For some weeks, I've been trying out if it's possible to build a classic mono white control deck that can keep up with the powerlevel of today's Legacy. My goal was not to resort to the Land Tax engine because first and foremost, I always thought that this sort of engine occupies too much deck space and is also somewhat unreliable, especially in times of Kolaghan's Command where artifacts in general are to be seen as rather vulnerable. I therefore had to look for different CA engines and value mechanisms that the deck now has plenty of.

The major combo deck of today is arguably Show and Tell. White fortunately has access to the most efficient answers to such stratgies such as Oblivion Ring, Cast Out and Containment Priest, some of which are even maindeck-playable because of their flexibility. The old argument that the pure control strategy is unviable because of combo is therefore not unconditionally true anymore.

The following list resembles the result of many attempts and approaches I made with different cards and I waited to open this for discussion until I had a list that could be considered at least halfway playable.

Mono White Control 2019

22 Plains

3 Eternal Dragon
4 Mind Stone

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Day of Judgment
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Cast Out
3 Faith's Fetters

3 Coercive Portal
3 Pulse of the Fields
2 Restoration Specialist

3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 White Sun's Zenith

SB
4 Damping Sphere
4 Pithing Needle
4 Containment Priest
3 Tormod's Crypt

The list is designed to be prepared for every theoretically conceivable threat that could usually occur in the current state of the Format. The choices of removal was carefully contemplated and tested. I chose to divide my sweepers into Ratchet Bomb and "Wrath" because with sweepers it is important that you have ones of different CC/card type due to cards like Gaddock Teeg, Sanctum Prelate or Thorn of Amethyst. Bomb is also sometimes faster than Wrath and can also reasonably be used as "spot removal" if needed, especially since I can recur it with Restoration Specialst. The occasional slowness of R.Bomb is easily alleviated by Pulse of the Fields which is basically a white Time Walk if you want. Another card that might appear questionable is Faith's Fetters. This card is played because of the painful realization that you inevitably have to have some means to handle lands in Legacy if you want to control the game. Karakas, Azcanta, Volrath's Stronghold or Ugin's Eye can also ruin your day if they stay unanswered so it is necessary to stop their abilities. It is, in my point of view, generally not reasonable to play Wasteland in pure control decks because you are reliant on a strong manabase. Faith's Fetters thererfore fills this gap that Wasteland left and does a great job at it because it is in fact a universal answer that can "handle" pretty much everything else too.

Since the format is rather disruptive right now and because some of the so called "best" decks right now are control decks themselves, I had to realize that some sort of recursion is necessary because you cannot expect your spells to resolve immediatly and that you have anticipate discard like Hymn too because it's quite popular right now. Therefore it contemplated different ways of recursion and ended up with Restoration Specialist which can both recur stuff and also create card advantage. It can even act as a pseudo card-draw engine in conjunction with a cycled Cast Out and Mind Stone. Mind Stone is played because the deck was somewhat unoccupied in the lower CC area and some acceleration was needed because of the rather high casting costs. It also increases consistency with it's cycling ability and by preventing manascrew. Eternal Dragon has similar purposes than Mind Stone but has the additional benefit of being a CA engine in itself and also of being a inevitable win condition against decks without Swords such as "Grixis Control". Aside from Dragon I got Elspeth and a random White Sun's Zenith which happened to be the most efficient win conditions I have tried out so far. The number of actual threats or win conditions this deck has may appear pretty low but against decks where this matters such as Miracles your opponent will have to spend his counters on your numerous answers to Jace or Coercive Portal anyways. The Portal is my primary draw engine. Yes, it's also an artifact but it can be recurred with R.Specalist and after all, not every deck plays K.Command. It's basically a more vulnerable Phyrexian Arena but without the lifeloss.

As mentioned earlier I've tried out quite a lot of things with Mono White Control lately and I would like comment on a few other more or less viable cards so that the discussion hopefully is somewhat structured.

Endless Atlas - the printing of this card was the reason I began to work on MWC in the first place. If might appear good on paper because of the cheap cost and all but I can assure you that having to pay 2 mana to draw cards is too inefficient and actually not even feasible in this format.

Sacred Mesa If is appealing that it can be theoretically recurred wth Specialist and Sun Titan and the card appears efficient on surface but in practice it actually has a perceived mana cost of 7 as it's only effective from 7 mana onwards and that's just too slow. I don't consider it completely unplayable though.

Dawn of Hope together with Renewed Faith and Genju of the Fields: This was supposed to be both card draw and win condition but it turned out that it didn't fullfill neither role efficiently enough. Paying 4 mana for a single token is just too much although it's enchantment type and low casting cost were its strengths.

Blessed Alliance It's definitely a solid choice but too much 1for1 removal isn't desirable and will get you dead draws in a lot of matchups. If you played a list with a different approach I would recommend it though because it can also handle True-Name Nemesis.

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar I cannot tell yet if Elspeth or Gideon is the better choice but from experience Elspeth plays better in defensive decks like this one while Gideon is a more aggressive cards. Elspeth also synergizes better with the rest of the deck by making your other stuff indestructible.

There is plenty of more stuff I tried out but ultimately dismissed for now. As I said, the above list is the result of various attempts and resembles what I think is best prepared to handle the matchups one must expect currently. If you like to play control, disregard netdecking and also hate how expensive cards have become, Mono White control can definitely by a strategy you can turn to.

I hope that some will find interest in this and appreciate any suggestions or criticism.