I love and hate this deck at the same time. I love it because I'm big fan of White Weenie decks and I haven't seen anything new and fresh in Modern lately that would at least look similar to typical WW - everything is either 5c Humans or DnT.
On the other hand I hate it because there are so many choices I don't understand in this list like 1 of Brave the Elements, Charming Prince & Mangara of Corondor are really random. Also True Believer is something I don't understand as this deck doesn't seem to be in real need of shroud/hexproof effect from discard and other stuff.
Playing some other strong 1-drops though makes more sense with Ranger-Captain of Eos already in the deck, e.g. Dauntless Bodyguard to protect stuff, Kytheon, Hero of Akros being strong and resilient threat later on and in SB Burrenton Forge-Tender instead of Kor Firewalker and even Martyr of Sands vs matchups where this life gain burst is godsend (burn, GDS, etc.)
Dunno if Basri's Lieutenant is even that good, or at least better than Hero of Bladehold.
Manabase-wise I think you could up the Canopy lands count to 3-4.
Nevertheless I will happily try it on next FNM and see how it rolls.
That's for the classic White Weenie variant. You can also go with lifegain theme with Heliod, Sun-Crowned, Linden, Steadfast Queen, additional copies of Ajani, Strength of the Pride and ~2x Lurrus of the Dream-Den. Probably this option is better as it will probably survive rotation without losing too many important cards, needs less rares and mythics and overall seems like stronger option as you can take a little less aggressive approach and play maindeck hate vs current metagame (like Hushbringer or Drannith Magistrate that aren't aggressive enough to be maindeckable in traditional White Weenie).
Dryad Militant ability is useful versus Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise plus its agressive stats - all for 1CMC - is something that probably will be strong versus Nexus, Phoenix and Ux Control decks which I believe will be the new hotness after bans.
With so many creatures maybe move Vryn Wingmare mainboard would be good idea depending how metagame *****fs?
Mentor of the Meek is only ok for grindy matchups and then Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is better. With Benalish Marshal in play you're missing his ability most of the time as well. Militia Bugler might actually be a reasonable pick but he wouldn't be able to tutor the best, curve-end cards avalible and might fizzle quite often with current build. History of Benalia is OK but kinda slow as standalone card. I've tried Mono W Human Knights couple days ago and without some critical mass of creatures the card wasn't really that impressive. Brimaz, King of Oreskos underperformed to me as well. 3CMC 3/4 isn't that impressive even for Pioneer. Still, I'm having him as 1-of in my list as I really like him and maybe it will shine someday.
With so many colorless sources and high land count adding some Eldrazi might be better take instead of some mediocre anthem/pump creatures that are avalible in current Pioneer card pool. Mostly thinking about Eldrazi Displacer, Matter Reshaper and Thought-Knot Seer but maybe even Reality Smasher (although 5CMC is quite a lot without mana acceleration).
Yesterday we had small Pioneer tournament at LGS with 8 participants where I went 3-0 beating UR Phoenix, GB Constrictor Aggro and some UR Eldrazi jank. Here's the decklist:
Some takeouts from this tournament:
- Mana base is bad. There were 3 games when my opening hand contained Castle Ardenvale and Mutavault or Scavenger Grounds meaning I can't play 1-drop on t1. 14 White sources is definately not enough to consistantly play Benalish Marshal on curve (I had a game when I had 3 lands, 2 of which were colorless sources, for like 3-4 turns) and 8 Plains isn't enough to have Castle enter the battlefield tapped. Reducing the amount of Mutavaults to 2 is probably good idea. Scavenger Grounds prevented Phoenix player to cast its Treasure Cruize on g1 and Shefet Dunes allowed lethal push once.
- Gideon Blackblade was OK. He died immediately after he came into play vs GB player, pushed some dmg vs Phoenix player and exiled Thing in the Ice which had 1 last counter on it, which was crucial for me winning this game. Spear of Heliod killed Awoken Horror once, which was pretty big as well.
- Venerated Loxodon underperformed, as I expected. There was never a good time to cast him as there always was something else to cast and push some damage the same turn. Tapping out creatures to cast him and get them buffed proved to be very big downside as it pretty much means timewalking for oponent. I'll be definately cutting them and get something in their spot. Here I'm thinking of 2 options:
1) Lower the curve by getting some more cheap, efficient creatures (like 2x Dauntless Bodyguards to protect Marshals and maybe some additional 2-drops); this way I make my anthem effects better as well;
2) Increase the curve by getting more stong, standalone 4-5 CMC threats (thining about Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Heliod, God of the Sun and Archangel Avacyn). I'd also add +2-3x Legion's Landings to ramp up and play them more consistantly. The problem is that if I include them then the deck looks like more agressive but ultimately I think worse version of Azorius Tempo or Mono White Devotion. So this might be worse idea, dunno.
Overall deck feels OK, not great yet because there is definately a place to improve here, but I think I'm on the right track to make it a very viable archetype for this format.
Its main competition is Humans though (and not specifically mono white, humans can go Jeskai very easily). You said 2-drops were bad for weenies, but Humans have very good 2-drops. Hopefully Copter can fill the slot so easily in any aggro deck ! And if you have Mutavaults, you can still attack with one when you have nothing to do on turn 2.
I think that manabase for pioneer doesn't support 3c aggro decks that well. There is high risk that you won't have UWR on t3 to consistantly play Mantis Rider on curve. Aggro deck should stick with up to 2 colors in this format (Knights might try going Mardu with Tournament Grounds being avalible). Also sticking with Humans while their only payoff is Thalia's Lieutenant isn't that appealing. If I had to play some white tribal deck I'd rather play Knights (all good knights are Humans as well so Lieutenant can find home here too).
I don't want to stick with 1 tribe though. It limits decks options. Playing Dryad Militant, Selfless Spirit or Hushbringer is much worse then and the payoff isn't probably worth it.
I've played yesterday in my LGS with list above including some of advices Dennis wrote above and it went much better. Ended up 3-1 beating Hardened Scales, Boros Feather and some bit janky Aristocrats, while losing to the Gu Stompy (splashing U for Oko and counterspells) mostly because of my mistake and mulliganing to 5 cards in game 3, so the deck performed very well. Some takeouts:
- First of all maindeck Declaration in Stone worked better than Conclave Tribunal. 2 CMC and ability to hit more than 1 threat was far better than Tribunals flexibility. I played 3/1 Declarations/Conclaves maindeck and changed 3 Fragmentizes for 3 additional Conclaves in SB. I might want to play all 4/4 in my 75.
- Mobilized District really sucks. I thought it would be much better because of extra stats and all Gideons being played but I actually never had opportunity to activate it below 3 mana and that's way too much. Mutavaults will probably be much better.
- Desert package on the other hand was good. Exiling GY actually won me a game vs UR Phoenix as it denied playing Treasure Cruise, other game Shefet Dunes gave me lethal pumping bunch of tokens made from lands.
- White has poor choice of 2-drops in this format, all of them seem underwhelming. 3-drops on the other hand are very powerful in Benalish Marshal, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Gideon Blackblade and even Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is top tier 4 CMC card. I'm thinking about dropping Precinct Captains, sticking to 7-8x 2-drops and taking another 1 or 2 Legion's Landing so I could more consistantly go to 3+ mana.
- Anthems on the other hand seem lackluster. Marshal is actually easly removed, Spear is rather expensive and its ability isn't that easy to activate and Gideon, AoZ, as strong as he overall is, costs 4 CMC and isn't used as an anthem that often. Lack of Honor of the Pure in Pioneer really hurts.
I think this deck has huge potential to be top tier contender for this format with a lot of powerful tools and a lot of strong sideboard options making it very flexible depending on the metagame.
I've tried to make Pioneer version of my modern White Weenie deck. I figured I don't lose that many cards and with Brave the Elements being legal it should be very viable option, especially for couple of first weeks. After some playtesting here's what I came up with:
Deck utilizes some of the strongest White creatures that are in the format. With everything on curve and without being distrupted it can regularly kill on turn 4. It also has a lot of staying power and high single card value.
Mana base is rather wild but without Blood Moon it's not really punishing to play more nonbasic lands in mono-colored deck. With 4 Shefet Dunes I've decided to run some Scavenger Grounds which also made me use less slots in SB for GY hate. Westvale Abbey has yet to shine but I think it might be worthwhile.
Sideboard is mostly intuitive as metagame isn't really stable yet and everything could be changed. Deafening Silence vs all Emry and Phoenix stuff, Grafdigger's Cage vs GY and CoCo decks, Pithing Needle mostly vs planeswalkers (Saheeli, Oko) and ugly creatures that ruin my deck (Walking Ballistamostly), Hushbringer because I love her and there is always a meta where her abilities are relevant, Gideons in grindy, control matchups, and 1 Selfless Spirit because board wipes are the scariest things that can happen.
Some things came out to me after first playtests:
- Smuggler's Copter underperformed a bit. This deck consumes mana for various things - Kytheon, Spear, land abilities - and flooding doesn't hurt that badly. Also there is quite high power of all cards which makes discarding them a tough decissions. In theory it could be crewed with all the 1/1 tokens produced by lands but I never had situation when I had mana and opportunity to make these tokens. With the current amount of Gideons Heart of Kiran might be a better option. It is a bit stronger, is better on defence and makes Mobilized District activation cost less.
- Gideon Blackblade underperformed as well. While his power is obvious I think he's a better card in slower meta. Right now there are a lot of combo and aggro decks running around and not sure if he's the right play.
- Spear of Heliod and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar are here because I really wanted more anthems in this deck to pump all the small stuff. They are quite expensive though and I'm not yet sure if that is the right decission.
- I'm split on removal choice between Conclave Tribunal and Declaration in Stone. On one hand Tribunal is much better all around removal that can also pick other nonland, noncreature permanents (Saheeli, Oko, Marvel, vehicles). On the other hand Declaration costs less and might remove more targets at once (thinking of Field of the Dead, Thing in the Ice and Arclight Phoenix mostly).
Deck feels very powerful with right curve and adapts easly to the matchup after sideboard. Right now the only matchup I know I will have problems are artifact heavy decks (looking at you Hardened Scales) but without Stony Silence I don't see any good answers for these decks (the best I found is Cleansing Nova which costs way too much). If this deck will be popular then I might be forced to play Solemnity even though the card is very slow.
So I've been trying a lot of stuff with this deck lately, tuning it up, trying new ideas and forgetting them. Some I'm unsure of, some I'm sure that are mediocre. I think it's stronger in current metagame rather than back in Hogaak era and that's why I came back to it and toy a little bit. This is the version I've settled with for now:
The biggest change is dropping 2x Widbrisk Heights and 2x Wilt-Leaf Liege for 4x Honor of the Pure. I'm pretty confident that this is the right move because:
1) 2 mana anthem/lord is just too good to pass - lesson learned from Thalia's Lieutenant vs Benalish Marshal clash from my Mono W Humans deck tests. In a lot of games HotP felt much better than Marshal due to its cost and being Enchantment = harder to remove.
2) Windbrisk Heights means too much tempo loss, Horizon lands mean no tempo loss and still they provide much needed card draw during floods. Right now I'm playing 6 Horizons - I think it might be 1 too many. No Windbrisk means WLL is worse so it was easy cut.
1-drop suite is almost unchanged, 4x Dryads, 4x Soldiers and 3x Kytheons being strongest all around Lions and 1x Isamaru doing his job decent enough. Student of Warfare was something I included in the spot of Thalia, Heretic Cathar because he is also 3 mana 3 power first striker, but I also found out that Thalias ability isn't that relevant most of the times (at least not for a 3-drop, if she'd be dropped on T2 it would be much better) while another 1-drop is always welcome. I like that guy, him going 3/3 + getting another +1/+1 from HotP/Marshal makes him great creature vs Batterskull which is quite popular lately. I think I'll try 2nd one in spot of Legion's Landing - he's better standalone card and there are Field of Ruin running around pretty much everywhere lately. I might need to find another good 1-drop... Any ideas?
Sideboard is mostly for my LGS but I think it's the best SB for this deck right now overall. Grafdigger's Cage over Rest in Peace purely because of Collected Company decks. I think that right now it's stronger GY hating card anyways as these aren't that popular anymore. Tocatli Honor Guard because there is a lot of creature ETB triggers flying around. I'm 100% positive that I will replace them with Hushbringer in a week.
My results with this deck are still a little bit above average, going 4/0, 2/2 and 2/2 during last three FNMs. Deck struggles a bit with its curve, I'm mulliganing more than I'd want to because I'm getting hand like 2 lands, 2 Spectrals, 1 Marshal, 1 Path and Brave. Or I have no-lander (which happened twice in a row last Friday). Situations like this make me want to increase the amount of 1-drops but it seems like there isn't any more good standalone 1-drop creatures.
Not sure if 4 Benalish Marshals aren't a bit too much - might cut 1 or 2 for more 1-drops.
Also thought about playing Leonin Arbiters because of all SFM, Urza, Scapeshift and Amulet decks running around lately but it's hard to find any free spot for them. I feel like Leonin Relic-Warder stopped being maindeckable material so maybe here and 2 Marshals...
I thought I'll add up a White Weenie list that caught my attention as it went 5-0 in Modern League this month. Piloted by internetsurfer09, it is something that looks like very similar to a deck I was toying with for some time now:
19 1-drops (+3 Paths) is wild and very agressive. Lot of cards I've played/considered playing are here, the numbers are somehow weird to me though (1 Kytheon, 2 Dryads etc.). Signal Pest is something I never really considered in this deck (which is kind of retarded as I thought a bit about Accorder Paladin after all) but could be potentially quite strong and cheap anthem effect. Boros Elite is easly 1 mana 3/3 swinger in this type of deck.
15 White fetchlands is a lot of gas for Steppe Lynx and Revolt enabler for Countless Gears Renegade which is some sweet 2 mana 3/3 spread in 2 bodies, great value in a deck with so many ways to pump a body. Makes me want to buy some more fetches but...
Also, Venerated Loxodon appears here as a high-end threat. He does wonders in standard right now but I don't know if he's strong enough to see modern play. Convoking does cost quite a lot of damage but sometimes it can't be pushed anyways in creature matchups (Humans and Spirits mainly) so it might be worthwhile to sacrifice the turn for huge amount of extra power.
Very straightforward SB. A lot of 4-ofs to distrupt enemy gameplan + some fillers from mainboard. Simple and efficient, just like the SB should be done for aggro decks.
Not really sure how the deck would work without fetches, Lynxes and Renegades. It's awesome that this archetype has some potential to steal games and make perfect record in a league during meta full of wicked, unfair stuff.
Deck was strong and fast. Turn 1 Parish, t2 Bodyguard + Kytheon, t3 Blackblade, swing all, flip Kytheon and concede happened.
There are 12 cards that replace themselves, quite a lot for an aggro deck. That gives quite a lot of gas for longer games.
Mardu made a lot of 1 for 1 trades with its removal and after some time it got upper hand. Knowing when to sac Ranger-Captain is hard - I lost a game because he resolved Anger of the Gods later in the game. I had Kytheon on board and no mana open to make him indestructible. If I'd sac R-C Kytheon would live and he'd probably end the job. Brave the Elements proved to be very strong as a finisher and was the only card that could win that last game vs Pyro, but I didn't draw it. Card overperformed and I can see it being played as 3 or even 4-of. Auriok Champion would've been amazing vs Pyromancer. Increasing Brave the Elements count to 4 would make me drop Selfless Spirits from SB and throw in Aurioks. Benalish Marshal wasn't as good here as in earlier iteration of the deck. This deck is dependent on early Parish or Lieutenant going big and didn't seem to go as wide. I think reducing the amount of Marshals to 2 is good enough. Also thought about changing the last remaining 2 for Field Marshals, even though he doesn't pump whole team (but that touches only Bodyguards and sideboard creatures so I think it's worth it). That first strike for the whole team actually might be very handy in creature matchups.
I don't know if Quarters are worth keeping as I really need all W sources with so many 1-drops. I think that sacrificing some Tron hate and land filtering for more consistant mana base is worth the trade. Maybe I could possibly go with 1-2 Sunbaked Canyon while throwing away Quarters for more card advantage. With new Horizon Lands being printed I'm not sure how many of them I really want.
Or maybe adding in some [card]Smuggler's Copter[card]s would be better/safer for card filtering while keeping smaller/more important creatures in base (Marshals, Bodyguards, Inspectors).
It felt like this deck trades some resiliency and hate for raw power and speed compared to the old one. It should be able to close games 1 turn sooner on average. I have more big haymakers in sideboard rather than couple of different options to counter opposing gameplans and I think it's better approach for White aggro decks. Gideon Blackblade gives me mainboard options vs Burn or Ensnaring Bridge decks and resiliency vs Control.
I'm not sure I like this iteration more, as limiting myself to Humans only is quite crippling, but I think the deck is better than the last one.
I've played my share of D&T games already and for some longer time D&T/Hatebears have this problem that they have no real game ender and while their taxers are annoying they aren't formidable enough. Without Eldrazis Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher their threats seem a bit underwhelming from my experience.
Last time I played more of a Hatebearish decklist I went 0/4 losing to everything I've faced (not saying that I played perfectly, because I did not, but a lot of the times deck felt inferior).
My main idea was to play Hatebears style deck but instead of playing Eldrazi I decided to end the curve with anthems.
I don't think pure White Weenie style is fast enough for the meta right now. No matter what I would build into, other aggro decks seem to be faster or have more reliable kill potential.
Another problem of modern Weenies is that they have no reach so if board wipe happens it's hard to recover.
The lack of speed is fixed by taxing. The vunerability to board wipes is fixed by resilence. Selfless Spirit provides this resilience. As well as Ranger-Captain of Eos.
The thing is UW Spirits look like strictly better version of what I'm trying to play right now.
They are more resilient, more distruptive and more evasive.
Yup, definately looks like worse Spirits.
I might try Mono W Humans sometime soon. Champion of the Parish is bonkers and Thalia's Lieutenant is great 2 mana "lord". Earlier on this was the deck with typical White Weenie problems I've mentioned above. Lately it got strong end-curve toppers in Ranger-Captain of Eos and Gideon Blackblade that might be the remedy.
I can easly go 20 lands and 36 Humans. And get lower curve, more power, speed and card advantage (definately would play Thraben Inspector) than before.
I didn't want to limit myself to one creature type though. Cards like Dryad Militant, Selfless Spirit or Spectral Procession proved themselves to be very strong. Also the only real payoffs from staying Humans are Parish and Lieutenant and that's 8 cards. And if I don't get any of these 2 then it plays like normal, underwhelming White Weenie. (Actually most of the best Humans are Soldiers as well so there might be some additional advantage in playing Field Marshal)
Still I might try that in near future. Dunno.
I don't consider Ranger-Captain of Eos only as a one-shot Gaddock. More importantly I consider him as a 2 for 1 value card that tutors needed cards for given situation. If I want more power I pick Kytheon, Hero of Akros or Dryad Militant. I want to be safer vs combo or control then I pick Judge's Familiar. If I want to protect my Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or any lord then I want Dauntless Bodyguard. If there is board stall or want to protect myself from huge beaters then I take Giver of Runes. If I want Mikaeus, the Lunarch then I pick Mikaeus. I don't know if he'll be any good but I'm willing to try him out at next FNM
If any of the 1-ofs won't work I'll just add more Familiars or I'll go back to Soldier of the Pantheons. Legion's Landing can't be tutored with R-Cap and I completely threw away this card from my maybelist.
R-Cap provides 2 bodies for 4 mana that are super important in this deck and gives a good protection against combo and control decks (hi Terminus). He really feels like a natural fit for this deck even though it makes the deck more 3-drop heavy. It is really the best topdeck that can happen for this deck
Gaddock Teeg really fixes a lot problems that I'm facing.
Stopping Collected Company, Cryptic Command, Ad Nauseam, Wraths,, most tutors, all Tron win cons.
But he doesn't fix the biggest problems - Humans, Spirits and Thing in the Ice decks - Izzet Phoenix and Blue Moon (that nobody plays anymore so I'm not going to count it). That and $$$ are the main reasons I want to stay mono White.
Humans is a roll that mostly outtempoes me
Spirits simply seems like the better version of my deck because everything flies and is more distruptive.
Flipping TiTi bounces all my creatures and there is no counterplay here. Spectral Procession, while being one of the best cards in the deck, is particularly bad in this matchup. Post SB R-Cap into Martyr of Sands after big bounce is huge life swing and might be the way to decently build back after this.
R-Cap made Martyr much more appealing SB option and the one I want to play most. Path to Exile is fantastic vs these bad matchups and is good excuse to play 3 maindeck.
With Bridge from Below banned I expect these 3 worst enemy decks to be the most popular right now. And that's bad for this deck.
I already thought about Force of Virtue and I don't think it's better than Wilt-Leaf Liege in this deck. WLL has legs, provides much stronger effect and discarding him happens sometimes. Force requires me to spend some gas to cast it cheaper way. And then it's just Honor of the Pure which I didn't like in this deck anyways. Also I don't want to play Squadron Hawks in this deck, it doesn't go well with my gameplan.
22 lands is good because there is a lot of utility in them besides giving mana. I have 3 taplands and the deck is heavy on 3-drops. I actually want these ~4 lands to play 3-drop and 1-drop in mid game, or play something after flipping Windbrisk or preventing damage with Eiganjo Castle or giving indestructible to Kytheon, or pay 4th mana for Procession while Thalia is in play... And when I'm playing vs Tron I want to use my GQ's to slow them down most of the time. I wouldn't cut the lands in this deck.
I think Collective Brutality is so good because of it's discard with Escalate instead of its versality.
If I'd want to splash any color then it definately would be Red for Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix to support the aggro plan.
"17 sources of W is just not enough to reliably cast WWW"
If it's not vs Tron then most of the time I GQ my own lands if I really need 3rd W source. I wouldn't count these as full W source but I never really had problems with casting WWW on turn 3 with this deck when needed.
"I dont want the 3rd little Thalia because of Legend clashes."
You dropped Thalia to 2x then?
Personally I'm almost always happy to see her in my opening hand and she almost always is eating removal asap. I think 3 is good amount.
Me again on original account, very long post incoming but I need to write this down if only to simply archive my thoughts.
Played the deck above, with some minor changes, and failed miserably on FNM going 0/4 I realize though that I lost at least 3 games because of my own mistakes and I believe the matches would be much better if I had more experience with this new take on the deck. Here is exact list:
Match 1 vs Bant Spirits - 1:2, was close, game 2 I won with Worship + Tocatli Honor Guard, game 3 he had 3 Spell Quellers ready for my Worship. Overall very hard matchup and Worship won me a game here. I don't think I could do anything better here.
Match 2 vs Abzan Company - 0:2 game 1 on the draw he went off on turn 3 - I had Ranger-Captain of Eos in hand so I guess I pretty much lost because of die roll as I could easly stop his Finale of Devastation from being cast. Game 2 I got stuck on 1 land... Had great hand and if I had 2nd land and drop Leonin Arbiter I'd probably win this game.
Match 3 vs UW Control - 1:2, I lost this one because I made 3 huge mistakes concerning bad sequencing and missing triggers. This matchup feels very favorable and I should win this one if I'd play correctly.
Match 4 vs Whir Prison - 0:2, probably the worst matchup there is for this deck, no maindeck answers for Ensnaring Bridge meant easy game 1 loss. Game 2 was lost because I missed Ranger-Captain of Eos sac activation when I should use it.
Had some casual for fun matches with other UW Spirits, UR Phoenix and 5C Humans players and all decks wrecked mine...
***
Still, I really enjoyed playing this version. Some cards underperformed though.
Dauntless Bodyguard was here as 2x and worked. But he worked much better as picked by Ranger-Captain of Eos when necessary. In opening hand he was the last card I wished to play.
Leonin Arbiter was OK. People kept forgetting that he denies library searching so many times. He blocked my Ranger-Cap twice though and I don't think these 2 should be played in the same deck. And when he should matter the most I was mana screwed... I decided to go down with all 4 copies and increase my 1-drop suite as well as getting 4th copy of Ranger-Cap here. It does make Ghost Quarter and Path to Exile worse but I think playing 4 copies of Arbiter moves the deck too much towards Taxes while going away from its aggro gameplan which isn't what I want.
GQ will still be good vs Tron and Path will keep on doing its job in removing most problematic threats.
This might be wrong, as Arbiter really worked 2 weeks ago, but I'm willing to try the deck without them again anyways.
Gideon Blackblade underperformed. He won this 1 game vs UW Control but the game would be won even without him. And vs Whir he wasn't good enough. Moving into 6 loyality to exile Ensnaring Bridge proved to be too ambitious, especially when opponent had Spellskite in play. He was supposed to be good vs Burn and Ensnaring Bridge decks but he's way too slow and there aren't targets good enough to lifelink and get significant amount of life back.
Tocatli Honor Guard did some work vs Spirits. Definately would shut down Humans. But it feels too narrow. Outside of these 2 matchups it isn't really that useful. And still opponent smashes me with flyers. Spirits are all flyers and Humans got Mantis Rider. 1/3 body for 2 is everything but impressive in this kind of deck. So while it stopped ETB's of Spirits and Humans it didn't do anything else. I want something more from my cards.
***
Learning my lesson I went back to the old list a little bit.
4x Dryad Militants are a must, way too good to pass and 1st main reason not to go mono W Humans.
3rd Kytheon, Hero of Akros is better choice than 2nd Dauntless Bodyguard. Judge's Familiar was always welcome in my opening hand. I like it much better than Soldier of the Pantheon. I wish I played more than 2 copies but I can't find spot for them.
Some 1-ofs because Ranger-Captain of Eos allows it and because they are very good but only when needed. Dauntless Bodyguard - good in protecting important targets later on. Giver of Runes - gave me ~2-3 turns vs Spirit player, not enough to win but I see her power. She has so much uses that it's hard for me to exlude her.
Adding 1x Mikaeus, the Lunarch just to test him. Being semi anthem effect and potentially huge beater he might be key in stall games vs most hard creature matchups. Gives style points as well.
If any of the above won't work then I'll just switch them for more Familiars.
I'd play 2 Path to Exiles maindeck as it's super important vs Thing in the Ice, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and other unfair creatures. I play 3 maindeck because there is only SB slot for 1 and I really want 4 copies in 75.
Maindeck Selfless Spirit is another main reason not to play mono W Humans. He saved the game so many times I can't even count it. Definately 4x.
I sometimes want 4th Thalia, Guardian of Thraben as the 1st one almost always eats first removal, but I can't really convince myself of this. Also I don't have 4th copy right now. Leonin Relic-Warder was added again in 2 copies as maindeck answer not only to old stuff like Ensnaring Bridge, Aether Vial or Expedition Map, but also a lot of new toys like Altar of Dementia and Aria of Flame. It seems like there is always a good target for this guy.
Ranger-Captain of Eos upped to 4x. This guy is nuts. He's great topdeck, gives a lot of flexibility and is awesome vs combo and control decks. Benalish Marshal keeps on being the best anthem effect for me. Spectral Procession keeps on being huge card even though people underestimate it and is 3rd huge reason not to play mono W Humans. This card brought me back to the game from bad board states so many times I stopped even counting them.
Wilt-Leaf Liege is needed as another anthem effect - 4 Marshals aren't enough . 6-8 feels like the proper amount of anthems in this deck and WLL is the best of the bunch I think (counting Mikaeus, the Lunarch and Shefet Dunes as semi-anthems). Also randomly discarding it T1/T2/T3 wins games by itself.
I'm very happy with this landbase right now. The numbers are almost perfect, the only thing is the amount of Silent Clearing (playing them because it's the cheapest horizon land right now, any other can do). It was used to draw a card ~2 times. There is a lot to do in this deck with mana - lot of 3CMC cards, Kytheon ability, Ranger-Cap getting stuff, 3 taplands, add opponent bouncing my cards or Remanding... All of this forces some real decisionmaking regarding mana distribution. Thinking about cutting one for another Plains or even drop down to 21 lands and play another 1-drop, but playing Windbrisk Heights actually excludes this idea. More testing needed.
Sideboard-wise:
2x Martyr of Sands - if played then 1 isn't consistent enough vs Burn, 2 seems better. Also being tutorable with Ranger-Captain of Eos helps, especially vs Thing in the Ice decks - UR Phoenix and, especially, Blue Moon.
1x Damping Sphere because it's good vs lot of different decks. Simple.
1x Ethersworn Canonist and 1x Eidolon of Rhetoric for Phoenix, Storm, partially Bridgevine and much more field. Denying casting multiple spells per turn annoys more decks than I initially thought. I prefer Eidolon because of 4 toughness and stronger ability but the difference between 2CMC and 3CMC is just huge, hence the split.
2x Stony Silence and + 1x Kataki, War's Wage was added instead of 3rd Stony. The enchantment doesn't do that much vs Whir, Affinity etc. Kataki attacks artifacts from different angle. He will wreck Affinity much harder than Stony. Forces Whir to pay for stuff giving me more time to find Relic-Warder. And is also a body which is relevant in this matchup. I think splitting the hate is good idea.
Similar story with GY hate. 3x Rest in Peace seems obvious. I want to diversify it and try Jötun Grunt.
If they won't work then I'll just switch back to 3x Stony and 3x RiP.
Brought back 2x Stillmoon Cavalier instead of Tocatli Honor Guard. Even though it costs 1 more it seems like it's good enough vs Spirits and Humans, not really by hating their strategy, but by having prot White - and that means their whole deck pretty much. And if something isn't White then I can give him first strike and boost power. Tests will show if it's actually better or not. Worship works for me as 1-of vs low-removal creature and combo decks like Humans, Ad Nauseam and Red decks.
And last slot for the last Path to Exile
Dropped Phyrexian Revoker. Obviously when he is needed he works wonders. But most of the time he's just blank 2/1 whose hate isn't that gamebreaking. He could be good maindeck material in a different metagame, like he is in Legacy and Vintage.
Is running 2-4x copies of teferi, time raveler just a meta decision atm? It beats esper and nexus but weren't those two matchups pretty good already? Is that the only reasoning to run him?
He single handedly stops Nexus and Reclamation decks and messes up with control decks, makes it harder against aggro though. I can see it as a replacement of Tithe Taker. Still I prefer the latter simply because he's a creature, costs 1 less and is more resilient, but I also prefer mono W version of the deck so no place for Threeferi here. If I was to play him I'd probably increase land count to 22 and maybe play 1 Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants mainboard.
Also Esper being easy matchup is debatable. Obviously Gideon Blackblade made this matchup easier but if he plays huge removal package mainboard it's still hard enough for me. Nexus is quite easy, just go for fast clock and push. Tithe Takers are MvPs here and main reason I still play 4 mainboard.
I'm down 1 Legion's landing due to wild cards. Do we really need 4 of them considering their legendary status?
For 1 mana it provides you 2 permanents for Ascend and gives you much needed late game mana sink. 1 mana 1/1 lifelinker is decent enough and sometimes this ramp is very relevant. I think 4-of is very important in this deck but 3x is fine.
If you're looking for 1-drops try Healer's Hawk and Rustwing Falcon. They are quite good choices.
Hey gents, fairly new magic player, (came in after dominaria dropped). And am still picking up some of the nuances of the game. WW is my first aggro build and Ive mostly played control and some mid range brews. But once I played ww, it was love at first win, below is my deck list, nix sideboard because I'm debating on if lil teferi is worth the blue splash.
Hi there!
You are very heavy on 3-drops. This deck wants to go on curve very hard by playing turn 1 creature, turn 2 2x 1-drop or 1x 2-drop and turn 3 a 3-drop or some 1-drops followed by Venerated Loxodon. That's the real power of the deck and you want this to occur as often as possible. You have 15x 1-drops, 5x 2-drops and 13x 3-drops. To make your curve smoother you should reduce the amount of 3 drops and increase 1 and 2-drops. That way you will increase probability of drawing good hand and having good play on first ~3-4 turns and that is crucial for aggro decks.
1-drop choice is mostly a preference. I like to have 4x Dauntless Bodyguard and 4x Legion's Landing. Other than that I favor Law-Rune Enforcer, Skymarcher Aspirant, Snubhorn Sentry and Hunted Witness over other 1-drops.
I think White has a lot of strong 2-drops and, on the contrary of most popular builds, I still believe playing ~7-8 is good idea (a lot of people cut them for more 1-drops). That way you have much better topdecks than normally.
I wouldn't play more Gideon Blackblades mainboard than 1. He's very weak vs aggro decks when you're behind. Imagine playing him vs mono R with no creatures on board.
The same would be Unbreakable Formation. On paper its great vs creature matchups and obviously it's good to swing for free. On the other hand topdecking it on empty board is really unwanted and having 2x in opening hand is a nightmare. I found myself sideboarding it out more often than not.
Also Conclave Tribunal is the removal of choice over Baffling End and Ixalan's Binding - it catches everything and thanks to the amount of creatures you can generate you can cheat it as soon as turn 3.
For BO1 you want to maximize the explosiveness of the deck by playing huge amount of efficient 1-drops and cheating big convoke cards early.
Right now I think you have way too many 2 and 3 drops. 3 CMC should be top end of your curve not the beginning of real whooping.
I suggest increasing the amount of 1-drops to ~18-20 (there are a lot of efficient 1 CMC creatures right now really), reducing the amount of 2-drops to ~4-6 and 3-drops to ~8-9. History of Benalia and Benalish Marshal clearly outshine Gideon Blackblade here if you're supposed to go wide to the extreme. I still think Gideon should be played as 1-of mainboard since he's rather bad on draw vs aggro.
Also playing more Unbreakable Formations is good idea with the amount of such cheap creatures in this deck.
On the other hand I hate it because there are so many choices I don't understand in this list like 1 of Brave the Elements, Charming Prince & Mangara of Corondor are really random. Also True Believer is something I don't understand as this deck doesn't seem to be in real need of shroud/hexproof effect from discard and other stuff.
Playing some other strong 1-drops though makes more sense with Ranger-Captain of Eos already in the deck, e.g. Dauntless Bodyguard to protect stuff, Kytheon, Hero of Akros being strong and resilient threat later on and in SB Burrenton Forge-Tender instead of Kor Firewalker and even Martyr of Sands vs matchups where this life gain burst is godsend (burn, GDS, etc.)
Dunno if Basri's Lieutenant is even that good, or at least better than Hero of Bladehold.
Manabase-wise I think you could up the Canopy lands count to 3-4.
Nevertheless I will happily try it on next FNM and see how it rolls.
Talking about "budget" 1-drops you have decent base but I would increase the amount of them. Go for 4x Faerie Guidemother as its adventure gives you this very needed reach for White Weenie. Other than that I would play 4x Law-Rune Enforcer as it is very efficient and serves as semi-removal for the biggest threats. Hunted Witness also is decent option. You also would probably like to have both 1 mana 2/1s - Venerable Knight and Loyal Pegasus. For the 2-drops I would definately include Raise the Alarm. As for the finisher Bond of Discipline is pretty cool card.
I would also add some removal as you really need to get rid of enemy blockers or other threats. Fortunately you have plenty to choose from - Glass Casket, Banishing Light or Conclave Tribunal.
If you are willing to spend some rare and mythic wild cards then the best picks are Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis, Luminous Broodmoth, Giant Killer, Castle Ardenvale, Gideon Blackblade, Venerated Loxodon and Unbreakable Formation . Other than that there are some decent 2-drops in Tomik, Distinguished Advokist, Tithe Taker and Eidolon of Obstruction. Note that a lot of these cards are rotating in ~half year so if you are on budget then some of them aren't worth crafting that much.
That's for the classic White Weenie variant. You can also go with lifegain theme with Heliod, Sun-Crowned, Linden, Steadfast Queen, additional copies of Ajani, Strength of the Pride and ~2x Lurrus of the Dream-Den. Probably this option is better as it will probably survive rotation without losing too many important cards, needs less rares and mythics and overall seems like stronger option as you can take a little less aggressive approach and play maindeck hate vs current metagame (like Hushbringer or Drannith Magistrate that aren't aggressive enough to be maindeckable in traditional White Weenie).
With so many creatures maybe move Vryn Wingmare mainboard would be good idea depending how metagame *****fs?
Mentor of the Meek is only ok for grindy matchups and then Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is better. With Benalish Marshal in play you're missing his ability most of the time as well. Militia Bugler might actually be a reasonable pick but he wouldn't be able to tutor the best, curve-end cards avalible and might fizzle quite often with current build. History of Benalia is OK but kinda slow as standalone card. I've tried Mono W Human Knights couple days ago and without some critical mass of creatures the card wasn't really that impressive. Brimaz, King of Oreskos underperformed to me as well. 3CMC 3/4 isn't that impressive even for Pioneer. Still, I'm having him as 1-of in my list as I really like him and maybe it will shine someday.
With so many colorless sources and high land count adding some Eldrazi might be better take instead of some mediocre anthem/pump creatures that are avalible in current Pioneer card pool. Mostly thinking about Eldrazi Displacer, Matter Reshaper and Thought-Knot Seer but maybe even Reality Smasher (although 5CMC is quite a lot without mana acceleration).
2x Castle Ardenvale
4x Mutavault
8x Plains
2x Scavenger Grounds
4x Shefet Dunes
Creatures (23)
4x Dryad Militant
3x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
4x Soldier of the Pantheon
4x Selfless Spirit
4x Benalish Marshal
4x Venerated Loxodon
1x Gideon Blackblade
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Enchantments (2)
1x Legion's Landing
1x Conclave Tribunal
Artifact (5)
4x Smuggler's Copter
1x Spear of Heliod
Instants & Sorcieries (8)
4x Brave the Elements
4x Declaration in Stone
3x Conclave Tribunal
2x Deafening Silence
2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2x Grafdigger's Cage
3x Hushbringer
3x Pithing Needle
- Mana base is bad. There were 3 games when my opening hand contained Castle Ardenvale and Mutavault or Scavenger Grounds meaning I can't play 1-drop on t1. 14 White sources is definately not enough to consistantly play Benalish Marshal on curve (I had a game when I had 3 lands, 2 of which were colorless sources, for like 3-4 turns) and 8 Plains isn't enough to have Castle enter the battlefield tapped. Reducing the amount of Mutavaults to 2 is probably good idea. Scavenger Grounds prevented Phoenix player to cast its Treasure Cruize on g1 and Shefet Dunes allowed lethal push once.
- Gideon Blackblade was OK. He died immediately after he came into play vs GB player, pushed some dmg vs Phoenix player and exiled Thing in the Ice which had 1 last counter on it, which was crucial for me winning this game. Spear of Heliod killed Awoken Horror once, which was pretty big as well.
- Venerated Loxodon underperformed, as I expected. There was never a good time to cast him as there always was something else to cast and push some damage the same turn. Tapping out creatures to cast him and get them buffed proved to be very big downside as it pretty much means timewalking for oponent. I'll be definately cutting them and get something in their spot. Here I'm thinking of 2 options:
1) Lower the curve by getting some more cheap, efficient creatures (like 2x Dauntless Bodyguards to protect Marshals and maybe some additional 2-drops); this way I make my anthem effects better as well;
2) Increase the curve by getting more stong, standalone 4-5 CMC threats (thining about Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Heliod, God of the Sun and Archangel Avacyn). I'd also add +2-3x Legion's Landings to ramp up and play them more consistantly. The problem is that if I include them then the deck looks like more agressive but ultimately I think worse version of Azorius Tempo or Mono White Devotion. So this might be worse idea, dunno.
Overall deck feels OK, not great yet because there is definately a place to improve here, but I think I'm on the right track to make it a very viable archetype for this format.
I don't want to stick with 1 tribe though. It limits decks options. Playing Dryad Militant, Selfless Spirit or Hushbringer is much worse then and the payoff isn't probably worth it.
Anafenza actually might be reasonable. Will test her.
- First of all maindeck Declaration in Stone worked better than Conclave Tribunal. 2 CMC and ability to hit more than 1 threat was far better than Tribunals flexibility. I played 3/1 Declarations/Conclaves maindeck and changed 3 Fragmentizes for 3 additional Conclaves in SB. I might want to play all 4/4 in my 75.
- Mobilized District really sucks. I thought it would be much better because of extra stats and all Gideons being played but I actually never had opportunity to activate it below 3 mana and that's way too much. Mutavaults will probably be much better.
- Desert package on the other hand was good. Exiling GY actually won me a game vs UR Phoenix as it denied playing Treasure Cruise, other game Shefet Dunes gave me lethal pumping bunch of tokens made from lands.
- White has poor choice of 2-drops in this format, all of them seem underwhelming. 3-drops on the other hand are very powerful in Benalish Marshal, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Gideon Blackblade and even Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is top tier 4 CMC card. I'm thinking about dropping Precinct Captains, sticking to 7-8x 2-drops and taking another 1 or 2 Legion's Landing so I could more consistantly go to 3+ mana.
- Anthems on the other hand seem lackluster. Marshal is actually easly removed, Spear is rather expensive and its ability isn't that easy to activate and Gideon, AoZ, as strong as he overall is, costs 4 CMC and isn't used as an anthem that often. Lack of Honor of the Pure in Pioneer really hurts.
I think this deck has huge potential to be top tier contender for this format with a lot of powerful tools and a lot of strong sideboard options making it very flexible depending on the metagame.
2x Castle Ardenvale
1x Mobilized District
10x Plains
2x Scavenger Grounds
4x Shefet Dunes
1x Westvale Abbey
Creatures (23)
4x Dryad Militant
3x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
4x Soldier of the Pantheon
2x Precinct Captain
3x Selfless Spirit
4x Benalish Marshal
1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2x Gideon Blackblade
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Enchantments (5)
1x Legion's Landing
4x Conclave Tribunal
Artifact (5)
4x Smuggler's Copter
1x Spear of Heliod
Instants & Sorcieries (4)
4x Brave the Elements
3x Deafening Silence
2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1x Gideon Blackblade
2x Grafdigger's Cage
3x Hushbringer
3x Pithing Needle
1x Selfless Spirit
Deck utilizes some of the strongest White creatures that are in the format. With everything on curve and without being distrupted it can regularly kill on turn 4. It also has a lot of staying power and high single card value.
Mana base is rather wild but without Blood Moon it's not really punishing to play more nonbasic lands in mono-colored deck. With 4 Shefet Dunes I've decided to run some Scavenger Grounds which also made me use less slots in SB for GY hate. Westvale Abbey has yet to shine but I think it might be worthwhile.
Sideboard is mostly intuitive as metagame isn't really stable yet and everything could be changed. Deafening Silence vs all Emry and Phoenix stuff, Grafdigger's Cage vs GY and CoCo decks, Pithing Needle mostly vs planeswalkers (Saheeli, Oko) and ugly creatures that ruin my deck (Walking Ballistamostly), Hushbringer because I love her and there is always a meta where her abilities are relevant, Gideons in grindy, control matchups, and 1 Selfless Spirit because board wipes are the scariest things that can happen.
Some things came out to me after first playtests:
- Smuggler's Copter underperformed a bit. This deck consumes mana for various things - Kytheon, Spear, land abilities - and flooding doesn't hurt that badly. Also there is quite high power of all cards which makes discarding them a tough decissions. In theory it could be crewed with all the 1/1 tokens produced by lands but I never had situation when I had mana and opportunity to make these tokens. With the current amount of Gideons Heart of Kiran might be a better option. It is a bit stronger, is better on defence and makes Mobilized District activation cost less.
- Gideon Blackblade underperformed as well. While his power is obvious I think he's a better card in slower meta. Right now there are a lot of combo and aggro decks running around and not sure if he's the right play.
- Spear of Heliod and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar are here because I really wanted more anthems in this deck to pump all the small stuff. They are quite expensive though and I'm not yet sure if that is the right decission.
- I'm split on removal choice between Conclave Tribunal and Declaration in Stone. On one hand Tribunal is much better all around removal that can also pick other nonland, noncreature permanents (Saheeli, Oko, Marvel, vehicles). On the other hand Declaration costs less and might remove more targets at once (thinking of Field of the Dead, Thing in the Ice and Arclight Phoenix mostly).
Deck feels very powerful with right curve and adapts easly to the matchup after sideboard. Right now the only matchup I know I will have problems are artifact heavy decks (looking at you Hardened Scales) but without Stony Silence I don't see any good answers for these decks (the best I found is Cleansing Nova which costs way too much). If this deck will be popular then I might be forced to play Solemnity even though the card is very slow.
1x Eiganjo Castle
4x Flagstones of Trokair
4x Ghost Quarter
5x Plains
4x Silent Clearing
2x Sunbaked Canyon
1-Drops (14)
4x Dryad Militant
1x Isamaru, Hound of Konda
3x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
1x Legion's Landing
4x Soldier of the Pantheon
1x Student of Warfare
2x Leonin Relic-Warder
4x Selfless Spirit
2x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3-Drops (8)
4x Benalish Marshal
4x Spectral Procession
Spells (10)
4x Brave the Elements
2x Path to Exile
4x Honor of the Pure
1x Damping Sphere
2x Kor Firewalker
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Leonin Relic-Warder
2x Path to Exile
2x Stony Silence
1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3x Tocatli Honor Guard
The biggest change is dropping 2x Widbrisk Heights and 2x Wilt-Leaf Liege for 4x Honor of the Pure. I'm pretty confident that this is the right move because:
1) 2 mana anthem/lord is just too good to pass - lesson learned from Thalia's Lieutenant vs Benalish Marshal clash from my Mono W Humans deck tests. In a lot of games HotP felt much better than Marshal due to its cost and being Enchantment = harder to remove.
2) Windbrisk Heights means too much tempo loss, Horizon lands mean no tempo loss and still they provide much needed card draw during floods. Right now I'm playing 6 Horizons - I think it might be 1 too many. No Windbrisk means WLL is worse so it was easy cut.
1-drop suite is almost unchanged, 4x Dryads, 4x Soldiers and 3x Kytheons being strongest all around Lions and 1x Isamaru doing his job decent enough. Student of Warfare was something I included in the spot of Thalia, Heretic Cathar because he is also 3 mana 3 power first striker, but I also found out that Thalias ability isn't that relevant most of the times (at least not for a 3-drop, if she'd be dropped on T2 it would be much better) while another 1-drop is always welcome. I like that guy, him going 3/3 + getting another +1/+1 from HotP/Marshal makes him great creature vs Batterskull which is quite popular lately. I think I'll try 2nd one in spot of Legion's Landing - he's better standalone card and there are Field of Ruin running around pretty much everywhere lately.
I might need to find another good 1-drop... Any ideas?
Sideboard is mostly for my LGS but I think it's the best SB for this deck right now overall. Grafdigger's Cage over Rest in Peace purely because of Collected Company decks. I think that right now it's stronger GY hating card anyways as these aren't that popular anymore.
Tocatli Honor Guard because there is a lot of creature ETB triggers flying around. I'm 100% positive that I will replace them with Hushbringer in a week.
My results with this deck are still a little bit above average, going 4/0, 2/2 and 2/2 during last three FNMs. Deck struggles a bit with its curve, I'm mulliganing more than I'd want to because I'm getting hand like 2 lands, 2 Spectrals, 1 Marshal, 1 Path and Brave. Or I have no-lander (which happened twice in a row last Friday). Situations like this make me want to increase the amount of 1-drops but it seems like there isn't any more good standalone 1-drop creatures.
Not sure if 4 Benalish Marshals aren't a bit too much - might cut 1 or 2 for more 1-drops.
Also thought about playing Leonin Arbiters because of all SFM, Urza, Scapeshift and Amulet decks running around lately but it's hard to find any free spot for them. I feel like Leonin Relic-Warder stopped being maindeckable material so maybe here and 2 Marshals...
2 Boros Elite
2 Dauntless Bodyguard
2 Dryad Militant
4 Judge's Familiar
1 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
4 Signal Pest
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Countless Gears Renegade
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Benalish Marshal
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 Venerated Loxodon
3 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
5 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
4 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Declaration in Stone
4 Leonin Relic-Warder
4 Rest in Peace
2 Selfless Spirit
19 1-drops (+3 Paths) is wild and very agressive. Lot of cards I've played/considered playing are here, the numbers are somehow weird to me though (1 Kytheon, 2 Dryads etc.). Signal Pest is something I never really considered in this deck (which is kind of retarded as I thought a bit about Accorder Paladin after all) but could be potentially quite strong and cheap anthem effect. Boros Elite is easly 1 mana 3/3 swinger in this type of deck.
15 White fetchlands is a lot of gas for Steppe Lynx and Revolt enabler for Countless Gears Renegade which is some sweet 2 mana 3/3 spread in 2 bodies, great value in a deck with so many ways to pump a body. Makes me want to buy some more fetches but...
Also, Venerated Loxodon appears here as a high-end threat. He does wonders in standard right now but I don't know if he's strong enough to see modern play. Convoking does cost quite a lot of damage but sometimes it can't be pushed anyways in creature matchups (Humans and Spirits mainly) so it might be worthwhile to sacrifice the turn for huge amount of extra power.
Very straightforward SB. A lot of 4-ofs to distrupt enemy gameplan + some fillers from mainboard. Simple and efficient, just like the SB should be done for aggro decks.
Not really sure how the deck would work without fetches, Lynxes and Renegades. It's awesome that this archetype has some potential to steal games and make perfect record in a league during meta full of wicked, unfair stuff.
1x Eiganjo Castle
4x Flagstones of Trokair
4x Ghost Quarter
7x Plains
4x Silent Clearing
1-Drops (17)
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Dauntless Bodyguard
3x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
2x Soldier of the Pantheon
4x Thraben Inspector
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
3-Drops (10)
4x Benalish Marshal
2x Gideon Blackblade
4x Ranger-Captain of Eos
Spells (6)
2x Brave the Elements
4x Path to Exile
2x Damping Sphere
2x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Rest in Peace
3x Selfless Spirit
3x Stony Silence
2x Mirran Crusader
Deck was strong and fast. Turn 1 Parish, t2 Bodyguard + Kytheon, t3 Blackblade, swing all, flip Kytheon and concede happened.
There are 12 cards that replace themselves, quite a lot for an aggro deck. That gives quite a lot of gas for longer games.
Mardu made a lot of 1 for 1 trades with its removal and after some time it got upper hand. Knowing when to sac Ranger-Captain is hard - I lost a game because he resolved Anger of the Gods later in the game. I had Kytheon on board and no mana open to make him indestructible. If I'd sac R-C Kytheon would live and he'd probably end the job.
Brave the Elements proved to be very strong as a finisher and was the only card that could win that last game vs Pyro, but I didn't draw it. Card overperformed and I can see it being played as 3 or even 4-of.
Auriok Champion would've been amazing vs Pyromancer. Increasing Brave the Elements count to 4 would make me drop Selfless Spirits from SB and throw in Aurioks.
Benalish Marshal wasn't as good here as in earlier iteration of the deck. This deck is dependent on early Parish or Lieutenant going big and didn't seem to go as wide. I think reducing the amount of Marshals to 2 is good enough. Also thought about changing the last remaining 2 for Field Marshals, even though he doesn't pump whole team (but that touches only Bodyguards and sideboard creatures so I think it's worth it). That first strike for the whole team actually might be very handy in creature matchups.
I don't know if Quarters are worth keeping as I really need all W sources with so many 1-drops. I think that sacrificing some Tron hate and land filtering for more consistant mana base is worth the trade. Maybe I could possibly go with 1-2 Sunbaked Canyon while throwing away Quarters for more card advantage. With new Horizon Lands being printed I'm not sure how many of them I really want.
Or maybe adding in some [card]Smuggler's Copter[card]s would be better/safer for card filtering while keeping smaller/more important creatures in base (Marshals, Bodyguards, Inspectors).
It felt like this deck trades some resiliency and hate for raw power and speed compared to the old one. It should be able to close games 1 turn sooner on average. I have more big haymakers in sideboard rather than couple of different options to counter opposing gameplans and I think it's better approach for White aggro decks. Gideon Blackblade gives me mainboard options vs Burn or Ensnaring Bridge decks and resiliency vs Control.
I'm not sure I like this iteration more, as limiting myself to Humans only is quite crippling, but I think the deck is better than the last one.
Last time I played more of a Hatebearish decklist I went 0/4 losing to everything I've faced (not saying that I played perfectly, because I did not, but a lot of the times deck felt inferior).
My main idea was to play Hatebears style deck but instead of playing Eldrazi I decided to end the curve with anthems.
I don't think pure White Weenie style is fast enough for the meta right now. No matter what I would build into, other aggro decks seem to be faster or have more reliable kill potential.
Another problem of modern Weenies is that they have no reach so if board wipe happens it's hard to recover.
The lack of speed is fixed by taxing. The vunerability to board wipes is fixed by resilence.
Selfless Spirit provides this resilience. As well as Ranger-Captain of Eos.
The thing is UW Spirits look like strictly better version of what I'm trying to play right now.
They are more resilient, more distruptive and more evasive.
Yup, definately looks like worse Spirits.
I might try Mono W Humans sometime soon. Champion of the Parish is bonkers and Thalia's Lieutenant is great 2 mana "lord". Earlier on this was the deck with typical White Weenie problems I've mentioned above. Lately it got strong end-curve toppers in Ranger-Captain of Eos and Gideon Blackblade that might be the remedy.
I can easly go 20 lands and 36 Humans. And get lower curve, more power, speed and card advantage (definately would play Thraben Inspector) than before.
I didn't want to limit myself to one creature type though. Cards like Dryad Militant, Selfless Spirit or Spectral Procession proved themselves to be very strong. Also the only real payoffs from staying Humans are Parish and Lieutenant and that's 8 cards. And if I don't get any of these 2 then it plays like normal, underwhelming White Weenie. (Actually most of the best Humans are Soldiers as well so there might be some additional advantage in playing Field Marshal)
Still I might try that in near future. Dunno.
If any of the 1-ofs won't work I'll just add more Familiars or I'll go back to Soldier of the Pantheons.
Legion's Landing can't be tutored with R-Cap and I completely threw away this card from my maybelist.
R-Cap provides 2 bodies for 4 mana that are super important in this deck and gives a good protection against combo and control decks (hi Terminus). He really feels like a natural fit for this deck even though it makes the deck more 3-drop heavy. It is really the best topdeck that can happen for this deck
Gaddock Teeg really fixes a lot problems that I'm facing.
Stopping Collected Company, Cryptic Command, Ad Nauseam, Wraths,, most tutors, all Tron win cons.
But he doesn't fix the biggest problems - Humans, Spirits and Thing in the Ice decks - Izzet Phoenix and Blue Moon (that nobody plays anymore so I'm not going to count it). That and $$$ are the main reasons I want to stay mono White.
Humans is a roll that mostly outtempoes me
Spirits simply seems like the better version of my deck because everything flies and is more distruptive.
Flipping TiTi bounces all my creatures and there is no counterplay here. Spectral Procession, while being one of the best cards in the deck, is particularly bad in this matchup. Post SB R-Cap into Martyr of Sands after big bounce is huge life swing and might be the way to decently build back after this.
R-Cap made Martyr much more appealing SB option and the one I want to play most.
Path to Exile is fantastic vs these bad matchups and is good excuse to play 3 maindeck.
With Bridge from Below banned I expect these 3 worst enemy decks to be the most popular right now. And that's bad for this deck.
I already thought about Force of Virtue and I don't think it's better than Wilt-Leaf Liege in this deck. WLL has legs, provides much stronger effect and discarding him happens sometimes. Force requires me to spend some gas to cast it cheaper way. And then it's just Honor of the Pure which I didn't like in this deck anyways. Also I don't want to play Squadron Hawks in this deck, it doesn't go well with my gameplan.
22 lands is good because there is a lot of utility in them besides giving mana. I have 3 taplands and the deck is heavy on 3-drops. I actually want these ~4 lands to play 3-drop and 1-drop in mid game, or play something after flipping Windbrisk or preventing damage with Eiganjo Castle or giving indestructible to Kytheon, or pay 4th mana for Procession while Thalia is in play... And when I'm playing vs Tron I want to use my GQ's to slow them down most of the time. I wouldn't cut the lands in this deck.
I think Collective Brutality is so good because of it's discard with Escalate instead of its versality.
If I'd want to splash any color then it definately would be Red for Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix to support the aggro plan.
"17 sources of W is just not enough to reliably cast WWW"
If it's not vs Tron then most of the time I GQ my own lands if I really need 3rd W source. I wouldn't count these as full W source but I never really had problems with casting WWW on turn 3 with this deck when needed.
"I dont want the 3rd little Thalia because of Legend clashes."
You dropped Thalia to 2x then?
Personally I'm almost always happy to see her in my opening hand and she almost always is eating removal asap. I think 3 is good amount.
Played the deck above, with some minor changes, and failed miserably on FNM going 0/4
1x Eiganjo Castle
4x Flagstones of Trokair
4x Ghost Quarter
6x Plains
1x Shefet Dunes
3x Silent Clearing
3x Windbrisk Heights
1-drops (11)
2x Dauntless Bodyguard
4x Dryad Militant
1x Giver of Runes
2x Judge's Familiar
2x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
4x Leonin Arbiter
4x Selfless Spirit
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3-drops (11)
4x Benalish Marshal
3x Ranger-Captain of Eos
4x Spectral Procession
4-drops (2)
2x Wilt-Leaf Liege
Other (3)
3x Path to Exile
1x Martyr of Sands
1x Path to Exile
1x Damping Sphere
3x Rest in Peace
3x Stony Silence
3x Tocatli Honor Guard
2x Gideon Blackblade
1x Worship
Match 1 vs Bant Spirits - 1:2, was close, game 2 I won with Worship + Tocatli Honor Guard, game 3 he had 3 Spell Quellers ready for my Worship. Overall very hard matchup and Worship won me a game here. I don't think I could do anything better here.
Match 2 vs Abzan Company - 0:2 game 1 on the draw he went off on turn 3 - I had Ranger-Captain of Eos in hand so I guess I pretty much lost because of die roll as I could easly stop his Finale of Devastation from being cast. Game 2 I got stuck on 1 land... Had great hand and if I had 2nd land and drop Leonin Arbiter I'd probably win this game.
Match 3 vs UW Control - 1:2, I lost this one because I made 3 huge mistakes concerning bad sequencing and missing triggers. This matchup feels very favorable and I should win this one if I'd play correctly.
Match 4 vs Whir Prison - 0:2, probably the worst matchup there is for this deck, no maindeck answers for Ensnaring Bridge meant easy game 1 loss. Game 2 was lost because I missed Ranger-Captain of Eos sac activation when I should use it.
Had some casual for fun matches with other UW Spirits, UR Phoenix and 5C Humans players and all decks wrecked mine...
***
Still, I really enjoyed playing this version. Some cards underperformed though.
Dauntless Bodyguard was here as 2x and worked. But he worked much better as picked by Ranger-Captain of Eos when necessary. In opening hand he was the last card I wished to play.
Leonin Arbiter was OK. People kept forgetting that he denies library searching so many times. He blocked my Ranger-Cap twice though and I don't think these 2 should be played in the same deck. And when he should matter the most I was mana screwed... I decided to go down with all 4 copies and increase my 1-drop suite as well as getting 4th copy of Ranger-Cap here. It does make Ghost Quarter and Path to Exile worse but I think playing 4 copies of Arbiter moves the deck too much towards Taxes while going away from its aggro gameplan which isn't what I want.
GQ will still be good vs Tron and Path will keep on doing its job in removing most problematic threats.
This might be wrong, as Arbiter really worked 2 weeks ago, but I'm willing to try the deck without them again anyways.
Gideon Blackblade underperformed. He won this 1 game vs UW Control but the game would be won even without him. And vs Whir he wasn't good enough. Moving into 6 loyality to exile Ensnaring Bridge proved to be too ambitious, especially when opponent had Spellskite in play. He was supposed to be good vs Burn and Ensnaring Bridge decks but he's way too slow and there aren't targets good enough to lifelink and get significant amount of life back.
Tocatli Honor Guard did some work vs Spirits. Definately would shut down Humans. But it feels too narrow. Outside of these 2 matchups it isn't really that useful. And still opponent smashes me with flyers. Spirits are all flyers and Humans got Mantis Rider. 1/3 body for 2 is everything but impressive in this kind of deck. So while it stopped ETB's of Spirits and Humans it didn't do anything else. I want something more from my cards.
***
Learning my lesson I went back to the old list a little bit.
1x Eiganjo Castle
4x Flagstones of Trokair
4x Ghost Quarter
6x Plains
1x Shefet Dunes
3x Silent Clearing
3x Windbrisk Heights
1-drops (12)
1x Dauntless Bodyguard
4x Dryad Militant
1x Giver of Runes
2x Judge's Familiar
3x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
1x Mikaeus, the Lunarch
2x Leonin Relic-Warder
4x Selfless Spirit
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3-drops (12)
4x Benalish Marshal
4x Ranger-Captain of Eos
4x Spectral Procession
4-drops (2)
2x Wilt-Leaf Liege
Other (3)
3x Path to Exile
2x Martyr of Sands
1x Path to Exile
1x Damping Sphere
1x Jötun Grunt
1x Kataki, War's Wage
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
2x Stillmoon Cavalier
1x Worship
4x Dryad Militants are a must, way too good to pass and 1st main reason not to go mono W Humans.
3rd Kytheon, Hero of Akros is better choice than 2nd Dauntless Bodyguard.
Judge's Familiar was always welcome in my opening hand. I like it much better than Soldier of the Pantheon. I wish I played more than 2 copies but I can't find spot for them.
Some 1-ofs because Ranger-Captain of Eos allows it and because they are very good but only when needed.
Dauntless Bodyguard - good in protecting important targets later on.
Giver of Runes - gave me ~2-3 turns vs Spirit player, not enough to win but I see her power. She has so much uses that it's hard for me to exlude her.
Adding 1x Mikaeus, the Lunarch just to test him. Being semi anthem effect and potentially huge beater he might be key in stall games vs most hard creature matchups. Gives style points as well.
If any of the above won't work then I'll just switch them for more Familiars.
I'd play 2 Path to Exiles maindeck as it's super important vs Thing in the Ice, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and other unfair creatures. I play 3 maindeck because there is only SB slot for 1 and I really want 4 copies in 75.
Maindeck Selfless Spirit is another main reason not to play mono W Humans. He saved the game so many times I can't even count it. Definately 4x.
I sometimes want 4th Thalia, Guardian of Thraben as the 1st one almost always eats first removal, but I can't really convince myself of this. Also I don't have 4th copy right now.
Leonin Relic-Warder was added again in 2 copies as maindeck answer not only to old stuff like Ensnaring Bridge, Aether Vial or Expedition Map, but also a lot of new toys like Altar of Dementia and Aria of Flame. It seems like there is always a good target for this guy.
Ranger-Captain of Eos upped to 4x. This guy is nuts. He's great topdeck, gives a lot of flexibility and is awesome vs combo and control decks.
Benalish Marshal keeps on being the best anthem effect for me.
Spectral Procession keeps on being huge card even though people underestimate it and is 3rd huge reason not to play mono W Humans. This card brought me back to the game from bad board states so many times I stopped even counting them.
Wilt-Leaf Liege is needed as another anthem effect - 4 Marshals aren't enough . 6-8 feels like the proper amount of anthems in this deck and WLL is the best of the bunch I think (counting Mikaeus, the Lunarch and Shefet Dunes as semi-anthems). Also randomly discarding it T1/T2/T3 wins games by itself.
I'm very happy with this landbase right now. The numbers are almost perfect, the only thing is the amount of Silent Clearing (playing them because it's the cheapest horizon land right now, any other can do). It was used to draw a card ~2 times. There is a lot to do in this deck with mana - lot of 3CMC cards, Kytheon ability, Ranger-Cap getting stuff, 3 taplands, add opponent bouncing my cards or Remanding... All of this forces some real decisionmaking regarding mana distribution. Thinking about cutting one for another Plains or even drop down to 21 lands and play another 1-drop, but playing Windbrisk Heights actually excludes this idea. More testing needed.
Sideboard-wise:
2x Martyr of Sands - if played then 1 isn't consistent enough vs Burn, 2 seems better. Also being tutorable with Ranger-Captain of Eos helps, especially vs Thing in the Ice decks - UR Phoenix and, especially, Blue Moon.
1x Damping Sphere because it's good vs lot of different decks. Simple.
1x Ethersworn Canonist and 1x Eidolon of Rhetoric for Phoenix, Storm, partially Bridgevine and much more field. Denying casting multiple spells per turn annoys more decks than I initially thought. I prefer Eidolon because of 4 toughness and stronger ability but the difference between 2CMC and 3CMC is just huge, hence the split.
2x Stony Silence and + 1x Kataki, War's Wage was added instead of 3rd Stony. The enchantment doesn't do that much vs Whir, Affinity etc. Kataki attacks artifacts from different angle. He will wreck Affinity much harder than Stony. Forces Whir to pay for stuff giving me more time to find Relic-Warder. And is also a body which is relevant in this matchup. I think splitting the hate is good idea.
Similar story with GY hate. 3x Rest in Peace seems obvious. I want to diversify it and try Jötun Grunt.
If they won't work then I'll just switch back to 3x Stony and 3x RiP.
Brought back 2x Stillmoon Cavalier instead of Tocatli Honor Guard. Even though it costs 1 more it seems like it's good enough vs Spirits and Humans, not really by hating their strategy, but by having prot White - and that means their whole deck pretty much. And if something isn't White then I can give him first strike and boost power. Tests will show if it's actually better or not.
Worship works for me as 1-of vs low-removal creature and combo decks like Humans, Ad Nauseam and Red decks.
And last slot for the last Path to Exile
Dropped Phyrexian Revoker. Obviously when he is needed he works wonders. But most of the time he's just blank 2/1 whose hate isn't that gamebreaking. He could be good maindeck material in a different metagame, like he is in Legacy and Vintage.
He single handedly stops Nexus and Reclamation decks and messes up with control decks, makes it harder against aggro though. I can see it as a replacement of Tithe Taker. Still I prefer the latter simply because he's a creature, costs 1 less and is more resilient, but I also prefer mono W version of the deck so no place for Threeferi here. If I was to play him I'd probably increase land count to 22 and maybe play 1 Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants mainboard.
Also Esper being easy matchup is debatable. Obviously Gideon Blackblade made this matchup easier but if he plays huge removal package mainboard it's still hard enough for me. Nexus is quite easy, just go for fast clock and push. Tithe Takers are MvPs here and main reason I still play 4 mainboard.
For 1 mana it provides you 2 permanents for Ascend and gives you much needed late game mana sink. 1 mana 1/1 lifelinker is decent enough and sometimes this ramp is very relevant. I think 4-of is very important in this deck but 3x is fine.
If you're looking for 1-drops try Healer's Hawk and Rustwing Falcon. They are quite good choices.
Hi there!
You are very heavy on 3-drops. This deck wants to go on curve very hard by playing turn 1 creature, turn 2 2x 1-drop or 1x 2-drop and turn 3 a 3-drop or some 1-drops followed by Venerated Loxodon. That's the real power of the deck and you want this to occur as often as possible. You have 15x 1-drops, 5x 2-drops and 13x 3-drops. To make your curve smoother you should reduce the amount of 3 drops and increase 1 and 2-drops. That way you will increase probability of drawing good hand and having good play on first ~3-4 turns and that is crucial for aggro decks.
1-drop choice is mostly a preference. I like to have 4x Dauntless Bodyguard and 4x Legion's Landing. Other than that I favor Law-Rune Enforcer, Skymarcher Aspirant, Snubhorn Sentry and Hunted Witness over other 1-drops.
I think White has a lot of strong 2-drops and, on the contrary of most popular builds, I still believe playing ~7-8 is good idea (a lot of people cut them for more 1-drops). That way you have much better topdecks than normally.
I wouldn't play more Gideon Blackblades mainboard than 1. He's very weak vs aggro decks when you're behind. Imagine playing him vs mono R with no creatures on board.
The same would be Unbreakable Formation. On paper its great vs creature matchups and obviously it's good to swing for free. On the other hand topdecking it on empty board is really unwanted and having 2x in opening hand is a nightmare. I found myself sideboarding it out more often than not.
Also Conclave Tribunal is the removal of choice over Baffling End and Ixalan's Binding - it catches everything and thanks to the amount of creatures you can generate you can cheat it as soon as turn 3.
Right now I think you have way too many 2 and 3 drops. 3 CMC should be top end of your curve not the beginning of real whooping.
I suggest increasing the amount of 1-drops to ~18-20 (there are a lot of efficient 1 CMC creatures right now really), reducing the amount of 2-drops to ~4-6 and 3-drops to ~8-9. History of Benalia and Benalish Marshal clearly outshine Gideon Blackblade here if you're supposed to go wide to the extreme. I still think Gideon should be played as 1-of mainboard since he's rather bad on draw vs aggro.
Also playing more Unbreakable Formations is good idea with the amount of such cheap creatures in this deck.