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By: Plainswalker83, Plainswalker83
Oct 31 2017 12:00pm
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First, I want to thank everyone for reading my article and for leaving comments. It feels good to be back writing and to be playing Magic Online again. My goal is to build up my collection and enjoy the process.

Thanks to a suggestion from SteveJeltz I decided to get into Pauper. He was right, there are some cheap white decks that fit my playing style.

White Weenie
- 75 Cards Total
Creature
4 Soul Warden
2 Soul's Attendant
4 Selfless Cathar
10 cards

Instant
4 Raise the Alarm
4 Borrowed Grace
4 Guardians' Pledge
2 Ramosian Rally
14 cards
Sorcery
4 Triplicate Spirits
1 Cenn's Enlistment
4 Battle Screech
4 Gather the Townsfolk
13 cards

Enchantment
1 Lumithread Field
1 cards
Land
3 Secluded Steppe
19 Plains
22 cards
 


Sideboard
2 Soul's Attendant
4 Journey to Nowhere
3 Lumithread Field
2 Holy Light
4 Sundering Growth
15 cards

This deck is not very complex in fact it has one major plan. Play a bunch of creatures or tokens and attack with them until your opponent gets to zero life. The deck is very aggressive and can kill on turn 4 without running into obstacles.

My main issue is that I do not know a lot about the pauper metagame. I do not know what decks to expect nor what each deck contains. That will be fixed with practice and research. However, my goal is not to become a Pauper expert. This site has some great ones and I will learn from their wisdom and not really offer my own.

 I wanted to have another cheap deck to load up and play when I had some free time (which is not often) and this deck is perfect for that.

My next objective is to start to build a commander deck. It seems like it would be cheaper for me to play mono colored so my first step was to pick a Commander. In paper I bought the white precon deck that had Nahiri as the commander. It was fun but I mainly bought the deck so I could get another copy of Containment Priest.

I mentioned before that the guys in my shop started to convince me to play more and so I decided to settle on a different commander and start to rebuild the deck slowly.

Who did I choose?

Oketra_the_True

I like that once Oketra hits the board she is really hard to get rid of. Not only that but she makes her own army to support her and allow her to attack for 6 a turn.

My thought was to be mainly token based and white has a lot of ways to do that. Where do I start?

Heliod, God of the Sun Mobilization Elspeth, Sun's Champion Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

These are all great ways to crank out tokens with Mobilization being the easiest to deal with. These permanents in addition to Oketra gives you a way to make sure you do not run out of ways to create tokens.

Heliod was my first thought as Commander but since this is token based he can be a bit harder to “turn on”. He also can be searched up with Enlightened Tutor. There are enough permanents in the deck to give the 5 devotion needed to make Heliod into a creature and having him a long side of Oketra can be a lot of fun.

Gideon we already know is great and in this deck he brings forth a constant supply of 2/2s and the anthem is also very good.

Elspeth can really shine in a slower format it seems. She makes 3 1/1s a turn and that is great. However, she is also a wrath and a fantastic finisher. With the new planeswalker rule I can see adding Elspeth, Knight-Errant as well to add to the fun.

White also has access to some of the best removal spells ever printed. There are cards like Swords to Plowshares which is my favorite card ever, its relative Path to Exile, and Condemn. There are also amazing sweepers and in a format like commander white gives you a lot of redundancy.  So many different board wipes or removal spells so you are never hoping for just one answer.

In the same vein there are a ton of value creatures and spells that make tokens along with the permanents that I mentioned previously. My biggest issue is that I just need to know what cards are stables in Commander. What do I absolutely need. I would love to get suggestions from you. Either what white cards I need in this deck or what artifacts/lands are a must have for commander. Remember I am on a slight budget but I will be slowly working my way there.

Next, I want to talk about the format that I want to be semi competitive in. I built that budget Monument deck and have been doing some testing. I can see where it is weak but also where it could really shine. I also think there are a few different directions I can go with not only monument but mono white in general.

The most expensive cards in these white decks are the sideboard options usually and once I get them I can have three Modern decks that are all white based. From there I can start to build to some Tier 1 options but I have no idea how long that will take. One deck I almost already have built is Soul Sisters. In fact, I have a monument version of it built.

This deck has been fun but I think it needs cards like Serra Ascendant and Legion's Landing. The good news is once I get them I can also build a stock build of Soul Sisters.

I also saw another build of Soul Sisters today that I liked on Startcitygames. This list focused heavily on the human theme and it looked like this.

I actually like this list a lot because not only does it gain a ton of life and still utilize the cards that have always been in the deck, it can also quickly turn into an army that your opponent can not deal with.

I really think that Monowhite has a lot of options and tools to tackle the current metagame. I want to find out of that is true. I will be testing and researching and beginning to watch coverage again.

If there is a viable Monowhite deck out there I want to find it. I may even experiment with my old White Devotion list again. Some of those cards will even help me with Commander.

It feels good to be excited again, I look forward to playing more and enjoying the game once again. Thank you for reading and I hope to hear back from some of your Commander gurus. I could really use some help there. Until next time!

 

6 Comments

Some suggestions for white by MarcosPMA at Tue, 10/31/2017 - 23:04
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Some suggestions for white cards in Commander:
Emeria, the Sky Ruin (recursion lets you beat board wipes)
Emeria Shepherd (same as above)
Sunblast Angel (situational board wipe on a creature)
Increasing Devotion (instant "devotion" for Oketra)
Cathars' Crusade (this card is basically insane in tokens. turns Increasing Devotion into 5 6/6 tokens at the very minimum)
Martial Coup (board wipe + tokens)
Mentor of the Meek (card draw)
Not white, but generally useful:
Sword of the Animist (lets you ramp while attacking, also ramp is harder to come by in white)
Temple of the False God (mana acceleration)
Reliquary Tower (there's always a way to get up to 7+ cards in hand)
Hedron Archive (Mana when you need it, cards when you don't)
Grafted Exoskeleton (not quite a one shot with Oketra, but sometimes you need to cheese out a win)

Thanks! by Plainswalker83 at Wed, 11/01/2017 - 09:39
Plainswalker83's picture

I appreciate that! I am slowly getting there. I didn't think of some of those

EDH by stsung at Thu, 11/02/2017 - 08:55
stsung's picture

Mono white is certainly viable in all formats^_^. Oketra may not be it in EDH but for casual playing it can be good enough. White decks usually need acceleration, there are some creatures that fetch lands and also I often featured fast mana.

Thinking of Oketra this comes to mind. I omitted the good cards (that would include some prison cards, removal, wrath effects etc). I also didn't include all the anthem effects. I just mentioned the ones I like to include.

Secure the Wastes
Anointed Procession
Intanglible Virtue
Angel of Invention
White Sun's Zenith
Cathars' Crusade
Martial Coup
Mentor of the Meek
Knight of the White Orchid
Skullclamp
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Sword of the Animist
Hero of Bladehold
Geist-Honored Monk
Solemn Simulacrum
Burnished Hart
Selfless Spirit
Anointed Priest
Regal Caracal
Angel of Sanction
all the sisters
Hanweir Militia Captain
Rootborn Defenses
Brave the Elements
Mind Stone
Thought Vessel
Hedron Archive
Commander's Sphere
Eldrazi Monument
Marshal's Anthem
Dictate of Heliod
Darksteal Mutation
Luminarch Ascension
Retreat to Emeria
all the relevant walkers...elspeths, gideons etc.
Shefet Dunes
Emeria, the Sky Ruin
the new Kjeldoran Outpost
Oketra's Monument
Mikaeus/Mirror Entity/Thalia's Lt./Entreat the Angels/white decree
Soul of Theros
Increasing Devotion
Conqueror's Pledge
white Shrine
Felwar Stone

+ some control...

If you're running sufficient by AJ_Impy at Fri, 11/03/2017 - 11:24
AJ_Impy's picture

If you're running sufficient white and colourless walkers, Djeru, With Eyes Open is an excellent tutor, not to mention Call, and Deploy, the Gatewatch.

Thanks! by Plainswalker83 at Tue, 11/07/2017 - 14:59
Plainswalker83's picture

Thanks AJ!

Sweet by Plainswalker83 at Tue, 11/07/2017 - 15:00
Plainswalker83's picture

That is a wealth of knowledge! Thank you :)