Carpe Diem 5

Urza's Saga:Carpe Diem Part 5 (White)

I'm using the MtG News Spoiler, with my comments in between card descriptions. The rares are deleted. Note that the majority of non-rare white spells I consider utterly useless in Type II.

1 Absolute Grace (Uncommon) 1W Enchantment All creatures gain protection from black. F With Soltari Monk, White Knight, Order of the White Shield and Paladin en-Vec, this is one thing white doesn't need to spend a card on. If you want to hose black, Light of Day is a better solution to creatures, and Diabolic Edict and Nevinyrral's Disk make it very bad against non-creature black. Tournament level black generally doesn't target. If only this somehow shut down Recurring Nightmare….

2 Absolute Law (Uncommon) 1W Enchantment All creatures gain protection from red. C- A lot better. Protection from Red is a little harder to find than Pro:Black in the traditional cards, although in Tempest and onward, but White Knight is still around. I actually think it shouldn't be as common; white hates black a lot more than red. Red's removal is all damage, and red decks use red creatures, and there's no true analog to Light of Day. This card can shut down Sligh's creature offense. But that requires you to hold creatures back, which allows Sligh to draw into burn or rush the defenses. A pure WW has 8 or so Pro-red already. More likely, this will get splashed in some Tradewind decks sideboards, if it sees play at all.

3 Angelic Chorus (Rare)

4 Angelic Page (Common) 1W Summon Spirit Flying. Tap: Target attacking or blocking creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. F This requires you to be involved in a complicated creature battle before it makes any sense.

5 Brilliant Halo (Common) 1W Enchant Creature Enchanted creature gets +1/+2. When Brilliant Halo is put into a graveyard from play, return Brilliant Halo to owner's hand. F Would you play Tawnos's Weaponry? Then why would you play this? It's less flexible. If you get a benefit from recasting it over and over, run with it. Otherwise, forget it.

6 Catastrophe (Rare)

7 Clear (Uncommon) 1W Instant Destroy target enchantment. Cycling 2 (You may pay 2 and discard this card from your hand to draw a card. Play this ability as an instant.) A This is the kind of card that Cycling works best with. When it works, it's a godsend. When it doesn't, you Cycle it. This is a less risky card to play than Disenchant. Compare that to cards that require more mana then they should to cast in exchange for Cycling, often for a card you'll almost never Cycle. And in Urza's Saga, enchantments are a major factor.

8 Congregate (Common) 3W Instant Target player gains 2 life for each creature in play. D This could give WW the edge in a race, since it could give 8 or 10 life, or even more. But for four mana, you'll be giving up Armageddon or Cataclysm, unless you're willing to wreck your mana curve. The four slot is too valuable to waste like this. Gerrard's Wisdom worked because you could get 10 or more consistantly in the decks that needed it most.

9 Defensive Formation (Uncommon) W Enchantment Instead of the attacking player, you choose how creatures attacking you deal combat damage. F All blocking creatures gain banding. And go out for Pizza. Wonderful.

10 Disciple of Grace (Common) 1W Summon Cleric 1/2 Protection from black. Cycling 2 (You may pay 2 and discard this card from your hand to draw a card. Play this ability as an instant.) (I think this is 1/2, not the 1/1 the spoiler lists) D If you want creatures only to hose black you'll just get Edicted and such. Plus, this creature is so small it won't have much impact. If you have a lot of creatures, White Knight is much better. If you're cycling creatures you'll get mana glutted and wreck your curve.

11 Disciple of Law (Common) 1W Summon Cleric 1/2 Protection from red. Cycling 2 (You may pay 2 and discard this card from your hand to draw a card. Play this ability as an instant.) (This is Pro:Red, not black) B- Again, the theme that Pro:Red is a good thing. There's no White Lawyer to match White Knight. Repentant Blacksmith was played because a lot of decks can't remove it and/or can't get through with it out. The danger is that a deck that doesn't need it will slow itself down with this card. One power creatures are very bad beatdown.

12 Disenchant (Common) 1W Instant Destroy target artifact or enchantment. A You know it, you love it, the picture is new and improved.

13 Elite Archer (Rare) 14 Faith Healer (Rare)

15 Glorious Anthem 1WW Enchantment All Creatures you control gain +1/+1 B This is less risky than Crusade, and allows you to have more than 4 if you want, and can be used by decks that can't use Crusade. But Crusade is almost never used now, for good reason. The speed of new Type II makes that one extra mana very important. It's no Empyrial Armor.

16 Healing Salve (Common) W Instant Choose one - Target player gains 3 life: or prevent up to 3 damage to a creature or player. D- That shows how this scale is curved. It can be used, but there's always something better.

17 Herald of Serra (Rare)

18 Humble (Uncommon) 1W Instant Target creature loses all abilities and is a 0/1 creature until end of turn. C- Counter Ball Lightning! Smite for attackers and blockers! Requires creature combat or a red spell and is one for one. Which means it's bad.

19 Intrepid Hero (Rare)

20 Monk Idealist (Uncommon) 2W Summon Cleric 2/2 When Monk Idealist comes into play, return target enchantment card from your graveyard to your hand. B The most important new card in Recurring Nightmare decks, at only one mana extra. But no other deck I can think of has a reason to use it, the same way no one uses Treasure Hunter.

21 Monk Realist (Common) 1W Summon Cleric 1/1 When Monk realist comes into play, destroy target enchantment. B- The new Cloudchaser Eagle at a much more reasonable price, whose place it will take in Nightmare decks. Many decks will be using enchantments now. But again, WW must be careful it doesn't get bogged down in utility creatures. Soltari Visionary is a better bet in most cases.

22 Opal Acrolith (Uncommon) 2W Enchantment Whenever one of your opponents successfully casts a creature spell, if Opal Acrolith is an enchantment, Opal Acrolith becomes a 2/4 creature that counts as a Guardian. 0: Opal Acrolith becomes an enchantment. F So if they play creatures you have a 2/4 for 3, which can hide for an unknown period. It costs about two mana too much.

23 Opal Archangel (Rare) 4W Enchantment

24 Opal Caryatid (Common) W Enchantment When one of your opponents successfully casts a creature spell, if Opal Caryatid is an enchantment, Opal Caryatid becomes a 2/2 creature that counts as a Soldier. F Again, a possible future 2/2 isn't going to cut it in constructed.

25 Opal Gargoyle (Common) 1W Enchantment When one of your opponents successfully casts a creature spell, if Opal Gargoyle is an enchantment, Opal Gargoyle becomes a 2/2 creature with flying that counts as a Gargoyle. F You're not listning!

26 Opal Titan (Rare) 2WW Enchantment When one of your opponents successfully casts a creature spell, if Opal Titan is an enchantment, Opal Titan becomes a 4/4 creature with protection from each of that spell's color and that counts as a Giant. F For four mana I expect a 4/4 to have a smaller drawback than 'doesn't exist unless opponent says it does'.

27 Pacifism (Common) 1W Enchant Creature Enchanted creature cannot attack or block. D Doesn't solve many of your worst creature problems.

28 Pariah (Rare?)

29 Path of Peace (Common) 3W Sorcery Destroy target creature. That creature's owner gains 4 life. F If you're going to charge 4 mana for a removal spell with a drawback make it an instant. Or at least remove the creature from the game!

30 Pegasus Charger (Common) 2W Summon Pegasus 2/1 Flying, first strike F Too much for too vulnerable. Why does white get all overpriced creatures?

31 Planar Birth (Rare)

32 Presence of the Master (Uncommon) 3W Enchantment Whenever a player plays an enchantment spell, counter it. F Four mana spells can't just deal with future problems. It's a horrible solution to Recurring Nightmare (see part 4).

33 Redeem (Uncommon) 1W Instant Prevent all damages to one or two creatures. (treat further damage normally.) F Remedy and Honorable Passage have traveled this road before, and both are better than this card. Why can't it target players?

34 Remembrance (Rare) 3W Enchantment

35 Rune of Protection: Artifacts (Uncommon) 1W Enchantment W: Prevent all damage to you from an artifact source. Cycling 2 F+ You won't need it. At least it doesn't cost more than the other runes, like COP:Artifacts.

41 Rune of Protection: White (Common) D+ You'll never have the space for them all, but the Red and Black ones will shut down some decks utterly without giving you useless cards. Note that the white activation cost may often allow the player to overwhelm your ability to pay. Obviously, playing any of these is a metagame choice. It's open to any deck with a lot of white mana.

39 Rune of Protection: Lands (Rare)

42 Sanctum Custodian (Common) 2W Summon Cleric 1/2 Tap: Prevent up to 2 damage to a creature or player. F Oh, Orim, what a group of idiots are trying to carry on your work!

43 Sanctum Guardian (Uncommon) 1WW Summon Soldier 1/4 Sacrifice Sanctum Guardian: Prevent all damage to a creature or player from one source. C This card is going to be one for one 90% of the time. But it has en-Kor-like effects, in that it lessens the effect of mass destruction by damage. It protects you, which can be very important. And ¼ for 3 mana makes it a decent defensive creature.

44 Seasoned Marshal (Uncommon) 2WW Summon Soldier 2/2 Whenever Seasoned Marshal attacks, you may tap target creature. F This card requires that your opponent wants to block. This is constructed, so he probably doesn't. Remember The 2/2 Flanker that did this for 3W?

45 Serra Avatar (Rare)

46 Serra Zealot (Common) W Summon Soldier 1/1 First strike. C- Oh joy, it's Tundra Wolves! I'd rather have Soul Warden or Nomads en-Kor.

47 Serra's Embrace (Uncommon) 2WW Enchant Creature Enchant creature gets +2/+2 and gains flying. Attacking does not cause enchanted creature to tap. B This is actually a very good creature enhancement. I think of it as a 'To the air!' for constructed. You can turn a Paladin en-Vec, for example, into a Serra with First Strike and protection from Red and Black. Holding back protection creatures to block is good, but used to cost a whole card to do. Now, you get evasion, a decent increase in size and the serra effect for four mana. If this cost 3 mana and was a little less powerful to compensate, it would be wonderful. There are a huge number of great 4-cost spells for white creature decks.

48 Serra's Hymn (Uncommon) W Enchantment During your upkeep, you may put a verse counter on Serra's Hymn. Sacrifice Serra's Hymn: Prevent up to X damage total o any number of creatures and/or players, where X is the number of verse counters on Serra's Hymn. F So if you cast it first turn, you get a Remedy in 5 turns. If you draw it late, it's useless for a while. I'm sorry, I don't see it. The whole point of Legacy's Allure was that often it was a huge swing card at 2 counters.

49 Serra's Liturgy (Rare) 2WW Enchantment During your upkeep, you may put a verse counter on Serra's Liturgy. W, Sacrifice Serra's Liturgy: Destroy up to X target artifacts and/or enchantments, where X is the number of verse counters on Serra's Liturgy. B Now we're talking: A control growing enchantment. Many decks can afford to wait for these things. If this stays on the table it will devestate many deck types. The potential for gigantic card advantage makes this card worthwile. But many decks can't afford to wait.

50 Shimmering Barrier (Uncommon) 1W Summon Wall 1/3 (Walls cannot attack) First strike. Cycling 2. C This is one creature you may actually cycle sometimes, since you don't always want walls. But it's never going to be that good; the only deck that can't ignore it is Sligh, and Sligh can kill it.

51 Silent Attendant (Common) 2W Summon Cleric 0/2 Tap: Gain 1 life. F Keeper of the Light is strictly better, since only decks that fall behind on life need it.

52 Songstitcher (Uncommon) W Summon Cleric 1/1 1W: Target attacking creature with flying deals no combat damage this turn. B+ This is the kind of creature that gets played: A 1/1 for one mana with a very nice side effect. If flyers get popular, this will find its way into WW decks. It's disturbing how many white creatures and spells are WW-only cards in constructed.

53 Soul Sculptor (Rare) 2W Summon Townsfolk 1/1

54 Voice of Grace (Uncommon) 3W Summon Angel 2/2 Flying, protection from black. C- In general, if you need it to fly, you don't need the protection, and vica versa. But black has more playable flyers than ever before. White has better creatures than this, which is too much mana for a 2/2.

55 Voice of Law (Uncommon) 3W Summon Angel 2/2 Flying, protection from red. D- Count the playable red flying creatures and get back to me.

56 Waylay (Uncommon) 2W Instant B Put 3 3/3s into play until end of turn. This can be a Wrath-level effect in the right situation, but you'll end up burning it for one or two creatures most of the time. Playing this 3rd turn against 2 Jackel Pup and a Mogg Fanatic is strong. Same with Sacromancy/Carnophage. It's too bad that there's no good way to let them attack. You can also think about sacrificing the creatures, say to Recurring Nightmare?

57 Worship (Rare)

Summary of White: White got the shaft. Most of white is bad WW cards, and some is decent WW cards. All the interesting cards require four or more mana to cast, and that means that mana curves will be a huge problem. In general, white decks will have no defense at all against blue or green in Urza's Saga constructed. Three mana 4/4s and five mana 9/9s are some good against 1/2s. In draft, white is better because it has many of the cards that determine who wins drafts. Draft seems a lot like 5th edition draft: What matters isn't the overall quality of the cards you draft. What matters is what three cards swing the game. In the semi-finals of PT:Chicago, one player had Light of Day, Scroll Rack and Merfolk Looter, and the other semi-final was won by a monoblack deck. I was really worried that we'd watch to see if the W/U player could find the Spell of Mastery or The Spell of Manascrew three out of four times. That's what we may have to look foreward to.