Conquering the Commander Cube: Cards For Your Cube - White
Greetings, Commander players! Today we're back with another installment of Conquering the Commander Cube, and we're starting another miniseries this time that's simply titled "Cards For Your Cube." As the name suggests, I'll be providing recommendations for cards that are flexible, well-balanced, and interesting that players will want to draft for their cubes. I will also include some unique and unconventional cards that don't normally see play in other contexts but might work well in a cube. I'll also be taking budget into consideration, and will generally be avoiding cards that cost more than $5 (at time of the article's writing). Each article in the series will be focused on one color or color combination. We are starting with mono-colored cards (which will likely be the bulk of your cube due to their flexibility in drafts), and today we're discussing white cards for your cube. Each article in the series will include 20 cards along with blurbs offering context and explanation where needed.
With that, let's jump in!
Rootborn Defenses
A fog effect pinned on a creature-token-duplicator? Yes, please!
Martial Coup
Draft games often go longer than games in constructed formats due to the incongruity of the deck, so win conditions are much appreciated. This card will generate creature tokens for as little as three mana, but for seven mana, this card can be a potential game-ender.
Weathered Wayfarer
An excellent catch-up card that will help assure that players don't fall too far behind on the mana curve. In draft formats, this is particularly imperative.
Call the Coppercoats
Another catch-up card and possible game-ender all in one package.
Suture Priest
A deceptively powerful card that can grant a plethora of value over the duration of a game (especially in mulitplayer games), but which also works particularly well with life gain and aristocrats strategies.
Selfless Spirit
In creature-heavy formats like Cube drafts, protection for your creatures is essential, and this card provides that on a flying Spirit body.
Welcoming Vampire
Depending on which other colors a player drafts, they may be wanting of card draw, and this card will provide relatively consistent card draw in token and low-to-the-ground creature decks.
Marble Diamond
A cheap and well-balanced piece of mana ramp.
Darksteel Mutation
I'm happy to see this card's rise in popularity. It's an excellent form of removal that is often better than putting creatures in a graveyard.
Secure the Wastes
A powerful piece for any token strategy, but is also generally good in an aggro or creature-focused strategy.
Mana Tithe
Leave this one out if you are averse to counterspells, but I find this card to be at the right power level for cubes. It's more powerful on the whole because players aren't usually ramping as quickly or consistently, so they're less capable of paying the 1, yet it's not so powerful that players will find it frustrating. Plus, it's always fun to see player's surprise at seeing a white counterspell cast.
Dawn Charm
A flexible piece of protection and a (narrow) counterspell all in one package!
Condemn
An underrated piece of removal!
Secret Rendezvous
An excellent political card that is also great to have when players want to help out a friend during a game when they may be lagging behind.
Cut a Deal
Another fun political card that can be excellent card draw.
Basri Ket
A high-value planeswalker that synergizes well with token strategies but that can also be used to buff and protect creatures.
Elspeth Resplendent
Elspeth can provide a myriad of different counters to address a wide variety of situations, and she can also tutor for low-cost permanents (which will be most cards in their deck if players are building their deck well).
Horn of Valhalla
An adventure/artifact that will give you an army of tokens and then pump one of your creatures. It scales up as the game goes on and its controller amasses an army of creatures.
Glimmer Lens
A cheap form of card draw that rewards players for playing aggressively.
Seraphic Greatsword
The thing that I like most about this card is that it incentivizes players to spread the love (in this case it comes in the form of aerial damage from Angels), which helps to balance out games and avoid scenarios where one player is getting ganged up on.
Final Thoughts
And that concludes our list of white card recommendations for your Commander cube! Obviously this list isn't comprehensive, as they're far too many cards in MTG to cover, but hopefully they give you an idea of the kinds of cards that are conducive to fun and engaging games. In subsequent editions of this series I will cover the other colors as well as some multi-color cards to consider.
Happy gathering, Commander players!
