Inspired by Bradley Rose, I participated in #MTGMoxtober this year. This is an event that encourages people to make a Magic: the Gathering themed creation everyday throughout the month of October. As such, I decided to try and create 31 different mono white decks during the 31 days of October. Each day, a different prompt served as the inspiration for the deck. If you’re curious to see the decklist you can find them here.
Creating 31 mono white decks in 31 days gave me a lot of time to think about the color, the format, and magic in general. As such, I’ve decided to write 31 brief thoughts from my 31 decks in 31 days. 1. You can draw cards if you have a theme: Mono White card draw essentially boils down to a few key themes that, if you don’t have, you won’t be drawing cards with consistency: Life Gain: Dawn of Hope, Well of Lost Dreams Small Creatures: Mentor of the Meek, Bygone Bishop Tap Artifacts: Endless Atlas, Illuminated Folio Equipments: Mask of Memory, Rogue Gloves, Puresteel Paladin Lands: Land Tax, Endless Horizons, Seer’s Sundial This itself wouldn’t be a problem, but there isn’t a lot of variety in each subcategory which means you’ll often find yourself relying on the same cards to enable the card advantage in your deck. 2. Recursion is strong White really does have some great access to recursion. Sun Titan and Emeria Shepherd are obvious, but cards like Dusk//Dawn and Remember the Fallen are some really nice support pieces as well. If you’re building a white deck, recursion can supplement your card draw nicely. 3. Sigil of the New Dawn is my “Pet Card” I’ve always struggled with the “what’s your pet card” question. I spend so much time looking for weird cards and trying weird things that I don’t have time to get attached. However, seeing how many decks in which I played Sigil of the New Dawn let me know that it is definitely my pet card. It enables so much, from recurring a Selfless Spirit to just recovering after a board wipe. 4. Is Teshar, Ancestor Apostle the Best White Commander? I think Teshar might objectively be the best commander, but I think he may enable the widest variety of strategies as well. I made a point to never repeat commanders, and I used Teshar on the first day. I consistently found myself wishing I still had access to Teshar because his ability is so flexible. 5. White Still has Plenty of Awesome Commanders While I can recognize Teshar’s flexibility, there are still a lot of fantastic commanders in white. Some of them take more work than others, but white, with the help of artifacts, still has the tools to enable a variety of weird or unique strategies. 6. So Many Board Wipes White has access to such a diverse range of board wipes you could probably write a book about it, or at least a blog post. I often found myself utilizing the same sources of removal to streamline the deck building process, but if I were to go back and tweak some of these decks, I would definitely take a look at the board wipes. 7. Mirror Entity is Bonkers When I say this, I don’t just mean the ability which is very good. I love having access to Mirror Entity in my white tribal decks. The fact that this card can be tutored up in a variety of ways whether using something as versatile as Recruiter of the Guard or as narrow as Forerunner of the Legion is a huge boon for white tribal decks. 8. Enlightened Tutor is a Theme-Saver In any mono color, it can be very difficult enabling themes because there are just fewer cards to create redundancy. Enlightened Tutor was extremely useful in enabling some of these themes. The fact that it can tutor artifacts or enchantments means that it can pull double duty. It’s only one card, but getting that theoretical second copy of a much needed thematic piece is so nice. I really hope to see more reprints of this extremely useful and important tutor. 9. Do I like Carnage Altar too Much? I always like having a sac outlet in my value based decks. A sac outlet offers a lot of utility for these types of builds. This month, while building these decks, I found myself utilizing Carnage Altar quite a bit. I’m not sure this is the best option, but it served two functions 1) it was a sac outlet and 2) it drew a card. Definitely a card I want to play with more and see how it holds up. 10. Anafenza is Combo-tastic Teshar gets a lot of love as white’s combo commander, but I think Anafenza deserves some respect too. Whether she is in the 99 or operating as the commander, she synergizes wonderfully with a lot of white’s pieces and can turn those pieces into powerful combos. 11. Emeria’s Call and Ondu Inversion feel like Auto Includes I really don’t see a justification for not playing both of these cards as utility lands in every mono white deck. The opportunity cost on these cards is so low and the effects can be real life savers. Ondu Inversion feels especially nice as a way to squeeze one more board wipe into your deck without having to take up a spell slot. 12. Mono White All-Stars that Didn’t Make It I noticed by the end of the month that several really powerful mono white cards hadn’t made it into several of my decks. Cards like Aven Mindcensor or Blind Obedience which are near staple status in mono white appeared rather infrequently. I think this is mainly to do with my focus on theme and big picture concepts rather than functionality. I think in a more tuned list these cards would definitely find a spot on the list. 13. Truce Synergies With cards like Alms Giver and Mind’s Eye, group hug draw can become slightly more one sided. As it stands, cards like Truce are really the best ways to take advantage of this strategy. I think there is some potential for this gameplan, but as it stands I don’t think there are enough consistent payoffs or enablers currently. 14. 1 drops, 1 drops, 1 drops There are so many great one drops in mono white and a ton of ways to build around them. Thraben Inspector, Children of Koilos, and the “soul sisters” are great pieces to create an engine. Ranger of Eos and Ranger Captain of Eos are also fantastic enablers. I even was able to build an entire deck of primarily one drop creatures. If you’re looking for something to do in mono white, look at the one drops. 15. New Cards Getting Forgotten There have been a ton of great cards printed this year in white, but I noticed that I was often forgetting about them during deck building. Cards like Luminous Broodmoth and Trove Warden are great pieces of recursion that definitely could have found a way into some of these lists. I look forward to us looking back at 2020 as a great year for mono white. 16. Angel of Destiny is Better than I Thought I think I have to admit where I was wrong. Angel of Destiny is definitely better than I initially expected. I thought Angel was probably the third or fourth best life gain pay off, but I really underestimated it as an enabler for life gain. Additionally, I think it being a creature is more of a boon than a cost. Being a creature makes it easy to recur and easy to justify in a deck. 17. Being Comfortable with Imperfection If there is one thing this experience taught me it is to be okay with imperfection. There is a lot of value in just building a deck without worrying about having it tuned to peak performance. It allows you to work with an idea, see its potential, and see what it is missing. After you’ve determined the fundamental pros and cons of the deck, then the tuning process can be both more constructive and, I think, more enjoyable. 18. Archidekt is an Amazing Tool There are so many great deck building tools but my favorite is Archidekt. I’ve just found it the most easy to use and every function I look for it has. 19. More Great Resources The other two tools I used most often were Scryfall and the DeckedBuilder App. Both of these tools make finding new cards and ideas so easy. 20. Does Anything Compare to Swords to Plowshares To me, Swords to Plowshares still stands alone in mono white. I think swords made it into the most decks and was often the first card I put in after structuring an initial theme. When it comes to straight creature removal, it’s creme of the crop, and that’s possibly the coldest take you’ll read today 21. I’ve Never Looked at Isochron Scepter So Much I don’t know exactly what it was this month, but I’ve never looked at Isochron Scepter more. I built several decks that prominently featured the card, and it is actually a nice source of card advantage if you’re willing to take the initial risk of a two for one. Paired with cards like Due Respect it can be a really powerful effect that a mono white deck needs. 22. Eldrazi Displacer + Cryptic Trilobite This is a pretty cool, but convoluted combo. However, the pieces to make it work are scattered all across white. The primary key is just making sure you can get two counters on the Trilobite when it enters the battlefield. With cards like Cathars’ Crusade, Anafenza the Kin Tree Spirit, and Panharmonicon you can create infinite mana to activate abilities. It’s narrow but unique, and chances are your opponents will be surprised seeing it in a mono white deck. 23. Eldrazi Displacer is also Just Really Good Blinking has some amount of relevance in white. I’m honestly not sure whether white is primary or secondary, but regardless, Displacer is one of the best options for blinking. Being mono white, you also can avoid the pitfalls of having too many or not enough colorless sources to activate it. 24. Mono White can be Fairly Cheap The average price of my Moxtober decks tended to hand around the $200 range, but I think many of them could be a lot cheaper without losing functionality. Several of mono white’s most important staples remain fairly reasonable. 25. Mono White can also be Expensive On the 30th, I made the most expensive deck I could, but even outside of that experiment, white can get expensive. While some of the staples of mono white are reasonably priced, the best cards in the color Land Tax, Archangel Avacyn, or Elesh Norn, are very expensive and the color lacks the depth to have quality budget replacements for these cards. 26. Control can Let Builds Get Weird If you want to do something weird, white definitely has the control magic to let it happen. Between board wipes, the occasional counterspell, removal, and disruption, white has the tools to prolong games. Longer games can mean weirder decks. 27. Sword of Light and Shadow is Underrated Sword of Feast and Famine gets a lot of love, and rightfully so, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the sword you should reach for first. If your deck lacks card advantage, then untapping your lands post combat may not do a whole lot. Sword of Light and shadow is a great way to return creatures to your hand which is a simple type of recursion white lacks. White’s Recursion is very strong, but simple effects like Eternal Witness can be a bit hard to come by. 28. Cycling Lands are Awesome If you’re building a mono white mana base, don’t forget the cycling lands. They negate the feel bads of getting flooded and can help you dig for action when you’re set on lands. If you do need to hit a land drop, don’t worry they still tap for mana. The final three points will be the decks I’m most excited about after the month, in no particular order. 29. Firstborn: Orim, Samite Healer This deck just seems so cool and creative and I’m excited to continue working with it. 30. Punchline: Rune-Tail Monk Tribal I’ve been wanting to build a monk tribal deck for awhile and this actually has a ton of potential. I would have never thought of mono white for monk tribal. 31. Lance: Kwende Life Gain This deck is a weird spin on a traditional mono white strategy. I think it has a lot of potential as a deck and I’m interested in fleshing it out more.
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AuthorMonoWhiteBorder -- A man who loves MtG and his small dog. Archives
June 2021
Categories"MonoWhiteBorder" and corresponding content is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.
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