The Mono White Compendium

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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

bobthefunny wrote:
3 years ago
ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
  • Landbase Cost - Mono white isn't an easy task by any means. There are some really sweet cards and synergies that you get to use but that isn't to say you can't run Emeria, the Sky Ruin in GW and have access to four fetchable duals and green's land ramp / nonbasic land search effects.
I've run Emeria in 5 color decks (with good land setups), and even in 3 color decks with less-than-optimal land setups. It's surprisingly easy to turn on, and the opportunity cost is really rather low. I just rebuilt my dinosaur deck, and I run no ABU duals, or good fetches. I run the 7 new dual lands (3 shocks, 2 tangos, 2 bicycle), 2 mirage fetches, Myriad Landscape. That's already pretty good. Add in the green ramp with Nature's Lore, Farseek, Skyshroud Claim, and the like, and it's very easy to turn on.

Sword of the Animist also deserves a good shoutout for being stellar at bringing out large numbers of basics.
You can run three plus color decks with Emeria, I just think in a lot of cases they have to be sort of slow decks or use a lot of land ramp to pull it off. Even if you do manage to make it work how many utility lands do you get to run and how fast is said deck? I made a 5 color ramp deck work lately where I probably ran half or a little more than half of the lands as basics with a heavy forest / green ramp strategy. This works but as you shift a bunch of those forests to be plains to make Emeria work you open some issues where you might get mana screwed. I am not saying it won't work, I just don't know at what point you want to take the risk. Mono white has the advantage that it gets to easily run Emeria AND it can run a bunch of other utility lands without having land complexity issues or being overly expensive to field. If you are looking at a three color deck using budget lands and Emeria I am going to venture you probably aren't running much else for utility lands as well as probably needing to lean on a lot of land searching to make it work.

Ramp is a very viable strategy in commander. I do find a lot of times that it lacks a lot of early game interaction though and a fast aggro strategy can punish them. I have built and played against several decks that without combo can field lethal damage by turns 5/6 with a good hand that isn't interrupted. I am not trying to state that mono white is somehow better than something else but I do think that mono white does play Emeria much better than three color decks on average. I agree that you can run Emeria in multicolored decks but I also think that it requires a lot of setup to do so. Even if you do make it work in a three plus color deck how many other utility lands do you want to try to run in that deck? I often run 12-15 utility lands in a mono white deck and in that I get to often run 2-3 strip mine effects to punish someone who might be doing something overly complicated like this with only a few utility lands.

You can in fact run Emeria in a three plus color deck, I still stand behind the fact that I wouldn't advise it personally. I think that in one and two color decks it is a very reasonable setup. Currently the allied colors which get the cycling and tango fetchable duals are much better at it but I still don't think I would overly suggest it in a three or more color deck.
bobthefunny wrote:
3 years ago
ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
  • Goodstuff - I also think that mono colored decks end up with less goodstuff. When is the last time you built a blue deck and didn't ask yourself if you should be running Mana Drain, Cyclonic Rift, or Rhystic Study? Multicolored decks have a lot more of that and it kind of bores me. I really like finding the sweet deck tech that is to be found and I find that with mono color decks I dig deeper and tend to have less of that stuff in my decks. I generally find that decks with more colors end up with more auto includes. Add black to that blue deck and suddenly you are looking at Demonic Tutor / Vampiric Tutor / Toxic Deluge and several more cards that are hard to not include.
I... kind of disagree. Mono-white has as many auto-includes as any other color... If I'm playing white, even in multi-colored decks, I have to work to find a reason to NOT run Sun Titan or Emeria Shepherd.
Once we delve into mono-white, then you can add a good number of land-ramp cards and synergies to the list as well. Land Tax remains a powerful card. Most mono-white decks I build tend to run Stoneforge Mystic and/or Relic Seeker, paired with at least Sword of the Animist and Skullclamp. Usually Sword of Light and Shadow to round out the equipment package.
I wasn't saying that mono white has less auto includes, I think it has plenty. I was more stating that more colors = more auto includes. Its not as if I stop playing Demonic Tutor because I added more colors to the deck. Hell, I often jam Necropotence in three color decks even despite its BBB cost. My statement was more talking about mono color in general than any specific mono color.
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bobthefunny
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Post by bobthefunny » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
You can run three plus color decks with Emeria, I just think in a lot of cases they have to be sort of slow decks or use a lot of land ramp to pull it off. Even if you do manage to make it work how many utility lands do you get to run and how fast is said deck?
Land ramp helps, but I think the biggest thing is fetches and dual lands. It used to be you only had OG duals and shocks, but the two new cycles of duals has helped smooth things out, even on a budget. The new Triomes help in high color and 5 color decks as well.

In mono-colors, I like the eldraine typed lands. Blue was obviously the winner, but white and red are certainly playable, and even Gingerbread Cabin has been nice just because it puts out another token to soak up certain effects.

My meta is slow. We like slow games, and I like to ramp. A lot. Typically, my decks will have about 12-18 basics, and a fair number of duals/fetches. Usually about 7-10 various utility lands, though sometimes up to 12. I typically run 38-40 lands. I've gone as high as 52 lands in one deck, long ago.

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
I wasn't saying that mono white has less auto includes, I think it has plenty. I was more stating that more colors = more auto includes. Its not as if I stop playing Demonic Tutor because I added more colors to the deck. Hell, I often jam Necropotence in three color decks even despite its BBB cost. My statement was more talking about mono color in general than any specific mono color.
Ok, Yeah, that's fair. I misunderstood then. Apologies.

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