White's Current State in MTG

[WWolfe]

Green also has a few powerful tutors that fit the general green creature heavy strategy in Worldly Tutor, Tooth and Nail, and Collected Company plus Survival of the Fittest.

[Cosmic_Insight]

If you look at white, there are some actually formidable cards. Who doesn't think when Land Tax, Smothering Tithe, or Stoneforge Mystic enter the battlefield. White pioneered wraths with Wrath of God. But white's obvious downsides keep lots of players from using it purely because there are so many more better clors in Magic, no matter which format you play.

[WWolfe]

White also has some pretty good targeted removal with Swords to Plowshares & Path to Exile as well as Disenchant. The problem being that they're very narrow in what they can take remove.

Maybe I'm wrong but Land Tax doesn't really make me think. It's not really ramp like I see a lot of people count it as.

[WizardSpartan]

Yes, white has powerful cards, but so do black, green, and blue. Their advantage is in their color identity and how they can support their powerful cards.

[PickleLover]

Yes, white has powerful cards, but so do black, green, and blue. Their advantage is in their color identity and how they can support their powerful cards.

That circles back to the op, how white needs a theme that it fully supports and is therefore more viable a color.

[Marshstepper78]

I don't think white is that weak across the board (i.e. equally weak in all formats).

I have a mono-white Legacy Rebels deck and it is super fun to play. Rarely do I feel behind my opponent and it is super versatile and resilient. Hell, thanks to Tithe, I never even miss a land drop; I always manage to have enough mana to tutor for a specific rebel or rebel card when I need to. Swords to Plowshares is hard to beat for removal. Knight of the Holy Nimbus and Day of Judgment usually makes my opponent's life difficult, acting as a quasi-tax effect and complicating combat math at times.

White in Commander is surely a support colour more than anything, but I wouldn't say it's bad. WotC has been adding elements to white we haven't seen before so they are on a good path to perhaps balancing the colour out for Commander. Heh, maybe Truce and Temporary Truce will see Commander play despite being symmetrical draw spells.

All that being said, other colours clearly have it much easier. I'm looking at you Simic.

[PickleLover]

my favorite guilds/2 color combos (purely opinion)

1. Golgari
2. Simic
3. Rakdos
4. Izzet
5. Dimir

[ImaSaber]

I don't think white is that weak across the board (i.e. equally weak in all formats).

I have a mono-white Legacy Rebels deck and it is super fun to play. Rarely do I feel behind my opponent and it is super versatile and resilient. Hell, thanks to Tithe, I never even miss a land drop; I always manage to have enough mana to tutor for a specific rebel or rebel card when I need to. Swords to Plowshares is hard to beat for removal. Knight of the Holy Nimbus and Day of Judgment usually makes my opponent's life difficult, acting as a quasi-tax effect and complicating combat math at times.

White in Commander is surely a support colour more than anything, but I wouldn't say it's bad. WotC has been adding elements to white we haven't seen before so they are on a good path to perhaps balancing the colour out for Commander. Heh, maybe Truce and Temporary Truce will see Commander play despite being symmetrical draw spells.

All that being said, other colours clearly have it much easier. I'm looking at you Simic.

I have heard about white being good in other formats that allow for much older cards, making it somewhat viable, however white still has its major downsides.

The main one that comes to mind in card advantage, all other colors have some form of actual card advantage where white can only draw single cards at a time, and just replace the draw spell in hand. Good cards from other colors that come to mind are Light up the Stage, Elder Gargaroth, and Grim Tutor (although some do not see play in formats outside of standard and historic). These to me act as actual card advantage because they are either netting you cards (Light up the Stage), are stapled to a creature or permanent (Elder Gargaroth), or find a specific card to solve a problem (Grim Tutor).

Cards like Revitalize just replace themself in hand and have a lackluster effect, like in this example gaining 3 life which to most people is not that important. It just feels to me that in the few ways that white is useful, it falls very short in other categories that are just as important to have a strong color.

To address the example of Tithe I agree this is a strong effect, and is also seen on cards like Oreskos Explorer, and Land Tax, but is only truly most effective when you are already behind. Which lets face it you most likely are if you are playing mono white. These effects, excluding Land Tax, also only fetch plains cards, making you more likely to have to run mono white, thus limiting yourself again.

If they added more of this effect into white, say in a standard set, or commander set this might become a way for white to thin their deck and more likely hit good cards consistently. This could act as white's "card advantage" but considering this is somewhat what green does already, and does it better I am so-so on the idea overall.

Also just wanted to say that I'm not disagreeing with you in that white can be a strong color, it certainly can. To me it just seems much more limited in its application compared to the other colors of the pie, whereas colors like green can be put into almost any deck effectively.

Final note to round this out. Simic 100% has been getting to many ridiculous cards that do way to much for so little mana *cough* *cough* Uro *cough* *cough*. They also have had lots of flash in the past couple standard sets as seen in Wildborn Preserver, and Nightpack Ambusher. Flash has not historically been a green type effect, and just adds to the overall power of the color.

[ImaSaber]

White also has some pretty good targeted removal with Swords to Plowshares & Path to Exile as well as Disenchant. The problem being that they're very narrow in what they can take remove.

Maybe I'm wrong but Land Tax doesn't really make me think. It's not really ramp like I see a lot of people count it as.

To me Land Tax is somewhat ramp, but you need to be behind in lands on the battlefield. Most people see it as ramp because most of the time you are behind on lands (if you are playing white), so they see the player getting up to 3 free lands and think "Wow that's great ramp", but in reality its just used to level the playing field slightly.

[Varatius]

The sad think is there are a lot of the good white cards that arent seeing much play.   
Debt of loyalty probably the saddest of them all eveer since i discovered thus and i find myself asking why doesn't this see play your guaranteed  to pretty much have a valuable target to steal with it.  Worst case if your opponent removes a creature thats a problem for them you get to 2 for 1 them and make the other players down 1 more option especially if the run grave synergies which is extremely common plus you have a body to bash face and get some easy damage or powerful effect you probably didnt have room for or one that synergies powerfully for your deck. 
Maybe the complexity of this card and age might be the reasons but if your running this it says add 3 to a board wipe have the best creature on board. 
Or take a game ending creature.

[Slyvester12]

White also has some pretty good targeted removal with Swords to Plowshares & Path to Exile as well as Disenchant. The problem being that they're very narrow in what they can take remove.

Maybe I'm wrong but Land Tax doesn't really make me think. It's not really ramp like I see a lot of people count it as.

To me Land Tax is somewhat ramp, but you need to be behind in lands on the battlefield. Most people see it as ramp because most of the time you are behind on lands (if you are playing white), so they see the player getting up to 3 free lands and think "Wow that's great ramp", but in reality its just used to level the playing field slightly.

I think you're missing the point. Many people don't consider Land Tax ramp because it just sends the lands to your hand, not the field. People think of ramp as a way to break the one land per turn escalation of power, and Land Tax will never do that.

[ImaSaber]

White also has some pretty good targeted removal with Swords to Plowshares & Path to Exile as well as Disenchant. The problem being that they're very narrow in what they can take remove.

Maybe I'm wrong but Land Tax doesn't really make me think. It's not really ramp like I see a lot of people count it as.

To me Land Tax is somewhat ramp, but you need to be behind in lands on the battlefield. Most people see it as ramp because most of the time you are behind on lands (if you are playing white), so they see the player getting up to 3 free lands and think "Wow that's great ramp", but in reality its just used to level the playing field slightly.

I think you're missing the point. Many people don't consider Land Tax ramp because it just sends the lands to your hand, not the field. People think of ramp as a way to break the one land per turn escalation of power, and Land Tax will never do that.

Right, I get what you were trying to say now, my fault for not understanding in the first place. Although I just wanted to say that this is some of the best "ramp" white has. I feel if land tax 3 lands a turn into play though it would be overpowered.

[WWolfe]

I don't think you can count Land Tax as ramp at all. Ramp is when you get ahead of the amount of mana you could have playing your one land each turn, be it by a mana rock, a mana dork, or an additional land drop. Land Tax does none of that and only draws you additional lands that you can't play more than one of as your land drop for the turn, when you're already behind. At best, it keeps you from missing a land drop.

That's not ramp.

[Aetherium Slinky]

I classify Land Tax as card draw in my decks. They're specific kind of cards but cards nonetheless. It also works with stuff like Scroll Rack really well. Or Walking Atlas, Terrain Generator. Smothering Tithe on the other hand is true ramp, it pulls you ahead in mana.

I just read a discussion on Reddit where they claimed Armageddon is white's best weapon. I disagree but I think it's an interesting take on the matter that in EDH rule 0 would be the limiting factor. Most people don't enjoy playing against stax, hatebears or land destruction so I kind of understand where they're coming from but I don't think allowing hate strategies would elevate white any higher than it is.

[WizardSpartan]

I classify Land Tax as card draw in my decks. They're specific kind of cards but cards nonetheless. It also works with stuff like Scroll Rack really well. Or Walking Atlas, Terrain Generator. Smothering Tithe on the other hand is true ramp, it pulls you ahead in mana.

I just read a discussion on Reddit where they claimed Armageddon is white's best weapon. I disagree but I think it's an interesting take on the matter that in EDH rule 0 would be the limiting factor. Most people don't enjoy playing against stax, hatebears or land destruction so I kind of understand where they're coming from but I don't think allowing hate strategies would elevate white any higher than it is.

I wholeheartedly disagree. If a mono W deck has a Sun Titan on the field and Armageddon in hand (assuming no one else has a Crucible of Worlds, etc. on the field), then they would be put at a massive, almost game-winning advantage. The big reason lands decks and decks that lean on green's land ramp are so prominent is because their main counter, destroying lands, will get you flame-horizoned out of the game store.

I think that hatebears are even better. If white can't draw a bunch of cards or have the resources necessary to play 2-3+ spells a turn, let them play Spirit of the Labyrinth, Eidolon of Rhetoric, and Archon of Emeria. I recently played a game against a couple mono white decks, and one of them played a Spirit of the Labyrinth that was brutal. Yet again, you just get hated on if you play hatebears/stax.

White as a color is designed to take advantage of land destruction & stax effects, or WotC wouldn't give white them. They're super weak because the community can't handle their 7 lands on turn 4 being destroyed by a white deck trying to do what their color was designed to do. It's like if blue wasn't allowed to counter any spells. I feel like the color would be significantly worse off (although they can still draw a bunch of cards which probably saves it from a fate just like white's) as a result.