The 35 Best White Pump Spells in Magic Ranked

Last updated on February 12, 2026

Daybreak Coronet | Illustration by Johannes Voss

Greetings, guys! Today, we’re covering an important part of white as a color in MTG. White cares about creatures, numbers, and creature types (frequently). White is also the main color to give +1/+1 to all your creatures, what we call an anthem effect. White Weenie as a deck exists because it’s easy to pump creatures in this color.

Got a white creature deck? Maybe you’ll be interested in these suggestions, so let’s dive in.

What Are White Pump Spells in MTG?

Ethereal Armor | Illustration by Daarken

White pump spells in MTG are spells that permanently or temporarily alter your creatures’ power, toughness, or both, and they have a white color identity for EDH purposes. They can be any kind of card, not just combat tricks.

White has a whole array of ways to pump a creature, or two creatures, or your entire squad, in the form of enchantments, planeswalkers, and also your run-of-the-mill instant speed combat tricks. The color has a fair number of white auras and equipment with flash. White usually adds strong mechanics like lifelink or first strike in the mix while it pumps creatures. Cards that simply add combat keywords weren't considered, but keyword enablers that also pump are eligible.

#35. Righteousness

+7/+7 for just 1 mana? Bonkers. Righteousness unfortunately only works for defense, but it warrants a mention here.

#34. Battle Menu

Although the pump effect of Battle Menu is weak and it would be better if it added power, the card’s flexibility is nice and allows you to mix different effects. Not every pump spell can be used as removal, so there’s that.

#33. Blacksmith's Skill + Karametra's Blessing

Blacksmith's Skill and Karametra's Blessing are nearly identical cards, and players tend to use them in decks where their respective card type matters most. Karametra's Blessing has a little bit more play to it as it considers enchanted creatures, too.

#32. Feather of Flight

Feather of Flight looks like a card you’d only consider for Limited. But it does a small number of things that add up. It has flash, it draws you a card, and it adds flying.

#31. Shardmage's Rescue

Shardmage's Rescue combines a little +1/+1 bonus with hexproof, a relevant protective ability. If you need more ways to protect your commander or a key threat in Standard, consider this aura for only . You can even draw a card with the right enchantress synergies.

#30. Defiant Strike

Here, the “draw a card” effect really matters, as you’re looking to play this with cards like Feather, the Redeemed every turn. Defiant Strike is one of the best cantrips in white when you’re getting synergies and pumping your creatures, and it helps a lot with mana flooding, a problem that these decks usually have.

#29. Homestead Courage

Homestead Courage is efficient at what it does. It’s good to pump one creature twice or two creatures once each, and this card adds casting bonuses for prowess or flurry. You can also connive this card and cast it from the graveyard.

#28. Tempered Steel

Yes, it only works for artifact creatures, but Tempered Steel provides a big +2/+2 bonus. You usually play this card if your commander makes artifact creatures or has affinity for artifact creatures.

#27. Dictate of Heliod

Dictate of Heliod is Tempered Steel for everyone, and with flash, although at a steeper mana value of 5. You’ll primarily play this in EDH decks that make token, or with enchantment synergies.

#26. Honor of the Pure

Honor of the Pure keeps things simple: It just gives +1/+1 to white creatures, but it’s also one of the cheapest anthems you can get. That matters a lot for Constructed formats where you can build a completely mono-white deck.

#25. Intangible Virtue

Like Honor of the Pure, you’ll play Intangible Virtue in dedicated token decks due to its low mana value, and you don’t even need the most anthem effects require. It’s restricted to tokens, but token decks are the ones that typically want these effects, after all.

#24. Always Watching

A card that boosts your creatures and gives them vigilance is strong, mainly in EDH matches where you want to take a shot at someone and hold the fort on the next turn. It’s sadly restricted to nontoken creatures, so Always Watching doesn’t go into every deck.

#23. For the Emperor!

White often provides a mass pump effect in Limited that comes from cards like Fortify or Inspired Charge, which pump power or toughness until end of turn. For the Emperor! scales this up for EDH, granting not only an increase in P/T, but also vigilance and lifelink.

#22. Angel of Invention

Angel of Invention is a lord for your creatures, not only angels (but probably played more in angel decks). It can also enter with its own army, so you can choose between going wide or tall. It’s got many small synergies with tokens, artifacts, going wide, and lifelink that it ends up being a jack-of-all-trades.

#21. Lion Sash

Lion Sash, or the white Scavenging Ooze, can be an interesting pump spell thanks to reconfigure: You can grow a relevant creature while you eat up your opponent’s graveyard. Reconfigure 2 is also cheap, and the +1/+1 counters carry from one creature to another.

#20. Flowering of the White Tree

Flowering of the White Tree is a flexible anthem, as you give all your creatures +1/+1 and legendaries get an extra +1/+0. It lets you specialize, but it’s not useless when you don’t have legends around (I’m thinking mainly token creatures created by legendary creatures).

#19. Force of Virtue

Force of Virtue can be a nice surprise, and even paying 4 mana to surprise your foes on your turn isn’t the end of the world. The fact that you can drop this 4-mana card for “almost free” and pump your guys makes all the difference. Free spells are good.

#18. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is a 4-mana emblem anthem if you want it to be. If you already have a board presence, just anthem Gideon and attack. Of course, the planeswalker card is much stronger because it can generate 2/2 tokens and attack as an indestructible 5/5 creature.

#17. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Pump effect for you, destruction for your foes. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is expensive, but it gives you a massive board presence and combat advantage just by sitting on the battlefield. Some decks just don’t work (especially token decks) when this card is around. If your opponent relies on a 2/2 commander or smaller, they’ll have to spend removal on this card. At that point, you don’t really care because the damage is already done.

#16. Sheltered by Ghosts

Sheltered by Ghosts combines a pump effect, although minimal, with lifelink, ward 2, and removal, in a Standard format that cares about enchantments with eerie, lifegain (bats), and targeting thanks to valiant. You can use this card on your valiant creatures for precious lifegain in an aggro matchup while you reset threats (Heartfire Hero comes to mind). Tokens are also blown up by this card.

#15. Celestial Armor

Very comparable to Maul of the Skyclaves, Celestial Armor card adds +2/+0, flying, hexproof, and indestructible at instant speed. With an auto-equip, of course. It makes all the difference when you equip your commander with indestructible and swing, because you ensure that it’ll win the fight. Hexproof and flash add a whole new layer of protection.

#14. Intrepid Adversary

Intrepid Adversary is an anthem on a stick. The difference between a 3/1 lifelink and 4/2 lifelink lord is huge. It’s also a human, a creature type that has many lords and ways to make tokens like Call the Coppercoats. Sometimes this card is a 6-mana “you win the game” card.

#13. Ethereal Armor

All That Glitters and Ethereal Armor are quite interchangeable, and you frequently want both. Ethereal Armor is just 1 mana, which makes a huge difference when you enchant a creature and attack with a new +4/+4 bonus. It counts itself too, so it’s already worth it when you just add +1/+1 and trigger some heroic bonus. 

#12. All That Glitters

I’m ranking this slightly above Ethereal Armor because the extra you pay is totally offset by the ease of getting more artifacts in play (artifact lands, tokens, mana rocks, equipment). All That Glitters also has the “banned in Pauper” pedigree, considering that the format has a strong, viable affinity archetype.

#11. Maul of the Skyclaves

Maul of the Skyclaves is a strong equipment card that works as an aura because it immediately attaches to a creature. It’s a tempo blowout when your opponent immediately removes or bounces the creature, but other than that, it’s hard to interact with +2/+2, flying, and first strike. After seeing regular play in its Standard format, EDH equipment decks care a lot about this card, especially if you have more ways to auto-equip it and bypass its equip cost.

#10. Caduceus, Staff of Hermes

Caduceus, Staff of Hermes is one of the best white equipment cards for EDH. It’s slow without the auto-equip, so you’ll probably want to put this card in decks that synergize with equipment. Once it gets rolling, +5/+5 and indestructible is no joke, and a mere 1/1 token can become a beast for just . Sometimes you’ll be under 30 life and this won’t work, so include at least a couple other ways to gain life.

#9. Hyena Umbra

Hyena Umbra is one of the best cost-to-benefit auras: You get first strike and umbra armor (formerly totem armor) for only 1 mana. It’s certainly the best white version of this mechanic, and one of the cards you must play in aura Voltron decks.

#8. Daybreak Coronet

Speaking of cards for aura Voltron decks, here’s Daybreak Coronet. It needs to target an already enchanted creature, but you’re going to do that anyway in your Bogles decks, after which this becomes a massive boost to that creature.

#7. Archangel of Thune

Archangel of Thune can be a huge pump for your whole team, considering the many ways to easily gain life like playing a tapped gain land or attacking with a lifelink creature. Just having a Soul Warden in play while you cast creatures or create tokens creates a huge army in no time.

#6. Felidar Retreat

Felidar Retreat offers a huge landfall effect, turning your “useless” lands into mass pump effects. It’s nice that you can produce creatures and tokens with the same card. Play this card not only in cat decks, but in decks that have any sort of land recursion or infinite land combo (Kodama of the East Tree + white partner).

#5. Ajani Steadfast

Ajani planeswalkers in general gain life and put +1/+1 counters on your creatures, which fits the “warrior with support abilities” persona. If I have to choose one of the mono-white ones, it’s Ajani Steadfast, which has a +1 loyalty ability that gives you a targeted pump and a stronger -2 loyalty ability to pump everyone. You can find synergies with lifelink, add this card to superfriends decks, and more.

#4. Cathars’ Crusade

While very slow for 60-card formats, Cathars' Crusade is a blowout on EDH thanks to the speed of the format and the sheer number of ways you can produce tokens, or multiple creatures at once. You just need to have three creatures that enter the battlefield to put three +1/+1 counters on every creature you control, including those that just entered. Many commanders these days produce tokens at a steady pace or combo with +1/+1 counters and creatures (Ghave, Guru of Spores). You can also play this card with +1/+1 counter synergies (Bant () or Abzan () counters, for example).

#3. Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Here I want to mention the specific Elspeth design that initiated with Elspeth, Knight-Errant. You’ll either make a token or “jump” a creature. Defending yourself is a possibility, but this card is notoriously good for pushing damage through. Notably, both abilities add loyalty. Other Elspeth designs like Elspeth Resplendent or Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis also do a good job of pumping your guys.

#2. Elspeth, Storm Slayer

Elspeth, Storm Slayer provides numbers and a massive +1/+1 counter pump to your team. Oh, and it does what every white EDH player likes the most – it doubles tokens (who cares about winning actual games?). Get this card going, create two tokens, then next turn, you can cast some more creatures, 0 this planeswalker, and you’re into business.

#1. The Wandering Emperor

The pattern of making tokens and strengthening them is no stranger to white planeswalkers. The Wandering Emperor might just be the best of the bunch because it has flash and an exile-based removal effect. Plus, it gives +1/+1 and first strike, which helps you push through damage, as your opponents are less likely to block your creature.

Best White Pump Spell Payoffs

Here are a couple ways to take advantage of pumping your creatures in a white deck:

When considering single-creature targeted pump effects, mechanics like heroic and valiant are huge payoffs. Many viable decks in formats like Standard and Pioneer are built around these abilities, be it with mice in Standard (Heartfire Hero, Emberheart Challenger), or in Pioneer with cards like Tenth District Legionnaire or Illuminator Virtuoso.

Many Commander decks are also built around this idea. The classic example is Feather, the Redeemed, which allows you to reuse the instants and sorceries you use to target your creatures. Mavinda, Students' Advocate is a slightly different take on the same concept, and some pump spells can be cast for free from your graveyard (a free flashback ability, if you will).

If we’re talking mass pump effects, the obvious choice is tokens. Cards like Anointed Procession or Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation give you plenty of tokens, and you’ll want to put a +1/+1 counter on all your creatures or use an anthem effect.

Wrap Up

Celestial Armor | Illustration by Olena Richards

White’s come a long way since the old days of white weenie and 3-mana Glorious Anthem decks. White decks are still heavily creature-based, and many typal decks are typically white (cats, humans, angels), and white has a huge portion of tokens decks as well. One thing’s for sure: You’ll want the biggest creatures to effectively win combat. And whether you need to construct and ride a single big threat to victory or an army of small fellas, white’s got you covered.

What are your favorite white pump spells, guys? Any big misses in this list? Please let me know in the comments section below or leave us something at Draftsim’s Twitter/X.

Thanks for reading, everyone.