White mages! What’s your favorite thing about playing white? Did we miss any of the color’s pitfalls? What’s your favorite tech to shore up those weaknesses and pilot your white decks to victory?
I think it's not brought up enough that one of the issues with white is that it's greatest strengths non-bo with each other. "Going wide" and "board wipes" don't mix well
In mono white there are some go wide wincons. And most of them can be tutured for in it's colors. Jazal Goldmane, Mirror Entity, Dragonthrone of tarkir, Graaz Unstoppable juggernaut, Starlight spectacular.
And remember all the blinkstuff in white to get more value of your etbs. Eldrazi displacer, sword of hearth and home, angel of condemnation, the eternal wanderer, galepowder mage, blade of selves, teleportation circle, conjurers closet, Gilrean Dunedain Protector.
Dont sleep on Lotus Field! It sets up both knight of the white orchid and Sevinnes reclamation. You can also combo it with flagstones of trokair. The chance is minimal, but so is the opportunity cost. If your playgroup is casual enough you could even add lotus vale.
I think White has more stack interaction than you are thinking of. When your creatures are trying to be targeted. You can give your creature protection, indestructible, flicker/clowdshift, shield counters, or phasing.
@@Mattress1996 I suppose that is a way of looking at it, actually. In my mind, I see it more from the perspective of protecting something, but I can see the other way round too now... Thanks :)
I see it as, white has so many ways to protect their board and say,"Hey I don't like that so I'm gonna turtle away from it" but it still can't really prevent that bomb from going off. the blue counterspells are always gonna win, since teferi's does nothing when it gets countered
Back around the Urza's Saga days my mainstay was a deck I thought of as "White Control". Mother of Runes, Warrior en-Kor, Pariah, Inviolability... I played small creatures, made them nigh-unkillable, used that to make me nigh-unkillable and then whittled my enemy down with unblockable attacks.
As a guy who lives for Boros, I enjoy getting tricky for ramp. I'll use Lotus Field to keep my land count down, and copy it with Thespian's Stage. I usually get it with the Weathered Wayfarer.
Rachel is such a treasure to this channel. I find myself seeking out videos with her, and binging that content. I know she's been here a while now, but I still find her to be a refreshing addition to the Command Zone.
I saw her on Shuffle Up and Play, playing the unset/playtest card "THE Colossal Dreadmaw". She was just so fun and had such fun energy. Very much "Wine aunt" in the BEST ways. Ever since I've been doing the same as you- seeking out the videos that she's in! She's fantastic, and I'm so glad she got brought into the command zone.
My white ramp if I get Weathered Wayfarer in my opening hand: Flagstones of Trokair Lotus field (sacking flagstones +1) Thespians stage (copy lotus field) Slow rolling but efficient, also leaves you on less lands so your catch-up mechanics still kick in.
Not sure why everyone hates on white ramp. It is the second best after green at land ramp and has been strong for years, the comment should be it isn't cheap to do so. With catch up ramp you can go "down" lands with guildless common, karoo, lotus field, lotus vale, scorched ruins, etc. When sacrificing lands with the above or when using fetches or similar effects can return them with brought back, second sunrise, faith reward, sun titan, sevinne reclamation, Cosmic intervention, planar birth. It is perceived not as good since you need to work at it and it is just not given to you like a cultivate does, but can be more powerful than those cards when done right as a lot of the cards have versatility to use elsewhere in game.
20:02 Replenish; Bring back all your enchantments from your gv to bf. 23:13 Reprieve, Aven Interrupter, lapse of Certainty, Mana tithe, rebuff the wicked, Illumination, Robe of stars+Grand Abolisher! warping wail/Null Elemental blast(colourless but still) *Archaeomancer's map puts down any land from your hand. Ect ect so many good cards Hail White Mages!
This video could not have come up at a better time. I was just thinking I wanted to build another white deck, decided on Lulu, and learned more here about how to approach deck design. Thanks!
I actually just built Oketra last week. I got two games in with it and popped off with bounce creatures, but my concern is that it will feel repetitive when I win by doing that very thing over and over again. Have you encountered this, and if so have you found a way to shake up the play experience?
@@gabrielkopp9248 So the way I built it was to just play a bunch of small creatures with useful abilities (Spirited Companion, Loran of the Third Path, Knight of the White Orchid, etc.) and try leaning into the token stuff a little more. I've played it maybe a dozen times and am far from bored of it
@@geeknseek nice! What would you say are a couple of the unusual cards you put in that might not appear in the majority of Oketra decks? I always like to look at all my options and what other people are slotting in
I play very combat focused decks and some are very aggro. I struggle to understand when people get upset because my aggro deck, which often loses to spot removal or board wipes, wins through damage therefore it is "too strong". I appreciate Jimmy saying something about how Rachel wins in a very honest way and sometimes she just runs people over with damage. This is exactly how I describe my aggro decks, they win in a very fair way and you will see it on the board before it hits you.
I have always been the White player in my group. Nice to see the love for White, and Rachel always plays a great deck. Been getting into Commander over the last year, and its great to have Command Zone for these kinds of videos.
So much of white card draw cares about creatures entering the battlefield. For this reason I play whitemane lion. If you love it you can also play kor skyfisher. Its worse for durdling, but its a 2/3 flyer for 2, and thats pretty sweet.
What once was the joke of the format has turned into arguably the best secondary color other than maybe green. Protection spells, board wipes, removal, recursion. White has even gotten decent at ramp & card draw in recent years. Never thought I'd say this, but right now White is the color I play the most.
One of my pet decks for a couple years now has been God Eternal Oketra because the tokens she creates helps give the reach needed to close the game. Now it's a legitimately threatening deck with the slow injection of great white creatures 😊
I was so happy to see a Mono white deep dive with Rachel, Mono white commander is my favorite. If I had to pick a combo with white, It's be blue. Card draw + protection / recursion is great. Awesome video, thanks Command Zone Team :) Edit: Love my Odric, all the keywords!
I love White Mana. I once won a game of commander by combining a board wipe (can't remember which) and Teferis Protection. I have never looked back lol
Recently I've built a Shu-Yun deck, leaning real hard into the Spellslinger / Buff aspect of it, and I have to say that White does have a good chunk of one-off combat tricks which is a good way to incur value off of cast triggers, prowess, etc. Though it's real rough, because I don't think there are ways to recur instants and sorceries from the grave in Mono-White.
So when I first started playing, my friends played with mono colored decks, this was how we would split boxes and draft, My color because I was the last to start playing was White...I will say as someone that grew up with White, learning to play magic and winning esp in multiplayer, takes some time, teaches you patience and when to take advantage. Grind out the win by making good choices and not giving up until that last life is gone, and even when you do run out of life lol
My absolute favorite white card atm, and one that I’m shocked isn’t more widely discussed, is an enchantment called Rabble Rousing, from Streets of New Capenna. For five mana, it makes a 1/1 citizen whenever a creature you control attacks. So many free tokens every turn, and on top of that it comes with a hideaway, so you get a free spell when you control 10 or more creatures. I’ve won so many games I absolutely should not have won because of that card haha
My first deck was mono white back in 10th edition, ive made close to 80 different mono white decks since then. Mono white has the most value enchants. As far as ramp it has the second most get a land every turn cards in the game.
I have Teferi's Protection, Clever Concealment, Make a Stand, Rootborn Defenses (Works well cause it's a token deck and this also gives Populate), and Unbreakable Formation in my Azorius (White really just a splash of Blue) deck. That's just the instants for board protection HAHA but seeing as my creature board state is responsible for my win cons I figure always having a way to protect them is highly important. I remember when I got Teferi's Protection in the mail, the sender had written on some paper inside the envelope "Remember, this doesn't protect you from mill!!", HAHA. I definitely took out things like Aura of Silence though. I've kept my pillowfort spells like Ghostly Prison, Norn's Annex and Propaganda, Windborn Muse, Baird, and so on. But things like Aura of Silence, Archon of Emeria, Vow of Silence, and so forth just make you the ENEMY NUMBER 1 of the table immediately. I kept noticing that suddenly EVERYONE, no matter how scary someone else's deck was or how powerful the other person's commander is, would all gang up on me and frankly...it made playing those cards VERY unfun. Powerful cards yes, but not worth the attention they draw in my opinion. They could probably be played more tactically if you're really in the right situation and can take advantage of the board's weakness or IDK maybe if there are only 1 or 2 players left so that you don't get ganged up on by 3 people, but nevertheless, I took them out because they didn't feel good to play (I felt like the party pooper at the table) and I would make enemies for the rest of the match. What's interesting though, is that most players DON'T rage when I pillowfort up because even though I'm untouchable in many ways, I'm still at least not telling them what they can or cannot play or how much their cards will cost. I think stax or tax effects that target players' ramp or restrict players' spell casting feel PERSONAL just like decks that specialize in stealing other people's stuff. It's the easiest way to make people hate you. And yet, while pillowforting is annoying to other players, I find it doesn't make everyone gang up on me because I'm not exactly threatening them, I'm just saying "please don't touch me". About the white cards that "you and and opponent draw" you could go for Tenuous Truce is you're interested in any pillowforting. Allows both you and an opponent to draw a card on their end step if neither of you have attacked each other. So...you could give it to an enemy that you know either CANNOT attack you, someone you DON'T want to have attack you, or to someone you otherwise feel like is simply not a threat to give card draw to compared to whoever else you're playing against. Then, once you get a little more online or get another card draw card, you can smack them once and end the card draw. For one white and one colorless, it's a pretty good early game card. Lastly, to Jimmy's comment about white being fair, that's EXACTLY what some players said at my LGS, haha, they were like "WOW, you're playing FAIR Magic" and then ended up complimenting my deck when I won because I played fair and still won! That's what I like about White too I think...playing infinite combos just feels dirty to me since I'm just playing at my LGS and not playing CEDH. Now if I were playing CEDH...infinite combos would just be bread and butter I'm sure.
White is my dominant color. I can’t do mono decks. But all of my decks are primarily white. I’m very partial to angels and I really wish they could be viable 😢
@@Blacklodge_Willy yess but I just find mono white so limiting that I avoid her 😂 I tried to build it and had a fun couple of games but I needed some of the cards for another deck and she was disassembled quickly
My Sigarda deck doesn't have a terrible record, and it's always a ton of fun to play. Having an angel deck is a requirement for me too, and Sigarda might be my favourite flavour.
My first (actually mono white deck) is bennie bracks. Before that it was mono white cats tribal. But now I use other cards that actually help me in the long game and recurring creatures that have better affects. It wins more games then it should and I love it
Loved this video!! I can’t wait for other colors. I think I would of liked to see a notable commanders section to really cement the philosophy for deck building. Great Vid though!!
I love playing white. My favorite deck is my Mono White Preston deck. I leaned into "What does White do well?" You called it "Recursion" and I choose to call it "Reuse Resources." Since white is good at bringing cards that have powerful etbs from the graveyard back, and flickering them, I end up reusing the same resources over and over. And pair that with the influx of "bad" 3 mana "etb draw a card" (like Priest of Ancient Lore) or the really good Spirited Companion (aka DOGGO!), white has a LOT of good value over time synergies. My Preston deck has the capability to keep a lot of threats at bay and gain a lot of value.
My favourite azorius commander has always been Bruna, Light of Alabaster. Really good with cards like Corrupted Conscience, Aqueous Form, Diplomatic Immunity, Gift of Immortality, Entangler, Holy Mantle, Spectra Ward, and lots of Umbras. Throw in cards like All That Glitters and Sage's Reverie for good measure, with equipments like Lightning Greaves, Inquisitor's Flail. Wins every time, 50% of the time
I don't think ramp and card draw isn't really a big problem in white, lot of great cards have been printed lately. But closing the come is often difficult. Cards like wall of mourning, ascend from avernus and golnight commander have done lot of work in my thalia deck.
You missed armadillo cloak one of Brian Kibbler's favorite cards back in the day . +2+2 and trample, whenever creature deals damage it gains that much life an it not life link so it stacks. Sprit link you can play on opponents creature and you gain life of it attacks and it is not lifelink so it stacks
On the subject of white board wipes, don't forget about Hour of Revelation. In a multiplayer game, it is basically three mana to destroy all nonland permanents. It's probably the best white board wipe (maybe the best or second-best board wipe period), even better than Farewell (Farewell has a somewhat better effect, but three mana is WAY better than six mana). Devastating Mastery is also amazing. For four mana, you can destroy all nonland permanents, but one opponent can return up to two nonland permanents they control to the hand. The trick is that usually there is at least one opponent at the table who is behind or is playing a less powerful deck, so you'd choose them to return two of their permanents while the more threatening opponents lose everything (also, remember that even for the player who gets to "save" two of their permanents, that's still tempo loss for them).
My favorite commander is Darien, King of Kjeldor and to win it usually involves manipulating the damage i take to make absurd amount of tokens and using like dictate of heliod to end the game.
You may want to look back at the Onslaught block for one of the creature types white is invested in the most (there are 510 total in the game). Also, Dominaria points us towards a second creature type that white favors, unless History of New Benalia doesn't count (there are 196 total in the game). That last one was made into a precon during MOM. The majority of the most impactful creatures were white. Throwing this out there, but in mono red, there are 355 goblins, and in green there are 375 elves in total. White cares about specific creature types, but it may not have a plethora of specific spells that indicate this fact.
Oh man, this was great. I loooove me some mono white. I do think y’all are underselling whites ramp. When it comes to land ramp, it’s easily the second best. Sure it doesn’t have reds explosive ramp, but there’s so many good ways to get lands out now. Also white does some nasty stuff with +1/+1 counters like with resourceful defense, and white is probably one of the better planeswalker colors with stuff like arena rector and lae’zel. White really is the most generally good color and thank god it doesn’t have the card draw to abuse that.
I didn’t hear you mention a favorite card of mine, Stonehewer Giant! He’s like, an XL Stoneforge Mystic that doesn’t need to be blinked to continue to get value!
I like my dinosaurs so my favorite white card is probably Wakening Sun's Avatar for dino tribal decks and probably Overwhelming Splendor overall. The one white card I can't stand going up against is Phyrexian Vindicator; that gives Gruul players problems.
Feels like the section where they were supposed to talk about weaknesses there mentioned plenty of heavy hitters that do the thing anyways. Ramp? Best ramp in the game, Smothering Tithe. Draw? Who needs draw when you have all these tutors! Green has felt like that a lot lately too, and together White and Green feel like the most often pie-breaking colors with every single new set that debuts.
Loran is better than you think, while yes it is shared card draw, that is gravy on a solid statted creature with a removal etb and vigilance, you play loran, attack with her, and draw a card a turn. The other thing about shared card draw is it synergizes with everybodies favorite smothering tithe.
About board wipes that hit planeswalkers: there's Fated Retribution. It's at instant speed too! (It's a 7-mana spell, though lol) Another interesting spell is Leave No Trace: {1}{W}: "Destroy target enchantment and each other enchantment that shares a color with it." Its efficiency does wonders
There is also punishment effects in white, like settle the wreckage or comeuppance. Maybe those two are the only cards but I love that you can never be safe attacking into white because of these cards.
I find tragic arrogance to be atleast on par with farewell cause you can choose what everybody keeps and even if it doesn't exile it goes around indestructibility.
I think it depends on what your deck wants to do but overall Farewell is IMO better because it exiles rather than destroys. I really like Tragic Arrogance as a close second for its ability to bypass hexproof and/or indestructible.
@@Dragon_Fyre if you have recursion tragic arrogance is even better, but on the other hand farewell could exile graveyards and stop any recursion from opponents too. also farewell doesn't remove planeswalkers, but if somebody has a single planeswalker it's often really hard to get rid of it after tragic arrogance resolved cause the board is almost empty of creatures that could attack it.
@@drorian The main weakness with Tragic Arrogance is that they need to have both the threats you want to board wipe and the weak options to select instead to make full use of it. If there is just a powerful tron commander as an example stomping on you, the best you can do unless they play some other creature is soften it up by removing some of its enchantments and artifacts. It’s a great spell but there are times where it’s just not going to help. Its strength, is that under the right conditions, it can really put you in a good position. The main weakness with Farewell, is that it’s all or nothing. Except for Planeswalkers, it can reset the board state where you are presently disadvantaged, but you don’t really gain an advantage, you just remove the opponents advantage(s). It’s strength, is that it nearly always is effective, except with counter spells.
While I know it is definitely not the strongest deck, my Lyra Dawnbringer angels tribal still holds a special place in my heart. No real issue with ramp, with enough cheap stuff and rocks to play before the bigger flyers are ready, the only big weakness being the card draw. To close the game, Akroma's Will and swing in the air, even better if done after having previously played Avacyn followed by board-wipe/MLD. Alternative win-con is Test of Endurance, despite it being a bit clunky. Otherwise, if one wants to be less of a Timmy, mono-white Stax can also be back-breaking: it won't make you any friends at the table, but it can win you some games.
• I would say [Land Tax] is card selection, card advantage, and in a way, self mill. • Also, [Mana Tithe] has oddly won me more games than I ever thought it would. You'd think my playgroup would start leaving up one mana after the first few [Mana Tithe]s. • And finally, by far, my favorite move to make in my mono-white deck is to attack with about half of my tokens and if they are going to die in combat due to blocks or opponent spells/abilities to cast [Settle the Wreckage] and ramp myself for my next turn. "Oh you're going to block all these 1/1s? Okay. In response, before damage, [Settle the Wreckage] my own attackers and I'll pull out the remaining 14 basic Plains in my deck."
I put Secure the Wastes in my Najeela warrior tribal deck and it is *extra* scary having the insta-board with Najeela and all the other warrior synergies.
For the record. If we are talking mono color all but blue has about 30 cards with "scry" on them. And white got some more in lost caverns and wilds of eldrain. It's not very popular outside of blue so that's not a really great comparison.
White is also the best at deck thinning. [Land Tax] is easily my favorite white card. [Weathered Wayfarer] and [Endless Horizons] are also pretty solid. :3
People always say white isnt as broken... but i have a mono white light paws deck and it's by far my most powerful deck. And I'm normally a simic player XD
Yeah it's broken in certain builds. I think the other colours are easier to break with general good stuff cards, which is probably why they have that reputation compared to white
White mages! What’s your favorite thing about playing white? Did we miss any of the color’s pitfalls? What’s your favorite tech to shore up those weaknesses and pilot your white decks to victory?
White guides civilization. Blue says no or yes. Black is all about me. Red is go. Green goes weeeeeeee.
I think it's not brought up enough that one of the issues with white is that it's greatest strengths non-bo with each other. "Going wide" and "board wipes" don't mix well
In mono white there are some go wide wincons. And most of them can be tutured for in it's colors. Jazal Goldmane, Mirror Entity, Dragonthrone of tarkir, Graaz Unstoppable juggernaut, Starlight spectacular.
Endless horizons for white predominant decks!
And remember all the blinkstuff in white to get more value of your etbs.
Eldrazi displacer, sword of hearth and home, angel of condemnation, the eternal wanderer, galepowder mage, blade of selves, teleportation circle, conjurers closet, Gilrean Dunedain Protector.
can’t wait for Mono Blue With Josh And All The Value
Heresy death to blue. 🤣🤣
I’d actually consider green the value town color more than blue I think 🤔
HELL YEAH
Here me out… it’s how to play Value cause Josh can’t pick just 1 color for value town?!?
I can't wait for Craig to do black for infect lol
More Rachel please. Hiring her is the best thing you guys have done recently.
As someone who almost always plays mono-white, this is a video tailor made for my kind. :)
Wow. Honourable
I am a mono white player myself, very underated color
People shit their pants when I bust out the mono W Giada angels deck, man. It's an awesome aggro deck. No one can stop all these fliers, no one.
me too
Loving Rachel as a host*. As informative as a Uni course, and as welcoming a my sweetest homeroom teacher.
Dont sleep on Lotus Field!
It sets up both knight of the white orchid and Sevinnes reclamation. You can also combo it with flagstones of trokair. The chance is minimal, but so is the opportunity cost. If your playgroup is casual enough you could even add lotus vale.
I think White has more stack interaction than you are thinking of. When your creatures are trying to be targeted. You can give your creature protection, indestructible, flicker/clowdshift, shield counters, or phasing.
I think they were talking about that as protection. It's not really stack interaction because it doesn't interact with the stack, just adds to it :)
Whihte has counterspells
@@Mattress1996 I suppose that is a way of looking at it, actually. In my mind, I see it more from the perspective of protecting something, but I can see the other way round too now... Thanks :)
I see it as, white has so many ways to protect their board and say,"Hey I don't like that so I'm gonna turtle away from it" but it still can't really prevent that bomb from going off. the blue counterspells are always gonna win, since teferi's does nothing when it gets countered
Back around the Urza's Saga days my mainstay was a deck I thought of as "White Control". Mother of Runes, Warrior en-Kor, Pariah, Inviolability... I played small creatures, made them nigh-unkillable, used that to make me nigh-unkillable and then whittled my enemy down with unblockable attacks.
As a guy who lives for Boros, I enjoy getting tricky for ramp. I'll use Lotus Field to keep my land count down, and copy it with Thespian's Stage. I usually get it with the Weathered Wayfarer.
Enable all the *if an opponent has more land* effects!
Love this. In my group I can even get away with lotus vale. Also they both combo nicely with Flagstones of trokair.
Rachel is such a treasure to this channel. I find myself seeking out videos with her, and binging that content. I know she's been here a while now, but I still find her to be a refreshing addition to the Command Zone.
I saw her on Shuffle Up and Play, playing the unset/playtest card "THE Colossal Dreadmaw". She was just so fun and had such fun energy. Very much "Wine aunt" in the BEST ways.
Ever since I've been doing the same as you- seeking out the videos that she's in! She's fantastic, and I'm so glad she got brought into the command zone.
I was honestly thinking about building my first mono white deck (Teshar), so the timing on this video is perfect!
The mentioning of the name brings me flashbacks. A friend of mine has a Teshar deck. And escalates every time. Have fun with it ;)
Awesome video. A card that wasn´t mentioned is Reconnaissance, such a powerhouse, full control on combat for just 1 W
Love these videos! Can't wait to see Josh cover how to play blue
My white ramp if I get Weathered Wayfarer in my opening hand:
Flagstones of Trokair
Lotus field (sacking flagstones +1)
Thespians stage (copy lotus field)
Slow rolling but efficient, also leaves you on less lands so your catch-up mechanics still kick in.
Not sure why everyone hates on white ramp. It is the second best after green at land ramp and has been strong for years, the comment should be it isn't cheap to do so. With catch up ramp you can go "down" lands with guildless common, karoo, lotus field, lotus vale, scorched ruins, etc. When sacrificing lands with the above or when using fetches or similar effects can return them with brought back, second sunrise, faith reward, sun titan, sevinne reclamation, Cosmic intervention, planar birth. It is perceived not as good since you need to work at it and it is just not given to you like a cultivate does, but can be more powerful than those cards when done right as a lot of the cards have versatility to use elsewhere in game.
20:02 Replenish; Bring back all your enchantments from your gv to bf.
23:13 Reprieve, Aven Interrupter, lapse of Certainty, Mana tithe, rebuff the wicked, Illumination, Robe of stars+Grand Abolisher! warping wail/Null Elemental blast(colourless but still)
*Archaeomancer's map puts down any land from your hand.
Ect ect so many good cards
Hail White Mages!
This video could not have come up at a better time. I was just thinking I wanted to build another white deck, decided on Lulu, and learned more here about how to approach deck design. Thanks!
Mother of Runes and Giver of Runes!!! Two of the most amazing and frustrating protection tools in almost all my white decks.
Just loved this one!! I hope to see Ladee with Black and Josh with Blue.
Search for Glory is a lovely build a round card.
People like to meme on mono white, but my God-Eternal Oketra deck is one of my favorites and it's pretty strong
I actually just built Oketra last week. I got two games in with it and popped off with bounce creatures, but my concern is that it will feel repetitive when I win by doing that very thing over and over again. Have you encountered this, and if so have you found a way to shake up the play experience?
@@gabrielkopp9248 So the way I built it was to just play a bunch of small creatures with useful abilities (Spirited Companion, Loran of the Third Path, Knight of the White Orchid, etc.) and try leaning into the token stuff a little more. I've played it maybe a dozen times and am far from bored of it
@@geeknseek nice! What would you say are a couple of the unusual cards you put in that might not appear in the majority of Oketra decks? I always like to look at all my options and what other people are slotting in
@@gabrielkopp9248 @geeknseek do you guys have links to your decks?
Ahhh perfect. I’m in the works of brewing up a “Frodo, Determine Hero” deck!
I play very combat focused decks and some are very aggro. I struggle to understand when people get upset because my aggro deck, which often loses to spot removal or board wipes, wins through damage therefore it is "too strong". I appreciate Jimmy saying something about how Rachel wins in a very honest way and sometimes she just runs people over with damage. This is exactly how I describe my aggro decks, they win in a very fair way and you will see it on the board before it hits you.
The new Moonshaker Cavalry is an excellent overrun style win con for white. Seems like WotC heard yall's plea for more finishers!
I have always been the White player in my group. Nice to see the love for White, and Rachel always plays a great deck. Been getting into Commander over the last year, and its great to have Command Zone for these kinds of videos.
So much of white card draw cares about creatures entering the battlefield. For this reason I play whitemane lion. If you love it you can also play kor skyfisher. Its worse for durdling, but its a 2/3 flyer for 2, and thats pretty sweet.
What once was the joke of the format has turned into arguably the best secondary color other than maybe green. Protection spells, board wipes, removal, recursion. White has even gotten decent at ramp & card draw in recent years. Never thought I'd say this, but right now White is the color I play the most.
I was hoping the team would continue making this type of content. Really liked it and I learned a lot. Can't wait to see the next one.
Rachel love your work. Have to agree that white is a much more nuanced colour to play.
One of my pet decks for a couple years now has been God Eternal Oketra because the tokens she creates helps give the reach needed to close the game. Now it's a legitimately threatening deck with the slow injection of great white creatures 😊
interesting idea. do you have a link for your deck?
One card I don’t see people using a lot is Remote Farm. It comes in tapped and taps for 2 white for 3 times but can be added to with proliferate
The depletion lands are all very powerful! Especially with 3 mana commanders/
I was so happy to see a Mono white deep dive with Rachel, Mono white commander is my favorite. If I had to pick a combo with white, It's be blue. Card draw + protection / recursion is great. Awesome video, thanks Command Zone Team :) Edit: Love my Odric, all the keywords!
I love White Mana. I once won a game of commander by combining a board wipe (can't remember which) and Teferis Protection. I have never looked back lol
all my commander decks have white in it. best color in magic.
Great support colour (I think blue is widely considered the most powerful colour).
@@Dragon_Fyre depends on the format.
On this episode of The Command Zone: we all wish Teferi's Protection was an affordable card.
wow thank you The Command Zone and Rachel Great information, Filled in a lot of blanks and uncertainty
Recently I've built a Shu-Yun deck, leaning real hard into the Spellslinger / Buff aspect of it, and I have to say that White does have a good chunk of one-off combat tricks which is a good way to incur value off of cast triggers, prowess, etc. Though it's real rough, because I don't think there are ways to recur instants and sorceries from the grave in Mono-White.
White was the most overpowered color in my school lunch playgroup in the 90's. Armageddon, Land Tax n such.
Land Tax is a house.
@@darkrexkigntstone8773 Life gain was harder to deal with back then. too.
Not to mention white weenie builds via mother of runes, swords to plowshares, etc
So when I first started playing, my friends played with mono colored decks, this was how we would split boxes and draft, My color because I was the last to start playing was White...I will say as someone that grew up with White, learning to play magic and winning esp in multiplayer, takes some time, teaches you patience and when to take advantage. Grind out the win by making good choices and not giving up until that last life is gone, and even when you do run out of life lol
I just started a giada font of hope deck, this is perfect
Was surprised not to see life gain as something white does well. Love playing white lifegain decks. Lots of soul sister effects
My absolute favorite white card atm, and one that I’m shocked isn’t more widely discussed, is an enchantment called Rabble Rousing, from Streets of New Capenna. For five mana, it makes a 1/1 citizen whenever a creature you control attacks. So many free tokens every turn, and on top of that it comes with a hideaway, so you get a free spell when you control 10 or more creatures. I’ve won so many games I absolutely should not have won because of that card haha
Did you entirely forget Life Gain?
Battle Counters that or Fog types.... Settle The Wreckage, Holy Day, Selfless Squire, etc.
My first deck was mono white back in 10th edition, ive made close to 80 different mono white decks since then. Mono white has the most value enchants. As far as ramp it has the second most get a land every turn cards in the game.
I have Teferi's Protection, Clever Concealment, Make a Stand, Rootborn Defenses (Works well cause it's a token deck and this also gives Populate), and Unbreakable Formation in my Azorius (White really just a splash of Blue) deck. That's just the instants for board protection HAHA but seeing as my creature board state is responsible for my win cons I figure always having a way to protect them is highly important. I remember when I got Teferi's Protection in the mail, the sender had written on some paper inside the envelope "Remember, this doesn't protect you from mill!!", HAHA.
I definitely took out things like Aura of Silence though. I've kept my pillowfort spells like Ghostly Prison, Norn's Annex and Propaganda, Windborn Muse, Baird, and so on. But things like Aura of Silence, Archon of Emeria, Vow of Silence, and so forth just make you the ENEMY NUMBER 1 of the table immediately. I kept noticing that suddenly EVERYONE, no matter how scary someone else's deck was or how powerful the other person's commander is, would all gang up on me and frankly...it made playing those cards VERY unfun. Powerful cards yes, but not worth the attention they draw in my opinion. They could probably be played more tactically if you're really in the right situation and can take advantage of the board's weakness or IDK maybe if there are only 1 or 2 players left so that you don't get ganged up on by 3 people, but nevertheless, I took them out because they didn't feel good to play (I felt like the party pooper at the table) and I would make enemies for the rest of the match.
What's interesting though, is that most players DON'T rage when I pillowfort up because even though I'm untouchable in many ways, I'm still at least not telling them what they can or cannot play or how much their cards will cost. I think stax or tax effects that target players' ramp or restrict players' spell casting feel PERSONAL just like decks that specialize in stealing other people's stuff. It's the easiest way to make people hate you. And yet, while pillowforting is annoying to other players, I find it doesn't make everyone gang up on me because I'm not exactly threatening them, I'm just saying "please don't touch me".
About the white cards that "you and and opponent draw" you could go for Tenuous Truce is you're interested in any pillowforting. Allows both you and an opponent to draw a card on their end step if neither of you have attacked each other. So...you could give it to an enemy that you know either CANNOT attack you, someone you DON'T want to have attack you, or to someone you otherwise feel like is simply not a threat to give card draw to compared to whoever else you're playing against. Then, once you get a little more online or get another card draw card, you can smack them once and end the card draw. For one white and one colorless, it's a pretty good early game card. Lastly, to Jimmy's comment about white being fair, that's EXACTLY what some players said at my LGS, haha, they were like "WOW, you're playing FAIR Magic" and then ended up complimenting my deck when I won because I played fair and still won! That's what I like about White too I think...playing infinite combos just feels dirty to me since I'm just playing at my LGS and not playing CEDH. Now if I were playing CEDH...infinite combos would just be bread and butter I'm sure.
Red is Mike Tyson, White is Floyd Mayweather.
Killing Gideon and Completing Ajani are the biggest kick in the teeth for me, at least they gave me Elspeth back so that’s something 😔
51:00 when jimmy said "canceling my woman's anymore" i had to replay that so many times to understand what was happening xD
wait i rewinded and still can't figure it out xDD
White is my dominant color. I can’t do mono decks. But all of my decks are primarily white.
I’m very partial to angels and I really wish they could be viable 😢
You ever try Giada, font of hope?
@@Blacklodge_Willy yess but I just find mono white so limiting that I avoid her 😂 I tried to build it and had a fun couple of games but I needed some of the cards for another deck and she was disassembled quickly
Naya or Selesnya angels is where it's at. Green to ramp out to the higher costs, red for additional keywords (most importantly haste).
I play Mardu Angel tribal. Kaalia of the Vast is great for cheating out expensive angels and is very Aggro heavy with red and black.
Chefs kiss.
My Sigarda deck doesn't have a terrible record, and it's always a ton of fun to play.
Having an angel deck is a requirement for me too, and Sigarda might be my favourite flavour.
You didnt give much attention to damage prevention! An underrated mechanic in my opinion.
My first (actually mono white deck) is bennie bracks. Before that it was mono white cats tribal. But now I use other cards that actually help me in the long game and recurring creatures that have better affects. It wins more games then it should and I love it
Hope you guys bring on Kathleen from LRR for mono-black!! :3 Always love seeing her on Game Knights
Loved this video!! I can’t wait for other colors. I think I would of liked to see a notable commanders section to really cement the philosophy for deck building. Great Vid though!!
I love playing white. My favorite deck is my Mono White Preston deck. I leaned into "What does White do well?" You called it "Recursion" and I choose to call it "Reuse Resources." Since white is good at bringing cards that have powerful etbs from the graveyard back, and flickering them, I end up reusing the same resources over and over. And pair that with the influx of "bad" 3 mana "etb draw a card" (like Priest of Ancient Lore) or the really good Spirited Companion (aka DOGGO!), white has a LOT of good value over time synergies. My Preston deck has the capability to keep a lot of threats at bay and gain a lot of value.
A missed point when it comes to tutors is white can tutor planeswalkers.
My favourite azorius commander has always been Bruna, Light of Alabaster. Really good with cards like Corrupted Conscience, Aqueous Form, Diplomatic Immunity, Gift of Immortality, Entangler, Holy Mantle, Spectra Ward, and lots of Umbras. Throw in cards like All That Glitters and Sage's Reverie for good measure, with equipments like Lightning Greaves, Inquisitor's Flail. Wins every time, 50% of the time
I enjoyed this ep much more then some other lately
Finally a non-set review topic
What a great and helpful video! Y'all are the best! :]
As a white mage/marathon runner, I approve this podcast.
I don't think ramp and card draw isn't really a big problem in white, lot of great cards have been printed lately. But closing the come is often difficult.
Cards like wall of mourning, ascend from avernus and golnight commander have done lot of work in my thalia deck.
QUEEN WEEKS HAS SPOKEN! MONO WHITE EDH IS THE LIGHT, THE WAY.
Rachel gave a great description of white, a color I had a hard time defining
Moonshaker Cavalry has helped white so much in commander I swear
Cut a deal is an excellent acceleration piece. You can catch up with the table as well.
PREACHER!! I remember around the timr Ice Age came out the LGS owner made a preacher deck, and it was amazing
You missed armadillo cloak one of Brian Kibbler's favorite cards back in the day . +2+2 and trample, whenever creature deals damage it gains that much life an it not life link so it stacks. Sprit link you can play on opponents creature and you gain life of it attacks and it is not lifelink so it stacks
On the subject of white board wipes, don't forget about Hour of Revelation. In a multiplayer game, it is basically three mana to destroy all nonland permanents. It's probably the best white board wipe (maybe the best or second-best board wipe period), even better than Farewell (Farewell has a somewhat better effect, but three mana is WAY better than six mana).
Devastating Mastery is also amazing. For four mana, you can destroy all nonland permanents, but one opponent can return up to two nonland permanents they control to the hand. The trick is that usually there is at least one opponent at the table who is behind or is playing a less powerful deck, so you'd choose them to return two of their permanents while the more threatening opponents lose everything (also, remember that even for the player who gets to "save" two of their permanents, that's still tempo loss for them).
This is a great video! Keep doing stuff like this. You guys are great 👍🏻
My favorite commander is Darien, King of Kjeldor and to win it usually involves manipulating the damage i take to make absurd amount of tokens and using like dictate of heliod to end the game.
You may want to look back at the Onslaught block for one of the creature types white is invested in the most (there are 510 total in the game). Also, Dominaria points us towards a second creature type that white favors, unless History of New Benalia doesn't count (there are 196 total in the game). That last one was made into a precon during MOM. The majority of the most impactful creatures were white.
Throwing this out there, but in mono red, there are 355 goblins, and in green there are 375 elves in total. White cares about specific creature types, but it may not have a plethora of specific spells that indicate this fact.
can’t wait for the mono green video as a selesnya player
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Harmonious Archon + Finale of Glory is my favorite white win con. Especially after a recent late game board wipe
Oh man, this was great. I loooove me some mono white. I do think y’all are underselling whites ramp. When it comes to land ramp, it’s easily the second best. Sure it doesn’t have reds explosive ramp, but there’s so many good ways to get lands out now. Also white does some nasty stuff with +1/+1 counters like with resourceful defense, and white is probably one of the better planeswalker colors with stuff like arena rector and lae’zel. White really is the most generally good color and thank god it doesn’t have the card draw to abuse that.
I didn’t hear you mention a favorite card of mine, Stonehewer Giant! He’s like, an XL Stoneforge Mystic that doesn’t need to be blinked to continue to get value!
I like my dinosaurs so my favorite white card is probably Wakening Sun's Avatar for dino tribal decks and probably Overwhelming Splendor overall. The one white card I can't stand going up against is Phyrexian Vindicator; that gives Gruul players problems.
Feels like the section where they were supposed to talk about weaknesses there mentioned plenty of heavy hitters that do the thing anyways. Ramp? Best ramp in the game, Smothering Tithe. Draw? Who needs draw when you have all these tutors! Green has felt like that a lot lately too, and together White and Green feel like the most often pie-breaking colors with every single new set that debuts.
Great summary of white! My only grievance is the lack of a mention of Tragic Arrogance - top tier board wipe right up there with Farewell!
Loran is better than you think, while yes it is shared card draw, that is gravy on a solid statted creature with a removal etb and vigilance, you play loran, attack with her, and draw a card a turn. The other thing about shared card draw is it synergizes with everybodies favorite smothering tithe.
About board wipes that hit planeswalkers: there's Fated Retribution.
It's at instant speed too! (It's a 7-mana spell, though lol)
Another interesting spell is Leave No Trace: {1}{W}: "Destroy target enchantment and each other enchantment that shares a color with it."
Its efficiency does wonders
Since white is good at making tokens Altar of the Brood is another good option when you think of mil
I feel like laddee may do black which could be fun although I’m excited for green
There is also punishment effects in white, like settle the wreckage or comeuppance. Maybe those two are the only cards but I love that you can never be safe attacking into white because of these cards.
There is selfless squire too, I'm gonna call it a theme of white :D
I find tragic arrogance to be atleast on par with farewell cause you can choose what everybody keeps and even if it doesn't exile it goes around indestructibility.
I think it depends on what your deck wants to do but overall Farewell is IMO better because it exiles rather than destroys. I really like Tragic Arrogance as a close second for its ability to bypass hexproof and/or indestructible.
@@Dragon_Fyre if you have recursion tragic arrogance is even better, but on the other hand farewell could exile graveyards and stop any recursion from opponents too. also farewell doesn't remove planeswalkers, but if somebody has a single planeswalker it's often really hard to get rid of it after tragic arrogance resolved cause the board is almost empty of creatures that could attack it.
@@drorian The main weakness with Tragic Arrogance is that they need to have both the threats you want to board wipe and the weak options to select instead to make full use of it. If there is just a powerful tron commander as an example stomping on you, the best you can do unless they play some other creature is soften it up by removing some of its enchantments and artifacts. It’s a great spell but there are times where it’s just not going to help. Its strength, is that under the right conditions, it can really put you in a good position.
The main weakness with Farewell, is that it’s all or nothing. Except for Planeswalkers, it can reset the board state where you are presently disadvantaged, but you don’t really gain an advantage, you just remove the opponents advantage(s). It’s strength, is that it nearly always is effective, except with counter spells.
Got Preston and Light-Paws monowhite decks. Very fun
Didn't mention Ravnica at War for mono white.
Rebuff the wicked is literally a white counterspell. Must of forgot about it lol
I am happy your going over colors again
Avacyn has gotta be my favorite thing about white 😊
While I know it is definitely not the strongest deck, my Lyra Dawnbringer angels tribal still holds a special place in my heart. No real issue with ramp, with enough cheap stuff and rocks to play before the bigger flyers are ready, the only big weakness being the card draw.
To close the game, Akroma's Will and swing in the air, even better if done after having previously played Avacyn followed by board-wipe/MLD. Alternative win-con is Test of Endurance, despite it being a bit clunky.
Otherwise, if one wants to be less of a Timmy, mono-white Stax can also be back-breaking: it won't make you any friends at the table, but it can win you some games.
• I would say [Land Tax] is card selection, card advantage, and in a way, self mill.
• Also, [Mana Tithe] has oddly won me more games than I ever thought it would. You'd think my playgroup would start leaving up one mana after the first few [Mana Tithe]s.
• And finally, by far, my favorite move to make in my mono-white deck is to attack with about half of my tokens and if they are going to die in combat due to blocks or opponent spells/abilities to cast [Settle the Wreckage] and ramp myself for my next turn. "Oh you're going to block all these 1/1s? Okay. In response, before damage, [Settle the Wreckage] my own attackers and I'll pull out the remaining 14 basic Plains in my deck."
I put Secure the Wastes in my Najeela warrior tribal deck and it is *extra* scary having the insta-board with Najeela and all the other warrior synergies.
"and your growing magic habit" I feel personally attacked =D
For the record. If we are talking mono color all but blue has about 30 cards with "scry" on them. And white got some more in lost caverns and wilds of eldrain. It's not very popular outside of blue so that's not a really great comparison.
White is also the best at deck thinning. [Land Tax] is easily my favorite white card. [Weathered Wayfarer] and [Endless Horizons] are also pretty solid. :3
If you like that, you may want to check out mana severance. It doesnt do anything else, but its good for thinning outside of white.
Planeswalker wipes exist, but only one in White I can think of is Fated Retribution. 4WWW instant that destroy all creatures and walkers.
There are plenty. All the "nonland permanents" wipes
People always say white isnt as broken... but i have a mono white light paws deck and it's by far my most powerful deck. And I'm normally a simic player XD
Yeah it's broken in certain builds. I think the other colours are easier to break with general good stuff cards, which is probably why they have that reputation compared to white
@chrismarlow9585 ya I would agree. You can break green and red and black far more than white usually. But when it's good it can be real good
White has a 3 mana 1/1 flyer that mills 3 and you return mana cost 3 or less to your hand or a plains or it gets a +1/1 counter if it whiffs
ultramarine honour guard have been doing wonders to me. finale of glory+ultra marine honour guard is a great wincon!!
Everyone LOVES Rachel right? Just the greatest
Black white red are my favorite colors to run in commander 😊