Boy, isn't it just no end of fun at this time of year to try getting into any shopping mall in existence? I keep meaning to bring along a baseball bat to clear a path through the hordes, just so I can claim to have made some forward momentum in the space of an hour. Can you tell that I have had to go Christmas shopping recently? Every single damn year I vow not to wait until the month of December itself, and every single damn year I find myself cursing in a department store somewhere and wondering how I could have been so stupid again. Must be my procrastination gene, which every male gets supplied with, working on overtime again. Anyway.

Upon quickly reviewing the ending of my last article, I realized that I had used the words"absolute failure" to describe the first deck that I am going to present to all of you today. I decided that the use of those words was unnecessarily harsh and incorrect. It would be more correct for me to say that there are distinct flaws in the deck - and I am not sure that they are capable of being corrected while still having the deck remain true to its theme. In the meantime, I have decided to playtest the deck some more, in the hope that I will get a better grasp of what exactly the problems are. I also hope that I can determine whether the deck is salvageable or not.

For various reasons that I have gone into lately, I find myself in a new ideas and constructions mode lately. Having faithfully read the articles that Mark Rosewater has produced on <agicthegathering.com, I was given the impression that white's weenies were going to be given an upgrade in quality, as it were. From this, I became curious to find out how good its current crop happened to be. Then I took it one step further, and decided to really restrict myself. I could merely build a white deck that had weenies in it - but oh, no. That would have been too simple.

I decided to try building a deck where everything in it, creatures or spells, would only have a casting cost of one.

That's right: One. I am not saying that once it is out there, it can't have an activation cost of some kind that is higher... But it's gotta cost a singleton just to hardcast that sucker, and get it out there. In so doing, I may have written the ticket to my own demise. Observe:

A Casting Cost Of One
3 Maze of Ith
13 Plains
1 Feldon's Cane
2 Ivory Tower
2 Land Tax
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Righteousness
4 Death Ward
4 Hope Charm
3 Holy Day
2 High Ground
4 Suntail Hawk
2 Savannah Lions
2 Spurnmage Advocate
2 Mystic Penitent
4 Benevolent Bodyguard
4 Benalish Missionary
2 Songstitcher
4 Abu Ja'far

As you can see, even for white, this thing is defensive. And it does a good job of it; I have determined that much, at least. There are aspects of this thing that I am happy about and proud of. Among them are the use, after years and years of neglect, of the Righteousness trio that I own. And for a defensive creature, you would be hard pressed to find anyone better than Ja'far for efficiency: None of this regeneration garbage; just bury the sucker that you sent over, period. The Lions are a classic, of course, and the Benalish Missionaries can block ground creatures all day long if you have the mana.

I had remembered, back when I was first constructing the deck, that High Ground existed; I just could not remember its name or what set it was in. My plan was to use this enchantment to allow Abu to block two creatures and take more out than would normally be feasible. Then I stumbled across the Benalish Missionaries, and realized that this chap would allow Abu to block one creature and kill it, without getting snuffed out himself. I figured in a worst-case scenario, I could use the Death Wards to keep Abu around, or the various Righteousness cards.

So where is it that the deck doesn't work, if the cards are so efficient, and I have tricks available to me? The problem is that the deck is, as I mentioned before - too defensive. To paraphrase Anthony Alongi, I do not have enough"business" cards in here. I can protect my creatures quite well, yes... The problem is that I have to keep on protecting them every single turn. You see, I am getting exactly what I am paying for in the power and toughness categories. While the creatures usually have some extra little combat trick or activated ability, which makes them really handy to have around in certain circumstances, they also die from anything. A hard breeze topples these guys. Their life expectancy is approximately one turn unless I take steps.

Another problem can be found in the department of damage dealing. One point of damage a turn doesn't cut it; eventually you either need to swarm the other player, or start hitting them with larger doses of pain. The grand old days where our games lasted so long you were in danger of dying from a Prodigal Sorcerer are long gone. And when your creatures are so easily snuffed, the opportunity to cause damage to someone else goes down to a level where winning is simply not a viable option.

This is not to say that this deck is utterly without hope yet. While the problems I mentioned above prevent this deck from performing in a multiplayer game, I think that it still has potential as either a strict dueling deck, or as a deck to use as a general in an emperor game. I plan on keeping the deck for a while yet, so that I have the opportunity to play it some more in these limited scenarios, and find out once and for all whether this has any potential.

Now let's switch gears entirely. This next deck that I am going to list off has its origins in commentary that, again, is attributable to Mr. Alongi. Since he is well established as a player who likes to make an impression on the game, and get out and do things, I decided to do the same thing. I came to the conclusion that with the release of the last two sets, white could finally be considered a contender for a plain, old-fashioned beatdown deck. Mr. Alongi may think that a mono-white deck is not truly capable of this... But he's proven wrong with this deck.

"What Do You Mean, White's Attacking?!"
3 Maze of Ith
22 Plains
4 Prismatic Strands
2 Land Tax
4 Empyreal Armor
2 Parallax Wave
2 Serra's Blessing
3 Disenchant
3 "Eye for an Eye
4 Phantom Nomad
2 Jareth, Leonine Titan
2 Commander Eesha
4 Benevolent Bodyguard
2 Silver Seraph
2 Beloved Chaplain
3 Glory
1 Suntail Hawk

Okay, yes, there are still cards in here that Anthony would still hold in complete disdain: The Mazes and the Prismatic Strands would probably get thrown out, and I am under the impression that he was not a big fan of creature enchantments either, so the Armor might get axed as well. And yet, everything serves a distinct purpose in this deck.

First of all, the Mazes and the Prismatic Strands, while preventative in nature, would be particularly necessary for when I leave myself completely open by charging full throttle with every creature I have at someone. Since the Strands can conveniently be flashed back, I effectively have eight possible opportunities to leave myself completely open.

All right, yes - more than one person can be attacking me, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

The Armors are in the deck so that I can pump up any creature I want to, and cause even more damage to opponents. I also discovered, by accident, that they allow the Phantom Nomads to remain alive a lot longer than they would normally. I did not put the Armors into the deck with that purpose in mind, but I am certainly thrilled at the unexpected synergy they have. This serves as a wonderful example of how actual use of the cards allows possibilities and discoveries to occur. Even when I get my hands on a spoiler list and a card leaps out as a step above the rest, I never quite successfully realize it's full potential without actually having it in my greed little hands and using it.

Of course, actually using the cards also allows you to discover new ways to make mistakes. In the last game that I played this deck in, I put the armor on Jareth, figuring it would make the game go by faster. This was working quite well until I made Jareth have protection from white. My opponents, whether they were still alive or not, were quick to inform me that this causes the enchantment to fall off - something I did not know about.

Me:"Self, was that a dumb move?"
Self:"Yes, indeed, it certainly was. It could even be considered stupid."
Me:"So this would be an appropriate time to question my intelligence; say, in the form of wondering whether I am an inbred descendant from one of the cast members of the movie Deliverance?"
Self:"A trifle harsh, perhaps - but appropriate. Feel free to remember this insult so as to use in future during someone else's grand mal seizure screw-up. Do feel perfectly free not to do this again, however."
Me:"Check. Moving on."

Anyway, the Eye for an Eyes - a card that I know for a fact Anthony does hold some respect for - have served the specific purpose that I put them into the deck once already. I try to hold these as long into the game as possible, until the average life total of the remaining participants has gone down. If I time things correctly, I am able to let some damage through that doesn't quite kill me, but is enough to kill the owner of the source of the damage being caused to me. This is, after all, the closest thing white has to direct damage.

The Land Taxes serve a dual purpose; to get the mana necessary to eventually cast the Seraphs, and to fill up my hand so the Armors are at their most useful. Disenchants are self-explanatory, as are the Parallax Waves. I have mentioned in the past that one of the most efficient and underrated enchantments in the game is Serra's Blessing; with the creatures involved in this deck, they were a natural addition.

I have having some difficulty in figuring out how to tweak this deck in one way, however: I want to add a Feldon's Cane, as a just-in-case measure. People usually are of two minds about this card: Either they are of the opinion that if you can't get the job done with the cards in the deck, then the deck is wrong, or they believe in using everything as often as possible. As for me, there have been too many times where this card has made a difference for me not to include in more often than not.

The other card that I am trying like hell to figure out how to find the room for are the aforementioned High Grounds from the previous deck. Between the creatures in this deck and the Blessings, it is, again, a natural addition. Somewhere.

The creatures are all self-explanatory as well. Much to my surprise, Jareth is getting used much more as an offensive weapon in general in our games than I would have anticipated. Even I have been using this card as a club rather than the massive wall that it can also be.

I can't look at a Glory that is out on the table, regardless of whose it is, without thinking of that famous line of Obi-Wan Kenobi's to Darth Vader:

"If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

I think this line has already been used in someone else's article - and if so, it is justified and worth repeating.

If I seem slightly more enthusiastic than normal about this last deck than previous ones, it is from due cause. Everything that was in Judgment, several items in Onslaught, and various commentaries I have read from R&D's officials all have served to make me really hopeful and expectant for the forthcoming sets, both in general and for white specifically. Christmas might go on for my favorite color longer than the traditional holiday season.

Next time, I will be doing a year-end wrap-up type of thing, doing the"Remember when?" thing, and commenting on a couple of topics that I have been quiet about up until now. Until next time, be safe, don't let the stress (DON'T TELL ME I'M STRESSED!) get to you, and enjoy the holidays.