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By: Blackdeckwins, Anthony Davis
May 02 2016 12:00pm
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Thraben Inspector has been popping up in White Humans decks in Standard ever since Shadows Over Innistrad first released. It has proven itself as not only a great tribal creature, but also as a solid value creature. When a lowly common like it is strong enough to see Standard play, it is probably good enough to pop up in Pauper

While I mulled over what deck I wanted to try the Inspector in, I remembered a deck that used to be a solid contender, but fell off over time: Mono-White Tokens. Running stand-out token producers like Raise the Alarm, Gather the Townsfolk, Battle Screech, and Triplicate Spirits, the deck aims to flood the board as fast as possible and run over opponents with team-pump spells. I was able to track down a list over at Tolarian Community College, though it was a remnant from the days of Cloud of Faeries combo.

 

Since the real reason I wanted to find a list was to incorporate Thraben Inspector into it, I decided to cut the Suture Priests for a playset, and went with Veteran Armorer over Lumithread Field because I value having the attacker. So, with those few tweaks, I settled into a Pauper League with this deck.

 

After dropping the first round to close games against Burn, I rattled off a succession of 2-1 matches to finish the League at 4-1. In those rounds, I won against Blue/Black Control, Tron, Mono-Black Control, and Goblins. The Black decks were fairly easy to tackle, thanks to Obsidian Acolyte out of the sideboard, and the deck “goldfishes” quite well, which means it is almost guaranteed to win against traditional Tron decks. The Goblins matchup was all about trading resources efficiently, and with so many built-in two-for-ones, the matchup was quite easy.

After those games, I could tell Icatian Javelineers was in almost exclusively for the Delver matchup, so I decided to see if I could get by without them. Instead, I added four copies of Doomed Traveler to shore up the deck against removal while still having a turn-one play. I also noticed the deck really had nothing to do between turns two and three beyond playing more one- and two-mana creatures, so I decided to try Attended Knight as a three-mana token-maker. I also shuffled some sideboard cards around to add in the two copies each of Soul Warden and Soul’s Attendant, so I could bring them in against other aggressive decks.

Since I cut Icatian Javelineers, it was only fitting that the first game was against Delver. In that game, I learned something very important: this deck can’t beat Delver. It just can’t. Having your one-drop Snapped up and your two-drop countered by Spellstutter Sprite is basically game-over; your remaining good token producers and every pump spell will be met by counter spells, and your tokens will be the victims of Vapor Snag while you die to an army of tiny faeries.

The rest of the league did not go well, either; I ended it at 2-3 after picking up losses to another Delver deck and Kuldotha Jeskai, and winning games against Teachings and Goblins. These games showed me that the flyers in this deck are fantastic against players who do not have other flyers, and horrible against the ones that do; Kor Skyfisher is a giant brick wall against this deck. I also decided that Icatian Javelineers were necessary to have any hope against Delver, so I went back on a few changes, including cutting the underwhelming Attended Knight.

After sideboarding them in against Goblins, I found that I really enjoyed having the “Soul Sisters” engine in the deck, to help fight against other aggressive decks and potentially outpace some of the more midrange strategies. I was not sure what I wanted to cut, so I decided to go all-in on creatures and move the Journey to Nowheres to the sideboard, just to experiment. Finally, I worked in a Cenn’s Enlistment since the deck tended to flood.

 

When I took this version into a League, I was met with initial success. The “Soul Sisters” package proved too much for Stompy to handle, and all of the low-mana creatures helped me get under Kuldotha Jeskai before the full engine got on line. Unfortunately, my fortune nose-dived from there: the next Stompy opponent had an unusually-interactive sideboard that handled every threat, including Scattershot Archer, which I had forgotten existed. That game was followed by brutal losses to Hexproof (because Armadillo Cloak was unbeatable) and Teachings (because it reached the Evincar’s Justice-with-buyback point). Downtrodden and defeated, I retreated to the drawing board.

Mono-White Tokens did seem to have potential behind it, but there are parts of the metagame that are already adjusted to handle it with even realizing it. Being full of tokens, Electrickery and Shrivel are perfect sideboard cards against it, as are Pestilence and Evincar’s Justice. Plus, since decks prepare themselves for Goblins and its plethora of four-ofs and tokens, Echoing Decay and Echoing Truth are already around to wreck multiple tokens and Squadron Hawks at a time. In addition, creatures with three toughness brick-wall the deck very well, and Kor Skyfisher and Sea Gate Oracle are virtual pillars of the format. Finally, the existence of Delver as a power-house deck means hate against flyers fills the meta. Somehow, Mono-White Tokens walks into a world that is already prepared to dismantle it.

Now, that does not mean it is impossible to play, or even to be good. Tron is a good matchup, and with the Soul Sisters package, any game against a Red deck feels winnable, if not favorable. One card I really want to remove from the deck, though, is Quicksand: it has few relevant targets, and I would much rather have a colored utility land like Secluded Steppe or Sandstone Bridge. I would also like to do a major overhaul on the sideboard; Dust to Dust is too narrow of a card, and I think the aggressive matchup does not need Prismatic Strands outside of, perhaps, Delver Fiend.

Even though the aggressive-token angle of the deck produced mixed results, the reason I tried this deck out was to test Thraben Inspector. In a word, the card was “fine.” It was a 1/2 that blocked one-toughness creatures well, resisted Electrickery and its ilk, and gave me something to do when I flooded out on lands. It was never exciting, but was generally a solid creature in an aggressive tokens deck.

If you are looking for a deck that makes better use of the Inspector, though, I would recommend checking out Alex Ullman’s Mono-White deck that he has been brewing over on his Facebook page. It abuses Thraben Inspector and other value White creatures with Kor Skyfisher, and seems to have all of the makings of a powerful deck. I also would not be surprised to see an article about it from him sometime soon.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, you can always contact me on Twitter (@blackdeckwins) and on Tumblr (also @blackdeckwins), where I write articles about Limited and custom Magic card design. You can also check out all of my previous articles on PureMTGO by following this link.

1 Comments

With Impact Tremors being by ComixWriter at Mon, 05/02/2016 - 12:49
ComixWriter's picture
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With Impact Tremors being (standard) pauper-legal, I've had success using the tokens as 'direct-damage.' If they stay around long enough to actually attack or block, it's a boon. Obviously, this places the 'mono-white' deck into a Boros shell, but I think the payoff works well, especially with Collateral Damage. Just my $0.03 (adjusted for inflation). Would be happy to see this deck evolve, with rationale into card choices. Moreso, a weekly (or semi-regular) check-in to see the matchup reports of matches played, outcome, etc. With the new 1 drop, 2-toughness common that nods to card drawing options, I'd like to see where it goes.