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White Creatures in Magic: The Gathering are some of the most important card types in all formats. Even in decks that are mostly only playing instants and sorceries such as Control decks still have a small handful of creatures to help close out games. Almost every deck has at least one creature, and because of that, they are one of the most iconic card types in the game. White has a good bit of amazing creatures that have made a splash across multiple impacts. Some are good in specific decks, while others are broad and usable in any deck with white, such as the best budget Commander decks. These are the 13 best white creatures in Magic: The Gathering and how to use them.
13. Skrelv, Defector Mite
Skrelv’s Defector Mite is great at protecting creatures while setting you up for an alternate win condition thanks to being able to give creatures toxic. Toxic gives a player a poison counter, and when they have ten of those, they automatically lose the game. This is great for decks playing with infect and toxic creatures.
However, Skrelv’s Defector Mite also works well in White Weenie decks as a way to keep your best creatures safe. For either one white mana or two life, you can make any creature hexproof and unblockable of a specific colour, giving you both protection and the ability to get in for guaranteed damage. In Infect/Toxic decks, this is especially strong as those strategies want to get in for damage as quickly as possible.
12. Soul Warden
Gaining life is strong, especially in dedicated lifegain decks that benefit from you gaining life to trigger special effects. Soul Warden is the best enabler for this strategy, as for just one mana, every creature entering the battlefield will gain you a life.
Soul Warden is best both in and against creature decks, as its effect can rapidly raise your life. In formats like Commander, Soul Warden becomes even stronger since not only is every other player in the game triggering it, it is easier for you to put multiple creatures on the battlefield (especially tokens) to get more Soul Warden triggers.
The Soul Sisters:
Soul Warden is a part of a series of cards known as the “Soul Sisters.” These are cards with an identical mana value and the same effect, both with “Soul” in their name. Soul Warden is one, and Soul’s Attendant is the other, the only difference between the two is Soul’s Attendant is optional to gain life. Essence Warden is an honorary Soul Sister, although is green instead of white.
11. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
For White Weenie decks (decks that play a lot of cheap white creatures), Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is often its top-end. Adeline can become rather powerful thanks to growing for each creature, and makes a 1/1 token whenever you attack. Notably, Adeline itself doesn’t have to attack for the effect to trigger, so long as you attack, you get the 1/1 token.
In multiplayer games, this effect triggers for each opponent, so if you attack all three players in a Commander game you get three 1/1 tokens for your trouble. It is very easy for Adeline to reach obscene power amounts, making it a must-block creature if your opponent wants to keep their life total in check. It would pair well with the best unblockable creatures too. You don’t want to attack with Adeline unless you’re sure it can survive combat, as you will want to keep it around to keep getting tokens off its effect.
10. Elesh Norn, Mother Of Machines
For five mana, you get a creature that shuts down all your opponents enter-the-battlefield triggers while doubling up on your own. Elesh Norn, Mother Of Machines’ statline makes it hard to deal with in combat, and can’t be removed by cards like Leyline Binding since it cancels it out.
The best way to use Elesh Norn, Mother Of Machines is by building your deck with enter-the-battlefield triggers in mind. There are many amazing triggers to copy, such as the aforementioned Leyline Binding for double removal on one spell. Elesh Norn is fairly easy to cast, letting you take advantage of the effect early.
9. Archon Of Emeria
If you want to slow your opponent down, Archon Of Emeria is one of the best ways to do that. All nonbasic lands your opponents’ play enter tapped while preventing anyone from playing more than one spell. This can make it easy to keep Archon Of Emeria around if you have counterspells to use against removal since that becomes the only spell your opponent could cast that turn.
Not every deck can play Archon Of Emeria, and requires your deck to not care about slowing the game down. It’s most often used in Control decks, often in the sidedeck to work against aggro and combo decks. It’s also great in Stax decks for Commander whose goal is to prevent your opponents’ decks from functioning as intended.
8. Giver Of Runes
A staple of decks that require you to put Auras and Equipment on creatures, Giver Of Runes is the best way to give protection. By tapping it, any other creature gets protection from a colour or colourless (something similar card Mother Of Runes lacks). Giver Of Runes has a solid statline for blocking early-game attackers as well.
Giver Of Runes gives protection from a specific colour, so if you are giving that to a creature it is important to remember if you have a card attached to that creature that shares the colour, it will be removed through game mechanics. Giver Of Runes is great to protect a creature from removal, or guarantee you can get in for damage if your opponent only has one colour available for blockers.
7. Grand Abolisher
In Commander, Grand Abolisher is played in many combo decks. It prevents your opponents from doing practically anything on your turn, guarantee your turn won’t be interrupted and you can play without worry of interaction. In combo decks, this prevents your combo from being interacted with to guarantee it goes off and this often leads to a win.
Grand Abolisher only costs two mana, but you don’t want to play it right away. Spells and abilities can still be used on anyone else’s turn, and they can use that to remove it before you take advantage of it. You don’t want to play Grand Abolisher until you’re ready to start comboing off, otherwise, it risks being removed, so save it in your hand until that point. Since it’s only two mana, you will likely have enough to cast Grand Abolisher and your combo pieces on the same turn.
6. Stoneforge Mystic
Stoneforge Mystic has been an iconic card since it was released, being a staple in any Equipment decks. It lets you tutor out any Equipment from your library, and cheat around any casting costs by putting an Equipment directly onto the battlefield with its effect.
Since Stoneforge Mystic only costs two mana, you can get your main Equipment card out of your library early on. It’s best used in Equipment decks running cards like Sigarda’s Aid which lets you attach an Equipment onto a creature when it enters the battlefield and Colossus Hammer as a way to give a creature a massive +10/+10 stat boost.
5. White Plume Adventurer
The initiative was designed with the Commander format in mind, but is also legal in Legacy, Vintage, and Pauper. Its power was instantly apparent, so much so that White Plume Adventurer had to be banned out of Legacy.
White Plume Adventurer was the best of the white initiative cards as it let you attack with creatures without having to worry about blockers because it would simply untap them after attacking. It also has a low casting cost, and in formats with fast mana like Sol Ring and Ancient Tomb, it could be cast as early as turn one which makes it much harder to lose the initiative once it starts due to lack of interaction with it.
4. Drannith Magistrate
One of the most hated cards in Commander, Drannith Magistrate is also one of the best cards in the format. It prevents any spells from being cast anywhere but their hands, and in Commander, that shuts down the ability to cast commanders as those are not considered to be in the hand. It has an awkward statline for burn-based removal, and acts as a solid blocker to keep it safe in combat.
Outside of Commander, Drannith Magistrate sees play across other formats as a sideboard card to shut down decks that play cards outside their hand like Cascade variants in Modern.
3. Thalia, Guardian Of Thraben
Thalia, Guardian Of Thraben is one of the most iconic and powerful white cards in Magic’s history. It’s very simple card, just a 2/1 with first strike that taxes all noncreature spells for just one mana. Thalia’s first strike makes it a threat in early combat, and can shut down attackers against many aggro decks since it won’t trade with most creatures unless they have first strike too.
Thalia is also a great counter to decks playing a lot of noncreature spells as it makes all removal and counterspells harder to play multiples of. If you can protect Thalia, it makes it even harder to deal with it. Thalia, Guardian Of Thraben is best played in decks playing a lot of creatures as they do not get hampered by Thalia’s effect and only hurt your opponents and not you as well.
2. Solitude
The evoke Elementals from Modern Horizons 2 are rather infamous in the game due to how powerful they are, and Solitude is no exception. When it enters the battlefield, you get to exile any other creature on the battlefield. While life is given equal to its power, this is hardly a downside when you get rid of your opponent’s best creature.
While paying the evoke cost gets around Solitude’s mana cost, it does force it to be sacrificed at the end step. However, decks playing Solitude often play ways to make it return to the battlefield after it dies (or blinks it entirely) so it not only sticks around, but gets to trigger its effect twice. Although its stats and static abilities aren’t anything special, getting free removal out of Solitude is what makes it so good.
1. Esper Sentinel
The best way to draw cards in white, Esper Sentinel turns all your opponents noncreature spells into draw power for yourself. While they can counter this ability by paying mana, it can be made much harder to do so if you can rise Esper Sentinel’s power to make its tax impossible for your opponents to pay.
Since Esper Sentinel only costs one mana, you can start drawing cards with it right away. There is a low amount of decks that play no noncreature spells, and even removal being used on Esper Sentinel can trigger it. In Commander, Esper Sentinel is especially strong with how many noncreature spells are played. It triggers off of every opponent’s first noncreature spell, so if two players play different spells on someone’s turn, it will trigger twice to draw even more cards. White can struggle with card draw, and Esper Sentinel is the best way to get around this weakness, and gets around it fantastically.
Those were the 13 best white creatures in Magic: The Gathering and how to use them. White, unless paired with blue tends to lean hard into aggro strategies, so many of the best white cards only cost a few mana to play. White creatures are notably strong at stopping your opponent from playing the game normally, and this leads to them needing to pay a mana tax or takes away the ability for your opponents’ effects to trigger at all. White has some of the strongest creatures in all of Magic: The Gathering, and many strategies are built with them in mind such as White Weenies and Stax to take full advantage of their powerful effects.
