First off, I don't have Premium, so forgive me if any tech I list in any article I write is outdated or has been previously mentioned in some other writer's article.
A few days ago a friend of mine approached me with an idea for trying to recreate an archetype and adapting it to the post SoK metagame. With nothing to do because of summer vacation, I agreed and so we set out to build Mono White Control.
Immediately I knew the deck would have some major problems. You see the last time MWC was viable it had three cards which we don't have replacements for: Eternal Dragon, Exalted Angel, and Decree of Justice. The Dragon ensured land drops and ensured the deck a finisher; the Angel provided tremendous beats and life gain, and Decree of Justice served as the great end of turn army generator that would kill your opponents out of nowhere. In addition, Goblins was the best deck in the format and you had Silver Knight along with plenty of removal.
I'm not really going to discuss much about our first two builds, as they were complete piles of jank. They included amongst other cards, Hand of Honor, Beacon of Immortality, Summoner's Egg, Spiritual Visit, and Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens. In several rounds of playtesting I believe they won 1 game, and so it was back to the drawing board. Our past builds had been severely lacking in consistency and tried to be more aggro control rather than control. I decided it would be best to return to the pure control deck and created the following.
Kamigawa MWC version 1.3
20 Plains
4 Cloudpost
1 Eiganjo Castle
4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
2 Pristine Angel
2 Myojin of Cleansing Fire
4 Promise of Bunrei
4 Genju of the Fields
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
4 Wrath of God
4 Pulse of the Fields
2 Final Judgment
3 Terashi's Grasp
2 Charge Across the Araba
The deck seems decent at first glance, with decent interactions between the Wrath effects and creatures, a decent threat count with 8 actual creatures, 4 recurring creatures, and a maximum of 16 token creatures. The deck has 8 Wrath effects, life gain to help it stabilize long enough to win, main deck artifact and enchantment removal, a tad bit of mana acceleration, large finishers, and a decent finishing spell in Charge Across the Araba. Like I said, it looks decent on paper - definitely not tier 1, but still somewhat decent.
In testing it performed moderately well against various aggro decks such as Mono Green Aggro, and White Weenie as it was expected to, but it completely rolled over to G/B Control. Death Cloud for three seemed to be game over every time unless you had an active Genju on the board. Because of testing with the past iterations we were willing to accept that match up as an auto loss for the time being and worry about beating it post board.
Next we decided to test against Mono Blue. Nothing ever resolved beyond a Genju or Wayfarer's Bauble. If Genju resolved the land was always Boomeranged or Shackled. Myojins got the Shackles while Pristine got Bribery. Attempting to cast Pulse or any sort of removal spell was a waste of time and the deck was beat up by Thieving Magpie all day long. It was about this time that my play testing partner and I realized we had also completely forgotten about Pithing Needle.
To finish off our Gauntlet of testing we paired the deck up against Tooth and Nail. Here is where a lot of the deck's problems became apparent. Our acceleration was way too slow and our removal was useless against hasted indestructible 11/11 tramplers. Our Cloudposts were unreliable as an acceleration method because we had no way to reliably draw them, Wayfarer's Bauble was decent if you needed a turn 3 Wrath of God, but with our curve jumping around all over the place from 8 1-drops, to 4 2-drops to 6-drops and 8-drops they just weren't enough.
From here we had two options, rebuild the deck on a different frame, or try and deal with all the problems the deck was having. Because it was having such huge difficulties against the most popular decks we opted with rebuilding it from the ground up taking a bit of inspiration from another one of the previously failed builds.
Kamigawa MWC version 1.4
This build revolves a lot around Celestial Kirin and various arcane spells to deal with aggro decks, but still possesses certain weaknesses against Tooth and MUC. The addition of Pithing Needle does help out tremendously however against MUC, rendering Shackles useless. Pithing Needle in the Tooth matchup is mainly to shut down Sensei's Divining Top, although it can be used to shut down Kiki-Jiki if you really need to or if you draw a second one.
Card by card analysis:
Wrath of God
The staple card of MWC, used for creature control. I hope I don't really have to explain it much more than that.
Final Judgment
The current block iteration of Wrath of God, while lacking the speed of the original, the remove from game aspect of this card is very handy in removing Darksteel Colossus and Kokusho, the Evening Star from the game.
Pulse of the Fields
Most likely one of the best life gain spells ever printed; this card helps out against predominately against aggro decks, rendering attacks for less than 4 useless. The only drawback to this card is that if you are trying to take maximum advantage of it, then it is tying up a lot of mana.
Shining Shoal
This card serves several purposes in the deck, the most important of which is the fact that it is arcane, and thus helps out with your spiritcraft triggers. In addition, it serves as a stall card and removal by redirecting damage, and it allows you to tap out for Yosei while still having some defense against an alpha strike.
Otherworldly Journey
While some will argue that the best use for this card is in combination with Eternal Witness, it does have some good synergy in the deck as well. It triggers your spiritcraft, can act as temporary removal against large threats until you wrath them away, and helps keep your own guys alive.
Terashi's Grasp
While I doubted the card's place in this deck at first, the pure amount of artifacts in the environment makes this card necessary. It kills Umezawa's Jitte, Sword of Fire and Ice, Pithing Needle, Oblivion Stone, Vedalken Shackles, Sundering Titan, and many more. Other benefits to the card include its ability to trigger off spiritcraft and gain life. In early testing it was common to cast it with Celestial Kirin out, when an opponent tried to equip Jitte onto Troll Ascetics, killing off both Troll and Jitte while gaining 2 life for tremendous tempo advantage.
Pithing Needle
The new "null" card, this hoser helps out tremendously in shutting down many deck's key cards. An entire article could probably be written about how every deck should start running this card, but for now I'm not going to go into any more detail about it.
Wayfarer's Bauble
Necessary acceleration and deck thinning, this card speeds you up to turn 3 Wrath of God or Celestial Kirin, turn 4 Hikari, or turn 5 Yosei. Additionally, since almost every deck in the format runs some sort of mana acceleration it is needed just to keep up with their tempo.
Yosei, the Morning Star
One of two finishers, a 5/5 flyer for six is already very respectable as a four-turn clock, but when it comes with a decent ability it is very hard to pass up playing.
Hikari, Twilight Guardian
The alternate finisher, good in a fight and a fast clock if you play him turn 4. His built in Astral Slide is also very useful in keeping him alive against any deck with large threats.
Celestial Kirin
Solid as a 3/3 flyer for four, Celestial Kirin's ability is really what the deck is built around. With so many two- and three-drop creatures in the environment your arcane spells pull double duty as they act as Solar Tides keeping the board clear of weenies so you can hold your Wraths and Final Judgments until your opponent puts into play a large threat.
Sideboard:
Final Judgment
Sometimes you need even more removal, or need to remove creatures from the game rather than destroy them. For Tooth and G/B the additional Final Judgment comes in.
Genju of the Fields
Mainly here for the MUC matchup, if you can drop a Pithing Needle turn 1 and start swinging turn 3 with a Genju the life gain should buy you plenty of time as you bait out their counters and try to resolve a major threat.
Thunderstaff
Also here for the MUC match up, this card shuts down Thieving Magpie and Illusion Tokens, and in multiples can be enough to shut down all of MUC's threats so that the only card you have to worry about is Bribery. Otherworldly Journey however, can quickly fix that situation.
Curtain of Light
Here for the Mono Red matchup and for Tooth, Curtain of Light can stop a large threat from hitting you, buying you enough time to dig down a bit deeper into your deck and find an answer.
Circle of Protection: Red
Stopping Red decks since it was first printed. While not guaranteed to win you the game, or even to stay on the board very long, it can buy you the precious time you need to Wrath away their threats and when combined with Pulse of the Fields can keep you out of burn range.
Testing Results of version 1.4
Flores Red
Slightly Unfavorable, Draw Dependent
Essentially this match comes down to you drawing one of two cards in game 1, and one of several cards post board. In game 1 you must draw either a Shining Shoal or Pulse of the Fields in order to win. Wrath away all their men, name Arc-Slogger and Sensei's Diving Top with Pithing Needle, use Shoal to throw their burn back at their face, and use Pulse to stay above 10 life at all times. Post board you bring in Genjus and CoP: Red, however they bring in Culling Scales so be sure to leave in some Terashi's Grasps.
Mono Blue Control
Unfavorable to Favorable Depending on build
The main problem with the MUC matchup is just resolving anything. A lot of your spells are rendered useless game 1 so Pithing Needle becomes much more important in shutting down Shackles so that when you do resolve a threat they don't steal it away. Use Blinkmoth Nexus as beatdown and try to hold Yosei in hand in case they Bribery it out. Post board the matchup becomes much more favorable since you can shut them down with Thunderstaffs and be aggressive with Genjus. Don't board out all your Wrath effects because they will bring in Bribery and you have to be able to deal with whatever they bring out.
Tooth and Nail
Very Unfavorable to Unfavorable Depending on build
Turn 1 Pithing Needle naming Sensei's Divining Top and casting a turn 5 Yosei is the strongest play you really get in this match up unfortunately. Use Shining Shoal to redirect damage from a Kiki token back at Kiki-Jiki if you don't have a Wrath effect in hand when they Tooth, otherwise aim the damage back at them. You really have to race the first few turns and hope for a Pulse. Use Otherwordly Journey on an attacking Colossus to buy you a turn, but if they've cast Tooth already then they have inevitability in this match up. Post board there's not much that can be done since Reciprocate isn't much good against Kiki tokens and you have to let Darksteel Colossus hit you first if you want to get rid of it. Curtain of Light comes in to stall the Colossus until you can find a Final Judgment or Pulse to stall for more time. The best way to win this match up is to be very aggressive with Celestial Kirin, Hikari, and Yosei or throw Yosei in the way of a Titan or Colossus.
Mono Green Aggro
Favorable to Very Favorable Depending on build
Depending on the build our deck either did remarkably well, or got its face slowly beat in. The decks that relied more on equipment or Blanchwood armor tended to be the easier match ups, as Terashi's Grasp with Kirin out was enough to stall until turn 6 when you could begin double casting Pulse of the Fields if need be. When the Green deck did win it was usually through multiple Plow Unders thanks to Eternal Witness or through Rude Awakening. Beacon of Creation was also a bit of a problem card if cast after a Wrath of God unless the MWC player had another removal spell or enough Pulses to make the tokens insignificant. Sword of Light and Shadow out of the Green deck's board makes the match up harder, as does Plow Under and Cranial Extraction, however if the White player plays carefully he can stabilize and regain control. The White deck has some resistance to Cranial Extraction thanks to diversified win conditions, but repeated Cranial Extraction can neuter the deck. Bringing in Curtain of Light can help out a bit, preventing creatures with Jittes on them from getting counters without loss of card advantage.
White Weenie
Favorable to Very Favorable Depending on build
Equipment based White Weenie would tend to get ahead early on in games, until a Wrath of God or Final Judgment cleared the board. After that the MWC player was usually able to stabilize if they followed up with Hikari or Celestial Kirin. Builds running Sword of Light and Shadow and Eight-and-a-Half-Tails in the main were the most dangerous. If either of those two cards stayed on the board for more than 3 turns they proved to be utterly disastrous for the MWC player. The only real things MWC can do post board is bring in an additional Final Judgment, while the white weenie player may bring in Sword of Light and Shadow. As before, if the Sword hits the table the MWC player must find an answer immediately.
G/B Death Cloud
Unfavorable to Slightly Favorable Depending on build
Unfortunately pre-board this deck still faces a lot of the same problems it did in its previous iteration. Deathcloud tears this deck apart, and they can accelerate and recover much faster than MWC. Plow Under also really sets the deck back and because G/B can run so few threats most of MWC's removal is useless. The more aggro the build of G/B they are playing however, the more in MWC's favor the match becomes. Post board things become rather interesting since MWC brings in only Genju's for life gain so that they can try to weather Deathcloud and stabilize before a Dragon hits the board. If the build of G/B is more aggro then the MWC player has to play carefully and race through their disruption. Focus on playing out the big threats and use Pulse to keep your life total above 7 if at all possible.
The remaining problems with the deck:
The deck still accelerates slowly and there are some consistency issues. While stalling until you draw Kirin and then trying to regain control works against small aggro decks, the heavy green beatdown decks with large threats and Tooth and Nail don't really care about the Kirin. Plow Under remains a huge problem for the deck, and discard also can cause significant havoc. Overall the deck has retained good game against aggro decks, with the control match ups improving slightly, but it still has a long way to go.
Possible Solutions:
Add another color to the deck. Either Green or Blue would help out tremendously. Most likely green would yield the best benefits, and largest improvement in the MUC, G/B, and Tooth matchups, but at a cost of lower win ratio against most of the rest of the field. Adding another color to the deck however, starts to take it in a vastly different direction and gives it a different game plan. This then brings about the big question, why should you play this deck when you can just try to build and play U/W or G/W control? My answer to that is well you shouldn't play this deck over them if you can figure out how to make either of those beat both MUC and Tooth and Nail.
While the deck has posted somewhat decent results over 200 or so games, this isn't anything I'd play at Regionals. Given some changes to deck, I can see it possibly being viable in Block Constructed, since it seems to do very well against aggro decks, but in all likelihood the deck would still need another color added in to fix consistency issues.
If anyone else has any ideas for a new deck in any format they'd like tested I'm willing to put it through a grinder of playtesting and work with them on it.
Also if anyone knows of any good places to play, or of any groups that draft and test regularly in Austin TX, let me know.
Any questions and or comments email me at: a_random_person6@yahoo.com
-Andrew "Ash" Hassan
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