For the second color option for a Commander deck, we have the first of the five colors, which is only a little confusing. For a fairly arbitrary reason, the colors of Magic are, in order: white, blue, black, red, green, which loops back to white (which will be important around 15-20 weeks from now). Each color has their own general identity, which is expressed well by the following question:
What is the best way to achieve success?
(Note: if you want to really get into the deep trenches of Magic color pie theory, go listen to the podcast “Drive to Work” by Mark Rosewater, head designer of Magic. I’m going to absolutely ruin his beautiful metaphors with my simple words going forward.)
Anyways. White believes that the best path to success is by working together, and removing obstacles to progress. There is strength in numbers. In gameplay, this is expressed by:
- Making a lot of small creatures instead of one big one
- Preventing your opponents from doing too much, so everyone is on the same footing
- Blowing up just about any kind of card in play
Can white do other things? Of course, this is just the general idea. If you see a white card, there’s good odds that it’ll be basically in line with this philosophy. That being said, let’s take a look at my take on a white deck.
Odric “Build-An-Akroma”
Individually, most small creatures aren’t very good. Sure, they can have a few useful abilities, or maybe get bigger later. But most of the time, they need help from other cards to get actually dangerous. So I employ Odric, Lunarch Marshal to build a team out of a wild variety of creatures, turning those small creatures with random abilities into powerhouses, with tons of abilities.
The decklist isn’t organized into mana, card draw, removal, and winning, like I will discuss here. Instead, it’s divided up by abilities, because that’s the goal. Odric works by giving abilities to all your creatures, as long as one creature has it. So if I have one creature with flying and six that don’t, Odric makes it so now I have all seven with flying. Some abilities are rarer; there’s not much haste, but there’s a lot of flying and vigilance. But you can really make some wild combats if you can get the right creatures out.
Mana
White is very good at putting threats into play, and getting rid of problems. This comes at a drawback: white is not good at ramp or drawing cards. I’m running three cards that make my spells cheaper, and the rest of my mana acceleration comes from white’s style of ramp. If an opponent has more lands that you do, you can get a land and catch back up. In Commander, there’s lots of ways for your opponents to get more lands, so this is almost always successful.
Card Draw
White doesn’t get traditional “pay mana, draw cards” options, it’s almost always tied to doing something else. Either punishing your opponents for being too aggressive (Mangara, the Diplomat draws cards when opponents play extra spells or attack a lot), or advancing your own board state (Rumor Gatherer draws you a card if you get two creatures in a turn). Well of Lost Dreams is an interesting inclusion, but with so many ways to give all your creatures lifelink, you can easily use all your mana to refill your hand.
Removal
I should be running more removal. Sometimes, you run into cards that can’t be removed. There’s some redundant options in the deck, and I should add in cards like Banisher Priest, creatures that don’t provide extra abilities to the team, but get rid of problems. One of the benefits of me going through this blogging exercise is getting to look at my decks and honestly assess what I’m missing.
Winning the Game: Send Dudes
This deck starts putting pressure on the board as soon as you can get Odric out. If you’ve played two creatures so far, you’ll be attacking with two flying lifelink vigilance double strike creatures early in the game. There’s a lot of creatures that look wimpy, but because they have multiple abilities, they provide a large boost.
Misc Top 3
- Ascend from Avernus. When they blow up your stuff, just get it all back.
- Odric, Master Tactician. If you attack with enough creatures, you choose how your opponents block. So you can choose that they don’t block.
- Concerted Effort. Redundancy for Odric’s effect, with the benefit of also providing protection, which can be insanely powerful.
Lands
The land base is actually a really good place for a white deck to get access to card draw and removal, if you can believe it. Four lands can draw cards, two prevent damage, two get you free stuff, and two make creatures. Of course, none of this would be even reasonable to hope to get without the powerhouse that is Weathered Wayfarer. It doesn’t get you mana any faster than usual, but you get your land every turn, and you can get any land you want.
I really like this deck. It’s quick, fairly unique, and allows you to play a lot of cheap creatures. My colorless deck is over a thousand dollars; this one is $250, and a significant chunk of that is the lands. Even with the decreased price, I have as much success with this deck as with the other one. A fantastic mid-budget option.
That's Pretty NEET 