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So I'm back again, with yet another version of my mono-white soldiers list. The idea is pretty simple, make enough 1/1 White Soldier Tokens such that you have ample amounts for defense until you can either get them big enough to kill someone or make them tough enough that they last and make sure no one wants to poke the bear.
This whole write up is suuuuper long cause it's mostly just for me so I can have my thoughts and ideas collected with the list so I remember what changes to try next. If you're interested in the build but the $1k+ budget seems daunting, I wrote an explanation for pretty much every single card in the deck below. So feel free to check it out if you want to see what I think works for the deck and why I picked what I did. There's also a lot of alternatives I talk about (most of which are cheaper). Also feel free to send me a message here or on my rarely used twitter (that still has notifications on) @Gio_Gio52. This deck is my baby and I'd love to talk about it.
First is mana. Since the deck is mono-color, colorless mana rocks work just fine. Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Arcane Signet and Mind Stone are no-brainers there. Thought Vessel is good just in case you get real lucky and actually manage to go over hand size, odds are this will only occur as a result of Land Tax and discarding lands is fine in that case anyway just try to hold on to 2 for your next couple turns in case Land Tax gets popped. Liquimetal Torque's second ability has some fringe uses I haven't been able to capitalize on yet, but its good to use it to take something with it if someone casts Vandalblast so try to keep it open if someone in the pod is in Red. Prismatic Lens is mostly a placeholder. Ideally you'd want Grim Monolith or possibly Lotus Blossom in that slot, but I don't think it would make a vast difference since mana isn't as much of a problem as being able to draw cards to spend said mana on. Prismatic Lens is now Everflowing Chalice, just as good early game much better late game. Felwar Stone or Fractured Powerstone are just as good options as Prismatic Lens though if you have one of those. Lastly in mana are Extraplanar Lens and Caged Sun. If you get out one of the two, you'll have an abundance of mana; get both out and you'll have too much mana and someone will pop one or both. If you find you have a ton of mana and a pair of boots, my favorite mana sink is throwing Odric at people and just recasting him. I don't currently have any other mana sink because it's a tricky balance. The deck is starved for draw, so you could slot in Book of Rass or Carnage Altar; but they require the additional resources of either life or creatures and I've yet to test how sustainable that is. Also Caged Sun used to be Gauntlet of Power. Even though I never had Gauntlet's sharing be a problem, its worth the 1 mana more with Caged Sun to make sure that no problem happens.
Draw is kinda tricky, it's not baked into the commander or really any white cards except mostly mediocre cantrips; this makes it so some games you'll see a draw option and draw cards, other times you won't and you'll have to get by with what you have and rip off the top for turn. That being said draw isn't mandatory in the deck and I do well and win games without it, which is why I'm reluctant to start cutting good useful cards for crappy draw. A lot of the time I play draw cards as an "empty hop" to bait out peoples removal because the deck can operate without it anyway. If they don't remove it, cool I get to draw. So to the cards; Rystic Buddy (Esper Sentinel) is a no-brainer, the card is bonkers. Eye of Vecna is a good stand-alone option, but a little costly; since it's optional though I've yet to have any issue if I see it. Alms Collector turns their draw into our draw, comrade. Search the Premises, Thorough Investigation and Serum Tank are all part of a psuedo draw engine that in theory works best with all pieces but also fine individually. I say in theory, because I've yet to see 2+ of the 3 in a game. Search the Premises and Thorough Investigation, work well by providing clues which are essentially 2 mana draws I can defer until optimal while also buffing up the constructs made by Urza's Saga and adding counters to Serum Tank and I can even do a little dungeon-ing too. On that, Tomb of Annihilation is kinda dogwater, Lost Mine of Phandelver is a litlle faster but not as juicy, and Dungeon of the Mad Mage is that good-good if you can actually run through it. I'd recommend just having all three just in case, it can't hurt.
Mangara, The Diplomat and Mentor of the Meek are in the sideboard as they are fresh cuts. Mentor might actually be much better with the cards I've added since as he now triggers off 9 creatures in the deck. Mangara is easy for opponents to avoid and is often ignored, I assume that's because his draw can be so sparse that 1 card here or there doesn't matter. I also previously tried Mind's Eye, it's too costly and too slow at mv6.
Similarly I recently cut Secret Rendezvous. It's not bad, it's just not synergistic. Until I can get a good draw system in place, lots of searching is the most effective way to see what I need in a game while deck thinning as well and I can't search for Secret Rendezvous. I get more deck thinning done, more consistently by replacing it with a card I can search for as opposed to randomly top decking it and saying "Cool! I get to draw 3 cards this game!" and hitting 2 lands and being disappointed in the fact i gave my opponent 3 cards they can probably utilize better.
Next is our deck thinning options. These are all the best searchers White has access to so I'll just give my recommended search targets for each:
1: Pretty much always Smothering Tithe.
2: Either Ghostly Prison or Thorough Investigation depending on if you're doing more offence or defense at that point.
3: is Urza's Saga if you have a bunch of artifacts already (those constructs win games) or Anointed Procession if you have token generators in hand
4: Any other target.
1: 99% of the time you're gonna grab Urza's Saga, It thins the deck, It can't be countered, it makes those constructs, it's a good card. If non-basic land hate is present (ie. Blood Moon) or you already have/had Urza's Saga, go for...
2: Extraplanar Lens or Darksteel Mutation if someone's non-hexproof/shroud commander is running away with the game
3: Sword of Hearth and Home or Sol Ring if you need mana and it's early game
4: See Academy Rector - 2.
5: Sword of Feast and Famine, boots, Serum Tank, or a mana rock
6: Any other target.
1: Esper Sentinel.
2: Weathered Wayfarer, then use him to dig up Urza's Saga.
1: Stoneforge Mystic. Use her to search out Sword of Hearth and Home. Then cast>equip said sword to either Recruiter of the Guard or any other throw away creature (ie. Soldier Token, Construct Token, Odric, or Precinct Captain) or Esper Sentinel to upgrade him from Rhystic Buddy to Esper Remora, attack with said equipped creature if there's either someone open or only has white/green blockers, flicker either Recruiter of the Guard and grab Grand Abolisher or Stoneforge Mystic and grab either Swiftfoot Boots or Sword of Feast and Famine.
2: If you can't get Stoneforge Mystic, get Grand Abolisher.
4: Any other target.
1: If you have another creature, Sword of Hearth and Home is best (see Recruiter of the Guard - 1) if you don't have another creature it'll cost {2} to re-equip the sword, but if you have the mana it's worth the risk.
2: If you've got time and mana go for Swiftfoot Boots. If you need to kill now, go for Lightning Greaves or Sword of Feast and Famine.
3: Conqueror's Flail
1: Sol Ring
2: Mana Vault if you need the extra {1}/need the life, or Mana Crypt for consistent mana.
1: Uzra's Saga
2: Fetch lands
3: Snow-Covered Plains (Preferably a full-art foil from Double Masters)
The card can grab a Legendary card, (Urza's) Saga, or Snow permanent and heals for 3. I cut it very recently as currently the deck only has 3 non-land targets in it with: Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, Reidane, God of the Worthy and Urza's Saga (Kozilek doesn't count) and Rune-Tail either was too late and I often already had Reidane and Urza's Saga out as they're high priority cards. Even still, the card is one of the most versatile searchers in the color and is super slept on. As soon as the deck has more legends, this card is going back in.
So I've made a considerable essay and have yet to actually touch on the tokens. This deck specifically focuses on only 1/1 White Soldier tokens, not Human, Kor, Kithkin, or Cat Soldier tokens. Why? There's a cost/benefit analysis to be made on any of these more specific tribes. The crux of it is most of their support is exclusive to their tribe, so soldier soup is too messy and inconsistent. I could augment my soldiers to one of the tribes (most likely Humans), but the problem is they don't have any support that's good enough for me to cut cards out anyway (barring one card). The deck isn't really much of a "tribal" deck in the first place, mostly because White is a garbage color and in order to not make it into mono-white stax I had to cram a lot in to maximize consistency and versatility. So we're left with 10 out of 100 cards that actually make tokens. Hopefully this can change since 2021 is kinda feeling like a good year for White and Innistrad had soldier support previously and is getting 2 sets this year, with another Dominaria set coming out in 2022 I'm hoping things start to look better for White and Soldiers.
To explain a little background on my token maker choices, I think this is an important concept to consider: when looking at a token generating card, you have to figure out your average mana/token (m/t) and likewise the stats/mana(s/m) generated. So looking at a card like Captain of the Watch, for 6 mana it makes a 3/3 and 3 1/1 tokens that equates to 1 s/m and 1 m/t which for soldier tokens is pretty good (especially if you factor in the +1/+1 and vigilance buff you get as well) when you compare it to unlimited generators like Prava of the Steel Legion, which trade value for consistency. Prava costs 3 mana to cast then costs an additional 4 mana to make a token putting token 1 at 7m/t, token 2 at 5.5m/t, 3 at 5m/t, 4 at 4.75m/t and so on with diminishing returns as m/t with Prava can never go below 4.
With that out of the way on to the card choices. Anointed Procession is a must; it's never a priority, but it really helps when it's there and hasn't been a dead draw since I started the saga of this deck 2 years ago. Call the Coppercoats and Deploy to the Front crap out a ton of Soldier Tokens at an amazing value of mv 7 each being capable of making on average 6-15+ tokens making each one only 1.17 - .47 m/t. Raise the Alarm is an instant with good value, its pretty useful in a pinch. Captains Call is worse value than Raise the Alarm and only sorcery speed, but I can't play more than 1 Raise the Alarm and that extra token becomes 2 extra with anointed procession. Knight Captain of Eos as a 2/2 only makes 2 tokens putting it at .67s/m which isn't great, but it makes up for it by being an excellent staller in a pinch with its ability to nullify combat damage which is also a great politics tool and because it can be searched by Recruiter of the Guard. Entrapment Maneuver is great, it targets the player not the creature so it's amazing against voltron players or players using one big guy to poke and you can use it on yourself in response to blockers or whatever and turn your attacker into a pile of bodies (probably while you have some kind of buff up). The 4 mana is kinda pricy, but thanks to no draw power and lots of mana you'll probably have it; I always do. Martial Coup is a 7 mana board wipe that makes 5 tokens, it's a game winner, table turner, hell of a comeback card and I love it. If x is ever gonna be less that 5, you're either already in a good spot and you're overextending or you better really need those blockers (I guess you could Akroma's Will kill the turn after you cast it, but I still wouldn't unless that next turn is guaranteed to be your last). Benalish Commander is weird, It makes tokens at a decent value of 1.5m/t if x is 4 (which is what I usually do, sometime 3), but it trickles them out 1 per turn. It can also be searched which is nice and if you have more than 3 soldiers on board already, you can just cast him regularly for a good to great s/m value. All that considered, he's better than a lot of other once per turn token generator's like Kjeldoran Outpost, but I'd be happy to replace him once a better option comes out. Last and definitely least is good ol' Precinct Captain. On paper, the card is hella slow and kinda bad, but in game he's pretty helpful and I've yet to cut him. The best use for him is as a turn 2 drop, using his first strike to dissuade blocking him early which nets you tokens. Since I've added more mana rocks, I don't think he's more useful than good ol' ramp so he's definitely on the chopping block. Slap a sword on him and he gets work done he's a free token if you have him, a token and Odric attacking.
Seems good and I want to play them, but 5 mana means they're a mid/late-game card and all they really do is cost me more mana so I can get some ETBs and tokens which opens you up to counterplay anyway. If I were to add them, it couldn't be alone. I'd probably want like 4-5 cost reducers (ie. Urza's Incubator, Herald's Horn, etc) and more main deck Soldiers (currently have 9 including Odric) in order to fully capitalize on said cost reducers. Ultimately I'd have to dilute my deck with more garbage White soldiers just to use them
I'm reluctant to give an opponent a 0/4 blocker that is also a blocker factory. On paper it's a free token for me every turn and my deck is built to better utilize them than my opponents, but the deck isn't that desperate for tokens.
See Akroan Horse.
Less mana efficient than Martial Coup, but lets me draw a card or makes 4/4 Angels with Flying. The math on the Angels works out to: 6m/t and 1.5s/m at x = 1, 4m/t and 1s/m at x = 2, 3.33m/t and 1.2s/m at x=3, and 3m/t and 1.33s/m. It scales decently and makes flyers, but with a mv of 2x+4 I can't see myself going over x = 4 at 12 mana. After I pay that 6-12 mana, I lose them all to Toxic Deluge at x=4 and Blasphemous Act, both of which are pretty mana cheap moves and the angels won't benefit from any soldier specific buffs (ie. Daru Warchief or Captain of the Watch). All of that still ignoring the fact that it's gonna either take a while to get the 10-12 mana to get an efficient use out of it, or I'm already doing great and I probably won't need it at all. I'm always considering it though; it's not terrible, I just think I need to get the deck draw capabilities to be better before I add such a high cost spell.
It's a decent card. I had it in previously, but cut it since the deck was worse with mana before and mv6 seemed like it might only come out too late. The deck has a much better mana situation now so it's looking like a pretty viable option, I'm just worried about slowing the deck down with flashy high cost cards.
At mv6 with a guaranteed 2 devotion on it, I only need 4 devotion on board prior to get that juicy 1m/t value and better if I have more. Odric is another 2 devotion I have easy access to. The card is definitely viable. It just has the same problems as Decree of Justice and Elspeth, Sun's Champion, it costs 6 mana and is a clear target for counterspells as well as not being accessible in the early game which increases the odds of having a crap opening hand with no draw options.
This card would 100% be in the deck already if it didn't cost a land to play it whilst also taking up my land for turn. If I play it early, I'm behind on a land; that's not terrible since I have 3 options in deck that could catch me up quickly. Ideally if I added it in, I'd want to also play a few more "if you have less lands than an opponent do x" cards to make sure that Kjeldoran Outpost is a painless card to play. This would also make it more logical to play other cards that sacrifice/bounce/etc. lands since they too would be safe options and I could make the catch-up cards live for longer and thin my deck more. The only caveat to that is perfecting that ratio will be super tricky and take a long time time. Too many land removal cards and not enough catch-up cards, I'll be down mana and the added effects of cards like Kjeldoran Outpost can't actually be capitalized on and my opening hands have a higher chance of being land stuck or bricking again with no reliable draw options . Too many catch-up cards and not enough land removal, greater chance at bricked hands. Not enough of each, I really get the worst of both worlds. The payoff could be great, but I'm focusing on getting draw down right now. Maybe Ver. 5 in a couple months will have some combos with lands like this in it.
On paper it makes tokens at 1m/t, which is great. Anointed Procession puts it at .5m/t, which is amazing. In order to get good juice out of this card I have two options. 1) tap out, swing out, make a bunch of tokens. Great if I have Odric out so I don't lose anything. Otherwise I'll probably just end up smashing 1/1s into blockers for not much net gain since most of the time I only really have Soldier Tokens and creatures I don't usually want to attack with out.(Grand Abolisher, Esper Sentinel, Keeper of the Accord, Stoneforge Mystic) 2) Play safe and get a smaller benefit. It's still an efficient card at 2 mana or 4; so not a bad option except the fact that it requires me to have attack-ready creatures to utilize it and if I don't, it's a dead draw. To me the true problem with this card, is that it's combotastic. Got Odric? Amazing, I can't be blocked. Got Anointed Procession? Amazing, I profit off trades. Got Knight-Captain of Eos/Rune-Tail's Essence? Amazing, my creatures won't take damage. It works so damn well in combo with a bunch of cards in the deck, but the lack of reliable draw means I may never see a card it combos with . Ya seeing a pattern here?
Decent card, could be usable. See Evangel of Heliod for more on why decent token making 6 drops are iffy.
3 drop mana sink makes tokens at 6, 4.5, 4, 3.75 and 3.6 m/t for the first 5 with diminishing returns as it gets closer to 3. It's probably the best mana sink for the deck. Strongly considering adding it. I'm just hoping I'll stumble upon a good mana sink that draws instead.
If I had a good sac outlet and other cards to reliably make tokens, it would be a good card and would probably go in the deck; especially if I had a way to recur it. Until then, 2 mana just to wait for something to die while hoping no one exiles it probably isn't a great choice.
This was actually one of the commanders for an earlier version of this deck with Akroma, Vision of Ixidor. It was a token shitting keyword-soup deck and it was pretty bad, but it could work if all the important cards weren't mv6+. Anyway Prava isn't very mana efficient in terms of token generation, but she gives your tokens pretty fat asses on your turn, add another +1/+1 anthem in and your 1/1 Soldier tokens are now 3/6 Chungus tokens and it's pretty good for bullying the hell out of people. This comes with the drawback of forcing your opponents to do math before you become unstoppable, which typically results in getting hit with Toxic Deluge or Cyclonic Rift and losing it all. Slap a Helm of the Host on Prava though, that's some funny stuff, it should be a deck of its own. Notice Prava's effect doesn't say "other creature tokens you control". So just 1 token by itself is a 2/8 on your turn, 2 of them are 3/12s, 3 of them are 4/16s and so on. It's a good laugh. Overall since Prava's buff is only on my turn Odric is a straight upgrade in every way since the tokens don't need fat asses if they're not getting blocked and they get to hit face very reliably.
See Evangel of Heliod. Hoplite only has 1 devotion built in instead of Evangel's 2; so you still need 4 devotion on board to get to 1m/t. It being mv5 makes it slightly better and it I am considering it more than some of the other cards here, but I'm not sure 1 mana solves its problems. If it had 2 devotion built in, it'd be a no brainer to add it.
On their own the 2 tokens having lifelink doesn't matter since they'll either heal me for 1 life each and die to blockers or sit around and die as blockers. Obviously they slot nicely between the mv2 Raise the alarm and the mv3 Captain's Call, but Sworn Companions isn't an instant and doesnt net me 2 extra bodies with Anointed Processioin. It could go in the deck, but the deck isn't hurting for a mv3 sorcery that makes 2 1/1s when that card slot could go to something else. I might cut Precinct Captain for it, but it needs testing to see if it feels better.
Once per turn, 2 mana, discard 1 to make a token is really tempting. It's also a target for Ranger Captain of Eos, and puts me closer to possibly adding Ranger of Eos. It's almost got everything it needs to slot perfectly into the deck, except that pesky "Discard a card". This card essentialy won't work unless I have Land Tax, its effect isn't sustainable otherwise. Since I put a lot of work into picking cards that do well on their own, usually the only dead cards in my hands are any quantity of lands over 2. It would be nice if White had access to more than 2 madness abilities, but nah.
One mana, Once per turn for a token is pretty good. It being mv4 isn't bad. It's an artifact so there are options to untap it if I wanted to add them, they would work with the mana rocks too. The other artifacts aren't worth playing. Artifact search in the deck is currently 1 card and there are higher priority cards than Scepter/Crown of Empires. You could add Oswald Fiddlebender, but in the 99, even with Recuiter of the Guard to dig him out, It's a ton of hoops to jump through and 3 possible dead-ish draws; it just doesn't seem worth it.
Too many opportunities for it to be a dead card.
I feel like the Equipment I have here are kind of all no-brainers, there's probably more questions about the equipment I'm not playing. The only equipment in the deck that may not be immediately obvious why it's there is Conqueror's Flail. It stops interaction (ie. counterspells) and is essentially a second Grand Abolisher that can be searched by more cards and doesn't die to creature removal.
As to why there's only 5 and these 5, is that these equipment essentially do what the deck wants and don't clog anything up. Sword of the Animist would be more ramp and deck thinning and Sword of Fire and Ice gives a creature pro Blue/Red and gives me some of that coveted draw, those are usually the first two suggested to me and they are even in the maybeboard; I just can't find anything I'd want to cut for them.
Currently with 5 equipment in the deck my odds of seeing 1 in my opening hand is roughly 50/50. Add to that Stoneforge Mystic and Enlightened Tutor as pseudo-equipment and if you really wanna stretch it to Recruiter of the Guard counting as a pseudo-Stoneforge Mystic (aka a pseudo-pseudo-equipment), then I've got really good odds to see either 1 equipment or a route to an equipment in my opening hand and really good odds to see either by turn 3 when it actually matters. All the equipment are essentially equal in terms of in game value; boots provide safety from White, Green, Black, and to a minor extent Blue as most of their removal is single target. Red does a lot wide damage, but except for Blasphemous act, it's usually not a big burn so my thiccer creatures can usually hold up against it and they definitely can with a sword. Tokens aren't as resilient, but I don't care about them, I can make more and protect them somewhat with anthems and cards like Valkmira, Protector's Shield.
I chose Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Hearth and Home over Sword of Fire and Ice because Blue and Red are limited in how they can stop me. Blue will usually only Pongify my creatures or Cyclonic Rift my board, otherwise their control comes from counterspells; hence the 4 silence-adjacent spells, Grand Abolisher, Conqueror's Flail, and Mana Tithe. As for Red I really only have to worry about Blasphemous Act, Vandalblast, Jeska, Thrice Reborn, Chaos Warp and the odd Lightning Bolt here and there, most decks with Red I've seen only use Red for wheels and gas.
There's other equipment I could use too. I'm interested in some of the on hit > draw a card equips, but they just don't seem worth messing with the current consistency and blowing the mana on. Skullclamp may also seem like an obvious pick, but if I have one of my 5 anthems out it becomes pretty useless (as much as I wish I could use it well). Strata Scythe is another one that looks good with how ramp focused a lot of the deck is and since I only functionally have 1 non-basic land and it even thins a land out of my deck, but it's kind of a win-harder card to me. If I'm on defense it wouldn't be a bad top deck, but if I top deck Stoneforge Mystic then I wouldn't search it out. On the flipside if I'm in control, it offers me no protection besides one good blocker in a deck designed to be a blocker factory. Essentially that's what I looked for in the equipments I kept in the deck, good offense and good defense so it always has a use.
So this section is pretty brain dead compared to all the overthinking I've done in the other sections. Return to Dust, Path to Exile, and Swords to Plowshares are all good single target, instant speed removal, they slow down or straight up stop players who rely on a single permanent. Austere Command is a nice, flexible board wipe. I went over Entrapment Maneuver and Martial Coup in the tokens section, but they essentially cover angles the other cards in this section don't and give me tokens too. Darksteel Mutation is the second best way to remove a commander (the first best way being to combo Opalescence and Out of Time for permanent removal that doesn't target). Armageddon is either an amazing way to ensure you win a game if you're way ahead or a good "oh shit" button that will bring the game to a screeching halt if used following a board wipe. When your friends complain about how you just extended the game another 10 turns and everyone else's deck is out of gas, you can laugh as most of your deck is still there because you have no draw power. If the tears in your smug aren't salty enough, you can always offer to remove Armageddon from your decks if they remove Cyclonic Rift from theirs. You may not make friends this way, but they're blue players; nothing was lost.
So I use the word protection loosely, but these cards all exist in the deck primarily so you don't lose. First up are the silences. Silence, this card can either be used as an emergency one-turn Grand Abolisher, to nullify most of an opponents turn, or as a way to stop someone's combo. I'd say the best practice with Silence-like spells is to try to wait to cast it in response to a flash mana. Players who have cards like Dark Ritual, Jeska's Will, or the big one, Mana Geyser, usually try to play them first to save their lands for last; that's when you'd ideally want to cast your silence. If you're at risk of losing though, Throwing it out as they attempt to enter the precombat main phase or in response to an ability that triggers in upkeep is fine too. The other silences are all pretty much the same except for Orim's Chant. Orim's Chant is actually the Uno Skip card and is a great card to essentially get a free turn when the pod becomes a 1v1, but they kind of all are.
Next is the indestructible set. Make a Stand, Akroma's Will, Flawless Maneuver and Teferi's Protection pretty much all say you don't get board-wiped until end of turn. This does not apply to Toxic Deluge or Cyclonic Rift except in the case of Teferi's Protection, that card essentially saves you from everything. Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant is a goofy card that gives your creatures pseudo-indestructible if you cast it while at 30+ life. Your creatures can still be destroyed by things that just say "destroy x card" or whatever, but they don't take damage. What's great about Rune-Tail is that he essentially nullifies trample and lifelink against you because your opponents creatures don't actually deal any damage.
The leftovers are all over the place and don't make for an easy category
Gideon's Sacrifice is a cute card that redirects all damage to one creature for the turn, this is usually a soldier token. If you're in a 1v1 and you guys are both out of gas and it's a top deck slug fest, you can just not block when your opponent swings out his whole board and just cast Gideon's Sacrifice on a token and he'll take all the damage for you and you didn't have to trade your board to survive. Trample also doesn't go around this because trample damage is determined at the same time as combat damage so the overflow trample damage will still be redirected to the target of Gideon's Sacrifice before it dies.
Ghostly Prison makes it so usually no one attacks you until like turn 5 or 6 sometimes later depending on your opponents and their decks, but generally 2 mana per attack is too pricey for people who want mana open to respond to things, Blue players and Green are more likely to attack you though since they have free counterspells and good mana ramp respectively.
Chalice of the Void is your anti-Cyclonic Rift card. I'd recommend pretty much always casting it with x = 2 especially if there's a Blue player in the pod. If there's no Blue player, you can get creative; snipe someone's commander if it's mana value is weird, just don't make x 3 or 4. You may think "Wait. This deck has 15 mv2 spells, I'll brick myself doing that!" Don't worry you'll be fine, hitting mv2 pretty much ruins everyone's deck unless they're playing something pretty unusual. Chalice of the Void will either only last a few turns before someone get out the Reclamation Sage or you dropped it after getting rolling and you don't need any of those 2 drops anyway; just steamroll the pod with all your 3 and 4 drops and you'll be golden.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth exists solely to give the deck near immunity to the Painter's Servant / Grindstone combo. He also draws 4 cards for only 10 mana!! Sadly, 2.5 mana per draw is pretty great for Mono-White.
Reidane, God of the Worthy // Valkmira, Protector's Shield is in my opinion, a super slept on card. The creature side turns your opponent's non-creature 4 drops into 6 drops. It's oddly specific, but 4 mana still hit big cards like Aetherflux Resevoir and provides some serious slow down. The artifact side (my favorite) adds really good survivability to you an your board. It Mana Tithes anything that targets you or your permanents and reduces any damage to you or your permanents by 1. That may not sound like a lot but it means that if an opponent wants to burn you or your creatures with Jeska, Thrice Reborn, its gonna cost them 3 mana to do all three and each hit is reduced by 1 and that 3 damage can matter. I played someone whos deck relied on blasting a ton of intances of 1 damage with cards like Impact Tremors and they just couldn't touch me until they Chaos warped the shield away (which cost them an extra mana), and by that point, I had 7 8/8 Soldiers with vigilance and I just pummeled him off the table (I literally grabbed him by the shirt and just kept punching him in the face. He thought he'd get away with dropping impact tremors on the guy who's $2000 deck relies on 1/1s and I took that personally).
Last is Grand Abolisher. This Giga-Chad says when its your turn, it's your turn. He keeps you and all your crappy, inefficient, over-costed White spells safe so you can comfortably blow 7 mana on Deploy to the Front and slam 15 tokens on the board and get an absolutely gigantic dopamine rush as your opponents scramble to find their Cyclonic Rifts before you slam 33 damage down their throats laughing as you pretend to consider whether or not to choose to force them to block with Thassa's Oracle. No, it never gets old.
As far as alternative options go for protection cards, there's a ton of possible cards. The only card I might want to slot in right now is Rootborn Defenses, more board wide indestructibility and the "populate" keyword so I can make another Soldier or Construct. Glory is such a cool idea on paper, it's grave ability can be used to protect from board wipes or to make your creatures unblockable. That's all only on paper though, as I never saw it in 30+ games since I added it and it's now been cut. If I end up deciding the best option for drawing the deck is mostly cards with "draw 1, discard 1" type effects due to the fact they're usually more readily available than raw draw, than I'll add Glory back in.
When considering protection options, you want something cheap on mana that covers as much of your board as possible. You should also focus on varying your sources. Rune-Tail enters as a creature and becomes and artifact, which dances around a good number of removal options. Valkmira and Chalice of the Void are artifacts, Ghostly Prison is an enchantment, Grand Abolisher is a creature, the rest are instants and I make up for their vulnerability to counterplay by having multiple cards that do the same thing (ie. 4 indestructible sources and 4 silences). I think the cards I currently have are pretty much the best picks for each of their use cases and so this section of the deck is the least likely to change.
Play Cathars' Crusade before you play your token makers. Daru Warchief can be searched by Recruiter of the Guard and makes Odric cheaper while giving soldiers +1/+2. It's not bad, considering cutting it, not sure, Its never gotten in the way. Intangible Virtue is good, Daru Warchief might become that soon.
I've gone through a ton of these, so I'm not gonna make a big list of what I think are the best ones. I'm just gonna talk about my experience with anthems and the logic I use when trying to pick them. The problem is typically that good anthems are usually costly and very clearly powerful, thus rendering them likely to catch counterspells, Reclamation Sages and the like. So the options we're left with are essentially: 1) hope you can sneak a powerful anthem in with cards like Academy Rector and risk having your eggs (power) in one basket or 2) vary your sources and spread out your buffs such that they're difficult to remove and easy to replace. Option 2 does come at the consequence of deck space though and in order to reliably get access to +4/+4 (pretty much the minimum for Soldier Tokens to matter, depending on the number of them) and more, you have to sacrifice either consistency or versatility. Currently I've taken the middle ground by spreading out small to medium buffs through a good mix of sources. Cathar's Crusade gives +1/+1 counters so its okay if it dies eventually, Coat of Arms and Caged Sun are Artifacts, Daru Warchief and Captain of the Watch are creatures and Akroma's Will and Make a Stand are instants. Mixing it up makes it so you don't just die to any one color. Blue has trouble stopping volume/quantity and creatures, Green can't stop instants/sorceries, Red can't stop enchanments, and Black can't stop artifacts or enchantments. White can stop all of them, but aside from Austere Command which a lot of decks with White don't play; most of White's options are too specific or costly and don't get played. So typically decks with White will mostly just be playing the good single target removal which can't beat volume/quantity (or hexproof). Of course all this only matters in deck building, because Mono-White has doo-doo draw power and you essentially just have to throw everything you get and hope it sticks.
Urza's Saga is a good card, always make the construct. Remember that the effect that gives it a counter is a triggered ability, so in response to it triggering, tap it to either float the colorless or pay the {2} and make a second construct.
The fetches certainly aren't necessary if you're on a budget, but they do help squeeze a little more juice out of your deck.
I don't really play any other non-basics because they don't seem worth it and I haven't gotten the deck to the point where playing with my lands for weird fringe options would be worth it. Token generating lands aren't usually worth the mana, War Room functionally costs 4 mana and a life to draw a land 30% of the time and doesn't even tap for {W} {W}. Bazaar of Baghdad is probably a good choice, I need to get one. Otherwise here's a list of non-basics I'm considering, but not very strongly, because most of these are just weird mana sinks:
* : Seems more viable than others
If you're not using foil full-art Snow-Covered Plains from Double Masters, you're not a real mono-white player. Also, don't use regular plains otherwise you're gonna give any other white player at the table a mana buff with Extraplanar Lens and they will use it to Swords to Plowshares your Grand Abolisher and you're legally required to say "Thank you".
Daru Warchief - He's bottom priority for a Recruiter of the Guard search and I barely utilize his cost reduction outside of Odric, 1 maybe 2 mana saved doesn't really make up for his cost of 4. His +1/+2 anthem is his most useful function, but there are options for +1/+1s that do more.
Precinct Captain - I added him prior to adding Mana Vault, Mind Stone, Liquimetal Torque, Thought Vessel, and Prismatic Lens. Those are all higher priorities as a turn 2 play. Outside of that early aggression, he's either too weak for me to recover from a losing position or not impactful in an advantageous position he just kinda feels like a waste of a draw for turn.
Academy Rector - She can be super useful, if she dies. Since sacrificing isn't integrated into my deck and she's a 1/2 non-Soldier, no one blocks her when she attacks. So my only option is to just kinda hope to block something with her, which is slow as hell and I run a serious risk of getting exiled and not getting anything out of my 4 mana. So either I add Carnage Alter and Phyrexian Vault and by extension, more token makers or she's not very useful
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant // Rune-Tail's Essence - It's my best out to trample and pretty much the best option as far giving my board something close to indestructible for more than one turn unless I add Avacyn, Angel of Hope which costs more than twice as much mana. The problem is he doesn't give indestructible and my board is still open to non-Red board wipes and since I cut the decks life gain engine, he's a dead draw way more often. The solution might look like I just need to add back some life gain, but the deck is designed to make blockers. I only really take damage in two ways, Mana Crypt or a hit post board wipe. Outside of that I usually only lose to kill combos like Aetherflux Resevoir and commander damage, neither of which life gain helps with. So back to my damage sources, I'm not cutting Mana Crypt and Rune-Tail isn't useful after I've already had my board wiped. Overall I don't have a better option and even though he's not always live, I'll have to keep him until I find a replacement.
Chalice of the Void and Mana Tithe - These cards seem to be perpetually on the verge of getting cut. Chalice is mostly utilized by just being an effective slow down and Mana Tithe is a bad card, but then they both come in handy in situations that I don't have a replacement for yet and they usually stick around.
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| Compare | Revision | Created | By | |||
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| » | Revision 13 | October 12, 2021 | GioGio52 | |||
| Revision 11 | October 4, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
| Revision 10 | September 22, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
| Revision 9 | September 22, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
| Revision 8 | September 22, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
| Revision 7 | September 19, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
| Revision 6 | September 6, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
| Revision 5 | September 6, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
| Revision 4 | August 30, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
| Revision 3 | August 30, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
| Revision 2 | August 30, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
| Revision 1 | August 30, 2021 | GioGio52 | ||||
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