Is there a way to make White Weenie a (somewhat) viable strategy? [Archive]

DukeDemonKn1ght

02-18-2010, 02:51 AM

Ok... So one of my favorite deck archetypes (mostly for nostalgic reasons) is White Weenie. However, I'm no fool, and I realize that compared to many creature-based strategies available in Legacy, the armies of White are pretty inefficient.

What I'm wondering is whether or not there is a way to make the strategy somewhat viable. One of the things that has gotten me thinking about it is the recent success of UW Tempo... This has gotten me thinking about other directions the "WW" strategy could go by splashing other colors. I know that Pikula and Boros don't get much attention (mostly because they're out-classed by other strategies currently) but what I'm wondering is if there is a way to make a White Weenie deck that doesn't completely suck. I figure splashing another color is probably the only way to feasibly do this. Red would obviously offer burn for reach. Black would offer Dark Confidant, and probably some discard, either out of the sideboard or in the main deck. Vindicate and Spectral Lynx are also pretty powerful tools, I think. (Note that the hypothetical decks I'm talking about would probably use white as the primary color, whereas Pikula's primary color is black, and Boros is usually about 50-50.)

Anyways, I feel like I'm kind of rambling here already, and for that I apologize. I guess I just figured this might be an interesting topic of discussion, even if it doesn't yield the new "Deck to Beat" (which I'm pretty damn sure it's not going to.) Anyone want to weigh in?

Skeggi

02-18-2010, 03:02 AM

You could try and play Soldiers, that's the most viable White Wheenie at the moment I think. Death & Taxes isn't exactly White Wheenie.

Mayk0l

02-18-2010, 03:36 AM

I agree. In a meta without combo, the soldier deck is actually really powerful

I'll get a decklist later

Tinefol

02-18-2010, 03:41 AM

Check UW Tempo thread, its probably the closest you can get and its viable.

FoolofaTook

02-18-2010, 03:42 AM

This looks kind of interesting:

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=29242

5th out of 72 in Moscow.

I really like the Ajani Goldmane, it's the first deck I've seen him used in where he makes more sense than Elspeth.

DukeDemonKn1ght

02-18-2010, 03:57 AM

I didn't really want to show this, because it still needs a lot of fine-tuning, but here's a deck-list I came up with yesterday. Maybe this will spark some discussion:

"Pikuliar" White Weenie:

4 Mother of Runes
4 Weathered Wayfarer
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Dark Confidant
3 Serra Avenger
3 Jotun Grunt
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Spectral Lynx
2 Elspeth, Knight Errant

4 Aether Vial
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Sword of Fire and Ice (not sure if this is necessary, or if SoLS might be better than SoFI...)

4 Path to Exile
2 Vindicate

4 Marsh Flats
1 Arid Mesa
1 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
3 Scrubland
4 Wasteland
3 Plains
1 Swamp

...So, uh, yeah. It's still definitely an awkward list, but I think this might be an interesting direction to try to take Pikula in. One concern of mine right off the bat is whether or not Wayfarer and KotWO will actually be enough to reliably be able to power out Vindicate and Elspeth when I needed to... (I'm not making any claims about this list being good or not, this is 100% untested.)

MSC

02-18-2010, 04:59 AM

Knight of the WO is really counterproductive with Wayfarer. I would cut Wayfarer for the full package of Lynx and Vindicate, as they are both really strong.

The Problem is, that I think this is still worse than the black-splashed Angel-Stompy I'm playing sometimes and that is Tier 2 at best.

alderon666

02-18-2010, 06:03 AM

You're not going to get the same milleage from KotWO as NoGoyf gets. You don't have Daze or Fathom Seer to bounce your lands.

"Wastelock" from Wayfarer is not as good without Daze/Spell Pierce.

kicks_422

02-18-2010, 06:51 AM

Well, T2 legal Kithkin decks have made a couple of Legacy T8's.

porcupinetreeman

02-18-2010, 08:30 AM

I've been fooling around with white for a while now. I think the best color to splash is green. You get some bombs like Tarmogoyf, Teeg, Qasali Pridemage. This deck did well a while back.

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=29510

IsThisACatInAHat?

02-18-2010, 08:45 AM

Well, T2 legal Kithkin decks have made a couple of Legacy T8's.
This. If you want to stay mono-W, I think your safest bet is tribal.

The most successful Wx decks I've seen on deckcheck splash G for goofy, pridemage, KotR and some other stuff. These (http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?type=G%2FW+Aggro&format=Legacy) decks have posted recent results and a lot of them look fairly similar, like Bant Aggro with more creatures and no disruption. They all devote a ton of room in the board to a MU they probably won't win anyway, which kind of sucks, but they all take a pretty novel approach to fighting blue, my favorite of which is Aven Mindcensor.

Forbiddian

02-18-2010, 11:26 AM

Well, T2 legal Kithkin decks have made a couple of Legacy T8's.

The thing is that they also have had 17,000 plays since poor players occasionally rock some type 2 decks. Most weeks players like that go 1-4 or 2-3, but sometimes they get lucky in the early rounds and then get luckier in the middle rounds and then get luckiest in the late rounds and crap out a top 8.

The linked Kithkins Deck:
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=29242

Looks like it would beat Merfolks, but IT HAS ZERO CARDS FOR FACING COMBO DECKS, so what's even the point? Out of the board it would get 4x Ethersworn Canonist. So I guess they're hoping for the 16% runner runner lucksack of double EC draws both games and the opponent never gets any type of removal. ZZz.

Not only Belcher, Black Storm, and Solidarity would rape this but even like Reanimator, Painter's Grind, Dream Halls, hell even that one combo deck built by Cavius has wet dreams about running into this pile in a large tournament and picking up a free win.

This is why white weenie is not successful. It has very strong creatures that are well-positioned in the metagame. Grunt, Serra Avenger, and Mother of Runes can handle Goyf decks. White also has generally the best sideboard options in the format and the best removal, so you'll always have a good chance against fast aggro/lord aggro: Zoo, Goblins, Aggro Elves, and Merfolks, and then the ability to board for whatever you want.

But if you want to win any large events in this format, you HAVE TO BEAT COMBO. Maybe your deck doesn't have to beat combo every time, but on your way to any top 8 in the US you've got to expect to run into at least two combo decks, and if you go 0-2 you're already out of the top 8.

Amon Amarth

02-18-2010, 01:42 PM

As long as White lacks any way to meaningfully interact with opponents that don't use the combat phase its not going to be viable. The lack of a card drawing engine only exacerbates the problem; the few decent anti combo/control cards the color offers wont show up often enough. So, no.

alderon666

02-18-2010, 03:16 PM

Canonist + Mother of Runes is actually very potent against combo, as they need 2 consecutive answers against it.

I don't know if the problem is combo... Lands.dec also has a dreaded matchup against combo, but it's been seen in the top tables. I think the problem is the overall quality of the cards, starying mono pays of very little in consistency and costs alot in power.

Phoenix Ignition

02-18-2010, 03:29 PM

I don't know if the problem is combo... Lands.dec also has a dreaded matchup against combo, but it's been seen in the top tables.

Disagree. It's completely sideboard dependent, but don't take my word for it:

Stats:
2-1 versus Merfolk
2-1 versus Zoo
2-1 versus Canadian Threshold
2-2 versus Ad Nauseam
2-2 versus Dredge
2-2 versus CounterTop
1-2 versus Enchantress
0-1 versus Goblins 0-2

In my experience, I have found that this deck is weakest to speed combo strategies, but the data does not clearly bear this out. I suspect it’s because the Land deck is packing solid anti-combo measures post-board.

That's from his "So Many Insane Plays" report on legacy. Glacial Chasm can shut off Belcher or Progenitus combos, while Zuran Orb gives Tendrils a headache. Also Mindbreak Trap x 4 is not bad.

thorin_the_king

02-18-2010, 08:07 PM

a fiend of mine plays very succesfully this version of WW:

4 mother of runes
4 weathered wayfarer
4 stoneforge mystic
4 serra avenger
4 soltari priest
2 jotun grunt

4 swords to plowshares
3 oblivion ring
2 umezawa's jitte
1 basilisk collar
1 sword of fire and ice
4 aether vial
4 mana tithe

4 wasteland
1 karakas
5 fetch
9 plains

sb: im not sure in all of this but it's pretty much the uw tempo one;

3 burrenton forge tender
3 aura of silence
2 enlightened tutor
1 pithing needle
1 tormod's crypt
1 relic of progenitus
1 wheel of sun and moon
1 jotun grunt
1 ethersworn canonist
1 path to exile

hope this helps!

Pastorofmuppets

02-18-2010, 08:10 PM

Phoenix Ignition

02-18-2010, 08:28 PM

Iona probably.

_erbs_

02-18-2010, 10:18 PM

I've been playing white weenie since the days of crusades up to now but i seldom use it because i feel WW is more of a meta deck and will find it hard to compete with combo decks that will surely be always present in big events.

The inclusion of mana tithe is some WW decks is okay and abit unexpected by your opponent but and will surely work on the 1st time but once you had revealed it opposing players will just play around it just like daze.

Here is the list i've been using and had good win-loss records evertime i've used it.

Lands [20]
4 scrubland
4 marsh flats
3 flooded strand
1 swamp
8 plains

Creatures [24]
3 mother of runes
2 kor duelist
3 stoneforge mystic
4 silver knight
4 kazandu blademaster
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 serra avenger

Utilities [16]
4 aether vial
2 umezawa's jitte
2 basilisk collar
4 swords to plowshares
4 vindicate

SB [15]
2 extirpate
1 relic of progenitus
1 tormod's crypt
2 burenton forge tender
4 thoughtseize
4 duress
1 path to exile / nevs's disc

before zendikar came the list was
- 2 basilik collar
- 3 stoneforge mystic
- 2 kor duelist

+ 1 jitte
+ 3 figure of destiny
+ 2 spectral lynx
+ 1 elspeth

_erbs_

02-19-2010, 03:01 AM

Not that I necessarily disagree, but is that really a fair criticism if one of the format's premier decks has the exact same problems? Not all Zoo decks run combo hate in the sideboard and according to the numbers from some of the excel spreadsheets Stephen Menendian provided from the SCGs, they don't necessarily need to. WW can put up a similar clock and do more or less the same thing, albeit in two less colors.

Zoo can afford to do a race battle , WW can't because it doesn't have efficient creatures (P/T is to casting cost ratio) nor have the reach / burn of zoo. If white had those kinds of cards they could do without SB against combo decks aswell.

The closet WW to a zoo deck is boros, maybe a legacy boros could be explored further as compared to WW.

WW Variants which i know that was successful in past where:
- Classic WW
> ran 4 crusades and 2-3 angelic voices and used landtax to continously apply pressure. classic creatures like pump knights and savannah lions was used.

- Empyrial Armor
> used 4-8 shadow creatures and used empyrial to creat great damage which can't be blocked and had built-in proctection

- Angelstompy
> abused turbo lands to drop strong equips and rode it to victory

- Death and Taxes
> somewhat a aggro-control deck which used mangara lock for control on the long game if the aggro strat didnt work

- Kithkins
> all out aggro and swarmed your opponents for the win but still takes time to amass an army for an alpha strike

In general WW will never have a fast enough clock to out race a combo. Unless wizz decides to give WW a nice low casting cost creatures

Otter

02-19-2010, 03:16 AM

Not that I necessarily disagree, but is that really a fair criticism if one of the format's premier decks has the exact same problems? Not all Zoo decks run combo hate in the sideboard and according to the numbers from some of the excel spreadsheets Stephen Menendian provided from the SCGs, they don't necessarily need to. WW can put up a similar clock and do more or less the same thing, albeit in two less colors.

Well, to put the problem into more context -- every deck in legacy either needs to be able to fight broken or do something flat-out broken on its own (preferably both, though most decks lean towards one side or another). Zoo can't fight broken, but it makes up for its pathetic combo matchup by playing the best creatures in the game, combined with a some reach with burn spells. WW loses out on Bolt, Price, Nacatl, Pridemage, Goyf, Lavamancer, etc, and for exactly what? Zoo doesn't mind losing to combo so much because it can deliver a thrashing everywhere else. WW can't fight broken either and it has even fewer options to interact with broken than Zoo does. And for what? Other than a stable manabase, WW doesn't have anything Zoo is jealous of.

I'm not saying that there isn't a workable WW build out there. Maybe there's one with enough synergy to make the cut, but just from a general standpoint, there's not much point in losing Zoo's good critters if it doesn't fix Zoo's biggest problem. "Worse beaters and still can't beat combo," isn't the tagline you want on a deck.

Forbiddian

02-19-2010, 05:34 AM

White Weenie's advantage is that you can't wasteland it since it's mono. The problem is that Zoo puts the same clock with one or two land what White Weenie does with two or three land. It's just not broken enough.

There's no reason not to splash at least one color, you're not getting any advantage by sticking to one color and running a bunch of Karakous anyway. Blue is definitely the best splash since it fixes all of white's problems (or you could look at it from the perspective of someone in a different thread: white fixes blue's problems).

Sevryn

02-19-2010, 06:03 AM

CleverPetriDish

02-19-2010, 09:16 AM

There's no reason not to splash at least one color, you're not getting any advantage by sticking to one color and running a bunch of Karakous anyway. Blue is definitely the best splash since it fixes all of white's problems (or you could look at it from the perspective of someone in a different thread: white fixes blue's problems).

Certainly your position has merit. But not as much as you seem to think it does. In my experience, Karakas-Mangara simply ends a lot of games. And aside from all the obvious advantages you are ignoring with one color you get Rishadan Port added to your Wastelands for a significant mana denial package. What I think you want us to believe (everywhere I look you are saying so) is that your deck is some sort of clear improvement. More likely, it is better than stuff like D+T in some metagames and worse in others, not that the comparison is even particularly apt since there are plenty of other differences.

DrJones

02-19-2010, 11:14 AM

I think it's possible to make a viable weenie deck as long as your deck has a valid strategy that takes advantage of them. "Playing smaller creatures than my rival's" doesn't sound like a good plan.

Digital Devil

02-20-2010, 06:37 AM

"Playing smaller creatures than my rival's" doesn't sound like a good plan.
Of course, but as long as you play more creatures than your opponent does, and/or you can remove/protect your opponent's/your own creatures, size doesn't matter. I think the only way to make mono white a competitive archetype is to exploit its own strenghts. Death'n'Taxes focuses on tricks, while Angel Stompy focuses on fast beatdown. I personally play Angel Stompy, and I think both Stoneforge Mystic and Basilisk Collar (I play smaller creatures than yours, but beware, they have Deathtouch, and I play more of them) are the cards this deck needs in order to compete. Stoneforge Mystic is by herself a draw engine, since she can fetch for equipments which provide raw card advantage. And she is a stand-alone threat, since as I already told in the deck's discussion, she is only virtually a 1/2. Fetching for Jitte or Sword of Fire and Ice makes her swing for 5 (Jitte still needs to charge, though), which is an accepted clock for a *single* creature. The +1 you get from Mystic is what the deck needs to counterbalance its own weaknesses. I don't know much about D'n'T, but I think both Angel Stompy and D'n'T simply need more pilots. I always get a positive Win/Loss record each tournament, and since I'm a terrible player, if that happens, it means the deck has a chance.

pi4meterftw

02-20-2010, 07:18 AM

Certainly your position has merit. But not as much as you seem to think it does. In my experience, Karakas-Mangara simply ends a lot of games. And aside from all the obvious advantages you are ignoring with one color you get Rishadan Port added to your Wastelands for a significant mana denial package. What I think you want us to believe (everywhere I look you are saying so) is that your deck is some sort of clear improvement. More likely, it is better than stuff like D+T in some metagames and worse in others, not that the comparison is even particularly apt since there are plenty of other differences.

But he's not making this point merely out of some sort of need to pat oneself on the back. If we had come up with "Craw wurm tempo" we wouldn't be trying to tell everybody it's the best. We only do that because it's true.

So it's obvious you should splash a color, I think everybody who has responded to this point also agrees.

So which color? Okay:
Green is a terrible compliment. Green and white do pretty much everything the same. You lose to combo
Red sounds reasonable, since it offers reach, but you still lose combo.
Blue and Black are really the only feasible choices. I myself had considered white with black for a while, but it turns out this really is much worse than blue. Basically the difference is, instead of drawing cards, you pay life to draw cards. Instead of your opponent paying mana to walk into your countermagic, you pay mana (and possibly even life) to go over to the other side and take his threats away.

Okay, so it's blue now. Now what should we run in the deck? Well here are some good creatures that you would've run in any white weenie deck:

Mother of runes
Weathered wayfarer
Serra avenger
Jotun grunt
Knight of the white orchid
stoneforger mystic

Okay... it's good to run equipment now, so run 2x jitte.
You're blue, you should obviously play brainstorm, FOW, daze, maybe also spell pierce
It's obvious you should play swords
You need more creatures to support equipment, and more blue to support FOW. Run fathom seer.
You run a lot of creatures, run aether vial.

I just don't see a point of divergence unless you live in a metagame where it's like 100% elves or something. Then you probably don't pack white weenie in any case. But if you commit to playing white weenie, you literally can't stop adding UW tempo cards until you get to like 56 cards or so.

DrJones

02-20-2010, 07:45 AM

With green you can play Gaddock Teeg and Qasali Pridemage, by splashing blue, you can play Meddling Mage, but Gaddock Teeg seems better. The best reason not to splash blue is that you open yourself to:
1. Wasteland and Stifle
2. islandwalking merfolks

On another call, would it be feasible to assemble reasonably fast the Kaldra set using stoneforge mystic and flickering effects (whitemane lion, flickerwisp, stonecloacker, etc)? The idea looks awesome

Arsenal

02-20-2010, 10:52 AM

I've always looked at Angel Stompy as White Weenie's spiritual successor. Old-school White Weenie decks used to play a couple quick, efficient creatures, a Crusade or two to make them semi-beefy, then cast Armageddon to seal the win. Angel Stompy is quite similar in approach, although it uses equipment instead of Crusade and Cataclysm/Parallax Wave instead of Armageddon to break the game open.

I think Angel Stompy has the best shot at being Tier 2 competitive in the current meta. True, it does not have a white Goyf, but it's removal is strong, it's creatures are P/T efficient with excellent abilities, and it doesn't get absolutely hosed by the most commonly played sideboard cards (because really, who is packing 4x Anarchy these days?).

EDIT: To the above poster, wouldn't splashing Green also open you up to Stifle (Windswept Heath) and Wasteland (Savannah)? I don't understand how splashing only Blue makes you susceptible to Stifle and Wasteland. Also, Stoneforge just needs to fetch Jitte in order for you to win; the Kaldra and gating shenanigans seems unnecessary and inconsistent.

morgan_coke

02-20-2010, 12:09 PM

Saw a version of this build recently on MTGSalvation as an extended deck. It was designed by a German guy, can't remember his name just now. This might be the type of direction WW needs to go in order to be successful. I made some minor changes to adjust it for Legacy.

EDIT: german guys' name = Tobias Henke

Creatures
4x Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4x Ethersworn Canonist
4x Aven Mindcensor
4x Samurai of the Pale Curtain
1x Knight of the White Orchid

Token Generators
4x Raise the Alarm
4x Spectral Procession

Enchantments
4x Honor of The Pure
2x Crusade
4x Suppression Field

Artifacts
4x Chrome Mox
3x Damping Matrix (cursed totem/null rod?)

Lands
1x Karakas
17x Plains

Sideboard
4x Ravenous Trap/Tormod's Crypt
2x Swords to Plowshare
3x Rule of Law
2x Kor Firewalker
2x Cloudgoat Ranger
1x Damping Matrix
1x Crusade

This approach maximizes whites variety of hatebear effects while making good use of white's token spells and various anthem effects. Seems like the most viable white weenie strategy for Legacy. In many ways, this is just a beefed up hatier, tokenier version of D&T. Less tricks, more taxes. I think however, that I dislike the lack of both Jotun Grunt and Serra Avenger.

FoolofaTook

02-20-2010, 03:41 PM

With green you can play Gaddock Teeg and Qasali Pridemage,

With green splash you play Tarmogoyf first and then probably QPM with Gaddock Teeg in the sideboard. This shows again how totally OP Tarmogoyf is since he solves white weenie's biggest issue - which is putting a big beater on the board for the mid game and he also singlehandedly gives white weenie a plan B if the opponent gets a sweeper off against the army on turn 4.

Forbiddian

02-20-2010, 04:12 PM

With green splash you play Tarmogoyf first and then probably QPM with Gaddock Teeg in the sideboard. This shows again how totally OP Tarmogoyf is since he solves white weenie's biggest issue - which is putting a big beater on the board for the mid game and he also singlehandedly gives white weenie a plan B if the opponent gets a sweeper off against the army on turn 4.

I thought Jitte solved both of those problems and that White Weenie's biggest problem was a lack of doing anything broken or stopping anything broken.

FoolofaTook

02-20-2010, 04:31 PM

I thought Jitte solved both of those problems and that White Weenie's biggest problem was a lack of doing anything broken or stopping anything broken.

Well obviously if they have Tarmogoyf they can do something broken and they can also stop the opponent from doing something broken (Tarmogoyf) to them. So he clearly solves at least part of that problem also.

Seriously, the biggest problem white weenie has is that their weenies are smaller than they can afford given the extra benefits they bring to play. Goblins get haste, Elves get mana, Merfolk gets blue (which is broken) and black gets cheap creatures that can beat 1-on-1 effectively.

CleverPetriDish

02-20-2010, 06:47 PM

But he's not making this point merely out of some sort of need to pat oneself on the back. If we had come up with "Craw wurm tempo" we wouldn't be trying to tell everybody it's the best. We only do that because it's true.

So it's obvious you should splash a color, I think everybody who has responded to this point also agrees.

So which color? Okay:
Green is a terrible compliment. Green and white do pretty much everything the same. You lose to combo
Red sounds reasonable, since it offers reach, but you still lose combo.
Blue and Black are really the only feasible choices. I myself had considered white with black for a while, but it turns out this really is much worse than blue. Basically the difference is, instead of drawing cards, you pay life to draw cards. Instead of your opponent paying mana to walk into your countermagic, you pay mana (and possibly even life) to go over to the other side and take his threats away.

Okay, so it's blue now. Now what should we run in the deck? Well here are some good creatures that you would've run in any white weenie deck:

Mother of runes
Weathered wayfarer
Serra avenger
Jotun grunt
Knight of the white orchid
stoneforger mystic

Okay... it's good to run equipment now, so run 2x jitte.
You're blue, you should obviously play brainstorm, FOW, daze, maybe also spell pierce
It's obvious you should play swords
You need more creatures to support equipment, and more blue to support FOW. Run fathom seer.
You run a lot of creatures, run aether vial.

I just don't see a point of divergence unless you live in a metagame where it's like 100% elves or something. Then you probably don't pack white weenie in any case. But if you commit to playing white weenie, you literally can't stop adding UW tempo cards until you get to like 56 cards or so.

So you are saying that you have considered everything and there is no need to argue because you and your clone (Forbiddian) have already discovered the best possible deck? Gee, this sounds familiar. (Honestly, this is 2 accounts for one person, right?)

Lolz! - Bardo

I can't decide if it is amusing or just annoying to see the way you two think about this. You have listed the exact creatures in your deck as the only ones anyone should be using from an entire color. You managed to argue against my point with "So it's obvious you should splash a color, I think everybody who has responded to this point also agrees.". And that was it. No presentation of reasons given. "Green is a terrible compliment. Green and white do pretty much everything the same. You lose to combo" Well, Gaddock Teeg and Tarmogoyf would like to have a word with you about that. "I just don't see a point of divergence unless you live in a metagame where it's like 100% elves or something." "We wouldn't be trying to tell everybody it's the best. We only do that because it's true." This is beautifully obtuse. The entire way you two are presenting your argument is in a fashion that wants very much to avoid opposing opinions and move straight on to the "pat on the back" part.

If you are so certain that your deck is perfection, and you don't simply seek attention for that belief, why on earth would you even be posting about it? This site is for the betterment of every deck on it. There is no such thing as a perfect deck or perfect strategy. As long as you live in a dream land, your deck will never improve.

Troll_ov_Grimness

02-21-2010, 04:43 PM

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=16249

This guy placed 1st out of 30 beating all sorts of powerful decks.. this is the deck this is what I would personally do to make it better.

I would replace STP with Exile.
I would replace Jotun Grunt with Aysen Crusader

Aysen Crusader is a 2+*/2+* that has stars equal to the number of Soldiers (and Warriors) you control.
SO lets say with 5 soldiers you have a 7/7...

I think Jotun Grunt + Tormod's Crypt is redundant. Maybe replace Tormod's Crypt even with Relic Of Progenitus instead accomplishing much the same thing.

*

creature [23] * this is the key to this deck + the aether vials

4 Catapult Squad
4 Deftblade Elite
4 Field Marshal
4 Icatian Javelineers
3 Jötun Grunt
4 Longbow Archer

4 Raise the Alarm
4 Swords to Plowshares

enchantment [4]
4 Shared Triumph

artifact [3]
3 Aether Vial

land [22]
1 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Mutavault
14 Plains
4 Wasteland

* the sideboard for this deck is amazing pretty much perfect against the metagame. but I think it has a little too much graveyard paranoia considering how strong the soldiers are at removal on their own

Sideboard:

1 Jötun Grunt
4 Disenchant
3 Armageddon
3 Tivadar's Crusade
4 Tormod's Crypt

Sims

02-21-2010, 05:59 PM

These lists need 120% more Spectral Procession, especially lists that may be running Honor of the Pure or things of that nature.

Troll_ov_Grimness

02-21-2010, 06:35 PM

Marshalling Cry over Spectral Procession for me. Needs 120% more marshalling cry. At least in this guy's deck I pointed to I am surprised it is not in there but I guess there is limited space. I would take out the Shared Triumph for it maybe if anything in his list.

it's 1WW sorcery that gives +1/+1 to all of your attackers and gives them all vigilance plus cycling for 2 and flashback for 3W. You could use it so that all the soldiers abilities can be used when they are attacking. Flying is really silly in a soldier deck I mean what for? Just use Raise The Alarm it is good enough..

Phoenix Ignition

02-21-2010, 06:43 PM

Wait was this a thread about making WW viable that had the Hardy Boys come in and say "obviously WW should splash a color, obviously that should be blue, and obviously you should use the Nogoyf deck we made."

If that were the best deck in the format wouldn't it have at least won a single tournament?

Lolz x2! - Bardo

I don't think I could have laughed harder at a WW thread. Ugh...

On to WW though, running a lot of tiny creatures is worse than running a few big creatures unless they have a lot of synergy. Soldier lords will help that (especially one that gives first strike), but equipment will as well. Basilisk Collar and Jitte offer ways to beat goyfs and other creatures that are scarier than yours. Remember, you're paying 2 for two 1/1 soldiers and they're paying 2 for a 4/5 creature. Not only do they have the creature that answers yours, they have a much faster clock.

I think the best version of Soldiers is running a stompy build with Chalice, Trinisphere, and Captain of the Watch, though. I haven't tested one, but it looks powerful and disruptive.

EDIT: I tried out soldier stompy for fun on MWS, it's actually pretty good but I won't post a list until I make it a bit cleaner
Here's my favorite quote so far, against NO bant:

bloon stops looking its Grimorio...
<bloon> Ok
Phoenix Ignition taps Snow-Covered Plains
Phoenix Ignition taps Snow-Covered Plains
Phoenix Ignition taps Snow-Covered Plains
Phoenix Ignition plays Field Marshal from Hand
<Phoenix Ignition> Ok?
<bloon> fuck u bitch
<System> Player Lost

DrJones

02-21-2010, 06:52 PM

Needs more Isochron Scepter.

Infinitium

02-21-2010, 08:01 PM

I've recently been intrigued with the notion of building Boros Deck Wins with Duergar Hedge-Mage and possibly Kor Firewalker somewhere in the 75, although a large part of that is wishing that either were viable. The problem with WW is that the somewhat more stable manabase doesn't change that fact that white as a color doesn't support aggressive as well as any other color does, in large part thanks to the lack of tribal support. Elves and Goblins can both generate stupid amounts of card and mana advantage if left unchecked in the midgame, Merfolk has the entire "being whilst beating whilst the best color in the format" thing going for it and black.. splashed green for Tarmogoyf. There just aren't any good, aggressive, linear strategies requiring a heavy commitment to white that won't end up being optimized into Zoo (well, there is D&T, but the Karakas shenanigans have only gotten worse since that decks connception and it is more of a midrange deck anyways).

I think the best version of Soldiers is running a stompy build with Chalice, Trinisphere, and Captain of the Watch, though. I haven't tested one, but it looks powerful and disruptive.

Played something like that for years. Basically Preeminent Captain + Mirror Entity + Enlistment Officer is busted enough, Burrenton Bombardier is surprisingly not-horrible and Crib Swap is decent with Chalice and keeping the Soldier count up. Too bad that's about it for Tribal support. Granted Noble Templar is pretty swell in place of that last plains, Elspeth is the best "Equipment" any white stompy deck can ask for and Jotun Grunt might survive to attack every once in a while but.. eh. At 6 mana Captain of the Watch is unplayable; don't bother.

Bardo

02-21-2010, 09:00 PM

Let's not turn this into that other thread again.

Nelis

02-22-2010, 06:17 AM

I see nobody has mentioned Ajani Goldmane. I've put together my own version of ww a long time ago and it evolved from aether vial/toolbox ww to toolbox ww and now it's just ww. I've played with Elspeth for a while and it is really good but now I'm into Ajani. I always thought Elspeth to be a better top deck because at least you can make a 1/1 token when your board is clear. But I realized that in most cases you've behind then anyway (especially vs aggro). It's much more important to have your creatures be at least as big as your opponents which means being 3/3 nowadays. I run a lot of first strike creatures so a 2/2 first striker becoming 3/3 permanently and have vigilance until end of turn works because even when attacking you're not open to a counter attack in your opponents turn. And with Mother of Runes added to the mix you have a better early game vs Zoo. It's still not an easy matchup though but Goblins and Merfolk are on the other hand. List:

// Creatures
4 Mother of Runes
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Sigiled Paladin
3 Knight of the Wild Orchid
3 Serra Avenger
2 Ranger of Eos

//Other permanents
2 Jitte
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Ajani Goldmane

//Instants
4 Path to Exile
3 Swords to Plowshares

20 Plains

Cards I'm not decided on yet:
2 Samurai of the Pale Curtain ( Misread at first but it 'only' removes permanents from the game which makes it not that good)
2 Jotun Grunt
1 Eternal Dragon (instead of a 4th Knight of the Wild Orchid)
1 SoFI

A general sideboard (with combo in mind) would me something like:
4 Ethersworn Cannonist
4 Chalice
4 Wheel of Sun And Moon / Relic / Crypt
3 Random stuff like Oblivion Ring, Pithing Needle, art./ench. removal, maybe even EE. Or something to ease the Zoo match up.

In my opinion WW is not such a bad deck as a lot of people think as long you play in in the right meta. Which means a meta with not too much Zoo and not too much combo. But the most important thing is that it's a fun deck to play.

Bardo

02-22-2010, 02:47 PM

Citrus-God

02-22-2010, 08:34 PM

Pi4meterftw and others - This is not a discussion thread for UW Tempo / NoGoyf / Whatever. Several points have been raised about the value of other colors, tribal themes, etc. re: WW. Keep to the discussion at hand or take it to another thread or site. Just deleted a big pile of posts -- many of which were pretty good. Consider yourself warned.

I wouldn't say UW Tempo is a White Weenie deck, but it does have characteristics that would make White Weenie a viable metagame deck in Legacy. For example, Angel Stompy was a metagame deck that stomps only in Aggro concentrated metagames, due to the fact that Legacy at the time was still (and still is) populated by fast Aggro decks. But what separated Angel Stompy from conventional WW at the time (WWW being it's contemporary) was that Angel Stompy was a Midgame deck as well (even though WWW was as well, the creatures were always constantly outclassed if Jitte wasn't in play, and Angel Stompy had acceleration which made it's creatures threats much sooner compared to WWW), which allowed for it to trade for and/or take out bigger creatures with cards like Sword of Fire and Ice and Umezawa's Jitte thanks to it's accelerated mana base.

UW Tempo in it's very core is no different. I can understand why Pi4meterftw and Forbidian think UW Tempo is the most optimal form of White Weenie, considering it's also a more versatile metagame deck. UW Tempo can play Aggro Control and Midgame, which shores up a lot of weaknesses decks like Angel Stompy had, such as being unable to properly fight Control and Combo well. This is a very good reason to play UW Tempo over Angel Stompy. Angel Stompy will almost never in it's life be able to fight Combo unless it also wants to weaken it's Aggro match-up, which is the best reason to go in with it in the first place. You could sideboard for it, but you only want so much acceleration in your opening hand to make this work. But, by then, it's more like White Workshop Aggro at this point.

But if we had to discuss strictly White Weenie, I think Angel Stompy is the best pure White Weenie deck that could ever be conceived at this point in time, and still be competitive as a metagame deck. And yes, I'm agreeing with what Nelis said: White Weenie is only good in a certain metagame context. It's also a better choice over Combo in Aggro concentrated metagames because Combo is hard to play properly, and playing WW allows you to make less mistakes compared to playing Combo. It's a lot like playing Farkle when you're ahead by 2000 points against your contemporaries: you either slow roll it, or you keep gambling when you're already ahead. Not to say that Angel Stompy takes no skill to play, because it requires you to do combat math, but you won't have to deal with making variations and calculations while playing combo. The math in playing combo gets harder when you have to calculate hate post-board. With Angel Stompy, you will only see Artifact and Creature hate, and it's very easy to play around/into those cards, so post-board games will be very similar to pre-board games 65% of the time.

Troll_ov_Grimness

02-23-2010, 12:48 AM

Look up the abilities the soldiers I suggested have.

Icatian Javelineers. Kills stuff.
Catapult Squad? Kills stuff.
Deftblade Elite? Calls stuff out that doesn't want to die, then your dudes gang up and kill it.
Aysen Crusader? or Jotun Grunt.. wahtever.. when all this stuff is dead, writhing on the battlefield, swing in for like 6 points of damage or something since your deftblade elite is bringing everyone to the 'arena'.

That's the way this is supposed to work. the Longbow Archer is a good nemesis to the Dark Ritual'd Hippie for example or other flying beats like Vampire Nighthawks.

The decks to be worried about are combo decks. I think that is about it it handles things pretty well with it's sideboard. Goblins? Tivadar's Crusade is a one sided wrath for 3.

Forbiddian

02-23-2010, 03:44 AM

Above deck looks really good.

I'd run 4x Tivadar of Thorn and 4x Kor Firewalker as well just in case Goblins ever gets out of hand.

undone

02-23-2010, 08:25 AM

Nelis

02-23-2010, 08:46 AM

White weenie can only be made viable in one way. Burn all the tarmogoyfs.

Beyond that it would require WotC to print some WW cards with prot green or on the level of devout light caster that can target green/tarmogoyf creatures.

There's Spectral Lynx, which I've tried but wasn't of much use besides being a 2/1 wall with protection from green. Tarmogoyfs aren't really that big of a problem if you run removal. And with the inclusion of Mother of Runes you can keep them in check. In my experience Tarmogoyfs have a hard time growing bigger than 3/4 nowadays anyway because the format is so fast. This means you can afford not to block him a few times and if they keep them back that's fine too because it gives you time.

Above deck looks really good.

I'd run 4x Tivadar of Thorn and 4x Kor Firewalker as well just in case Goblins ever gets out of hand.

Goblins can run out of hand but in my experience you don't need that much hate. I ran 2 burrenton forgetenders before in one of my earlier builds (without Mother of Runes) and that was enough at the time. But I have another nice solution that also works vs goblins and anything red: Absolute Law.

Troll_ov_Grimness

02-23-2010, 01:57 PM

White weenie can only be made viable in one way. Burn all the tarmogoyfs.

Beyond that it would require WotC to print some WW cards with prot green or on the level of devout light caster that can target green/tarmogoyf creatures.

But this is exactly what Jotun Grunt, Catapult Squad, Deftblade Elite and Icatian Javelineers are designed to do. Hell, throw in a Kjeldoran Outpost or two for good measure. Make more dudes if you are playing Aysen Crusader and Grunt in sideboard or something every dude you get off the ranch makes your crusader bigger. I realize Crusader is not a soldier but it has a default power of 2/2 so it is no slouch. This for a long time was one of the most broken Homelands cards (the rules text said each Hero.. of which there was only Benalish Hero) it was sort of like getting a 2/2 or 3/3 for 4 mana. Maybe a 4/4 for 4 mana at best it was real garbage but now it has been fixed completely after the grand creature type revision it is more on a level playing field with a 'goyf or a Juzam Djinn.

This deck this guy made I believe very strongly in it I really think it fixes all the problems ww has to deal with. It is like playing a red sligh deck.

If only there was a Vigilance giving liege I should find one then this deck is sick.
Mobilization will have to do
I might prefer Serra's Blessing

Nelis

02-23-2010, 03:06 PM

If only there was a Vigilance giving liege I should find one then this deck is sick.
Mobilization will have to do

Give Ajani a try.

Troll_ov_Grimness

02-23-2010, 05:05 PM

Serra's Blessing is better. Honestly.

White has no card draw or mana accel to speak of. I could play tithe but that is just lands.
What might be a good plan is instead of playing 24 lands to play 22 and with two Tithe it would help a little. Or maybe even 20 lands and a playset of tithe. But I want to be playing soldiers not mana drawing. This deck playing vials doesn't need consistency like that.

dunno.

Card draw and being board wiped is all I really worry about with this deck

Glitch

05-14-2010, 05:28 AM

Not sure what you boys got against WW.... I been running it for years with no issues so far. I can outrun borros and overpower a goyf if for some odd reason the damn things lives a turn. With WW all you really need to do is play smart, you have power and speed on your side if you bothered to think a deck up yourself and not find some other morons internet deck. My list has Mass removal and singles so I can deal with goblins elves Goyfs and whatever else for some odd reason just happens to be in my way. there is plenty of mana ramp in WW if you play it right, hints "Knight of the White Orchid". Combo that with Kor Skyfisher and a steppe linx and perhaps a fetch land and bingo, you got a 6/7 One drop. For a slower list I advise Honor the pure(Only speaking of standard for the record) Or for a faster list like mine run 8 fetch lands and steppe lynx with a couple of simple toys. I'm playing at a Tournament in Hatizburg MS today and I'll be running WW, the list is as follows.

Ajani Goldmane x4
Stirring Wildwood x4
Behemoth Sledge x1
Path to Exile x4
Steppe Lynx x4
Kor Skyfisher x4
Sunpetle grove x3
Stoneforge Mystic x3
White Knight x4
Knight of the White Orchid x4
Kor Firewalker x4
Sigil of Distinction x1
Basilisk collar x1
Oblivion Ring x2
Day Of judgement x2
Snow Covered Plains x8
Arid Mesa x4
Marsh Flats x4

I play tested this list with several varriants. Steppe Lynx was Elite vanguard... but he was to damn boring. Just a Vanilla 1 drop 2/1 that dies almost instantly. With fetches Steppe lynx is an easy choice over Kor Duelist or Vanguard. I tried to run the list with Elspeth because I listened to the morons that said she was the best. They were wrong. In BANT she is better... With WW. You won't limit yourself to attacking with just one creature. You swing with the team. Thus vigilince and permanent counters from Ajani are the beats. Please feel free to email me with any feed back at pwnydwn@gmail.com
I responde to all emails almost instantly. If you have any questions about white I run this list or want to know how to run it I'll be happy to answer.

DragoFireheart

05-14-2010, 09:05 AM

Here's some reported White Weenie decks:

http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?type=White+Weenie&format=Legacy

Honestly, I don't see mono white weenie ever becoming a powerful contender. There are 2 big problems that it has at the moment:

1. Combo decks. WW is simply too slow to fight combo decks. It lacks the raw power of Zoo, the disruption of Merfolk or Counter-Top Decks or the ability to combo itself like Reanimator. When you are paying three mana for some solider dude, Zoo could be going for the alpha strike, Counter-Top may already have the lock with a Goyf down and Reanimator may already have a Iona naming white, smashing you in the face and not allowing you to play your white weenies since you only have one color. In short, what WW may do, many other decks do it better and can compete with combo.

2. Creature Size. A little strange to hear since the idea of white weenie is to swarm your opponent with creatures, but white generally does not have very large creatures. When Zoo decks pay 1 mana for a 3/3 and other decks pay 2 for a 3/4, or some decks pay 2 for a 5/5 flying demon, your Elite Vanguard doesn't seem that great. Sure, there are some bombs like Jötun Grunt but then he is good outside of a WW deck. Another problem with white weenie is that it's tribal, Soldiers, just isn't developed enough. Many of the soldiers that do stuff cost 3 or more to do the same ting Goblins can do. Also, Soldiers don't really have anything as broken as Goblin Lackey or Goblin Piledriver for such a low cost. Preeminent Captain is somewhat comparable to lackey in ability, but not in cost, while I have not seen anything from Soldiers that is comparable to Piledriver and if there is, it is likely to be more expensive. The WW are not big enough for what you pay for them, essentially making them a turn slower when compared to goblins. In short, WW as it stands now is just a bad version of goblins.

bakofried

05-17-2010, 01:51 AM

I think it would have to be a complete metagame deck. For instance, Canonist in the MB may catch ANT by surprise, but what will it do against Zoo? On the other side, Mother of Runes is decent against Aggro, but what happens in the Ichorid MU? There really needs to be a balance found.

I do love the Catapult Squad, though.

bowvamp

05-17-2010, 03:36 PM

Strawberry Dwarf

05-23-2010, 07:24 PM

DragoFireheart

05-24-2010, 12:18 PM

No.
WW has fine tools to stand on its own against the problems mentioned above. Storm Combo can be disrupted by Orim's Chant, Mana Tithe, Abeyance, Angel's Grace, Children of Korlis, Aethersworn Cannonist, Thorn of Amethyst/Sphere of Resistance etc, Wheel of Sun and Moon is a tool against graveyard abuse and mill effects, Rebels can play around both CounterTop and Iona while keeping opponent's Iona/Goyf tapped with Whipcorder, and faster pure aggro isn't a big issue because of first strike blockers, banding and timewalking with Childrens of Korlis. The true issue are board control decks, but a skilled WW player can win anyway. I don't wanna claim WW is a power contender, but it is a deck with very nice power/money ratio and can be tuned for specific metagame.

If what you are saying is true, then decks like you described would have been showing up.

Nelis

05-24-2010, 01:01 PM

Point 1 is no reason for white weenie not to be a contender at all. Zoo hardly ever wins from combo yet it is played. And white does have much better weapons to fight combo.

Point 2 is much more valid. I bypass that problem by putting in Ajani Goldmane and run Sigiled Paladin which works better than you might expect but Zoo will always be a tough match up. Apart from MoM I don´t play any protection from red creatures (maybe I should)

On white weenie.
- I stopped running Aether Vial because in my experience WW wants a high threat density as possible
- Run Stoneforge Mystic and a Jitte or 2 to get an edge vs aggro. (my version doesn´t have any real problems vs merfolk and vs goblins btw)
- Why run Mana Tithe if you can run Knight of the White Orchid?

I must say that I haven´t tested Chrome Mox but it seems to me that you don´t want to imprint your creatures. In my experience, if you run Knight of the White Orchid eventually you gain tempo but it will be at turn 2, 3 or later. Knight of the White Orchid works well with Figure of Destiny

Vacrix

05-24-2010, 01:32 PM

Whatever happened to Life.dec? That was basically white weenie. Infinite life on turn 3 is pretty hard to beat if you aren't combo. It might not be viable anymore given the fragility of a creature based combo.

claudio.r

05-24-2010, 01:36 PM

Here in our meta, a guy has been able to get very good results piloting a whte weenie list that is essential an all around metagame list. I don't have his complete list but he plays something like

4x aether vial
4x mother of runes
4x serra avenger
4x ethersworn canonist
4x jotun grunt (i don't know if 4 is the correct number)
4x silver knight (with firewalker in the board)

in the spell area he has

4x path to exile
3x silence

i don't know the rest of the list he olays, but his deck can hava a lot of mainboard answers for every kind of deck.

bowvamp

05-24-2010, 08:56 PM

About Tithe vs. KotWO, Tithe is half the mana for a better effect. The advantage of Knight is that you get a decent body with the search effect. But considering the search effect activates less than Tithe does (eot tithe/in resp to our wasteland tithe). Tithe also allows us to significantly decrease our land count because it fetches two lands, not just 1 and works with only 1 land in play whereas the effect on threat density is very little with the knight.
Idk, I've just had more success with tithe.

Nelis

05-28-2010, 01:36 AM

Ok, so I know this isn't the most budget list around, but I kinda love the card Tithe. It basically "draws" you two plains if you can get to a lower land count than your opponent. Welcome to:
Not-Stax

10 Plains
2 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Wasteland
4 Chrome Mox
4 Tithe
4 Path to Exile
4 Aether Vial
4 Jotun Grunt
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Mother of Runes
4 Serra Avenger
4 Somnomancer
4 Mistmeadow Skulk
4 Spectral Procession

About Tithe vs. KotWO, Tithe is half the mana for a better effect. The advantage of Knight is that you get a decent body with the search effect. But considering the search effect activates less than Tithe does (eot tithe/in resp to our wasteland tithe). Tithe also allows us to significantly decrease our land count because it fetches two lands, not just 1 and works with only 1 land in play whereas the effect on threat density is very little with the knight. Idk, I've just had more success with tithe.

I disagree. Especially about the bold part. But first:

In general it seems to me that the benefits of KotWO outweigh the benefits of Tithe.

Upsides of Tithe:
1. You filter a land more
2. Costs 1 mana
3. Increases the chance of drawing a threat (but just as marginally as a fetch land does)
4. if there's more please tell me. I probably missed some benefits.

Downsides of Tithe:
1. You have to keep mana open to play Tithe
2. The lands you search go to your hand not into play
3. Tithe is not a threat
4. If your opponent does not have more lands in play Tithe does nothing, KotWO is still a creature.
4.1 When you're on the play Tithe is even worse than KotWO because it's not a creature
5. Tithe is a terrible topdeck (see point 3)

Knight Of The White Orchid is a threat, a Tithe and a Chrome Mox nicely wrapped together in one card.

I don't see why Tithe is better for threat density. Best case scenario's in a vacuum:

My best case scenario with KotWo on the draw:
Turn 1: I play a Figure of Destiny
Turn 2: Pump Figure of Destiny attack for 2 damage, play a MoM
Turn 3: I play KotWO, fetch a plains which comes into play untapped, play another plains and play a 2/2 threat. Attack for 3 damage.
Turn 4: Pump FoD to 4/4 Attack for 9 damage. 15 damage in total. 4 Attacking threats

Your best case scenario with Tithe on the draw:
Turn 1: You play Chrome Mox, play Tithe, play land play MoM
Turn 2: You play a land play Spectral Possesion. Attack for 1 damage
Turn 3: You play a land, play Kitchen Finks, play MoM. Attack for 4 damage
Turn 4: Attack for 8 damage. 13 damage in total 6 attacking threats.

Second best case scenario. You have Tithe, I have KotWo but you have no chrome mox (we both have enough lands).

You:
Turn 1: Play land. Play MoM
Turn 2: Play Tithe. Play land. Play MoM. Attack for 1 damage.
Turn 3: Play Land. Play Spectral Posession. Attack for 2 damage
Turn 4: Attack for 5 damage. 8 damage in total. 5 Attacking threats

Me:
Turn 1: I play a Figure of Destiny
Turn 2: Pump Figure of Destiny. Play a MoM. Attack for 2 damage.
Turn 3: I play KotWO, fetch a plains comes into play untapped. Play another plains. Play a random 2/2 threat. Attack for 3 damage.
Turn 4: Pump FoD, Attack for 9 damage. 14 damage in total. 4 Attacking threats

Your threat density does not come from Tithe but Spectral Possession. Without Spectral Possession Tithe doesn't help you more than KotWO does me. With Spectral Possession and without Tithe you're definitely screwed (unless your lucky to draw enough lands)

In general when I look at your deck I am worried about the following things:

1. You run very little white mana sources, only 16. This makes you very dependent on Tithe and Aether Vial and Chrome Mox. You have to mulligan into one of the above because you cannot depend on drawing enough lands.
2. Chrome Mox is card disadvantage
3. You don't have many 1 drop creatures for early pressure
4. Your 2 drop creatures have nice abilities but are not strong by themselves (mine are).
5. You run a lot of 3 mana spells but have very little white mana sources. Double white will be hard to get tripple white even more.

I firmly believe my deck is much more consistent. Especially when we're on the play. Basically when your Aether Vial/Tithe/Chrome Mox game plan fails you are into a lot of trouble. And in that case you can't rely much on drawing lands either. You don't have very big threats either. You can play on turn 2: 1/1's, 2/1's, or a 4/4 that can hopefully attack once.

Why I think my deck is more consistent::
1. Less chance of having to mulligan
2. Better and more consistent early game
3. Much better mid and late game (I don't think you really have them) Figure of Destiny and Ranger of Eos allow for a very strong midgame.
4. Stronger creatures. People are not afraid of an unblockable 1/1 with lifegain (they might if you would equip it)

Some other points why I think my deck is better.

I feel your only option is to go aggro and try to win the game as quick as possible. I can take up a control role vs Goblins and Merfolk which I don't see your deck do. Soem reasons:
1. My first strike creatures kill 2/2 goblins and merfolk, yours die
2. Exalted allows me to hold ground with non exalted creatures and I can still attack with 3/3 (first strike) creatures. The best creature would be an Exalted Serra Avenger.
3. Ajani makes my creatures bigger permanently and give me vigilance. This is also a benefit vs Zoo although its still a hard matchup.

BUT: I do like Spectral Posession. It might be good for my deck too. Spectral Possession and Ajani is nice.

My deck has changed a bit btw. Latest version:

//Creatures (28)
1 Kor Duelist (experimental, but not been able to test it properly yet)
2 Kor Firewalker (experimental too)
2 Ranger of Eos
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Jotun Grunt
3 Serra Avenger
4 Knight of the Wild Orchid
4 Mother of Runes
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Sigiled Paladin

//Other permanents (5)
2 Jitte
3 Ajani Goldmane

//Instants (7)
4 Path to Exile
3 Swords to Plowshares

// Land (20)
20 Plains

TsumiBand

06-01-2010, 08:23 PM

There are a few creatures I want to bring up in this thread, creatures that seem to, IMO, aid the White Weenie strategy in that they represent both a threat and an extra card - either giving one to yourself, or taking one from the opponent.

Knight of the White Orchid - combo with Wasteland? But srsly actually, this guy is a house in this deck, since we usually get tempted to play with equipment cards that have, not prohibitive costs but sort of annoying costs. Angel Stompy ran Ancient Tomb to deal with this (and Exalted Angel to deal with the life loss + just be an awesome huge creature); I wonder if KotWO can replace Tomb altogether. In the end I don't think so, but then my deck still flips over Exalted Angel FTW so whatevs

Stoneforge Mystic - a lot of people discuss this one, and she's real good at what she does. It's easy to call her a bad creature, what having a 1 where there should be a 2, but the fact that she gets equipment cards seems to mean that she's not actually a shitty creature, she's a relevant tutor that will become a beater very shortly, unless you've already got a nastier guy in play.

Tidehollow Sculler - oooops, not a mono-White Weenie, but seriously, it does exactly what White Weenie decks have wanted to do for aeons, answer random crap. Plus this deck protects it with Mother of Runes, meaning it may as well just be a 2/2 Thoughtseize without the life loss.

Now at the risk of invoking Pikula.dec, I think White Weenie can be fundamentally different from that deck without completely transforming, and I don't think it has to 'go tribal' to be successful. I *do* think it remains a metagame deck, and I *do* think that to escape that stigma it needs to be willing to look at other colors, and honestly I think Black is a better splash than Blue. Why? Blue inevitably leads to cards like Force of Will/Daze/Meddling Mage/Fathom Seer/etc, which generally lead to tempo hits on your behalf, not the opponent. Force is great in a dedicated control deck, or in a combo deck. But White Weenie is pretty cautious about its balance between aggro and control, and you can't afford to be bouncing lands and ripping cards out of your hand unless you're advancing your board position. By the time a White Weenie deck puts in enough Blue cards to support Force and Daze and start Pondering and Brainstorming enough to replace the ammo, it's just not White Weenie anymore. I should be able to play a threat *and* generate some kind of card advantage or tempo. Mother of Runes can do that, Stoneforge Mystic can do that, and yeah Meddling Mage kind of does that, but ever since MM was released there's been no consensus in the community as to whether or not that guy actually matters a damn. As for Fathom Seer... like I said, in a dedicated control deck, sure I'll Gush and make a guy. But if I'm looking to keep up on land drops via Knight of the WO or assemble Voltron with Mystic and SoFI? Tell me how returning two Tundras to my hand on turn 4 will help me achieve this. Meanwhile, while Blue is feeling awkward for WW.dec, Black's staples are one-shot aggressive investments, and that makes aggressive deck very happy. Thoughtseize you, Tidehollow you, next turn Knight otWO+Stoneforge into the right equipment card. I got three guys on the board and a Jitte in my hand and you have -2 cards, have fun with that.

Now after putting that out there, I want to ask the opinion of the board about a few cards that I'm thinking about but not sold on at all...

Steppe Lynx - in a deck with a billion fetchlands he's a 4/5. In this deck with Knight otWO, he can continue to be big into the later game and maybe even get randomly bigger, as in 6/7. I don't feel like this deck is hard-up for 1-drops since strong contenders are Figure of Destiny, Mother of Runes, and IMO Black discard spells like Thoughtseize. OTOH, if it's like turn 4 - 6 and we're out of lands to throw at the cat and we do indeed have a Black splash, it's not hard to decide which guy gets sac'ed to Cabal Therapy, or say Cataclysm. I dunno about Steppe Lynx.

Phantom Nomad - given that White Weenie's strategy these guys is usually based around gaining tempo and card advantage where one can, I wonder if this guy isn't actually worth looking at. For starters, Mother of Runes can prevent the loss of counters, which you'd probably be doing anyway if the guy weren't Phantom Nomad and just some 2/2 guy with a relevant ability, so there's that. Furthermore, it can block stupid shit like Lackey/Bob/Piledriver/things with an X/2 in the corner and kill it, while it just loses a counter. Additionally, if it's equipped with anything that boosts its P/T, it never dies to damage. Stoneforge Mystic can fetch Sword of the Right Colors and suddenly Phantom Nomad can swing and/or block with absolute impunity. Having said that, it seems a bit weaker than Knight of the Holy Nimbus and KotHN doesn't get played all that often (but it probably should).

Tacosnape

06-01-2010, 10:43 PM

White Weenie won't be viable until one of the following problems is fixed:

1. White Weenie has very narrow and limited capacity for disruption.
2. White Weenie has very narrow and limited draw and/or card advantage.

#1 is hard. Mono white doesn't have counters. Or discard. And given how most of its best creatures cost two white, Wasteland's hard to run too. Instead it gets a range of narrow and unique abilities.

#2 might be the closer to being fixed. Knight of the White Orchid can snag land, Stoneforge Mystic can snag equipment, but there's not really enough there just yet.

Combo Winter

06-05-2010, 01:59 AM

I would start off with playing 4 port and 4 waste as well as aether vial pretty much take a page out of goblins play book and swarm. I sure you can have a favorable zoo matchup and be about 50-50 with thresh especally since the printing of stoneforege mystic. I def don't think you would be a strickly worse version of goblins because your best matchup zoo is one of goblins worst matchups not to mention you stomp goblins as well. You cant be playing slow cards like 4 drops or anything even geddon or tribal. Like if you stick to guys who are amazing whenever you can end they game in a fast and explosive fashion while raping their lands. It will probably not be the best aggro deck out there but i would def call this deck viable in all but the most combo saturated metas although there are far better aggro deck out there.

4 stp
2 jitte
1 sofi
2 o ring
4 vial

4 steppe lynx
4 mother of runes
4 wethered wayfairer
4 stone forge
4 kor skyfisher
4 serra avanger

9 fetch
4 waste
4 port
6 plains

side
4 crypt
4 kor firewalker
3 abolish
4 canonist

bakofried

06-05-2010, 01:01 PM

Why does this deck beat Goblins? Or Zoo? Or Thresh? Why run 9 fetches? Why run fetches at all? These are the first things that popped into my head when I looked at your list. Besides, that looks an awful lot like DnT minus the Karakas package.

Exospaciac

06-05-2010, 01:27 PM

The fetches are there for Wayfarer shenanigans, I'm guessing.

Greenpoe

06-05-2010, 03:56 PM

Fetches make Steppe Lynx excellent. Kor Skyfisher just looks bad, though. There's much better options for this slot.

Combo Winter

06-05-2010, 05:58 PM

The fetches are for steppe lynx as greenpoe pointed out and the reason and the reason I added the skyfishers is to activate wayfairer and I belive flying is better than first strike so its not like they are strickly worse than knights when you don't have a lynx or way fairer. Though That list is not tested at all it was just a demonstration of a possible viable ww stratagy that the OP was asking about. And I think that keeping the lands on the board under 3 and swarming your opponent could work in some metas. As opposed to playing big mana spells like planes walkers and ranger of eos. I think that your zoo matchup wholud be favorable as would your goblins matchup. But a matchup like thresh or countertop would be around 50-50 because if you resolve vial they will have a tough time winning. The skyfishers could def go but I think they would work well with the serra avengers providing reach. If I cut they i would go with solitari priest or knight of the medowgrain. Also adding lionin bola to the equipment package might be a good idea.

TsumiBand

06-06-2010, 12:56 PM

Wasteland activation via Wayfarer/Skyfisher just seems so poopy. When were you planning on casting your own spells, exactly? The best White Weenies tend to cost WW. Between having few lands for Wayfarer, and those lands you fetch to tap for colorless, and you throwing those lands at decks who will eventually start grabbing basics anyway, I feel like that plan is suboptimal.

One card I'm a little surprised no one has discussed is Knight of the Holy Nimbus. I find that his effect gives people more bother than it seems it should; Pay 2R to Bolt him? Nice tempo sink Zoo. And really, a good White Weenie deck needs to grab tempo wherever it can. He has the capacity to boot out most of the 'protection bears' that White Weenie has classically played. Plus he has flanking. Flanking! What the fuck! And by the time opponent doesn't mind paying 2 extra just to kill it, either MoR is online (should be already!) or we've assembled Voltron and he's wearing good equipment. I find no real fault with Knight of the Holy Nimbus.

Forbiddian

06-06-2010, 01:48 PM

troopatroop

06-06-2010, 07:07 PM

What about Honor of the Pure. White has 3 two power 1 drops, which played along with Mother of Runes, Sigiled Paladin, and Stoneforge Mystic + Jitte you have a pretty efficient deck. Running that many 1 drops makes Wasteland Possible, and Weathered Wayfarer attractive. Coupled with STP and Path and maybe Oblivion Ring? The question really comes down to whether or not Savannah Lions/Elite Vanguard/Isamaru are actually any good. Maybe they're not. What are the best Power/Toughness white creatures?

theoretical decklist...

4 Weathered Wayfarer
4 Savannah Lions
4 Elite Vanguard
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Sigiled Paladin
3 Serra Avenger
3 Stoneforge Mystic

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Honor of the Pure
3 Crusade
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Jitte
1 Basilisk Collar

4 Wasteland
15 Plains

That's the best I can do, and it's not bad. I opted for Wayfarer over Mother of Runes. 7 Crusades might be a bit much, but it could be awesome. I'm gonna try and get this deck together and take it for a spin...

TsumiBand

06-06-2010, 11:17 PM

Two points: 1) "Not being able to find a fault" with a card is maybe a decent method of card selection in Limited. In Legacy right now, cards have to be good. Only at most the 8 or 10 best white creatures ever printed will ever see play in White Weenie.

2) If you can't find a fault with Knight of the Holy Nimbus, you're not trying very hard. He has abilities that White Weenie doesn't need (he's somewhat hard to block, and somewhat hard to get rid of), but he's not reliably a blocker or an attacker. He's going to be outsized by every creature in the format, that means if you use him to attack/block, your opponent can just pay 2 to get up a card (keep in mind that's the same amount that you paid).

If I still stand beside my assertion that White Weenie remains a metagame deck - that is to say, a good aggro-control deck in the face of other aggro-control decks - then Knight of the Holy Nimbus easily fills the role of the protection Knights that used to be a critical part of the deck. Angel Stompy used to play like 8 pro-red guys because of Goblins. I don't think this deck needs to gun quite as hard for Goblins unless it's really showing up, so why bother with the old protection Knights when there's one guy who essentially has 'protection from damage' until you slap a Sword of Whatever or a Jitte on him, by which point his ability has served its purpose?

It's just not true that he dies to every creature in the format, Flanking means that he will never be chumped by anything less than a x/2 and on the attack kills things with a 3 in the corner. That's pretty much the entire (non-goyf) Zoo deck, Merfolk before the Lords come down, every Goblin, etc. The kinds of opponents that have the mana to "just pay 2" when he's on the attack aren't going to be throwing down anything threatening before turn 4 at the earliest. I play this guy and I've had success; I watch as Maelstrom Pulse suddenly becomes the dumbest 5-mana kill spell ever, or as an early Knight meets an early Tarmogoyf and my Knight stalls the game long enough for me to draw removal or Stoneforge or equipment. As Lightning Bolt turns into shitty Carbonize. As Engineered Explosives waits a turn too long to matter. As Merfolk taps out to kill it and doesn't have the mana to counter Knight of the White Orchid --> Stoneforge --> SoFI. If the opponent's removal isn't Path to Exile or Terror, Knight of the Holy Nimbus may as well have his own personal Trinisphere.

You also have to consider the kinds of creatures he gets played next to. For starters, Mother of Runes will basically always enable whatever you have on the board to outlast, so to that point it's true that the 2-drop Knight could be anything. But this deck tends to want to play things like Stoneforge Mystic, so your guys are generally equipped to deal with whatever random guys the opponent is playing. Aven Mindcensor is a retarded bird that can prevent target opponent from cracking fetchlands or finding answers. Knight of the White Orchid is great for maintaining mana parity and also gets used to accelerate into 4 land on turn 3 - sooner if you play Mox Diamond/Chrome Mox. Ethersworn Canonist gets boarded in vs. combo; who do you blow the removal spell on? If we're just talking about tempo, Holy Nimbus is all over that shit and it holds a Sword of Fire and Ice just as well as most of the other random 2-drops people want to throw in here. I have success with this guy; I threw him in year and a half ago and never looked back.

pi4meterftw

06-07-2010, 07:44 AM

If I still stand beside my assertion that White Weenie remains a metagame deck - that is to say, a good aggro-control deck in the face of other aggro-control decks - then Knight of the Holy Nimbus easily fills the role of the protection Knights that used to be a critical part of the deck. Angel Stompy used to play like 8 pro-red guys because of Goblins. I don't think this deck needs to gun quite as hard for Goblins unless it's really showing up, so why bother with the old protection Knights when there's one guy who essentially has 'protection from damage' until you slap a Sword of Whatever or a Jitte on him, by which point his ability has served its purpose?

It's just not true that he dies to every creature in the format, Flanking means that he will never be chumped by anything less than a x/2 and on the attack kills things with a 3 in the corner. That's pretty much the entire (non-goyf) Zoo deck, Merfolk before the Lords come down, every Goblin, etc. The kinds of opponents that have the mana to "just pay 2" when he's on the attack aren't going to be throwing down anything threatening before turn 4 at the earliest. I play this guy and I've had success; I watch as Maelstrom Pulse suddenly becomes the dumbest 5-mana kill spell ever, or as an early Knight meets an early Tarmogoyf and my Knight stalls the game long enough for me to draw removal or Stoneforge or equipment. As Lightning Bolt turns into shitty Carbonize. As Engineered Explosives waits a turn too long to matter. As Merfolk taps out to kill it and doesn't have the mana to counter Knight of the White Orchid --> Stoneforge --> SoFI. If the opponent's removal isn't Path to Exile or Terror, Knight of the Holy Nimbus may as well have his own personal Trinisphere.

You also have to consider the kinds of creatures he gets played next to. For starters, Mother of Runes will basically always enable whatever you have on the board to outlast, so to that point it's true that the 2-drop Knight could be anything. But this deck tends to want to play things like Stoneforge Mystic, so your guys are generally equipped to deal with whatever random guys the opponent is playing. Aven Mindcensor is a retarded bird that can prevent target opponent from cracking fetchlands or finding answers. Knight of the White Orchid is great for maintaining mana parity and also gets used to accelerate into 4 land on turn 3 - sooner if you play Mox Diamond/Chrome Mox. Ethersworn Canonist gets boarded in vs. combo; who do you blow the removal spell on? If we're just talking about tempo, Holy Nimbus is all over that shit and it holds a Sword of Fire and Ice just as well as most of the other random 2-drops people want to throw in here. I have success with this guy; I threw him in year and a half ago and never looked back.

Are you speaking a different language than English? Specifically, one where this isn't a serious recommendation for a terrible card?

TsumiBand

06-07-2010, 08:49 AM

Are you speaking a different language than English? Specifically, one where this isn't a serious recommendation for a terrible card?

Only if you're speaking a language where you don't actually have to rebuke anything, just mention how terrible something is and move on.

I'm not interested in destroying a thread over an opinion over a card; I find that Knight of the Holy Nimbus fills the role of the random protection bears that WW has classically played, especially when the Knight in question had protection from the wrong color.

I also happen to think that WW's matchups are significantly improved by adding Black, in which case your options expand to the point where, no you don't have to run Knght of the Holy Nimbus. But this thread isn't about splash colors.

pi4meterftw

06-07-2010, 01:50 PM

Only if you're speaking a language where you don't actually have to rebuke anything, just mention how terrible something is and move on.

I'm not interested in destroying a thread over an opinion over a card; I find that Knight of the Holy Nimbus fills the role of the random protection bears that WW has classically played, especially when the Knight in question had protection from the wrong color.

I also happen to think that WW's matchups are significantly improved by adding Black, in which case your options expand to the point where, no you don't have to run Knght of the Holy Nimbus. But this thread isn't about splash colors.

Yeah, why would I have to rebuke anything? Do you actually question that I'm wrong... that knight of the holy nimbus is bad?

DragoFireheart

06-07-2010, 02:12 PM

TsumiBand

06-08-2010, 09:24 AM

Knight of the Holy Nimbus is bad for a few reasons:

- The opponent can just pay the cost.

- Pridemage is everywhere, so any equips going on him get blown up, making him a largely irrelevant 2/2 with neato abilities.

- He's a ten-turn clock, which is too slow for a single creature that we expect to be as out main beater.

See how well that works? I feel like I actually have something to talk about.

Yeah, the cost can be paid - but again, if we're a metagame deck (as in don't bring this deck to an Iona Reanimator party) then the question is when and why. Cards like Engineered Explosives and Maelstrom Pulse can't hit a Knight sooner than turns where they can represent 4 and 5 mana respectively. And by those turns, you should play right and be dropping equips that don't cost the same as your guys do (SoFI/LS), have Mama Runes active, or have a larger threat in Exalted Angel. I recognize that it's not the same as having a Silver Knight standing against a legion of red red Goblins - but if one is in a position to be worried about Goblins then your maindeck should look a tad different. I don't have that concern here.

Pridemage is a dick and a valid concern. I prefer not to live in fear of the answers though; Pithing Needle belongs in the board of this deck, ne? If not for other sick things that can jank up your gameplan, things much worse than Pridemage. And like many things, the correct answer is usually to play right; answer the guy via PtE/StP before you actually throw an equipment out there. But really if the concern for not playing Knight of the Holy Nimbus is watching Pridemage blow up equipment cards, I think the concern is valid inasmuch as you shouldn't ought to be playing a deck that leans on equipment so much in a meta with Qasali Pridemages errywhere.

As for being a ten-turn clock. Most of the solid WW guys are. Even Serra Avenger has to wait until the midgame to come down, so for all her vigilant flying goodies she may as well be a 'slow clock'. If there were a playable 3/2 for WW I think it'd be in contention over most of the guys we think about running. I mentioned Steppe Lynx earlier, but the more I play that card in other decks the more I fucking hate it. That guy has Blastoderm's disease; it gets chumped until it doesn't matter anymore, and god forbid there's so much as a Lava Dart somewhere out there to ruin his day. White Weenie doesn't usually deal in huge clocks besides using Stoneforge Mystic to make a brick house out of some bloke with a Jitte. Even Exalted Angel is just a 4/5, there's Tombstalkers and Ionas and Sphinx of the Steel Winds and shit out there.

I will say that given the success other decks have with Noble Hierarch and also given the propensity of this deck to equip one mans and turn him sideways for great victory, my interest has been piqued by suggestions of Sigiled Paladin. He doesn't seem like he stacks up against Hierarch in that he's not +1 mana, but my deck never got rid of Ancient Tomb and definitely plays Knight of the White Orchid and Chrome Mox, so maybe the Exalted bonus is worth a damn. Maybe.