INTRODUCTION: PURE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW

So we are coming to my second mono-White deck, after my very first article.  White actually has a lot going for it, by being able to deal with any type of permanent, destruction to keep you safe and defense to make sure that you can live to fight another day.

Probably the least sexy picture of the White Queen on the internet.

My first White deck used Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior to pump out soldiers and beat face.  You can actually find that first article HERE.  On a side note, I'm hoping that my articles are much more readable now.  Anyways, although the temptation to make another beatdown deck was strong, I wanted to try something a little different.  I then remembered that I had another White deck that I used in the past, but that hadn't been used or updated in a while.  Might as well update that bad boy and see if I can get it to work again!

THE DECK:  LIVING LIFE TO THE FULLEST

Let's take a look at our commander for this deck:

Long flowing robes and a beard of decent length.  He seems pretty cool.  He's obviously one of those wisdom guys, and as such we are going to have to make sure that we have our hand full.  This means lots of card draw and ways to fill our hand.  In exchange for having a full grip of cards, we get a commander with vigilance and the ability to gain 7 life any time he deals combat damage.  Vigilance is nice, to be sure, but the life gain ability is what really caught my eye.

I decided to focus on the life gain aspect and play to that strength.  However, I was quickly dissatisfied with a couple of cards that would seem to fit in well with a deck that has a focus around life gain:

I found that each of these cards was just life gain for the sake of life gain.  In other words, they weren't really fulfilling any purpose aside from gaining life, and sometimes they didn't even do that right away.  There was nothing more sad than being at 7 life and drawing Beacon of Immortality.  Maybe these guys were good if I was looking to win the game with Test of Endurance, but that wasn't my plan.  As such, I got rid of these cards.  I wanted my life gain to serve a purpose other than just gaining life.  And life gain wasn't going to be the focus of the deck, but instead something that would help out and keep me from dying.

With all that said, let's take a look at the deck:

Kiyomaro, First to Stand

A Commander Deck

Creatures 1 Adarkar Valkyrie 1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath 1 Archon of Justice 1 Auriok Champion 1 Aven Mindcensor 1 Baneslayer Angel 1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero 1 Darien, King of Kjeldor 1 Duplicant 1 Felidar Sovereign 1 Glory 1 Karmic Guide 1 Kiyomaro, First to Stand 1 Kor Sanctifiers 1 Martyr of Sands 1 Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant 1 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Stonehewer Giant 1 Sunblast Angel 1 Transcendent Master 1 Twilight Shepherd 1 Wall of Reverence 1 Weathered Wayfarer 1 World Queller 1 Yosei, the Morning Star 25 cards Other Spells [Artifacts] 1 Expedition Map 1 Extraplanar Lens 1 Gauntlet of Power 1 Howling Mine 1 Illuminated Folio 1 Ivory Tower 1 Journeyer's Kite 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Loxodon Warhammer 1 Mind Stone 1 Mind's Eye 1 Scroll of Origins 1 Seer's Sundial 1 Sol Ring 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Sword of Light and Shadow 1 Temple Bell 1 Tormod's Crypt 1 Venser's Journal 1 Well of Lost Dreams 1 Whispersilk Cloak [Planeswalker] 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant [Enchantments] 1 Hoofprints of the Stag 1 Runed Halo 1 Sigil of the New Dawn [Instants] 1 Condemn 1 Miraculous Recovery 1 Return to Dust 1 Tithe [Sorceries] 1 Austere Command 1 Breath of Life 1 Evangelize 1 Gift of Estates 1 Hallowed Burial 1 Mine Excavation 1 Rout 1 Wrath of God 37 cards

Lands 1 Emeria, The Sky Ruin 1 Flagstones of Trokair 1 Ghost Quarter 1 Kjeldoran Outpost 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea 1 Miren, the Moaning Well 1 Mistveil Plains 1 New Benalia 1 Reliquary Tower 1 Secluded Steppe 25 Snow-Covered Plains 1 Springjack Pasture 1 Temple of the False God 1 Thawing Glaciers 38 cards

Not your normal mono-White control deck, I think.  But who knows, maybe one of you guys have something exactly like it.  Anyways, a little breakdown is in order.

Card Draw

Howling Mine, Illuminated Folio, Mind's Eye, Scroll of Origins, Seer's Sundial, Sword of Fire and Ice, Temple Bell, Well of Lost Dreams, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea:  So you need to keep your hand full in order to properly use Kiyomaro, and there are plenty of ways to do it here.  Two cards that you probably haven't seen used before much are Illuminated Folio and Scroll of Origins.  Both of these have low activation costs and are easy to use.  The Folio does require that you show some cards, but you can usually use this as a threat.  Might as well show that Wrath if you don't want the creature swarm to bother you. I actually had Font of Mythos in here for a while, but I found that my opponents would usually blow it up before I got the chance to benefit from it.  Plus, they were getting a total of 6 cards before I even got 1.  So I took it out.

Life Gain

Auriok Champion, Baneslayer Angel, Felidar Sovereign, Martyr of Sands, Transcendent Master, Wall of Reverence, Ivory Tower, Loxodon Warhammer, Sword of Light and Shadow, Venser's Journal:  A decent amount of life gain to make sure that you stay in the game.  There are enough token decks out there to make Auriok Champion useful, and the two protection abilities are nice.  Ivory Tower may seem go against what I said earlier about not using a card just for the sake of life gain, but I have a soft spot for this one, and I like the new art of the one from FTV:  Exiled.  Recurring Martyr of Sands with Emeria is nothing to sneeze at either.

Recursion

Adarkar Valkyrie, Karmic Guide, Sword of Light and Shadow, Twilight Shepherd, Sigil of the New Dawn, Miraculous Recovery, Breath of Life, Mine Excavation, Emeria, the Sky Ruin:  Plenty of ways to make sure that you get your creatures back for another battle.  Emeria is awesome because it is free.  Sigil of the New Dawn is another rarely used card, but it helps in making sure that my hand stays full.  With the high number of artifacts in the deck, I really thought that I had more ways to pull Artifacts back from my graveyard.  So it might be worth including Razor Hippogriff or Argivian Find.

Destruction

Archon of Justice, Duplicant, Kor Sanctifiers, Sunblast Angel, World Queller, Condemn, Return to Dust, Austere Command, Hallowed Burial, Rout, Wrath of God:  Some of the usual suspects here, but it is worth mentioning a few specifics.  Kor Sanctifiers is nice due to the flexibility and the fact that it comes with a body.  Most White creatures only allow you to destroy an artifact or an enchantment, but not both.  World Queller can really hurt multiple people and is good in general.  This is my first deck with Sunblast Angel, but I have yet to draw it.

Protection

Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, Darien, King of Kjeldor, Glory, Runed Halo:  Each of these offer protection in different ways.  Since you are usually going to have a high life total, Rune-Tail provides excellent protection for all your creatures.  Darien is great at making sure that people don't attack you in general.  Who wants to face down a bunch of little 1/1's?  Of course, Darien in play usually means that people wait until they can alpha strike before attacking you. Glory is a card I found difficult to use, mainly because I often forgot that it was in my graveyard.  But with enough mana you can give your creatures multiple protection abilities.  And Runed Halo is great at stopping various large threats, including commanders like Uril.

One card I considered but didn't include was Test of Endurance.  I didn't really want a whole lot of "I win" cards in the deck, and I thought that using Felidar Sovereign was good enough.  Creatures are more vulnerable, and therefore people will have more answers to it.  And Felidar is good when you are low on life, while Test of Endurance isn't.  But feel free to include it if you like.

There are also a few cards to help you with your mana, such as Weathered Wayfarer, Gift of Estates, Journeyer's Kite and Tithe.  Kiyomaro isn't exactly the cheapest general to play, so each of these cards is helpful.  In addition, each of these also has the benefit of increasing your hand size, which is always good.  Remember, you don't always have to play your lands or any of your mana artifacts if you are trying to make Kiyomaro bigger.

So the main plan is to lay low, accumulate cards, then start beating down with Kiyomaro.  You can also play defense with the large amount of mass removal in the deck.  Of course, you do have some beaters in Akroma, Yosei and Baneslayer.  But going on the offensive isn't generally the way you win with this deck.  Instead, you will win most of your games with commander damage in the late game.  It isn't unheard of to get Kiyomaro up to 12 or 13 power, which turns him into a 2 hit killing machine.  Stick some equipment on him to make sure that his damage gets through, and people can have a hard time stopping him.  Keep in mind that for his life gain ability to trigger, he doesn't have to actually connect with an opponent, so you can attack with him into blockers as well.

Let's see how the deck does in action.

THE GAME:  FIGHT!

CONCLUSION

Tormod's Crypt was the all-star here.  Even though I sort of screwed up when I used it, it still worked well as a great deterrent.  I guess it goes to show that having graveyard hate is always helpful, especially since there are more than a few commanders that use the graveyard.  Just having it out there probably prevented W from even playing her commander, and definitely made S have to jump through a few hoops to get a use out of Sharuum.  In other words, don't forget about graveyard hate.  Also, after this game Ajani Goldmane became Venser's Journal.  I realized I didn't have enough creatures to effectively use Ajani, and the life gain he provided was negligible.  The Journal was a back up for Reliquary Tower, and the life gain isn't bad either. 

And as you can see, I never gained crazy amounts of life, but I was able to survive being hit by Magister Sphinx.  So there is a good reason for the life gain, and it definitely came in handy.

You can find the deck for download or purchase HERE.  It comes out to about $115, which isn't bad.  Among the more expensive cards is Elspeth, who can easily be replaced  with Armored Ascension, and Baneslayer Angel, who can be replaced with Battlegrace Angel.  The other 2 expensive cards are the Swords.  Unfortunately there aren't other pieces of equipment that help with the card draw and recursion like these 2 cards can, but you could always try to work with Sword of Vengeance, Basilisk Collar or Umezawa's Jitte instead.  A couple of other changes to think about include adding Scrying Sheets and Mouth of Ronom, both of which are handy with the Snow lands.  Also, since Kiyomaro is your main offensive weapon, you may want to invest into cards that make him indestructible or protect him, a la Shield of Kaldra or General's Kabuto. 

Discard decks are your enemy here.  Nath of the Gilt-Leaf is the commander you hate to see the most, and one Myojin of Night's Reach can really ruin your day.  If you go up against these guys, you are going to have a tough time, but hopefully you won't see them too often.

I hope you enjoyed the deck.  Until next time!

Leviathan, aka Tarasco on MTGO
mrmorale32 at yahoo dot com
 

CONQUEROR AND COMMANDER ARCHIVE