Mono-White Control

[Valtrix]

Hey everybody, I haven't really played any modern before. However, seeing that there is some local modern but no legacy in my area, I thought it might be fun to give it a shot. Since I didn't want to invest too much into the format, I thought mono-white control would be a good start since I have a lot of things from playing Quinn in legacy and mono-colored decks can be built much cheaper than multicolored, in general.

As with any control deck you need to know what the metagame will be. I've been looking at some lists and metagame analyses and to me it seems to be a large (maybe 1/2 to 2/3) portion of aggro, a healthy amount of combo decks, and control here or there, so I think mono-white control might be a viable option. That said, I don't know much about the format so I'd like some feedback whether mono-white would be a viable strategy or not. For reference, I put together the following list as a starting point which looks pretty good to me. I will put some of my thoughts after the list about what I really like about it:

// 32 control
4x Path to Exile
3x Sunlance

4x Runed Halo
4x Wall of Omens
3x Journey to Nowhere

4x Oblivion Ring
3x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Idyllic Tutor
1x Nevermore
1x Story Circle

1x Leyline of Sanctity

// 4 Win-cons
3x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Luminarch Ascension

// 24 Land
16x Snow-Covered Plains
3x Scrying Sheets
3x Mouth of Ronom
2x Urza's Factory

//15 Sideboard
3x Nevermore
3x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Spellskite
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Rest in Peace
3x Open slots

Path to Exile: Perhaps a controversial card, as the basic is certainly not what our deck wants to be giving our opponent. However, there is not any good instant speed removal in white, so Path really helps deal with many of the creature based combo strategies.

Sunlance: Basically the same reason as Path. This card is certainly weaker, but instant speed removal is tough to find.

Runed Halo: This of course should be a 4-of. Protects against every kind of strategy for 2cc is good enough in my book, although it can also generate some advantage over time if your opponent gets multiple of the same threat.

Idyllic Tutor: This is something often overlooked by people that I think is actually particularly powerful. This lets you find crucial enchantments for particular matchups. It's a bit slow, but I think the flexibility is more than worth it. Not only that, but it doubles as a win-condition later when you can go fetch luminarch ascension, and in a slow deck like this it's important to have access to many win-conditions to win in a timely manner.

Ensnaring Bridge: This helps stop the large creature strategies quickly, while allowing to setup a "lock" against decks that want to win with creatures later. We also want to win with creatures, but can easily play around bridge to setup a kill ourselves.

Snow mana-base: I really like the snow mana-base because of the utility of scrying sheets and mouth of ronom. I think you can easily afford these colorless lands in a mono-colored deck.

Urza's Factory: Very slow, but there should be enough white lands and this gives access to more ways to end the game. I also like win-condition diversity.

Sideboard
This is mostly geared toward non-aggro strategies, as the main is built to handle creatures first and foremost because they seem to represent a large portion of the meta.

Leyline of Sanctity: This is great at stopping anything that wants to target you, obviously. I'm not exactly sure if it's really necessary for the board, but it seemed like a nice answer.

Spellskite: This card I first thought of as quick answer to the splinter twin combo decks, since you can redirect the enchantment onto spellskite. Then I realized that against non-aggro strategies you can bring this in to protect your other hate cards, since most removal that people play against us will hit both creatures and enchantments. He might not be as good as I think, but I really like him.

Nevermore: Concession to combo style decks again. It's also a nice catch-all in my opinion, since we might run into decks which have cards that we really don't want to see resolve, and this is pretty much the only way to stop those cards in white.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think. Is this a valid strategy in the modern format?

[radiowave]

I appreciate the idea of this deck. I have not played with anything similar in mono-white before so I'm speculating a bit, but a few things occur to me as I look at your list.

1. Sunlance actually seems like a reasonable fit as additional one-mana removal after Path to Exile. I like that it kills Deathrite turn 1 and Dark Confidant turn 2 without any questions asked, unlike alternatives such as Condemn. However, I would at least be curious to test some split of Sunlance versus Dismember. The latter has the advantage of being able to kill goyfs sometimes (whereas Sunlance can almost never do that) as well as disrupting creature-based combos from Twin and Pod. I know Dismember's life payment is a nuisance and can sometimes leave it uncastable in your hand, but I've played the card a lot in UW midrange/control type decks and the advantages tend to outweigh the drawback there. My instinct would be to play 4 Path/2 Sunlance/1 Dismember, for what it's worth. Either way the lance seems like a good find for filling out the removal package.

2. The Scrying Sheets card-draw engine is a pretty nice one, especially in a format like Modern where good card drawing and long-term card advantage mechanisms outside of planeswalkers are hard to find. However, my question is what it costs you in terms of your Tron matchups. I don't know that mono-white has a good way to keep Tron from assembling their ramp preboard other than Tec Edges and Ghost Quarters. After boarding you can try things like Stony Silence to clunk them up, but your permanent-based control seems very vulnerable to being Karned away and eventually annihilated by Emrakul. Options I can think of off the top of my head are just giving up on having a decent Tron matchup (which I don't really like since the deck is fairly popular), changing the manabase to include some number of Tectonic Edges and/or Ghost Quarters, or playing some number of those lands plus Stony Silence in the board (with the ability to board out probably Mouth of Ronom and Urza's Factory to make room). I would consider going to one Urza's Factory to make space for a Tec Edge/Ghost Quarter main anyway, just because you'd only want to draw one Factory in a game anyway and there are plenty of manlands you might want to be able to destroy as well.

3. Speaking of Karn, part of me would be tempted to play one either in the main or the side of this deck as a catch-all against permanents. This deck really looks like it needs to take pretty close to full control of a game to win since it doesn't have much of a clock, and in such decks Karn can be a good hedge against whatever threatening permanents your opponent might bring. As an added bonus, he can serve as an alternate win condition himself.

4. Play Stony Silence sideboard. I don't think you can afford to not have them against Affinity or Tron. I mentioned them earlier but looking at the list again I think you're asking for a lot of trouble if you don't carry some.

Good luck with the deck!

[Phoenix Ignition]

I don't think it's a valid strategy. Your win conditions are too slow for Modern, and giving any deck like 20 turns will probably result in a loss. Going off of recent metagame numbers (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25804-Modern-Metagame&p=776225&viewfull=1#post776225), here's what you could expect.


15% Jund: This matchup seems bad, even with your emphasis on removal. They play discard + Abrupt Decay + Maelstrom Pulse and possibly more cards like Golgari Charm in the sideboard. Hitting something early with Path to Exile accelerates their gameplan, and your only real stop to their cards is Ensnaring Bridge. Deathrite Shaman doesn't target, so you'd have to even worry about that. Diversity of threats means Nevermore and Runed Halo don't do that much work (especially combined with their ability to kill one at opportune moments). Even if they don't hit the cards that are specifically good against your deck, they can easily win off of a turn 1 Deathrite Shaman, turn 2 Liliana.

10% Affinity: Control should be fine against affinity, but it isn't ever a 100% matchup. Affinity sometimes just drops 7 cards on the table turn 1 and you have to be able to deal with it before you die. Removal is great, but you need to have the right ones at the right time (Ravager or Cranial Plating are big problems for Ensnaring Bridge).

8% RG Tron: I don't think you could win a single match against Tron if you playtested for a week. They have Oblivion Stone to just take out any preemptive stuff you play, and can always Karn you to death. They even have Enchantment hate out of the sideboard. Some play All is Dust.

14.5% Twin/Pod: The creature combos can kill quick, have redundant threats, and ways of bouncing/killing unwanted permanents. It's possible you can beat them, but I don't know how much better than 50/50.

And less used decks. I don't think mono colored control is that viable in modern, but I think if I were to try one I'd go blue since it gives you some of the annoying counterspells + Vedalken Shackles. Batterskull and Wurmcoil Engine are decent win conditions that fit into any color shell and give you more immediate stabilizing effects. The problem about stuff like Nevermore and Runed Halo is that more often than not the decks you'd want it against the most are decks that also have some way of dealing with them if necessary.

All of that said, for a mono white control deck I'd be running Rest in Peace maindeck (it takes out the 15% of Jund goyf/deathrites, does a lot against 6.5% of Pod, annihilates UR storm, and shuts down the card advantage engine of Snapcaster in any deck running it). I've had mixed feelings about it, but would recommend some number of Blind Obedience. It's great against Burn (4%), slows down Tron (10%) by multiple turns since they can't just play and crack all their artifacts, slows down the use of Pod a ton, and makes any Twin/Pod infinite creature combo have to wait until the end of your turn to go off, which generally will give you enough time to do something about it. It doubles as a win condition against everything, and against any fair decks gives you a pretty decent life swing to race with.

[Davran]

I don't think it's a valid strategy. Your win conditions are too slow for Modern, and giving any deck like 20 turns will probably result in a loss. Going off of recent metagame numbers (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25804-Modern-Metagame&p=776225&viewfull=1#post776225), here's what you could expect.


15% Jund: This matchup seems bad, even with your emphasis on removal. They play discard + Abrupt Decay + Maelstrom Pulse and possibly more cards like Golgari Charm in the sideboard. Hitting something early with Path to Exile accelerates their gameplan, and your only real stop to their cards is Ensnaring Bridge. Deathrite Shaman doesn't target, so you'd have to even worry about that. Diversity of threats means Nevermore and Runed Halo don't do that much work (especially combined with their ability to kill one at opportune moments). Even if they don't hit the cards that are specifically good against your deck, they can easily win off of a turn 1 Deathrite Shaman, turn 2 Liliana.

10% Affinity: Control should be fine against affinity, but it isn't ever a 100% matchup. Affinity sometimes just drops 7 cards on the table turn 1 and you have to be able to deal with it before you die. Removal is great, but you need to have the right ones at the right time (Ravager or Cranial Plating are big problems for Ensnaring Bridge).

8% RG Tron: I don't think you could win a single match against Tron if you playtested for a week. They have Oblivion Stone to just take out any preemptive stuff you play, and can always Karn you to death. They even have Enchantment hate out of the sideboard. Some play All is Dust.

14.5% Twin/Pod: The creature combos can kill quick, have redundant threats, and ways of bouncing/killing unwanted permanents. It's possible you can beat them, but I don't know how much better than 50/50.

And less used decks. I don't think mono colored control is that viable in modern, but I think if I were to try one I'd go blue since it gives you some of the annoying counterspells + Vedalken Shackles. Batterskull and Wurmcoil Engine are decent win conditions that fit into any color shell and give you more immediate stabilizing effects. The problem about stuff like Nevermore and Runed Halo is that more often than not the decks you'd want it against the most are decks that also have some way of dealing with them if necessary.

All of that said, for a mono white control deck I'd be running Rest in Peace maindeck (it takes out the 15% of Jund goyf/deathrites, does a lot against 6.5% of Pod, annihilates UR storm, and shuts down the card advantage engine of Snapcaster in any deck running it). I've had mixed feelings about it, but would recommend some number of Blind Obedience. It's great against Burn (4%), slows down Tron (10%) by multiple turns since they can't just play and crack all their artifacts, slows down the use of Pod a ton, and makes any Twin/Pod infinite creature combo have to wait until the end of your turn to go off, which generally will give you enough time to do something about it. It doubles as a win condition against everything, and against any fair decks gives you a pretty decent life swing to race with.

+1 to all of this. Well said.

I played modern death and taxes for a while, which I think is a more "stable" mono-white strategy...but it's still very far from tier 1.

A few suggestions:

1. More than one Rest in Peace. This card wins games in this format. It hoses jund, pod, storm, and is somewhat effective vs. the myriad Snapcaster Mage decks floating around (UWR tempo/control, UR Delver etc.). For some reason, people tend not to pack much by way of enchantment hate in their boards, so it often sticks around for way longer than it should.

2. Blind Obedience. Splinter Twin is rising in popularity at the moment, and this buys you an extra draw step. It's also somewhat reasonable if you're facing down Burn/RDW as Ball Lightning, Spark Elemental, and Hellspark Elemental are all completely dead. Spellskite serves some of the same purpose here, but Twin players are used to seeing Spellskite so they're more likely to be prepared to deal with it via Path/Ancient Grudge.

3. Celestial Purge. Liliana of the Veil is a card that control decks rarely ever want to see stick around. Your creature base consists of Walls and Elspeth tokens, which are terrible at answering a resolved Liliana.

4. Stony Silence. This is great vs. Tron and Affinity. Your tron match-up seems particularly abysmal, so this might be a reasonable inclusion.

5. Scrying Sheets is cute, but it's also really slow. The same goes for Mouth of Ronom. By the time you have 6 lands in play to pop some dork for 4, you're going to be very close to dead. Personally, I'd do away with the snow land bit and look to include some number of Horizon Canopy and Tectonic Edge. If you're really looking for a man-land effect, Mutavault is a much easier to activate than Urza's Factory. You could also use something like Forbidding Watchtower since it blocks Treetop Village and friends like a champ.

[Arsenal]

@ Valtrix

Check your PMs for Modern/Legacy action in Milwaukee. Also, if you're new to Modern and don't want to spend a ton of money on a deck, Affinity is certainly the most competitive option for you. It's relatively cheap and it's very competitive. Although if you want to stick to this route, then I'd suggest playing some number of Wrath of God. Ensnaring Bridge is nice, but when the billion BGx decks start Abrupt Decaying your protection artifact/enchantments away at the end of your turn and swing for lethal, that will suck. It's reasonable to fit 2 Wraths in there somewhere, maybe cutting a Bridge and a Runed Halo.

[Valtrix]

Thanks for the feedback all. I haven't got to test any actual matchups, but just did some goldfishing to see how games tend to play out.

@radiowave: I agree that Dismember is probably better than some number of sunlance. Being able to hit things with more than 3 toughness (like deceiver exarch or tarmogoyf) is pretty good. Plus, the colorless mana is actually really nice if you end up getting strained for white to cast multiple turns. I think 1 sunlance/2 Dismember should be good, as then I should almost never draw two.

Karn seems pretty slow, since I have no ramp, but stony silence does seem great. It should help deal with tron, which looks like an abysmal matchup. Would Aven Mindcensor be any good at helping against them? It's a slow clock, but might severely limit their options too. Ensnaring bridge certainly helps here, but they do have several cards as removal for it. Still looking at options to help deal with this deck, nothing has really popped out as spectacular to me.

@Phoenix Ignition: I think you're underestimating some things, as mono-white can actually be pretty flexible if built right. Obviously I will have to test many games before I can say anything for certain though.

Rest in Peace in the main is highly risky. I might consider one to tutor for, but I think it will not be as useful as it appears. Kind of how I feel about it in legacy, actually.

I don't really get how Blind Obedience actually does anything. Hoping to win off casting 20 spells is incredibly unlikely. Less if I get multiples, but the damage still seems unreliable. The main thing is that it's not really answering anything directly, and without a (fast) clock to back it up I don't feel like the deck will be able to take advantage of slowing down other decks that much. It might be something to consider for the side though, I'll have to test it out when I get a chance to play.

@Davran: I think I will increase the number of rest in peaces, as I have room already. It's useful vs. Jund, but not back breaking and good against Pod decks for sure.

As mentioned above, I'm not completely sold on Blind obedience, but I might have to try it out. I do have a decent amount of answers for twin decks with 4x Path, 3x Sunlance/Dismember for direct removal, 4x Runed Halo to stop all their copied creatures, Tutor for nevermore (on the play), Spellskites + nevermore from the sideboard to help out against the splinter twin aura itself. Game 1 certainly seems in their favor though. I will have to play to see how things turn out.

I'll see if I can get some more versatile answers for Liliana, since the decks that play her have ways to deal with my answers for her. That said, I don't necessarily mind trading 1 for 1 with her discard.

As for the snow-lands, I think they definitely merit testing. When playing out some hands I noticed that the deck isn't utilizing mana past the 4th land pretty much at all. Scrying sheets gives a way to take advantage of excess mana to gain card advantage, and ronom stabilizes the mana base, while turning into a business card at 6 lands when I no longer need it to play my spells. I think both are actually quite useful, but will monitor this. I like the idea of some land destruction, but except against tron it doesn't feel that exciting to me. Mutavault may be easier to activate than factory, but it doesn't actually win the game in the long term. Going to reduce factory to a 1-of or maybe cut altogether, depending on how diverse I need my win conditions to be.

@Arsenal: Thanks for the information, this has helped a lot! I won't be building affinity though because I hate that deck, and while it may be "cheap" it's more expensive than monowhite and plays less cards that I actually want. I agree that wrath would be nice, as I was checking out how many answers decks have to enchantments and between decay and pulse the BGx decks have quite a few ways to deal with them, so end of turn destruction is highly annoying.

Current adjustments I made, although no actual games played thus far:

// Lands
4 [CS] Scrying Sheets
4 [CS] Mouth of Ronom
15 [CS] Snow-Covered Plains
1 [TSP] Urza's Factory

// Creatures
4 [CMD] Wall of Omens

// Spells
1 [PLC] Sunlance
1 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 [7E] Ensnaring Bridge
3 [ZEN] Luminarch Ascension
1 [M12] Gideon Jura
4 [MOR] Idyllic Tutor
1 [ISD] Nevermore
3 [ZEN] Journey to Nowhere
4 [DDG] Oblivion Ring
1 [9E] Story Circle
4 [SHM] Runed Halo
2 [NPH] Dismember
4 [CFX] Path to Exile

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [7E] Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 1 [ZEN] Luminarch Ascension
SB: 3 [ISD] Nevermore
SB: 3 [ISD] Stony Silence
SB: 2 [RTR] Rest in Peace
SB: 4 [NPH] Spellskite
SB: 1 [GTC] Blind Obedience

[Phoenix Ignition]

Thanks for the feedback all. I haven't got to test any actual matchups, but just did some goldfishing to see how games tend to play out.

@Phoenix Ignition: I think you're underestimating some things, as mono-white can actually be pretty flexible if built right. Obviously I will have to test many games before I can say anything for certain though.

Current adjustments I made, although no actual games played thus far:


You have some strong opinions for not having played the deck at all. And for being new to modern. While I find your feedback entertaining, the best thing for you to do is play some games, even against cockatrice players, and you'll understand why everyone is saying this isn't very viable.

[Alfy]

I'm sorry to say I'm also very, very sceptical this kind of prison deck is viable in Modern :really: But if you want to give it a try, I think you should start by removing the Luminarch Ascensions (way too slow), Story Circle and probably Ensnaring Bridge: not as good as you think it is considering your hand does not come down particularly fast and there's a lot of artefact removal in the format. Look maybe at Ghostly Prison instead. Also, too many Journey to Nowhere/Oblivion Ring, especially as you already have Idyllic Tutor, I'd rather have a couple of Wraths to reset the board.

Remember that Back to Nature and Fracturing Gust are common sideboard cards in Modern that just happen to utterly destroy your deck, so don't be surprised when these cards come up.

[Davran]

I don't really get how Blind Obedience actually does anything. Hoping to win off casting 20 spells is incredibly unlikely. Less if I get multiples, but the damage still seems unreliable. The main thing is that it's not really answering anything directly, and without a (fast) clock to back it up I don't feel like the deck will be able to take advantage of slowing down other decks that much. It might be something to consider for the side though, I'll have to test it out when I get a chance to play.

As mentioned above, I'm not completely sold on Blind obedience, but I might have to try it out. I do have a decent amount of answers for twin decks with 4x Path, 3x Sunlance/Dismember for direct removal, 4x Runed Halo to stop all their copied creatures, Tutor for nevermore (on the play), Spellskites + nevermore from the sideboard to help out against the splinter twin aura itself. Game 1 certainly seems in their favor though. I will have to play to see how things turn out.

The extort on Blind Obedience is mostly just a bonus as the game wears on...the card would still be playable without it. Thinking of it as a pseudo-win condition is silly.

You're also putting way too much stock in Path to Exile. Any reasonably competent Twin player will start to play around Path as soon as you lay your first plains. Sunlance is a little better in terms of the "surprise" factor...except it's a sorcery. Both Exarch and Pestermite have flash. Again, any reasonably competent Twin player will EOT Exarch/Mite and kill you on their turn while you stare at the Sunlance in your hand. If they're running out dudes to tap an attacker of yours or something, then chances are they're not currently holding the combo or they have another in hand should that one be removed. Remember, Twin is more or less a turn 4 deck that will kill you all in one attack step. They don't need to be plinking you with 1/4s and 2/1s to get there, so more often than not they won't.

Look at it a different way:

If you're trying to hate on a graveyard and you expect that your opponent will have Pithing Needle, which sideboard is better:

4x Relic of Progenitus

OR

2x Relic of Progenitus
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Grafdigger's Cage

They both accomplish the same thing, but one is more resilient to hate than the other.

Most Twin lists are Red/Blue. Some take the green splash by running a singleton Breeding Pool or maybe a Stomping Ground, mostly to flashback Ancient Grudge. They do this because of Spellskite. They also typically run some number of Dispel for Path to Exile/Lightning Bolt/Dismember, which are commonly played instants that can disrupt their combo. What they don't have very often is enchantment removal.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Most Twin lists are Red/Blue. Some take the green splash by running a singleton Breeding Pool or maybe a Stomping Ground, mostly to flashback Ancient Grudge. They do this because of Spellskite. They also typically run some number of Dispel for Path to Exile/Lightning Bolt/Dismember, which are commonly played instants that can disrupt their combo. What they don't have very often is enchantment removal.

I've seen the newer versions running 4x Boomerang maindecked after someone placed highly with it (possibly at a GP? I don't remember) which was largely used as a land bounce on turn 2 to keep you behind until they combo you. This is particularly effective if they get multiples and go first, winning games before you stick 2 lands, so they run 4 to make sure that happens. The crappy thing for a prison deck, in legacy or modern, has always been that you need to hit the right forms of hate at the right time, and are often completely reliant on them to stay alive (Circle of Protections, Runed Halos, etc.). Since they can bounce them reliably and at any time, and usually have a bunch of artifact hate for affinity in addition to that, I would say this matchup is a bit worse off than originally stated.

[Arsenal]

Yeah, Boomerang is super brutal if Twin played first and the opponent played a CIPT manland, that can almost be game right there.

[Davran]

I've seen the newer versions running 4x Boomerang maindecked after someone placed highly with it (possibly at a GP? I don't remember) which was largely used as a land bounce on turn 2 to keep you behind until they combo you. This is particularly effective if they get multiples and go first, winning games before you stick 2 lands, so they run 4 to make sure that happens. The crappy thing for a prison deck, in legacy or modern, has always been that you need to hit the right forms of hate at the right time, and are often completely reliant on them to stay alive (Circle of Protections, Runed Halos, etc.). Since they can bounce them reliably and at any time, and usually have a bunch of artifact hate for affinity in addition to that, I would say this matchup is a bit worse off than originally stated.

Well, that's disconcerting. I mostly forgot that Boomerang is a modern legal card. I would ask why we don't see more of it in some sort of Ux tempo type list...except that pretty much describes Twin.

Given that, I would have to agree that going all in on plains may not be the best idea.