful lands such as Cabal Coffers and Gaea’s Cradle. Your opponents can’t even be upset, after all, you’ve given them a wonderful gift in exchange for removing their best permanent 🐘.
2. Giver of Runes (Modern Horizons)
Not everything has to be totally original to be excellent. Giver of Runes is an obvious throwback to the classic Mother of Runes with a minor upside and a minor downside.
The upside is that she can give your creatures protection from colorless - this includes some lands like Maze of Ith! The downside is that she can’t protect herself. If you’re already playing Mother of Runes, you should almost definitely consider Giver of Runes for redundancy. Being able to repeatedly deter removal or guarantee that your other creatures have favorable attacks or blocks for one mana is a price that is almost always worth paying.
3. Ranger-Captain of Eos (Modern Horizons)
White is a color that often cares about creatures, particularly small ones. Ranger-Captain of Eos provides some much-needed utility, allowing you to tutor up a creature when it enters the battlefield. Its ability can find anything from Mother of Runes to Esper Sentinel to Walking Ballista.
Unlike most creatures with powerful enters-the-battlefield triggers, it continues to have relevance afterwards because it has a very strong activated ability that can be used to protect your plays or disrupt your opponents.
4. Mandate of Peace (Commander 2019)
This card really flew under the radar. You can do a lot with it! The obvious play is casting it during your opponent's combat to survive a lethal combat threat and blank the rest of their turn, but you can also cast it during your own combat to blank an overloaded Cyclonic Rift and exile it off the stack.
Cast Mandate of Peace at the end of your combat step after damage has been dealt if you just need a Silence to protect the rest of your turn.
5. Sevinne’s Reclamation (Commander 2019)
This is an interesting take on the Sun Titan ability. Being able to return any permanent with mana value three or less to the battlefield is strong on its own. Being able to do it two more times is even better! There’s a lot that you can do with this card, whether you’re reanimating lands, bringing back your Ranger-Captain of Eos, or just retrieving your Sol Ring after an artifact wipe.
Sevinne’s Reclamation fits perfectly for white in the current era - you gain some card advantage in a way that genuinely feels white and avoiding a one-and-done effect with the flashback cost allows you to feel like you’re truly getting your money’s worth out of a slot in the 99.
6. Deafening Silence (Throne of Eldraine)
White certainly isn’t known for spell-slinging and storm, so Deafening Silence just feels like a comfortable include in white decks that are based around creatures. You’ll typically find that this card slows down your opponents while not totally locking them out of playing the game. This allows you to keep pace and apply pressure through your army of creatures, but it won’t win the game by itself.
You’ll want to continue advancing your gameplan and capitalize on the fact that your opponents are bogged down. While it isn’t quite as absolute as Rule of Law, this card can reliably come down on the first turn of the game and you don’t need to jump through as many hoops to break parity.
7. Hushbringer (Throne of Eldraine)
This is another card that doesn’t do something totally new, but it does do it exceedingly well. Being able to stop abilities from triggering when creatures enter the battlefield or die is very strong, but also requires you to make concessions in your own deck-building. Hushbringer can stop everything from Dockside Extortionist to Blood Artist, so it might be worth running fewer of your own enters-the-battlefield creatures to deter certain powerful cards.
8. Heliod’s Intervention (Theros Beyond Death)
White already has a lot of mass removal, but Heliod’s Intervention offers the ability to selectively sweep the board of enemy artifacts and enchantments while leaving your own untouched at instant speed. Versatility is invaluable in Commander. It’s less clunky than Return to Dust and Crush Contraband, as it never matters when you cast it or whether you want to remove two or more permanents of the same type.
The ability to gain a bunch of life at instant speed is occasionally relevant, but you’ll almost always cast this as a removal spell. Even if you only remove one or two things, the rate is still very good -other colors have occasionally encroached on white’s removal philosophy in recent sets, but this card is still a clear staple for years to come.
9. Heliod, Sun-Crowned (Theros Beyond Death)
This has made waves in a few formats now, owing to his ability to combo with Walking Ballista and win the game. You can even play him that way at the helm - he’s considered a viable cEDH commander in a mono-white stax shell.
Outside of combo, Heliod, Sun-Crowned just feels like a very white design that is pushed in a way that seems appropriate for the color. You don’t have to find any other life gain cards since he can give your other creatures lifelink, but he cares about creatures gaining life as a means of bestowing +1/+1 counters. You can absolutely play this card in a very fair way and still get a lot out of it.
It’s wonderful to see a commander that is viable at many different levels of play.
10. Drannith Magistrate (Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths)
Drannith Magistrate is likely to be a divisive card, owing to its ability to restrict your opponents from casting their commanders. There’s absolutely no doubt that this is an incredibly powerful card for that reason, but it also stops flashback and various other shenanigans that white largely can’t take advantage of on its own. This means that you can use Drannith Magistrate to force your opponents to play fair Magic as well. It’s become a stax mainstay due to its low opportunity cost, but it can find a home in a lot of different lists due to its consistently relevant ability to prevent opponents from casting their commanders.
11. Flawless Maneuver (Commander 2020)
While it isn’t as flashy as Fierce Guardianship or Deflecting Swat, this card is a solid way to protect your creatures. White rarely gets free interaction, so Flawless Maneuver feels like a good way to catch opponents off guard and make sure that your creatures live to fight another day, or use it proactively to save your creatures from your own board wipe, which can be back-breaking for your foes.
12. Mangara, the Diplomat (Core Set 2021)
It’s rare to see cards in white that allow you to repeatedly draw cards - it’s even rarer to see a card with two such abilities on it. Mangara the Diplomat offers lifelink and modest stats versus his mana cost, but has the same card draw text as Kraum, Ludevic’s Opus as well as allowing you to draw a card any time someone attacks you and your planeswalkers with two or more creatures.
While his abilities put him at odds with cards such as Rule of Law, he can still often allow you to draw many cards over the course of a longer game. This card represents a relatively new design philosophy where white can tax players for doing anything that it can keep them from doing outright.
13. Archon of Emeria (Zendikar Rising)
I’ll be the first to say that I was not expecting to see a white card like this in a Standard-legal set. Archon of Emeria is a Rule of Law on a stick that also punishes greedy mana bases. This is one of the strongest creatures printed in the past several years and is perfect for stopping storm and other explosive strategies by keeping things fair for the whole table.
The nicest thing about this card is that the effect is relatively fair in slower, more casual settings but it can be an absolute powerhouse at a more competitive table. A lot of recent white hatebears feel very narrow, but Archon of Emeria doesn’t suffer from that problem - it will consistently impact the game when it shows up on the battlefield.
14. Skyclave Apparition (Zendikar Rising)
This is a new take on cards like Oblivion Ring or Fiend Hunter. It will exile a nonland permanent with mana value 4 or less when it enters the battlefield, but the key difference is that the exiled permanent will never return that card to the battlefield if Skyclave Apparition gets removed later. Your opponent will just get a token creature. Despite the mana value restrictions on what it can target, the number of relevant hits is impressive.
15. Akroma’s Will (Commander Legends)
Historically, one of the biggest struggles for white has been finding good finishers - Akroma’s Will is exactly the type of card that white needs to help alleviate this issue. If you control your commander, this card can often stack up favorably with green finishers like Overrun while also protecting your creatures, giving them lifelink, and keeping them untapped in case you can’t finish off everyone in one big swing. This card seems like a strong contender for any white deck deck where combat matters.
16. Keeper of the Accord (Commander Legends)
It can be easy to find yourself behind on boardstate in Commander. Keeper of the Accord can help fix that by finding lands and making creatures to help you catch up. While this card doesn’t always overperform, I’ve played multiple games where it grabbed me four or more lands and made me a field full of blockers. Having payoffs that care about creatures entering the battlefield or the number of creatures you control will only make this card even better. Among all the new catch-up ramp cards in white, I’d say that this card is one of the best.
17. Cosmic Intervention (Kaldheim Commander)
At first glance, Cosmic Intervention looks like a variant of Faith’s Reward with foretell. While this isn’t strictly off the mark, the card does a lot more than that. It’s unique is the fact that it creates a replacement effect that lasts until the end of the turn.
You can use this card to make all sorts of removal one-sided. It also dodges cards such as Rest in Peace and Dauthi Voidwalker because it creates its own replacement effect that you can apply ahead of the ones created by those cards. There’s also synergy with permanents that sacrifice themselves - you can sacrifice a permanent after this spell resolves to exile it. It will return at the beginning of the next end step, which will typically be during the same turn that you cast it. This means that you can sacrifice it again and have it return during the end step of the next turn.
You can do this with fetchlands, Strip Mine, and a whole host of other cards if you want to get up to three uses out of them - perhaps you can even bait your opponent into a board wipe while you also have these permanents on board to get even more value.
18. Strict Proctor (Strixhaven: School of Mages)
While we’ve seen multiple cards that blank creature enters-the-battlefield triggers in the past, this is the first card that can stop these triggers for other permanent types. It’s worth noting that this card only imposes a tax, as opposed to turning them off completely. This can still be devastating for a variety of things, such as combos that rely on creating an infinite number of enters-the-battlefield triggers, landfall decks, or strategies that rely on cards such as Animate Dead.
19. Archaeomancer’s Map (Commander 2021)
This is an interesting one. This card can provide you repeatable benefits when you’re up against decks that consistently outpace the table on land drops, or it can play similarly to a white Cultivate. While I’m okay with the latter if it comes down to it, I do tend to find that it’s not uncommon for this to trigger again and again, allowing you to put lands onto the battlefield against players who are ramping aggressively - You can even pair this card with Weathered Wayfarer to always find your best lands and put them directly into play.
20. Esper Sentinel (Modern Horizons II)
We’ve all played against Rhystic Study or Mystic Remora and seen them run away with games by drawing a bunch of cards - Esper Sentinel is white’s answer to these cards. While it will only trigger for the first noncreature spell that each opponent casts each turn, it can still draw you a lot of cards.
It will stick around easier than Mystic Remora and you can even buff its power to make it harder for your opponents to pay. I’ve also found that bringing it up to around 3 or 4 power tends to make it too hard for people to pay the tax when I’m playing my Heliod, Sun-Crowned deck.
21. Out of Time (Modern Horizons II)
Sometimes, you just need some problematic creatures to go away for a while. This is like a super-Oubliette, phasing out every creature in the game. Even commanders will have to take a time-out until Out of Time is removed. Mass phasing also ignores indestructible, hexproof, shroud, protection, and a myriad of other things. Even only a few turns can be huge if you're staring down a lethal threat.
22. Solitude (Modern Horizons II)
This is a Swords to Plowshares on a body that can be cast for no mana by pitching a white card to exile. It's hard to overstate how powerful this can be, especially in higher power levels where some of the most efficient counterspells don't answer creature spells. Solitude is the best card in its cycle, and a welcome addition to white's removal suite. Even for 5 mana, the body that sticks around isn't bad in decks that care about life gain.
23. Oswald Fiddlebender (Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms)
This card explores a really unique design space for mono-white, operating like a Birthing Pod for artifacts. Outside of equipment, white's synergy with artifacts has kind of been on the back burner for a while, but it's started to become more apparent again with cards like this.
The main disadvantage that Oswald Fiddlebender has is that he needs to stick around so he can tap to activate his ability, but you can rapidly chain things together to set up a combo or try to lock things down.
24. Paladin Class (Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms)
While I have a favorable opinion of the class enchantments from this set, Paladin Class just seems to tower over the rest of them. For just a single white mana, your opponents are now taxed for trying to play during your turn. That’s insane! If you’re playing a longer game, you can even grind it up to get an anthem effect and eventually a powerful finisher than can easily make your best creature into a lethal threat.
I’ve found that this card plays well in Rule of Law strategies that have a high number of creatures, as you won’t mind taking a turn off from casting a single spell to level this up.
25. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar (Innistrad: Midnight Hunt)
White is the color that specializes in efficient creature threats and go wide combat strategies. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar offers the best of both worlds, growing your army and herself every combat. She can quickly get out of hand with cards such as Commander's Plate and Cathars' Crusade to protect her and pump up your legions of tokens. She's also a rare mono-white commander that can exploit Skullclamp to draw cards. She's a fantastic bargain for just 3 mana and one of my favorite commanders in years.
26. Cathar Commando (Innistrad: Midnight Hunt)
This card is a dream come true. I'm a big proponent of white getting removal on creatures, but this one exceeds my expectations. The addition of flash is what makes this card so good.One of the biggest drawbacks of removal on creatures is that most of them can only be cast at sorcery speed. I play Rule of Law effects in most of my mono-white decks, so this card is a real boon in my creature-heavy decks. Cathar Commando is absolutely wild for a common in a Standard set.
27. Vanquish the Horde (Innistrad: Midnight Hunt)
White is already spoiled for great board wipes, but Vanquish the Horde is poised to become a staple for years to come. Much like Blasphemous Act in red, this card gets cheaper for each creature on the board. It will often cost a mere 2 white mana, making it one of the most efficient sweepers in the format. This is a simple design that translates well to Commander and will likely be the top option among white board wipes that only hit creatures.
28. By Invitation Only (Innistrad: Crimson Vow)
How often does your opponent have more than 13 nonland permanents when you untap and start your turn? White is one of the best colors at flooding the board with permanents because of its focus on efficient creatures and tokens. In the right deck, you'll find that By Invitation Only can allow you to clean out your opponents while keeping much of your own board state intact. The fact that it gets around indestructible is a nice bonus.
29. Welcoming Vampire (Innistrad: Crimson Vow)
This card feels like a new spin on one of my favorite cards from the original Innistrad block, Mentor of the Meek. As a trade-off for not costing additional mana, Welcoming Vampire's triggered ability only allows you to draw one card per turn. If you're playing a lot of small creatures, or maybe a commander like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, then you'll find a lot of opportunities to draw cards - you might even be able to draw cards on opponents' turns with a bit of creativity.
30. Storm of Souls (Innistrad: Crimson Vow Commander)
White as a color tends to rely heavily on creatures, which can put you at risk of being blown out by a board wipe. Rather than being bitter about it, you can just cast Storm of Souls to bring back every creature in your graveyard. They do come back as 1/1 spirits with flying, so you can lose a lot of power.
That said, many of white's best creatures are already fairly small, meaning that the downside will often be negligible. Pairing this card with Cathars' Crusade was one of the coolest things that I got to do in 2021 while playing Commander.
Let’s wrap things up with some cards that almost made the list:
Winds of Abandon (Modern Horizons) — While a sorcery speed Path to Exile for 2 mana isn't incredible, the overloaded version of this spell can be absolutely back-breaking, especially against decks with few basic lands.
Brought Back (Core Set 2020) — 2 mana to quickly retrieve any 2 permanents that went to the graveyard from the battlefield this turn is quite good. It doesn't even matter how they got there, so you can rebuy a planeswalker after an ult or use it to recur permanents with activated abilities that have a sacrifice cost.
Court of Grace (Commander Legends) — Being the monarch is only good if you can protect it. This card does a pretty good job at doing just that, since it creates an excellent blocker every turn.
Serra’s Emissary (Modern Horizons 2) — A 7/7 flyer with such a huge upside for 7 mana is likely to be an excellent curve-topper for any mono-white deck that cares about combat.
Guardian of Faith (Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms) — As I said earlier, phasing is quite good. This creature isn't quite a Teferi's Protection on a stick, but it does a great job at protecting your creatures.
Intrepid Adversary (Innistrad: Midnight Hunt) — Considering how easy it is to flood the board in mono-white, this card has deadly potential for aggro strategies. You can turn your entire board into huge threats in a pinch if you have the mana for it.
These 6 cards are very strong in their own right, which just goes to show how well white is actually doing in commander right now. It was very difficult to actually narrow the list down to just 30 cards.
It goes without saying that mono-white still has some concerns in Commander, but I'm enjoying the cards that have been coming out in the past few years and I look forward to seeing what comes next.
If you haven't already tried mono-white in Commander, now's a great time to start! You can find a variety of mono-white decks on my Moxfield profile here.
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