I can hear him already: "He's just a beat stick and all he can do is make tokens! White can do more than tokens! Think outside the tokens!"
I started out loving this thread, but by the time I've read to page 4, I'm put off. I'll go back to my Odric / token / anthem build that wins with beatdown by turn eight and continue considering mono-white strictly a 1-on-1 color.
First off, because Commander is primarily a multiplayer format, this primer is geared towards multiplayer. Second, I never stated tokens and/or aggro doesn't work. I even list a few decent token/aggro generals. What I did say, and I stick by it, is that tokens are a lot harder to get working by its very nature.
Demonmail Hauberk - Frankly any equipment with sacrifice as part of the cost is better when you can attach things for free Heartseeker - It's one free kill per turn Sigil of Distinction - Not actually sure if this is a great equipment, but it feels good to equip for free on this one Argentum Armot - You pointed this one out already, and deservedly so. It's much better when you don't have to pay to equip Batterskull - Obviously just fine without Nahiri, but that germ will die eventually, and it's nice to be able to replace it.
I guess I mostly just like thinking of her ability as turning all equipment into living weapons. It's possible that I overestimate her ability to be competitive in Spike-dominated groups, but it's been very aggressive within my meta and a lot of fun to pilot.
Demonmail, Sigil and Batterskull do nothing but beat face. I'll pass on putting those on a vanilla 1/1. Heartseeker looks okay but it's actually one kill every two turns which is pretty slow. My problem with Argentum Armor is that - you cheat it into play the first turn. You cheat the equip cost second turn. Then you can start swinging with your equipped creature third turn. It takes a full 3 turns to activate it, which is just way too slow.
After an exhaustive search, Clamp and Deathrender are the only equipment that I really like with Nahiri. Clamp is so ridiculous that Nahiri may be good enough to run for her interaction with Clamp alone, but that's basically it. I believe my point about her not really supporting equipment well still stands. I did update the part on Nahiri though.
I definitely think you should add Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant to the commanders list. As I said, it's been great for me (EDH life total starting so high is very helpful as well).
What makes Rune-Tail's ability worth playing over other aggro generals like Odric (Unblockable is usually better than damage prevention) or Jazal (One or two activations is usually lethal)? What cards does Rune-Tail interact with besides Wave of Reckoning?
Being an instant activation is nice, but I still can't see the ability as that useful compared to other white generals.
In my experience, Rune-tail is mostly useful for making it really difficult for opponents to kill your creatures. Sure death by damage isn't all that common, but as a two-mana commander that's a lot of nullification for such a small investment. If you're playing against red or green decks, Rune-tail might as well be Avacycn for all they care.
It's a rather small effect all told, but it's not necessarily a weak one.
Rune-tail costs 3 mana not 2. And in my experience, white doesn't really have much problems with red or green to begin with, considering protections, recursion, and the fact that white has a lot of creature removal. I'm not convinced Rune-tail is worth playing except in really casual metas, and that's not really what this primer is about.
Speaking of the general section, what do you think about Yosei, the Morning Star at the helm? He can build a pretty solid lock on an opponent and with sac outlets and recursion can be abused. Also he's a 5/5 flying creature that can attack and block pretty well.
He costs six mana, but he has good stats and a strong ability for his cost.
Noted. I've thought about including Yosei but I haven't seen many people use the dragon as commander. I do know how ridiculous Yosei can be though; I run it in my Saffi deck to lock players out pretty commonly. I'm probably going to consolidate a lot of the commanders into categories (ie. Stax generals, aggro generals, control generals, etc) because most of the commanders don't actually play that differently from one another, with a few exceptions.
I definitely think you should add Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant to the commanders list. As I said, it's been great for me (EDH life total starting so high is very helpful as well).
What makes Rune-Tail's ability worth playing over other aggro generals like Odric (Unblockable is usually better than damage prevention) or Jazal (One or two activations is usually lethal)? What cards does Rune-Tail interact with besides Wave of Reckoning?
Being an instant activation is nice, but I still can't see the ability as that useful compared to other white generals.
I'm not sure if I'm a fan of it coming back or not. Putting lands into play is greens color pie so you can't really ramp, and balancing anything else other than basics lands is also other color pies. I guess the ability thin your deck is good? Without a proper way to turn lands in hand into actual card with something like Scroll Rack, I don't how beneficial this is.
Mechanics are rarely exclusive to one color. They often bleed between several colors, with each color having a different spin on it. Black usually has to pay life to draw cards, and green card draw is tied to creatures.
White is about equalizing, which is where the Tithe mechanic comes in. And considering that Kor Cartographer, Knight of the White Orchid and Oath of Lieges already explicitly land ramp, I fail to see how you can say white can't ramp.
Updated the section on sweepers and I'm trying to add a section on protection/removal though I'm only on spot removal right now. I'm trying to elaborate more on my stance on using too many sweepers since there has been some resistance to that idea.
I do try to listen to any and all feedback given; if I disagree with you, that doesn't mean I won't listen to what you say - I might elaborate more on why I disagree with you, but I will try to take to heart different opinions and perspectives. Just keep in mind that if you do disagree with me, it is helpful to give a detailed reason as to why. Also, keep in mind that I have very limited time right now so updates are coming extremely slowly; it might take a while to get to a certain suggestion.
It would be nice in general to have a mechanic that checks if you have more / fewer things than the opponent and if so, something happends like Feudkiller's Verdict, Pulse of the Grid, Ward of Bones and the ones you already mentioned
If the ability were pushed much more it would break the color pie. Not being able to gain CA easily is a critical weakness of White.
Not really true at all. Printing a couple cards a year with the mechanic will not break anything - That's about on par with how much blue creature removal they get (Curse of the Swine) or red CA (Commune with Lava).
Where did this mechanic go? I would love to see this mechanic fleshed out more, especially as a mechanic that gives white CA without breaking the color pie. I would love to see Tithe find its way into Modern.
Calm down and stop taking everything so personally. I am not trying to make you look "inexperienced" and I'm not trying to disparage your Avacyn deck.
I never said a single Swords to Plowshares will stop an alpha strike. If you notice the list of answers/removal that I gave, I listed a variety of answers that all can deal with different things. Swords deals with a variety of things, as does Comeuppance (Which, BTW, does deal with a Craterhoof alpha strike very well). And nowhere did I say that you shouldn't run any sweepers - they have their time and place, but when you run 10+ sweepers, you have the ability to deal with one thing very well and little else; there's also a time and place for Swords to Plowshares as well; oftentimes players look at Swords and think it's inefficient since it only deals with one card, and while true, it also doesn't matter - it deals with the most important card if you hold it for when you really need it.
Yes, there are instant speed wraths, wraths that exile and sweepers that deal with all permanents. But the more versatile they are, the more expensive they are. There's a huge difference between holding up one mana for a Swords or even 4 mana for Seht's Tiger and 7 mana for Rout or Angel of the Dire Hour (BTW, Angel of the Dire Hour, just using it as an example). Again, there's a time and place for both.
Finally, one of the biggest problems with playing heavy wraths is that a lot of players will start to recognize this and adjust accordingly. Most players in my playgroup, if they're playing aggro, will specifically target anyone that they know plays a lot of board wipes since they know their board is vulnerable as long as that player is alive.
I gave Saffi as one example (Though just so you know, my Safi deck regularly beats a pretty obnoxious Karador deck, but that's besides the point. Also just so you know, well built graveyard decks will not lose to one piece of graveyard hate. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you can shut down a deck by just playing RIP). My point is, there are quite a few strategies that don't really care much for sweepers, or can recover from them quickly. Kamahl, Fist of Krosa is another example.
Maybe it's because I run an "all the wraths, all the time" avacyn build that gets obscene amounts of value from wraths and luminarch ascension, but I find myself disagreeing with a lot of your views on white's strengths, and the contrast between seeing board states with no wraths (playing my freyalise elves without wraths vs my avacyn control with roughly 20) I can attest to how degenerate board states get when the board isn't reset on a regular basis, and you can't expect your opponents to answer other player's boards for you.
The thing to keep on mind is that you are not the only one with card advantage engines in play, and I don't know about your play group, but dealing with only one at a time usually doesn't get the job done, especially not if you get off to a slow start. And mono white will get slows starts.
I would also list mass land destruction as one of white's strengths. You're advocating stax, so I doubt your play group minds Armageddon too much. Balance is banned in this format, unfortunately, so Armageddon is my personal favorite answer to things like Boundless Realms.
Although I generally play few if any wraths, I'm not saying that should be the norm; I understand the need to occasionally clear the board, but at the same time, I believe that too many wraths (More than 5 or so) is overkill. I understand Avacyn is a little different, but even still, I do not believe running a lot of wraths is a good strategy.
The thing is, Wraths tend to be 4+ mana and sorcery speed. They are slow and can be played around relatively easily by good players. They are very good against certain types of decks, but those types of decks are usually one dimensional and relatively easy to stop anyway. You mentioned Freylise elves, which is actually pretty popular by a lot of new players in my LGS (When they see how easy it is to shut down they tend to move elsewhere). The thing is, I don't need to answer everything that the Freylise player throws at me - I just need to answer any attacks that come specifically my way that will do a significant amount of damage. If the Freylise player attacks anyone else, I don't care (Actually, it helps me). This is the problem with a Wrath - you have no way of knowing who that player is going to attack. When you hold up a Swords to Plowshares, you don't just use it the first chance you get; you hold it for when a real threat comes into play that will either win the game or knock you out of the game. In this case, Swords is actually a lot more useful than a Wrath because it also stops haste creatures, graveyard shenanigans and one-turn combos (Using creatures).
The bottom line is, board wipes, while helpful, still only tend to stop one type of threat. Having a variety of other answers is necessary to stop everything else - what's Avacyn going to do when it comes across, say, Saffi which actually wants everything to go to the graveyard? What's a wrath going to do when Saffi can just combo out in a single turn? The whole point of running less sweepers is that it allows you to diversify your answers - instead of 20 sweepers, you can run Seht's Tiger, Kami of False Hope, Orim's Chant, Fiend Hunter, Duplicant, Ghostly Prison, Comeuppance, etc.
Noted on mass LD, I will add that in the next update. I'll also add more to the section on sweepers, I do have more to say on this topic when I have the time.
I see Luminarch Ascension in a similar light that I see Elspeth, Knight-Errant: it's a ticking time bomb that makes your opponents jump through ridiculous hoops to shut down. If your goal is to get them activated, then sure you're only really going to get anywhere if you completely lock down the board and prevent people from interacting with them. But most of the value of the cards comes from giving everyone at the table a high-risk threat to deal with, causing them to burn tutors, spend resources digging, and most importantly, not spend resources on advancing their board presence. It's one of those cards where the threat of what it can do greatly influences it's impact on the game, even if on the surface it doesn't seem like much happened.
Anyway, I'd like to make an argument for including Akroma, Angel of Wrath in the list of good mono-white commanders:
Akroma has two things going for her: she's a really fast clock (three turns with a single Elspeth activation or with cathedral of war in play), and she's hard as hell to shut down. The level of inevitability she brings to the match is obscene: in addition to blanking most spot removal options due to her protection, her haste allows her to shrug off all sorcery-speed options as well as long as you have the mana to pay the commander tax. It's not uncommon at all for opponents to throw their hands up in frustration, knowing for certain that they're going to be dead in three-four turns and their hand full of roadblocks won't really change this reality. Pretty much the only real thing that can stop Akroma once you have your manabase established are extremely narrow answers that are usually reserved for the heavy-hitters in the format like Prossh. If anything, the fact that she demands specific answers to have a chance at not dying to her speaks volumes about her strengths.
I actually did play Akroma as commander for a while. No longer a fan of her, but I added her to the list anyway.
I'm sure everyone's just going to pick their own commanders as their favorites, for obvious reasons... I personally like commanders who have some incredibly powerful interactions but look relatively innocuous at first glance.
Saffi Eriksdotter - My pet deck going on four years now. The amount of ETB abuse, sac abuse, and graveyard abuse, along with its ability to just combo out at any time is insane. The best part is seeing players who are unfamiliar with my deck and their reactions when their wraths, removal, and hate cards do relatively nothing to stop me. Oh, you Wrath? Sure. And all my creatures come back, and reactivate all their ETB abilities, thanks!
Selvala, Explorer Returned - Selvala does a great job masquerading as a group hug deck when she's really a vicious combo deck that can win on turn 3-4 with relative consistency, or if you want to make it a little more "fair", just play half your deck by turn 3-4 and gain 100+ life. I was winning about 90% of my games with her but I took her apart because I was taking 10 minutes on everyone else's turn.
Hokori, Dust Drinker for example produces a good Stax effect that you couldn't get elsewhere as a commander.
Ehh, I dunno, my friend doesn't really play her Captain Sisay deck anymore because of how frequent the Hokori lockouts were getting. I see your point though.
My favorite color is actually white, but I've never really been drawn to any mono-white legends, except for Reya Dawnbringer. Sadly she's far too inefficient these days.
This has been very helpful. It didn't occur to me at all how well Terrain Generator works with the white.
My one disagreement is with your rating of Nahiri. I think she's a better general than you give her credit for. The first reason is simply because she's a planeswalker. I've basically replace spot removal with more boardwipes, because she doesn't get hit. I also find that the 1/1s are actually pretty good to equip to if you're building around that premise. There are a number of equipment with expensive equip costs that still give a lot of value when attached to little guys. I also think she encompasses yet more of your argument for recursion being one of white's strong points. I will definitely grant you that her ult is lackluster. The only time I've found it to be worthwhile was when I already had a Grafted Exoskeleton already down.
Anyway, thanks for the advice. I've definitely gotten some good ideas from it to help smooth out my deck's consistency.
I don't like too many board wipes not because it hits my commander, but because they tend to be high cost and sorcery speed. I don't even run any in my Saffi deck, which is virtually immune to wraths. Maybe it's just the way I build decks and play, but IMO it's very easy to play around wraths which is why I don't use them often.
I am curious though, what equipment are you referring to that gives you value with 1/1s? I assume Argentum Armor? As for her second ability, in what ways can you abuse her recursion? Or do you just use it to bring back lost equipment? I ask this because I've tried hard to make Nahari work, but every time, I come back to the same issues - I have to wait a full turn before attacking with equipped 1/1s, lack of value equipment that doesn't use the attack step, an equipment commander that I can't go voltron with, a recursion ability that I can't find a way to abuse, and a lackluster ultimate. But if I'm missing something here, by all means, share.
Great thread. I learned a lot. One small note. You link to Gauntlet of Might but I think mono white enthusiasts might have better success with Gauntlet of Power .
Nice catch, edited.
One thing I would like to see a lot expanded is the advantages of running mono-white compared to white + something else, especially given that mono-white's general selection is so weak. A lot of good decks are mono blue, green and black not because there are just so many good monocolored cards that adding another color wouldn't improve the deck, but because the pilot decided they wanted a ridiculously powerful card in the command zone, with the tradeoff of being stuck with monocolor thanks to the color identity rule. Seems hardly surprising that the "three best EDH colors" each have at least one monocolor general on the ban list -- these for the most part being cheap generals that can lock out the opponent's ability to cast spells the color has a hard time answering, or just kill them.
You briefly mention Emeria and mana doublers, but given that a lot of white decks lean heavily on LD/Stax I don't find that a particularly persuasive argument. Land Tax can also be run in a multicolor build assuming you're willing to run a decent number of basic lands (and in certain color combinations like R/W, it's not like you have a particularly impressive amount of nonbasics to choose from in the first place).
That's because that's basically it unfortunately. Every set I keep hoping for a well costed mono-white legend that takes full advantage of white's biggest strengths in commander, and every set we just get another white weenie/token legend. I do list a few strong mono-white commanders though, but none of them are strong enough that it gives the player significant incentive to play mono-color over a similar multi-color general.
That's not to say mono-white isn't worth playing though. My point is, white in general has access to very powerful recursion and blink abilities, and by going mono-white, you have access to one of the strongest recursion engines in the game and the mana that you wouldn't otherwise have. Besides that, there is still the reason to go for a certain general that happens to be in mono-white - Hokori, Dust Drinker for example produces a good Stax effect that you couldn't get elsewhere as a commander.
I did update that section though, hopefully it's a little clearer.
I love mono black. Mono whiteis my deck's natural enemy, and when faced in duels, makes for fun game play. The most fun I ever had in comander was actually when I first started and my friend who showed me commander back in late 2007 built a Gaddock Teeg. We never played sideboard color hosers, but he had cards with pro-black and I had cards with pro-white and those cards would cause all kinds of fun interaction problems for one another. I think it is good for the game when people can play mono colored decks and do well with them.
That being said, Iona, Shield of Emeria is B.S. and despite some of the outs, it pretty much single handedly locks a mono colored deck out of the game. I don't play Contamination or Infernal Darkness. If you want it to stay that way, don't play Iona. Deal?
Reminds me of the time this guy was bragging about his Skittles deck as being unbeatable. So I pulled out my Saffi deck, comboed him out the first game, then second and third game I Yosei locked him. He showed me Contamination and Reassembling Skeleton in his hand... He was so pissed that I locked him out before he got his Contamination lock.
Made some significant updates to the primer. Clarified the CA section and added a section on recursion. More to come, though very slowly...
Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit. Out of the new mono-colored legends in DTK, black gets a really cool and powerful tutor on a stick that acts as a sac outlet. White gets... another uninspired white weenie. No cool white legend based on land search, or recursion, or flicker, or enchantments, or equipment... just another white weenie. Yay.
First off, because Commander is primarily a multiplayer format, this primer is geared towards multiplayer. Second, I never stated tokens and/or aggro doesn't work. I even list a few decent token/aggro generals. What I did say, and I stick by it, is that tokens are a lot harder to get working by its very nature.
Demonmail, Sigil and Batterskull do nothing but beat face. I'll pass on putting those on a vanilla 1/1. Heartseeker looks okay but it's actually one kill every two turns which is pretty slow. My problem with Argentum Armor is that - you cheat it into play the first turn. You cheat the equip cost second turn. Then you can start swinging with your equipped creature third turn. It takes a full 3 turns to activate it, which is just way too slow.
After an exhaustive search, Clamp and Deathrender are the only equipment that I really like with Nahiri. Clamp is so ridiculous that Nahiri may be good enough to run for her interaction with Clamp alone, but that's basically it. I believe my point about her not really supporting equipment well still stands. I did update the part on Nahiri though.
Rune-tail costs 3 mana not 2. And in my experience, white doesn't really have much problems with red or green to begin with, considering protections, recursion, and the fact that white has a lot of creature removal. I'm not convinced Rune-tail is worth playing except in really casual metas, and that's not really what this primer is about.
Noted. I've thought about including Yosei but I haven't seen many people use the dragon as commander. I do know how ridiculous Yosei can be though; I run it in my Saffi deck to lock players out pretty commonly. I'm probably going to consolidate a lot of the commanders into categories (ie. Stax generals, aggro generals, control generals, etc) because most of the commanders don't actually play that differently from one another, with a few exceptions.
What makes Rune-Tail's ability worth playing over other aggro generals like Odric (Unblockable is usually better than damage prevention) or Jazal (One or two activations is usually lethal)? What cards does Rune-Tail interact with besides Wave of Reckoning?
Being an instant activation is nice, but I still can't see the ability as that useful compared to other white generals.
Mechanics are rarely exclusive to one color. They often bleed between several colors, with each color having a different spin on it. Black usually has to pay life to draw cards, and green card draw is tied to creatures.
White is about equalizing, which is where the Tithe mechanic comes in. And considering that Kor Cartographer, Knight of the White Orchid and Oath of Lieges already explicitly land ramp, I fail to see how you can say white can't ramp.
I do try to listen to any and all feedback given; if I disagree with you, that doesn't mean I won't listen to what you say - I might elaborate more on why I disagree with you, but I will try to take to heart different opinions and perspectives. Just keep in mind that if you do disagree with me, it is helpful to give a detailed reason as to why. Also, keep in mind that I have very limited time right now so updates are coming extremely slowly; it might take a while to get to a certain suggestion.
Or Survival Cache and Timely Reinforcements? I'd love to see this mechanic fleshed out more as well and it fits very well into white.
Not really true at all. Printing a couple cards a year with the mechanic will not break anything - That's about on par with how much blue creature removal they get (Curse of the Swine) or red CA (Commune with Lava).
Where did this mechanic go? I would love to see this mechanic fleshed out more, especially as a mechanic that gives white CA without breaking the color pie. I would love to see Tithe find its way into Modern.
I never said a single Swords to Plowshares will stop an alpha strike. If you notice the list of answers/removal that I gave, I listed a variety of answers that all can deal with different things. Swords deals with a variety of things, as does Comeuppance (Which, BTW, does deal with a Craterhoof alpha strike very well). And nowhere did I say that you shouldn't run any sweepers - they have their time and place, but when you run 10+ sweepers, you have the ability to deal with one thing very well and little else; there's also a time and place for Swords to Plowshares as well; oftentimes players look at Swords and think it's inefficient since it only deals with one card, and while true, it also doesn't matter - it deals with the most important card if you hold it for when you really need it.
Yes, there are instant speed wraths, wraths that exile and sweepers that deal with all permanents. But the more versatile they are, the more expensive they are. There's a huge difference between holding up one mana for a Swords or even 4 mana for Seht's Tiger and 7 mana for Rout or Angel of the Dire Hour (BTW, Angel of the Dire Hour, just using it as an example). Again, there's a time and place for both.
Finally, one of the biggest problems with playing heavy wraths is that a lot of players will start to recognize this and adjust accordingly. Most players in my playgroup, if they're playing aggro, will specifically target anyone that they know plays a lot of board wipes since they know their board is vulnerable as long as that player is alive.
I gave Saffi as one example (Though just so you know, my Safi deck regularly beats a pretty obnoxious Karador deck, but that's besides the point. Also just so you know, well built graveyard decks will not lose to one piece of graveyard hate. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you can shut down a deck by just playing RIP). My point is, there are quite a few strategies that don't really care much for sweepers, or can recover from them quickly. Kamahl, Fist of Krosa is another example.
Although I generally play few if any wraths, I'm not saying that should be the norm; I understand the need to occasionally clear the board, but at the same time, I believe that too many wraths (More than 5 or so) is overkill. I understand Avacyn is a little different, but even still, I do not believe running a lot of wraths is a good strategy.
The thing is, Wraths tend to be 4+ mana and sorcery speed. They are slow and can be played around relatively easily by good players. They are very good against certain types of decks, but those types of decks are usually one dimensional and relatively easy to stop anyway. You mentioned Freylise elves, which is actually pretty popular by a lot of new players in my LGS (When they see how easy it is to shut down they tend to move elsewhere). The thing is, I don't need to answer everything that the Freylise player throws at me - I just need to answer any attacks that come specifically my way that will do a significant amount of damage. If the Freylise player attacks anyone else, I don't care (Actually, it helps me). This is the problem with a Wrath - you have no way of knowing who that player is going to attack. When you hold up a Swords to Plowshares, you don't just use it the first chance you get; you hold it for when a real threat comes into play that will either win the game or knock you out of the game. In this case, Swords is actually a lot more useful than a Wrath because it also stops haste creatures, graveyard shenanigans and one-turn combos (Using creatures).
The bottom line is, board wipes, while helpful, still only tend to stop one type of threat. Having a variety of other answers is necessary to stop everything else - what's Avacyn going to do when it comes across, say, Saffi which actually wants everything to go to the graveyard? What's a wrath going to do when Saffi can just combo out in a single turn? The whole point of running less sweepers is that it allows you to diversify your answers - instead of 20 sweepers, you can run Seht's Tiger, Kami of False Hope, Orim's Chant, Fiend Hunter, Duplicant, Ghostly Prison, Comeuppance, etc.
Noted on mass LD, I will add that in the next update. I'll also add more to the section on sweepers, I do have more to say on this topic when I have the time.
I actually did play Akroma as commander for a while. No longer a fan of her, but I added her to the list anyway.
Added.
Saffi Eriksdotter - My pet deck going on four years now. The amount of ETB abuse, sac abuse, and graveyard abuse, along with its ability to just combo out at any time is insane. The best part is seeing players who are unfamiliar with my deck and their reactions when their wraths, removal, and hate cards do relatively nothing to stop me. Oh, you Wrath? Sure. And all my creatures come back, and reactivate all their ETB abilities, thanks!
Selvala, Explorer Returned - Selvala does a great job masquerading as a group hug deck when she's really a vicious combo deck that can win on turn 3-4 with relative consistency, or if you want to make it a little more "fair", just play half your deck by turn 3-4 and gain 100+ life. I was winning about 90% of my games with her but I took her apart because I was taking 10 minutes on everyone else's turn.
I would love a cheaper version of Reya. Or Raksha Golden Cub.
I don't like too many board wipes not because it hits my commander, but because they tend to be high cost and sorcery speed. I don't even run any in my Saffi deck, which is virtually immune to wraths. Maybe it's just the way I build decks and play, but IMO it's very easy to play around wraths which is why I don't use them often.
I am curious though, what equipment are you referring to that gives you value with 1/1s? I assume Argentum Armor? As for her second ability, in what ways can you abuse her recursion? Or do you just use it to bring back lost equipment? I ask this because I've tried hard to make Nahari work, but every time, I come back to the same issues - I have to wait a full turn before attacking with equipped 1/1s, lack of value equipment that doesn't use the attack step, an equipment commander that I can't go voltron with, a recursion ability that I can't find a way to abuse, and a lackluster ultimate. But if I'm missing something here, by all means, share.
That's because that's basically it unfortunately. Every set I keep hoping for a well costed mono-white legend that takes full advantage of white's biggest strengths in commander, and every set we just get another white weenie/token legend. I do list a few strong mono-white commanders though, but none of them are strong enough that it gives the player significant incentive to play mono-color over a similar multi-color general.
That's not to say mono-white isn't worth playing though. My point is, white in general has access to very powerful recursion and blink abilities, and by going mono-white, you have access to one of the strongest recursion engines in the game and the mana that you wouldn't otherwise have. Besides that, there is still the reason to go for a certain general that happens to be in mono-white - Hokori, Dust Drinker for example produces a good Stax effect that you couldn't get elsewhere as a commander.
I did update that section though, hopefully it's a little clearer.
Reminds me of the time this guy was bragging about his Skittles deck as being unbeatable. So I pulled out my Saffi deck, comboed him out the first game, then second and third game I Yosei locked him. He showed me Contamination and Reassembling Skeleton in his hand... He was so pissed that I locked him out before he got his Contamination lock.
Made some significant updates to the primer. Clarified the CA section and added a section on recursion. More to come, though very slowly...