BTW "she" has an adam's apple
I do agree with ISBPathfinder in that Mangara doesn't have a lot of synergy as such, just simply more about value...
...however I do think that planeswalkers are the more synergistic route when it comes to getting value out of his attack draw ability.
The thing is that the "white walkers" are quite compartmentalized in what they do.
Ajani life gain and counters on creatures.
Elspeth token creatures and buffs.
Gideon making himself a creature and an assortment of abilities.
The colorless planeswalkers can be a bit more straightforward.
Karn, the Great Creator can really force the action against a lot of matchups.
Karn, Scion of Urza slowish card advantage.
Karn Liberated versatile removal. Restarting the game can be the real deal if you've tucked one or two things good.
Ugin, the Ineffable solid removal and card advantage.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is a must removal for opponents or game-over-man.
Now you mentioned a control deck. So I'm trying to think of synergy with the white walkers.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant and
Elspeth, Sun's Champion are the easiest as far as providing advantages without necessarily anything else.
Beyond that I was thinking that if you combine sweepers (
Hour of Revelation for example) with abilities of
Basri Ket,
Gideon Blackblade,
Gideon, Battle-Forged, then you can give indestructible to Mangara.
As pointed out
Gideon Jura is another one and
Gideon of the Trials is an underrated card when it comes to stifling combo decks that look to win on the spot.
The other good thing about Gideon planeswalkers is that they provide indestructible to himself, meaning that the
Hour of Revelation type effects do not harm him.
Thalia's Lancers and
Arena Rector are nice walker support.
So personally this is how I'd see the deck as trying not to commit too much to the board and use
Akroma's Vengeance,
Austere Command,
Planar Cleansing,
Cleansing Nova to clean up the battlefield.
Actually closing the game is a little trickier.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant and
Elspeth, Sun's Champion can do it. If you have Knight-Errant emblem and do have a few sweepers and leave your board, then it often doesn't matter what the quantity or quality of what you have. On the same token note (pun intended) if you have Sun's Champion without answers then between the tokens and the emblem you can finish the game.
As I've mentioned
Karn Liberated restart the game is nothing to snuff at when it comes to actually turning into a win-con.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin can be your late-game finisher and between
Sun Titan and
Sevinne's Reclamation to get it back if
Strip Mine or such.
Note you can't be fooled into trying many utility lands if you are legitimately trying to use
Emeria, the Sky Ruin, which is hard when you are playing mono-colored decks as you can see so much value in some of the colorless lands.
If you are trying to use equipment, I cannot stress how often you really do need a low curve creature deck. If you plan is to equip Mangara and attack, then you are going to have a lot of miserable games where you do nothing as you spend your mana to equip and he gets removed.
I've found that you want quite a few one and two drop targets for a deck that has a number of equipment.
Playing a
Sword of the Animist on Turn 2, only to have to wait until Turn 5 to equip Mangara isn't exactly where you want to be at.
Throne of the High City and
Palace Jailer to get the monarchy into the game can induce action. But you need to make sure that you have some number of evasive creatures to get it back.
This leads into more of a hate-bear style package with candidates like
Aven Mindcensor,
Remorseful Cleric,
Hushbringer, with other support cards like
Selfless Spirit,
Cartographer's Hawk,
Boreas Charger.
These creatures lead into equipment being much more viable.
Skullclamp being nice with tokens of
Basri Ket,
Elspeth, Knight-Errant and
Elspeth, Sun's Champion.
Swords of
Fire and Ice,
Feast and Famine,
Light and Shadow,
Truth and Justice make for a quality and not a quantity equipment package.
Its important to keep it simple and not get carried away with equipment when as I say you need a good threshold of one and two drops to make equipment viable.
Now with some solid graveyard recursion you can still run a number of board sweepers as I originally suggested with the planeswalker idea even if you do run creatures and equipment.
You've already mentioned
Luminous Broodmoth and
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle can also be integrated given some thought.
Casting equipment will trigger Teshar as a bonus.
Salvage Scout and
Restoration Specialist can be used as a recycling package with Broodmoth and Teshar to get back equipment or other artifacts.
I will say that leaning on
Wayfarer's Bauble and
Burnished Hart and as many fetch-lands as possible and using some of the fore-mentioned cards to recur from graveyard does give you some consistency in land ramp.
If you can Broodmoth or Teshar or
Sword of Light and Shadow a
Salvage Scout and
Restoration Specialist to get back
Wayfarer's Bauble then that is a fine plan.
If you can run the maximum amount of fetch-lands in
Flooded Strand,
Marsh Flats,
Arid Mesa,
Windswept Heath,
Prismatic Vista,
Fabled Passage,
Myriad Landscape then you can legitimately look at
Brought Back and
Sevinne's Reclamation as straight up land ramp.
I know I'm being Captain Obvious of a lot of the mentions in here, but at the end of the day giving confirmation is still nice with feedback.
Zacama
