The Mono White Compendium

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ISBPathfinder
Bebopin
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

The Mono White Compendium
Disclaimer
This guide is written with the intent of 75% commander in mind. Mono white is incredibly difficult to come to the table trying to play with or against combo wincons. I will point out some mass land destruction on occasion in this guide not because I think it is acceptable in a 75% commander concept but just because it is a tool of mono white and some commanders specifically have synergy with it. I think mono white is going to have a very challenging experience standing toe to toe with combo. Generally speaking Sram, Senior Edificer cheerios and Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle might be some of the few that MAYBE can play to that level but they tend to have issues interacting with opponents so you will be primarily racing with them and using cheap spot removal hoping they are relevant. I don't play to that level of game play and this guide is not written with trying to play to that level of game play.

Introduction
For as long as I have been playing commander I have seen people have a preference towards multicolored decks over mono colored decks in large part due to having less weaknesses and a larger card pool. It is a challenge working with a smaller pool of cards and with most mono colors there are strengths and weaknesses. There are also a lot of really cool commanders to be had going mono colored and a very different play experience to be had. My hope with this guide is to give some assistance to those interested in playing mono white and to help give some guidelines and a starting point that will help you to be more successful in your attempt.

My hope is for this to be a resource to help players get some ideas on how they could play different commanders and get a start on mono white construction if it so interests them. I am trying to stay mostly neutral and not push any specific commanders but give ideas that might be relevant when examining different commander options.

Who Am I?
My name is Brian, I have been playing magic in South Dakota on and off since Ice Age. I have been an avid commander player since 2010 and I am someone who really enjoys the deckbuilding and tuning process of this game. The last time I checked I had over 150 threads that I had started in the multiplayer commander area of MTGSalvation with most of those decks having been built and some decks I built IRL not showing up here.

At this point I have played something like 10-20 different mono white commanders with several of these deck having been together for several years. I built a primer for Lin Sivvi and I probably log more games with mono white than any other types of deck. I often have 2-4 mono white decks put together at any one point in time and they often make up something like half of my constructed decks at any point.

Pros and Cons of Mono White
This is a run down on mono white pros and cons. White has a lot to offer but this is more focusing on just mono white for the relevance of the topic at hand which is building mono white.
  • Emeria, the Sky Ruin - Emeria is one of the biggest advantages of mono white if you ask me. This land can give incredible staying power and punish those who don't run sufficient Strip Mine effects or continuous use graveyard hate.
  • Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - In any mono color, Nykthos can provide a big burst to mana. The devotion you get in a mono colored deck tends to be higher and the need for fixing and thus the concerns of a colorless land is lowered.
  • Utility Land Count - I have somewhat of a formula for decks that tends to go along the lines of a 3+ color commander deck I tend to only include 1-3 utility lands, 2 color commanders I will generally run 4-7 utility lands, and in mono color I tend to run 12-18 utility lands. Having less need to fix mana its easier to have a lot more utility effects in your landbase. This is space for free support and powering up that is covered by your lands. This is like free utility effects that don't take up space in your deck. I have found that it makes it much easier to support multiple Strip Mines, Mazes, and all sorts of other utility like graveyard hate that normally speaking I have a hard time including all of these things in multicolored decks.
  • Weathered Wayfarer - It might be odd to point at Wayfarer but my point for doing so is because I just pointed out that we have more room for utility lands and one of white's weaknesses is card advantage. Wayfarer can keep us hitting our land drops and find sweet utility lands potentially ramping us or allowing responses to problems on board. Obviously Wayfarer is still playable in multicolored decks but I find the increase in utility lands to really deepen its usefulness in mono white.
  • Emeria Shepherd - Emeria Shepherd is a very strong tool for mono white. Being that she cares more about plains than other lands I tend to find her to be something I am much more willing to run in mono white than I am in multicolored decks. The targeting potential is very high considering mono white really can't support spellslinger and tends to be more permanent based.
  • Caged Sun / Gauntlet of Power - These effects work a lot better in mono colored decks even with potentially having an increase in utility lands. They tend to work a bit better for token strategies but white has both activated ability token generation and X mana token spells that both can use these quite well. These artifacts are anthems as well so overall I consider them quite often when running token strategies for mono white.
  • Endless Atlas - Being that its an artifact that can be run anywhere its a bit odd to point out. White has a hard time drawing cards though and its actually fairly reasonable draw that is harder to run in multi color decks. I have found it to be a reasonable and relatively good card for mono white and mono red. I felt it worth pointing out as its not likely to be run much of anywhere else.
  • Card Draw - White has always had somewhat of a problem with drawing cards. Its something that as time goes on, it does diminish some as new equipment, artifacts, and even occasionally white gets some decent draw effects. This said, white is still probably the worst color at drawing cards and pushing for card advantage. Opposing decks with a lot of card advantage, ramp, and removal can be real buggers to compete with in mono white.
  • The Stack - White has a very small card pool of counter magic that can interact with the stack but most of them are not especially great. If someone is going to win without using permanents or while silencing you, its likely that there won't be a lot of room for mono white to interact with it. Sometimes what you need to stay in a game is a counterspell and its something white doesn't have much luck with.
  • Noncombat Wincons - White does have a way to interact with any type of permenant but ultimately they are still stronger when opposing wincons come from combat sources. When the ability to use blockers, fogs, wraths, and propaganda effects can all be utilized they will be at an advantage. The more someone plans to win via things that do not involve combat, the more white's strengths are hard to be put to use.
Things to Consider
  • Landbase - Often when I build an optimized 3 color deck I have something like a $3,000 landbase to the deck. This is assuming I am optimizing it and using things like ABU dual lands, fetchlands, shocks, and so forth. This is obviously me optimizing and using the best I can. That said, mono colored landbases can be as cheap as a buck or two for basics but even when putting optimized utility lands in a deck I often end up with a landbase that is only $100-$200 assuming I am not putting extremely rare and expensive lands like Tabernacle or Bazaar in my lists.
  • Card Impact - In a lot of decks and colors its important to keep the curve low and chain cards. Depending on the commander and style of mono white deck it is sometimes more relevant to have mana dumps and higher impact cards. If for example, you were to play a lot of cheap spot removal in mono white, it would help you against a combo style of deck but it would also probably cost you against a control or ramp deck. I like to do somewhat of a thought experiment when working on a deck and asking myself, "If I have lands, access to my commander, and just this one card drawn off of the top of my deck, will that one card help me to progress forward or not die?" Try to refrain from setting up situations where you want 3-5 cards working together to achieve something and think more along the lines of does my commander + just this card make a good outcome. Keep it simple and it will probably be more effective.
  • Commander's Relevance - When you get to weaker colors its more important than ever to ask what your commander does and how well they hold up over the course of a game. I used to have a mono black deck where there would often be games I never cast my commander and the deck did fine either way. Mono white tends to be a weaker color with weaker cards that will often require you to lean on your commander and the impact that they can have on a game to hold things together. I like to ask myself a simple question of how soon could I play my commander and if someone blows everything up what will replaying my commander look like. The more simple utility your commander is with weaker stats, the weaker replaying them will likely be. Someone like Isamaru can get some fantastic work done early but his weakness is board resets as well as the number of players in the game. I think it is important to ask yourself if you don't have a hand left and someone blows up the board what are you left with recasting your commander because white is really weak with its card advantage.
Next up, the commanders.
Last edited by ISBPathfinder 3 years ago, edited 2 times in total.
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ISBPathfinder
Bebopin
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

I will be attempting to break down EVERY mono white commander option giving some suggested build options as well as some synergistic cards, weaknesses of the commander, and my overall conclusion of them. Its been a HELL of a lot of work to get to where I am now and I will keep adding to it as new commanders are added and hope to finish with every available commander option out there for mono white. The list is alphabetical.

Akroma, Angel of Wrath
Akroma, Angel of Wrath
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Build Options:
  • Land Buffs - Akroma has AMAZING evasion stats and is incredibly efficient in combat. Being a 6 powered expensive creature drop though makes her a 4 turn clock where as if you can get that one power buff you can potentially become a three turn clock. Consider in your lands the ability to get an extra point of damage in your commander as its easier than devoting a card to that. Giving slight buffs to Akroma also gets her past clone issues as even a small stat gain will make cloning her a lot less relevant for opponents.
  • Noncreature Sweepers - Given that Akroma has a lot of power naturally you can potentially rely on having few nonland effects to back her up.
  • Resurrection - Given the commander's expensive casting cost it can be significantly more effective to have Resurrection effects to keep her in play than relying on being able to cast her from the command zone repeatedly.
  • Fort - Keeping opponents from swarming attackers at you keeps the defensive capabilities of Akroma more relevant.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Swarm Tactics - going wide with lots of attackers will overcome the natural combat proficiency of Akroma. Keeping opponents from attacking you with many threats via means of Ghostly Prison / Crawlspace type of cards will limit their ability to leverage multiple threats against you. Akroma tends to be stronger as a standalone threat than a good portion of creatures in commander.
  • Mazes - Given that a lot of the advantage of this commander comes from being proficient in combat, its unfortunate if someone has the ability to defend from this. I would suggest considering running an above average targeted land destruction package of Strip Mine effects for this commander if you expect mazes.
  • Edicts - Given Akroma is an expensive single combat oriented threat, its something to keep in mind that edicts may have a big impact on her. You might be able to mitigate some of this by using some of the better ETB value creatures accessible to have chaff creatures. The amount of edicts in a meta varies a lot though but its something to think about.
Conclusion
The strength of Akroma, Angel of Wrath is that she is powerful on her own and needs almost no support in functioning. It means that most of the rest of the deck just needs to play mana and answering opponents rather than making her function better. You could put focus into ramping her into play and or slowing opponents down. I would probably avoid making much of a push to make her better like putting value on attacking equipment on her given how expensive she is and there is actually somewhat of a lot of value on keeping a low profile on the value of your commander.
Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
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Build Options:
  • Counters Support - They are slowly printing more
  • Persist - Given that you can pass out counters onto creatures there is room for persist assistance where you might loop a creature multiple times.
  • Populate - Anafenza can get most small utility / ETB creatures at least a counter but making any of the creatures big seems like a lot of work. Populate as a mechanic might be able to take a lot of small creatures and make them large somewhat quickly.
  • Equipment - its a cheap commander so the option to generate value from suiting up could be an option. Things like Sword of the Animist could be spun up early or Sword of Fire and Ice / Sword of Light and Shadow for evasion and value.
  • Sacrificial - potentially based on that you could persist or stack the bolster counters where you want.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Weak to Sweepers - honestly every time I have tried doing +/+ counter synergy it always ends up being weak to sweepers and relies on too many permanents in play. White is already really rough on its ability to generate card advantage so taking on a strategy that goes deep and dies to wraths seems fragile.
  • Small Impact - I always have concerns when I see a commander that is more delicate with smaller synergy in mono white. The commander kind of needs to be built around as they are not good as a standalone effect.
Conclusion
The commander seems like its a little low impact and weak to sweepers. I think that +/+ counters is an interesting direction to go I just think that this commander probably goes into a strategy of swarming the board with effects that take a bit of time to set up and is week to wraths. It won't be fast to become a threat and it won't reset well from sweepers. That all said, I think it has potential to snowball decently if you don't walk into wraths.
Atalya, Samite Master
Atalya, Samite Master
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Build Options:
  • Lifegain Matters - They have been creating more effects that care about lifegain as time goes on. This commander could be used as a lifegain matters effect especially given that she can gain life at instant speed which could control when some of these effects proc.
  • Big Mana - You could focus on generating larger amounts of mana as well as dumping said mana into token production or gaining life from the commander.
  • Cleric Tribal - the unfortunate part is the commander doesn't have any direct reason to go into cleric tribal but there also isn't really a tribal commander for clerics. You do lose out on the black clerics and some utility though going mono white.
  • Karma - There are only a few cards that you can go into here but there are a few where you can tax people out of their life while you gain life and or prevent damage to yourself. These effects tend to be combined with playing Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth which is legal to play in any commander deck as it is technically a colorless color identity card and there are a few ways to tutor up a land in white.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Weaker Commander - The commander costs 5 with weak stats. In a lot of ways what the commander gives us is kind of a weaker effect for modern day legends.
  • Lifegain is kind of weak unless it generates value outside of that.
  • Commander Damage - Given that she cannot prevent damage to players (only creatures) it does mean that a voltron commander deck has a little more danger for this commander. It may be relevant if you can block an evasive commander and prevent damage to the creature blocking it but they might also trample, fly, or be unblockable so it may be hard to rely on being able to block a voltron deck.
Conclusion
When it comes to lifegain commanders, this commander might be a bit more subtle and the power of creatures has risen since this time in magic. Lifegain is not that powerful and some may attack you because you have more life than others. I think its an interesting commander effect but I wish she cost less and or had a bit of a power bump to put her more in line with today's creatures. Still though, as a thought for big mana mono white control it might work. It probably would have a low threat profile for those familiar with commander which could work in her favor giving you a lower threat profile.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
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Build Options:
  • Wraths - Given that she makes everything you control indestructible, wrathing the board can be very one sided. This said, its kind of expected of this commander so watch for mana left up by opponents as its very normal for opponents to try to disrupt your commander in response to this tactic.
  • Mass Land Destruction - Given that your lands are indestructible it could be one sided, if everything goes as planned. Most players when they see this commander though will be ready to interact with you if they have interactions the turn after you play your commander or as you go to cast your commander.
  • Hexproof / Shroud - given that the commander is really hard to deal with making her harder to target makes it even harder to get rid of her and her protection.
  • Ramp - Given that Avacyn is a strong threat who defends herself ramping into her can be appealing. Generally for this, looking at 0-5 mana ramp that produces more than one mana per ramp card.
  • Pillowfort - restricting the number of creatures that can attack you increases the protection that Avacyn can grant you from opposing wincons. Stopping a token or swarm deck from running you over.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Draws a lot of attention - Your commander choice will annoy several opponents for its potential wrath / removal synergy as well as how hard it is to interact with. Expect that you might eat attacks and removal that opponents save for you based on your commander choice.
  • Expect hate based on the commander choice - Expect opponents to attack you and or your resources based on the fact that they might not be able to after you play your commander.
  • Swarm Tactics - The commander is strong vs few threats but can be overwhelmed. Keep it in mind based on what you expect in your meta but to some degree wraths can help on this front or you can add some level of fort defense if its a problem.
  • Clones / Theft - Theft and or clones are very appealing on Avacyn. Its a huge pain considering in a lot of cases you don't want to run sweepers that would bypass your own protection so its possible you might have to run spot removal that can nicely interact with her.
Conclusion
Its a strong mono white commander with a lot of impact. There is some level of how much attention the commander brings down on itself as well as how much resource your opponents want to devote to keeping you out of play and or off your commander. Being that its an 8 mana commander that brings a lot of attention down on itself there may be a lot of variance in how well of a performance you get from the commander. Clones and theft will be a huge pain in the ass to boot.
Avacyn, Guardian Angel
Avacyn, Guardian Angel
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Build Options:
  • Voltron - The stats with flying and vigilance for the mana are actually quite solid. White has good equipment tutor options to boot.
  • Damage Redirection - Effects like Pariah that redirect damage from you to them could be really solid in that Avacyn can blank all creatures of a color for 1W.
  • Mana Sinks - Given that the commander for 5WW can prevent all damage to you from a specific color means you could sort of play the commander like a draw / go deck to some extent. If you can hold up that mana you can in a lot of ways prevent a large scale threat from coming your way. Its better if you have other options for how to dump mana to it assuming you don't need to do that.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Midrange Strategy - Most of what I have been able to come up with for this concept makes this seem like a midrange deck that has somewhat of a heavy focus on the commander. I think the commander here has a good statline and has a good balance of aggro and defense but someone who plans to control your board instead of win via Craterhoof Behemoth is going to give some difficulty for this commander.
  • Mazes - Maze effects can put you off of your aggression. Make sure to run plenty of Strip Mine effects to overcome these and or other troublesome lands.
Conclusion
The commander comes in soon enough that it could be suited up for value or to make her a faster clock. Being a natural five attack clock isn't great but with a single sword she can be buffed to a 3 turn clock which isn't half bad. The mana cost of WWW for a five drop makes her a bit harder to ramp into aggressively as some of the better options like Mana Vault don't fully contribute on curve. The stats and vanilla abilities for the mana are fairly good though so she should be a fairly good clock for the mana. Lyra Dawnbringer can be sort of similar in some ways so its valid to consider Lyra as a similar in some ways commander.
Baird, Steward of Argive
Baird, Steward of Argive
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Build Options:
  • Pillow Fort - Your commander isn't going to inspire fear in opponents and he does actively make it harder to attack you.
  • Human / Soldier Tribal - he doesn't directly give any tribe buffs but he belongs to two fairly good sized creature types.
  • Equipment - Size wise he isn't huge but he has the natural vigilance which does help towards defensive value play. Some equipment isn't soley about connecting to opponents and even some swords could give evasion and buffs.
  • Superfriends - Baird taxes to attack our planeswalkers and has a decent size to block attackers not to mention how a lot of white walkers give tokens to defend them.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Non Combat Wincons - If your opponent doesn't plan to utilize combat to win a lot of the defensive natures of this commander become irrelevant.
  • Single Attackers - fort effects often tax multiple attackers which tends to do a lot worse vs one good attacker especially strategies like voltron or some big eldrazi monster.
Conclusion
This commander is a very rare and unique in that most commander options don't have pillowfort effects on them directly. The only other commander that comes to mind for me would be Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs who works in a very different kind of way than Baird, Steward of Argive. I think this is a cool commander who has a somewhat low power level but that may actually help in some ways to deter opponents from attacking you in a lot of cases. This is and will be a political commander where you are going to need to include your wincons in the deck rather than relying on the commander to get you there but what this deck can do is buy itself time. You won't be a big impressive and scary threat early on so I think you can play political games with this commander combined with the light tax to attack you it should be able to manipulate the game and plan out a wincon later in the game.
Balan, Wandering Knight
Balan, Wandering Knight
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Build Options:
  • Voltron - Given that everything about the commander lends it to suiting up and attacking this seems like the obvious way to go about building him.
  • Equipment - Balan has two abilities referencing equipment so it seems fairly obvious that you will want to put equipment on him.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Commander Centric - This gameplan puts a lot of reliance on Balan, Wandering Knight who doesn't have any natural hexproof or shroud.
  • Sweepers - Balan lacks evasion and power. It takes at least two equipment to gain the double strike benefit and then you still need a means of connecting and getting past maze effects. Sweeping artifacts or nonland effects can be rough.
Conclusion
Its a strong commander who can punch very hard. He lacks evasion though so picking up evasion, card advantage, and size are the priorities for the commander. If your opponents don't plan to interact with you somewhat quickly this commander can very easily run them down.
Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile
Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile
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Build Options:
  • Fort / Rattlesnake - Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile is a strong defensive option given it can first strike + tap for two more damage. It makes attacking with numbers very hard while she is untapped.
  • Deathtouch - given that the commander taps to damage all creatures on attacks or defense adding deathtouch makes it lethal to those in combat. Given the first strike on the commander as well adding deathtouch could allow you to attack more profitably as well if you want.
  • Vigilance - Vigilance lets Brigid attack and still use her ability.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Non Combat Wincons - The commander's interactions are almost entirely aimed at combat related strategies and will probably end poorly when non combat related wincons are involved.
  • Known Defenses - opponents will probably play around what is visible in your defenses. You will eat removal as an opponent is ready to attack you and you might eat a lot of attacks anytime you can't nicely interact with it.
Conclusion
Strong defense against tokens and the addition of deathtouch makes her really strong against creature combat but she is probably weak against control strategies and anything that doesn't rely on combat. Its a slow defensive strategy with no clear means of winning so you will probably need to pull wincons from your deck rather than using the commander herself.
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
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Build Options:
  • Evasion - Brimaz and the cats he create are somewhat fragile. Brimaz himself can be protected with some buffs but often times it will be a challenge for a 1/1 to scoot by without some sort of assistance.
  • Anthems - buffing creatures en mass can be a means of keeping the creatures alive as well as inflicing more damage.
  • Equipment - Cheap commanders play with equipment really well in that they can get the equipment online quickly. Being that this is also a token deck it makes it a little tricky but the stats, lack of evasion, and cost of Brimaz makes him a valid option to run some amount of equipment.
  • Land Disruption - Being a cheap commander who generates value over time, disrupting your opponents resource will result in additional resource generation on your behalf.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Slow Spin Up - Brimaz comes in early and builds value over time. Sweepers will put him behind in a big way.
Conclusion
It seems like a very cool type of commander but I wonder if you might need to run resource disruption to offset how slow you will recover if you let others play their way. Its a very cool commander but he really wants to land early and slow the opponents down while running away with the game. In a fair game where you don't resource disrupt I feel like you can curve out and have some interesting games but as soon as someone drops a wrath I fear that this deck will fall behind too much.
Bruna, the Fading Light
Bruna, the Fading Light
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Bruna gives a tribal rez to humans and angels. It makes these creature types much stronger as they become more resilient.
  • Monarch - Bruna is an incredible brick wall blocker as well as being able to attack each turn with vigilance. It makes it hard to get past her and easy for her to get back at someone who steals monarch from her. 2/4 of the monarch cards as of right now are humans as well allowing the option of rezing them to regain monarch while also putting Bruna into play.
  • Hatebears - Given all of the magus cards in white are humans as well as several other strong hatebears in human and angels, the option to hate on some strategies is definitely an option.
  • Filter / Mill - Filtering cards from hand as well as milling helps give targets for recursion.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Graveyard Hate - being that its a reanimation deck to some degree most of the time there is some weakness to graveyard removal.
  • Explosive Wincons - This deck tends to do quite well against over time wincons and or control mechanics but is weaker to things like overrun effects or combo wins.
Conclusion
Bruna is really strong as a go long style of deck. It plays well against control mechanics given that Bruna gives a two for one setup on cast. Most decks will be a mix of both human and angel focus as both tribes have their strengths but neither tends to have enough incentive to run only one tribe at this time. I have a lot of experience with this type of commander now and generally speaking I would say that when I lose it tends to be to a deck that setup and goes off VERY fast or ends up with some sort of explosive out of nowhere wincon. This commander is extremely resilient in longer run games and serves as offensive attacker, defensive blocker, and value generator on cast. Generally speaking Bruna tends to be less of a proactive gameplan rather than a reactive one in that you likely use her to get cards back into play rather than casting her as soon as you can.
Celestial Kirin
Celestial Kirin
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Build Options:
  • Spirit Tribal - Given the only utility of Celestial Kirin triggers on Spirit and Arcane casts its likely you intend to play these cards. Spirits are a creature type you see outside of Kamigawa though so its far more likely that you run this commander as a Spirit build than rely on the very few select Arcane spells that exist.
  • Soulshift - Its a spirit ability that lets you recover other spirits. Most of these spirits don't feel great to play but its card advantage in mono white and has synergy with the tribe being used.
  • Equipment - Based on the fact that the commander is somewhat cheap to cast and has evasion, it could be a useful tactic to rely on some value generation from equipment or even potentially a voltron gameplan.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Having the Correct CMC Card - Having sufficient spirits / arcane spells and the right mana costs for what you need to have removal for is a real thing. From what I saw the more natural spirits seem to fall in the 2-6 mana range and its very challenging to interact with tokens or more expensive cards with this.
Conclusion
Its nice that spirits are a somewhat general creature type that we see outside of specific blocks so the nice thing about this is that we constantly see new playable creatures for this commander. When they introduce Ugin's Conjurant it gave this commander a versatile sweeper that can zero mana Armageddon on a triggered ability which is very interesting. One creature might not seem huge but given that Recruiter of the Guard, Ranger of Eos, and Ranger-Captain of Eos can all tutor for it. That all said, I think there might be some challenge with this commander in that you will always need the right converted mana cost of spirits or arcane spell to interact with the problem and some things you just won't have the right converted mana cost of card to interact with such as tokens. As new spirits come out this commander does get more versatile though potentially.
Cho-Manno, Revolutionary
Cho-Manno, Revolutionary
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Build Options:
  • Damage Redirects - There are a few cards like Pariah and Pariah Shield that can redirect all damage you would take to Cho-Manno, Revolutionary who prevents it all.
  • Equipment - Cho-Manno, Revolutionary lacks evasion and power. Given the cost of the commander as well as that he is in mono white it might be relevant to play some amount of equipment.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Small Impact Defensive Commander - Cho-Manno, Revolutionary is a defensive commander with no evasion and a somewhat narrow set of cards that have direct synergy with him. Even assuming your opponents don't interfere with your gameplan I suspect that the synergy and capabilities are somewhat limited.
Conclusion
There are a few other commanders in mono white that have some similarities but in my opinion improvements over Cho-Manno, Revolutionary. I like to try to give each commander their fair shake but if you compare Cho-Manno, Revolutionary to Commander Eesha, I think Esha has a lot of the same defensive capabilities but also has flying evasion and can't be blocked as well as being protected from some types of creature removal. The one slight advantage of Cho-Manno, Revolutionary over Commander Eesha would be that Cho-Manno prevents noncreature damage which is mostly relevant against red sweepers, red spot removal, and maybe Pestilence effects.
Commander Eesha
Commander Eesha
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Build Options:
  • Damage Redirects - There are a few cards like Pariah and Pariah Shield that can redirect all damage you would take to Commander Eesha who prevents it all.
  • Voltron - Protection from creatures is I think the highest form of evasion you can get. Her stats are a little weak for her mana but that evasion is REALLY nice for buffing.
  • Equipment - With her somewhat low starting stats you probably want some equipment to speed her up as well as generate value.
  • Vigilance - The ability to attack and defend with Commander Eesha really extends her capabilities.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Weak Stats - Being a 2 powered 4 mana commander is a little low powered. Buffing stats will be important to voltron in a reasonable timeframe. Being such weak stats means you will be reliant on buffs to make her more efficient.
Conclusion
Commander Eesha trades off having decent stats for having probably one of the most defensive / evasive commanders you can get. I am not sure how the trade off of that improved evasion compares to a commander with flying and better stats but it gives a different approach for this commander. I think the value of having vigilance or a damage redirect effect to Eesha are important for the defense of this deck. Protection from creatures is stright up equal to unblockable at this point in time but its even better than that as she is also a defensive meatwall so this is by far the best evasion you can get. I definitely feel there is some power behind the inevitability feeling of Eesha and paring her with some sort of defensive capability could make for a very robust deck. Also keep in mind that the protection from creatures extends to other things like Gilded Drake / Duplicant effects.
Crovax, Ascendant Hero
Crovax, Ascendant Hero
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Build Options:
  • Tokens - Given the bump to white creatures Crovax, Ascendant Hero gives, it will make tokens a little more efficient.
  • Lifetotal Trading - Given that Crovax gives the option to tank your lifetotal on demand, it makes handing your life total off to someone else interesting.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Expensive Anthem - Six mana to buff your creatures +1/+1 is kind of a lot. Some amount of the value you get from this commander might come down to how many tokens and or utility creatures he kills which will come down to what your opponents play.
Conclusion
This commander is sort of like having a hatebear as a commander. Your value will vary somewhat large between games where your commander's negative anthem is relevant against your opponents and ones in which it is not. The positive anthem is a bit small. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is a similar but more powerful effect for similar mana so the big question between the two is if you want to run life redistribution effects and or just have the consistency of being able to keep your commander at six mana by paying life to keep him around.
Danitha Capashen, Paragon
Danitha Capashen, Paragon
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Build Options:
  • Equipment & Auras - Due to the cost reductions to cast equipment and auras she tends to lend herself to this gameplan.
  • Voltron - Given that we are already talking about buff cards as well as having three relevant static abilities suiting up and going ham seems good.
  • Land Disruption - Cheap commander that has cost reduction built in and vigilance kind of means that disrupting lands could play towards her strengths.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Control - This deck will accumulate value over time and building up cool things but the commander being removed will set you back. If someone sweeps nonland effects it will be very hard to build back up due to the limited draw of mono white as well as the low presence of the commander in mid to late game with no other board.
Conclusion
I think that its possible to build this commander with land disruption in mind to some degree. That kind of deck will be a big question of goldfish your opponents or lose the game though. Cost reduction is at its best when you limit resources or can chain LOTS of draw together and being we are in mono white its a lot harder to make the cost reduction relevant through draw throughput. The avenues that are left that seem like they might work for this commander seems to point to disrupting lands.
Darien, King of Kjeldor
Darien, King of Kjeldor
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Build Options:
  • Self Mutilation - Generally speaking your opponents won't be nice and punch you when you are all set up unless its for some terrifying number. The ability to inflict damage to yourself and control your commander's trigger is important.
  • Soul Sisters - Using effects that trigger whenever a creature enters the battlefield such as Soul Warden to recover the life you lose makes Darien almost all upside with the only real concerns being getting one shot or commander damage.
  • Fort - opponents won't really want to poke you for small chip damage once you are set up with your commander. This said, they might prioritize you when your commander is not in play and if they get an overwhelming attack option it might draw them to you.
  • Token Support - Buffing tokens or trying to generate advantage from tokens is generally important given the commander makes tokens.
  • Soldier Tribal - given that he makes soldier tokens, there are a few ways to buff soldiers
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Commander Centric - The commander isn't cheap and in a lot of cases this sort of deck will be built around the idea of getting the commander into play fast and keeping him in play as much of the game as you can. The deck gets weaker without the commander in play and his casting cost can be a little prohibitive to get him back.
Conclusion
Darien can be an interesting and VERY different commander. One of the biggest issues I have always had with the concept of self damaging to create tokens is how most of the effects to trigger to make tokens seem to be in the lands and mostly older lands. When it comes to new card design there seems to be new token enabler effects fairly often but a lot of the other synergies of this commander seem somewhat rare to get prints. The design of land has kind of changed and in a lot of cases you will get life loss instead of damage dealing in newer lands.
Djeru, With Eyes Open
Djeru, With Eyes Open
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Build Options:
  • Planeswalkers - He tutors a walker to hand on entering play as well as protecting them through being vigilant and reducing damage to them.
  • Flicker - Mono white is good at flickering creatures and the commander has an ETB value effect. Its possible that flickering could allow chump blocking or jumping through removal as well as the option to retrigger the enters the battlefield trigger of Djeru.
  • Fort - Given that its likely that you are building on walkers you probably want to create defensive measures to protect them and keep them alive.
  • Voltron - it might seem a bit odd to say but Djeru can toolbox into walkers who can pump and give him evasion. Given that Djeru has vigilance as well it means that buffing him up helps him defend your walkers as well. White is also very good with equipment as well as another option to bolster this option.
  • Planeswalker Tucking - Given that Djeru toolboxes and we don't have a big toolbox, taking planeswalkers who are about to die or have died and tucking them back into the deck opens a tutor option to pick them back up.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Small card pool toolbox - the number of planeswalkers in colorless and white does continue to expand but its worth mentioning that not all of them are great and not all of them are synergistic with each other and or every strategy. As games go on, you will start having worse and worse options to toolbox as you draw and or tutor walkers.
  • Commander's late game relevancy - A 4/3 vigilant commander with no flying for 5 is going to have some falloff as games go on longer. Djeru will need buffs in the mid to late game to be relevant. This might mean walkers who buff creatures or equipment generally.
Conclusion
One of his biggest weaknesses is the limitation of how many white walkers there are. Every time a new colorless or white walker comes out his pool of walkers he can play increases which is appealing. As it stands most of the 6+ mana planeswalkers are fairly solid but a lot of the cheaper ones seem a little questionable for mono white to get away with. Djeru can help keep a lot of junk attackers and prevent them but most any flyer will be able to freely harass your walkers so either running removal or some flying defense will be needed. The ability to close out games also seems somewhat questionable here so buffs that give flying seem relevant as they can make Djeru relevant in being able to connect better as well as being able to block better.
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
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Build Options:
  • Voltron - Its a cheap commander who can give themselves protection from opponents creatures. It mostly means that you need size buffs and mana.
  • Land Disruption - its an option to disrupt mana given that the commander is very cheap to cast. Disrupting lands means you can get more attacks in and generate value from said equipment potentially.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Long Games - this commander can spin up somewhat quickly but lacks the natural power to close games out. Opponents who plan to interact with your gameplan by removing buffs will be a pain. The commander here can potentially defend buffs from spot removal (assuming you have mana up) but a non land sweeper will potentially put you back a lot.
  • Swarm Tactics - Eight-and-a-Half-Tails can give protection and make opponents creatures white but if your opponent is swarming its hard to give evasion through a bunch of creatures not to mention their chance to race you can be a concern.
Conclusion
I did list a bunch of lands matter buffs and MLD and I am very aware that they don't work well together but that is not to say you take every suggestion I make. The cheap equipment that give value rather than size will be more relevant if you do run land disruption effects and you can still run untap disruption effects with the land counts matter effects in a positive interaction. My concern with most mono white cheap commanders is the question of how relevant they are in a normal game of commander if the game goes long.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
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Build Options:
  • Control - Elesh Norn cuts a LOT of power off of the opponents board which makes it hard to swarm you.
  • Ramp / Big Mana - Given that the commander costs seven mana and most of the good token production in white involves either X mana spells or input mana to receive tokens.
  • Tokens - Given Elesh Norn's anthem buff she makes swarm tactics strong.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Theft - given that the commander is expensive and she hates on the tactic that she is also good with she is very vulnerable to theft.
  • Voltron - Lots of her value comes from hedging opponents creatures and or killing utility and tokens. Voltron decks tend to stack buffs one one creature and a negative anthem is going to not affect that much.
Conclusion
The strength of Elesh Norn tends to be dictated by how relevant her negative anthem is. Being an anthem herself is nice and all but she is a little slow as a buff. It still takes a lot of bodies and some time to bring opponents down when you compare her to other big token buffs that exist in this format. In a lot of cases opponents tend to not be happy when they play against decks that hard counter them. This might be a valid commander choice if you just want to hard counter someone who plays some sort of annoying token deck but if you don't get this deck against their token deck its going to be less impressive.
Evra, Halcyon Witness
Evra, Halcyon Witness
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Build Options:
  • Lifetotal Trading - There are a number of cards that let you trade your life totals with another player. You can set your life total low using Evra and then trade that low life total off to someone else.
  • Evasion - Trample, flying, or unblockable can all make her a very serious and quick threat. Generally speaking she will one shot opponents if you can get her to connect.
  • Protection from interaction - Stopping opponents from interacting with your board will help you when swapping lifetotals with your commander's power.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Cheap Interaction - The commander is expensive and kind of obvious if you plan to swap your life with her power. If an opponent interacts with her between you swapping and you doing something to follow and make up for it, its going to be very clunky and terrible for you.
Conclusion
The commander has a few cool tricks but will be overall somewhat weak and predictable for decks that run interaction. It likely will do better against more linear decks due to this. You might be able to surprise opponents with a few tricks the first time you do them but ultimately I suspect this commander will get more predictable if you play it more in the same meta.
General Jarkeld
General Jarkeld
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Build Options:
  • Robust creatures - creatures who don't die nicely in combat that can be pushed around as needed to block things you want.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • The commander is a low impact utility creature with bad stats and mana cost in mono white to boot. You are your own worst enemy here.
Conclusion
Overall, this commander's abilities are very weak and stat line for the mana is extremely poor. Creatures back in this day were much weaker than they are today and the ability for Jarkeld is on the weak side. Adjusting blockers is just too weak of an ability to commit your commander to it and being mono white means you are in weak colors as well.
Gerrard Capashen
Gerrard Capashen
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Build Options:
  • Lifegain Matters - There are a number of effects that will draw cards, make tokens, or buff creatures when you gain life. Given that Gerrard has a good bit of lifegain at upkeep and comes in fairly cheaply, he can be easy to trigger these effects.
  • Pillowfort - it might be an odd thought but it seems fairly reasonable that you should be able to gain 5-7 life a turn off of him being in play without annoying someone by attacking them. Threat level wise most people probably won't look at him as a big problem of the game and he buys you time by buffing your health pool actively.
  • Equipment - rather than saying voltron for him because his stats kind of suck, I think it is an option to screw with blockers to make some value equipment connect with him. His tap ability means that it can be somewhat unpredictable if opponents can block him effectively and or making it take additional blockers to do so.
  • Activated Abilities - you can potentially go deeper into activated abilities and making them better, cheaper, and or duplicating them.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • The commander probably plays best a little bit politically. Making the whole table mad at you or needing to kill all the players at a table will be a challenge.
  • Opposing Voltron - being somewhat of a political lifegaining deck, you might have some issues with opposing voltron tactics.
Conclusion
This deck probably plays well as a low profile kind of deck just trying not to be the most threatening one at the table. You will want to not appear too defensive at times and not too strong either. Overall it looks like a challenge of a commander but one that could be very rewarding to play. Be wary of this type of commander and or deck if you naturally draw attention to yourself as the player who needs to die.
Gisela, the Broken Blade
Gisela, the Broken Blade
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Build Options:
  • Lifegain Matters - There are a number of effects that will draw cards, make tokens, or buff creatures when you gain life. Given that Gisela has lifelink and comes in fairly cheaply it can be easy to trigger these effects.
  • Voltron - the commander is cheap with good stats and evasion. The lifelink effect also gives her the option to try to race opposing aggro decks.
  • Brisela, Voice of Nightmares - obviously with the sweet meld function of Gisela I would be a little remiss to not mention her counterpart Bruna, the Fading Light.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Mazes - its a voltron commander without hexproof. Essentially anything that repeatedly stops you from connecting will be an issue.
  • Theft - especially when running a non hexproof voltron commander theft is more concerning than ever.
Conclusion
Gisela comes in early and has a good statline that holds up fairly decently to the first few castings of the commander. The lifegain she offers gives a nice buffer against other aggro decks as well as buying you time to cast bigger alternative wincons. Running some sort of mix of value generating cards, lifelink matters cards, and alternative wincons gives a good wide array of effects. The statline for the mana is quite good here in comparison to a lot of other commander options and her flying evasion with lifelink all add up to make her quite highly statted for her mana.
God-Eternal Oketra
God-Eternal Oketra
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Build Options:
  • Bounce - Bouncing cheap ETB creatures back to hand can trigger for more bodies from Oketra as well as the value of the creatures entering play.
  • Cost Reduction - Lots of the bouncing effects let you repeatedly cast the same creatures. Cost reduction effects can often let you cast the bounce effects up to twice as often.
  • Cheap Value Creatures - Cheap creatures that generate value on entering / leaving play can play well into the bounce tactics or even just as a fire and forget effect that also comes with a 4/4 thanks to the commander.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Commander Centric - This deck is built around the idea of getting a five mana commander in play and then keeping them there to do work after they are in play. It can be slow to get it going and after seeing wraths it will have a bit of a delay to spin it back up. If your commander is [card=
    Song of the Dryads]transformed[/card] or stolen it will hurt the deck a lot.
  • Torpor Orb - It might be a little odd to mention this given Oketra is an on cast trigger but a lot of the bounce back effects are going to be some sort of enters the battlefield trigger. Torpor Orb effects might not be super common but its worth mentioning that the deck probably runs a lot less smooth through this effect.
Conclusion
Oketra packs a lot of value. Its likely that you don't need to draw a ton of cards as in most cases your hope is to play a card that lets you spend most of your mana in a turn casting cheap creatures and bouncing them back to your hand. Repeatedly casting Whitemane Lion / Kor Skyfisher and bouncing them back to hand might be what a good turn looks like. The power of the commander can be quite high but the setup time can also feel kind of heavy. With how I envision the deck being built if the commander is not in play, the deck does very little so getting the commander in play and keeping the commander functioning should be a high priority for this sort of deck. Theft and transform effects can be rough for a lot of mono white commanders but I think its more of a problem here given the deck composition is probably full of cards that don't do anything without an on cast trigger to give a payoff.
Guan Yu, Sainted Warrior
Guan Yu, Sainted Warrior
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Build Options:
  • Voltron - suit him up and go ham on someone. It seems to be one of the few things this commander lends itself to given all there really is to them is the evasion.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Weak stats for the mana - The cost is high and the stats for the mana are somewhat low. His evasion is unique but not especially strong either given other options.
  • Means to repeat stop an attack - things like Mazes, a means to tap, steal, or prevent damage repeatedly is a problem for voltron attackers.
Conclusion
In a nutshell this is a 3 powered unblockable commander who can't block who costs 5 mana. I question how viable he is from the standpoint that other commanders like say Commander Eesha exist with a very similar concept of what they do but I would say that Commander Esha is much more versatile in that creature based removal can't target her and she can be used defensively with vigilance or just kept back to block. Shifting to the idea of a flying commander instead of unblockable you can also get a better statline for less mana with a commander like Gisela, the Broken Blade. Ultimately I think there are better evasion options and better statlines for a voltron commander concept but he is cool from the standpoint that its a Portal 3 Kingdoms commander with horsemanship.
Hazduhr the Abbot
Hazduhr the Abbot
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Build Options:
  • Clerics tribal - given that the commander is a legendary cleric I suppose this could work here.
  • Damage Prevention / Indestructible - make it hard to remove the commander I guess.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Everything..... a stiff breeze, anything and everything is the weakness of this commander.
Conclusion
This commander is incredibly weak. Its from a time where creatures were incredibly weak in comparison to today's modern creatures. I think the card is cool in flavor but I have a hard time coming up with an actual application where this ability would be somehow effective. I think if you are looking at this commander its because you think this kindly old man is somehow a cool flavor card or you are really trying to jam some old cleric legend as your commander. I think there are better commanders to be had.
Heliod, God of the Sun
Heliod, God of the Sun
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Build Options:
  • Sweepers - heliod is an indestructible god, sweeping the board often leaves him in place to do his thing.
  • Token Support - he makes tokens himself so some sort of token support can make them more relevant.
  • Clerics - He makes cleric tokens so some way to buff them and make them more relevant could be a thing.
  • Enchantress - the tokens he makes are enchantments so things that care about enchantments entering the battlefield can trigger from them.
  • Big Mana - Mana double effects as well as large mana producing stones can increase production of tokens.
  • Draw go - having a mana sink commander means you can potentially play more of a draw go strategy if you want.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Theft - if someone steals your commander, it will be a big pain in the ass to get him back. Some effects like Homeward Path for example don't work on noncreatures so he might become a creature while we have him and then revert to an enchantment after being stolen. Exile enchantment removal might be a little more important depending on how much theft you see.
  • Land Disruption - The general concept for this commander is to get a lot of mana output and every turn try to use it up. Disruptions to land in the source of stasis effects or mass land destruction will hurt it more than your average white deck.
  • Grindy Control - Mono white tends to be weak to this type of opposition but given that Heliod is generally a slower type of responsive deck that can play well against haymaker style of decks but given the slower speed of play it tends to fall victim to attrition control decks.
Conclusion
Heliod is very robust as a commander which some will find very irritating. He functions as a mana sink as well as potentially a strong attacker / defender. Generally speaking spending turns just guaranteeing you hit your land drops will be quite good for this kind of deck. Lots of mana and stalling games out is to the benefit of a deck like this. The fact that the tokens are enchantments triggers some cool effects like Ajani's Chosen and Skybind not to mention add towards making Serra's Sanctum spicy. Generally speaking stringing the game out and making it long will be to your benefit. Keeping your life total high utilizing lifegain and playing defensively tends to play to the strengths of this commander.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned
Heliod, Sun-Crowned
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Build Options:
  • Lifegain Triggers - Heliod is a unique effect in that he cares about quantity of lifegain triggers rather than the size of lifegain. It is more relevant to gain one life 10 times than it is to gain 10 life one time. This means that effects that can give more than one trigger of life gain in a turn are generally superior to a creature with lifelink.
  • Combo - Heliod, Sun-Crowned paired with either Triskelion or Walking Ballista can easily go infinite by using Heliod to give them lifelink before pinging infinitely.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Control - Most of the lifegain effects tend to be very good against decks that apply pressure to life totals as well as attack in. Decks focusing more on a resource grind tend to hit this type of deck in a way that it has some problems competing on.
Conclusion
I think I have to seperate my conclusion for this commander to two different concept decks:
  • Combo - The challenge is going to be that there are only a few payoffs. Being Triskelion, Walking Ballista, and possibly Aetherflux Reservoir as some of the stronger wincons of the deck I think it will be a bit harder to consistantly find these effects. There are a few ways to tutor for them but I think you have to be ready and prepaired for opponents to interact with them. I think that is fine as the aggro plan is still there so make sure to be ready to also roll on an aggro plan. My concern is that if you are playing with combos, I question how fast this is in comparison to someone else also running a combo deck. I think the fall back plan of aggro is fine and a lot of times combo decks have issues having decent plan B setups. Combo metas also often don't run as many wraths so they might have to use counter magic and spot removal on random creatures. Whenever possible pump the least valuable creature rather than one that might be your engine becuase you want to make targeting harder for spot removal. Overall I think as a combo deck the biggest concern is going to be what sort of speed your meta is going to bring to the table. This deck will be limited in its speed and ability to interact but I think its own wincon plan is fairly reasonable. It won't be cEDH but I think its capable of a decent game against combo metas.
  • Non-Combo - I think as a 75% power deck its going to suffer a bit more from control strategies. Sweepers are going to be a big slow down and a lot of the creatures that do great work tend to be random creatures that don't carry equipment that well in that they lack evasion. It should have a fairly good game against aggro decks but a lot of 75% commander decks tend to be more of ramp, midrange, and control decks than they do aggro.
Hikari, Twilight Guardian
Hikari, Twilight Guardian
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Build Options:
  • Spirit / Arcane - Casting these effects flickers Hikari which gives him essentially vigilance as well as letting him jump through removal.
  • ETB Matters - Hikari doesn't have any ETB effect himself but its possible to do some global effects for when creatures enter play potentially.
  • Voltron - Flying evasion and ok stats make him probably a little below average for this but still potentially a voltron commander.
  • Flash enablers - Giving flash to spirits is going to really open up his flicker in a much more useful way.
  • Worldslayer - I don't usually like picking out standalone cards like this but given the commander can potentially blink you could run worldslayer with him and flicker with the trigger on the stack.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Slightly weak stats for the mana - 4/4 for 5 flyers are below average for legendary quality these days. When he was originally printed he was printed at rare and later bumped to uncommon in a masters set.
  • Hard to flicker at instant speed - Arcane spells are something that were never again made. It means that most of his ways to flicker are spirits which often lack flash.
Conclusion
Spirits keep coming out which is nice as it does add to the number of ways he can flicker but Hikari doesn't have any sort of natural ETB to make flickering payoff normally. Overall he is a slightly lower than average statline for the mana creature who has a hard time taking advantage of his flicker in response to wraths and or removal due to most spirits not having flash naturally. I wish he had some small ETB value generation on him because I think that is what would really open him up and make him interesting and the spirit / arcane dependence a lot more interesting.
Hixus, Prison Warden
Hixus, Prison Warden
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Build Options:
  • Draw / Go - Given that Hixus is a flash commander who gives a defensive presence it seems like he lends this to be a defensive flash based deck.
  • Mana Sinks - whenever you play draw / go based tactics its also nice to have repeatable mana sinks especially if you don't push a lot of card draw as options to dump your mana to.
  • Pillowfort - Given you have a punishment for those who attack you it makes sense to make it hard to attack you by having defenses from big swarms or even single attackers that are efficient.
  • Sacrifice - you can't permanently exile opponents creatures by sacrificing Hixus in response to his ETB but having a sacrifice outlet will let you sacrifice him in response to a wrath potentially or reset him to cast again in a pinch.
  • Flicker - potentially allows you to control what is hidden away with him or release something to be eaten by a wrath that is coming in. The more optimal flickers are probably the ones that return at the end of turn so that he can jump over wraths.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Tokens - in a lot of cases token decks will pull some large buff and roll over players in a single turn. He is good at discouraging chip damage attacks from those kind of decks but he lends almost no defense against being swarmed in one turn.
  • Control - he lacks the card advantage to fight decks based on a lot of draw and answers especially in better colors.
  • Unknown wincon - Hixus is more of a defensive measure than he is a wincon. It means you will need to pull something out of your deck to win with in all likelihood.
Conclusion
Hixus is a bit of an odd commander in that he is probably fairly good as a counter to hexproof commanders as a lot of voltron commanders do their work in multiple strikes to a player and he would be a strong rattlesnake against such an effect but he is poor against control decks and a lot of swarmy token style decks where you might just die in one hit to them. I also don't really know how he necessarily wins offhand as the commander himself doesn't lend himself as a wincon for the most part.
Hokori, Dust Drinker
Hokori, Dust Drinker
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Build Options:
  • Land Disruption - Given the commander is disruption to lands it seems like you are at least invested that deep. Going deeper on blowing up lands or disrupting them is optional though too.
  • Mana Rocks - Given that Hokori disrupts lands it seems like a valid option to ramp up and do things with mana rocks or colorless mana dorks. Deprive opponents of their fun things and then make yourself some mana to roast those salty salty marshmallows with.
  • Equipment - generating value or trying to race opponents both seem entirely viable as you slow them down with your commander's land disruption effect.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Low Curves - Opponents with low curves and or a lot of mana stones will be a weakness in that this commander will prey on the unsuspecting and those running greedy high battlecruiser curves.
  • Cheap Interaction - Removing the threats that you field right before disrupting lands will throw this strategy off.
Conclusion
Hokori tends to be a commander who punishes greedy ramp battlecruiser decks using tactics that are usually frowned on. If opponents make better decks with lower curves and or play with land disruption and or combo on a regular basis he tends to lack in strength with the tradeoff being that he is very consistent in being able to get set up on time. My biggest concern though would be that you might need to focus a lot harder on being able to close out games with the upside of getting a very consistent disruption effect in the command zone.
Huang Zhong, Shu General
Huang Zhong, Shu General
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Build Options:
  • Trample - Being he can't be multi blocked it does make adding trample a bit stronger.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Everything
Conclusion
Huang Zhong has terrible stats for the mana as well as almost no relevant ability. I would strongly suggest moving on as its very hard to come up with something positive to say or some direction that this could go other than literally anywhere any white commander can also go.
Iona, Shield of Emeria (Banned)
Iona, Shield of Emeria
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Build Options:
  • Ramp - Iona costs 9 mana so it seems kind of relivant to put some focus into getting your mana.
  • Hatebears - Iona is a hatebear so I guess you could double down on it.
  • Angels - There is slowly getting to be a little more tribal support for angels.


Synergistic Cards:


Weaknesses:
  • Politics - people really, really hate Iona, Shield of Emeria and showing up with her as your commander will probably end up drawing some negative attention that you might feel all game.
  • Expensive Commander - Being a 9 mana creature means that the first cast of Iona will probably feel really mana heavy and slow. Recasting her will be very challenging and she will be a removal magnet assuming they can cast those cards.


Conclusion
Showing up with Iona in your command zone will possibly make you public enemy from the get go of games. It is very challenging to play mono white with the level of hate that you might receive from having Iona as your commander. On top of this all, if somehow an opponent clones or captures her its possible that you might be in a very difficult position.
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
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Build Options:
  • Land Disruption - Given how quick he enters, slowing the game down and or sealing it off for a few turns can be very effective for buying time to get attacks in.
  • Voltron - The commander is a cheap creature with good stats for the mana.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Cheap Interaction - cheap and fast interaction will take away his advantage of speed.
  • Value Games - Being that he is a cheap and fast commander his weakness is when games go long and become value generation wars.
Conclusion
The way to make Isamaru work is to hit people fast and stop them from having resources. You need to use every dirty trick to play Isamaru or you will have a bad time. If games go long you probably lose and its hard to speed him up enough fast enough reliably enough to not rely on land disruption and be successful.
Jareth, Leonine Titan
Jareth, Leonine Titan
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Build Options:
  • Vigilance - given how good of a blocker he is, gaining vigilance seems like it would be a priority.
  • Voltron - his base power for the mana is weak. Buffing power seems kind of important.
  • Damage Redirection - effects that transfer damage you would take to a creature can be useful in that Jareth can go protection from colors.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Poor Stats - For the mana, his stat line isn't that great.
  • Slow - it kind of ties into the poor stats but ultimately he is slow and doesn't provide a good clock.
Conclusion
Jareth wants to be a defensive creature more than an offensive one given his high mana cost and relatively low power in attacking. He can gain protections to swing more efficiently but would still have problems with artifact creatures, colorless control, wraths, and mazes. His power of defense means he probably wants vigilance but then he still doesn't fly or help vs a swarm. My issue is how much help he still needs to perform given his high starting mana cost and you really should probably cast him with at least one white mana up to protect him which further increases his cost.
Jazal Goldmane
Jazal Goldmane
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Build Options:
  • Tokens - Jazal's ability cares about the number of attackers so having a big swarm of creatures is relevant.
  • Big Mana - Big mana can lead to producing more tokens or activating Jazal's ability more than once.
  • Equipment - Jazal is really quite robust for a 4 drop having good stats and first strike. It means he could probably carry some equipment himself especially if focusing more on equipment that generates value on attacking itself or doing damage anywhere rather than to players. Given the first strike even power only equipment can be quite relevant and give you sort of a beatdown option if you want for a slightly voltron plan.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Predictable - What I mean by this is that everyone will know how many creatures you are moving to combat with and you can't buff your creatures until the attackers are declared.
  • Removal - Given Jazal's design you will be sort of susceptible to sweepers and spot removal. Usually a lot of decks tend to be better vs one or the other but I think both of them are both kind of a pain for Jazal.
Conclusion
Jazal is a little bit predictable in that opponents can kind of judge where you are at. He comes in quickly though and really a 4/4 for 4 with first strike who can suit up himself as well as go wide is kind of an odd setup. You can sort of be voltron / swarm if you want. It only takes 4-5 attackers to make his activated ability look really impressive and if you go beyond that it quickly gets out of control. He is sort of a hybrid in that he has good stats for his mana which lets him carry weapons decently BUT also his activated ability makes him good for swarm tactics.
Kataki, War's Wage
Kataki, War's Wage
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Build Options:
  • Mycosynth Lattice - Lets be honest here and say this might be the only real thing that this commander might do that would be entertaining. You just want to watch the world burn.
  • Mass Land Destruction - Normally speaking people get past land destruction by using mana stones. Maybe not with this commander in play.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Weak Commander - Its a 2/1 with no evasion and nothing to keep it alive in combat or even out of combat.
  • Super Situational Hate Effect - So, if someone is jamming every mana stone in the world into play, yea you will get them good but generally speaking taxing artifacts one mana to exist isn't exactly the end of the world. Even when this ability is kicking in a lot its still probably only ok and thats assuming it is being applied often.
Conclusion
Lets be honest here, Kataki is a sideboarded hatebear meant to come in against specific matchups in constructed 60 card play. It dies to almost every creature ever printed and it has no evasion or ability to be decent in combat whatsoever. I would say far far away from the idea of Kataki as a commander unless you are a sadist and likes to see the world burn.
Kemba, Kha Regent
Kemba, Kha Regent
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Build Options:
  • Equipment - Obviously Kemba cares about how many equipment are on her. Getting equipment to let her survive and keep staying in play is probably the way to go with some of them as well as ones that might generate some card advantage.
  • Token Support - Given that equipment + commander makes tokens. You probably don't need more token producers but some way to make those tokens better probably would do some work.
  • Mass Land Destruction - Kemba provides value over time so assuming you get set up and then remove lands it can be a fast end to the game.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Commander Centric - Disruption can set you back a lot. Theft, wraths, and spot removal can all be a pain in the ass.
  • Artifact Removal - repeated artifact removal or artifact sweepers can be a problem. Kemba really does want to get a minimum of two to three equipment to spin up sufficient tokens. Things like Aura Shards or Vandalblast can really suck.
  • Tower of the Magistrate - I don't normally highlight individual cards for weaknesses but this card looks like about the worst time you can imagine for a Kemba deck. I normally suggest a few Strip Mine effects in a deck but if you think you might encounter this card you might want a few more.
Conclusion
Kemba is a commander who can put a lot of power to play fairly quickly but tends to be a bit soft vs control strategies. She can be very powerful against other proactive and or aggro decks but tends to lose power as you expect sweepers and spot removal in increased numbers. In a lot of cases I encourage equipment that gives protection to Kemba to try to keep Kemba alive as well as generate card advantage as the focuses of what kind of equipment I would generally focus on. Kemba can be a fantastic budget commander in that it will do a lot of work even with budget equipment in the list.
Kentaro, the Smiling Cat
Kentaro, the Smiling Cat
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - I assume the reason to choose this as your commander is likely to play some sort of tribal samurai deck. There are a number of tribal options its just that many of them are not very good.
  • Equipment - Being there is one super cool samurai themed equipment it might be worth it to go deeper on that plan.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Everything - The only reason to choose this as your commander would be some sort of flavor or theme based deck. The weaknesses here are literally everything.
Conclusion
Kentaro lacks power and evasion. The flavor of samurai is interesting and fun but unfortunately there just aren't enough samurai to try to focus mono white samurai as a commander concept. The flavor of Kentaro is to allow you to mana fix to cast other colored samurai that you don't have the right setup for but considering how commander works, its just not an option. I would strongly suggest not choosing this commander.
Kiyomaro, First to Stand
Kiyomaro, First to Stand
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Build Options:
  • Lifegain - There is a bit of life to be gained potentially if we can keep our hand full. There are several effects that could give us extra bodies or grow creatures based on when we gain life.
  • Evasion - Assuming you can make him evasive, he can hit like an absolute truck.
  • Poke - I am mostly referring to a few effects that let us tap a creature to do damage to a creature or player. Kiyomaro is unique in that if he deals damage you can trigger to gain life and this is not tied to combat damage. This means you can vigilantly attack, be ready to block, and then at the end of your opponents turns tap him to do damage and trigger to gain more life.
  • Land Fetching - White is good at fetching lands to hand and really bad at drawing cards. You hand size will matter with this commander and given that white doesn't have a ton of great draw, its reasonable to fetch lands to keep your hand size full for the commander.
  • Draw - White tends to be weak when it comes to drawing cards but given that our hand size matters it will be important to keep the deck moving.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Discard - One of the worst things that could happen would be someone forcing you to discard your hand with this commander. Its not a common thing to see generally speaking but if you expect to see this sort of effect it will be VERY bad for you as it kills your commander and leaves you with a very uphill battle to rebuild your hand and commander.
  • Voltron - Voltron decks often run evasion and do commander damage which will force you to try to race them or see who can disrupt each other more.
  • Grindy Control - If someone stays on top of you trading cards and drawing heavily it can be very challenging to out value them in white.
Conclusion
This is a good battleship style of commander. They trade blows well and the natural life gain and good sized attack / defense in our commander makes them hard to rush down. This commander won't be fast but they will be robust and trade hits well. You potentially want some amount of situational cards that can be very powerful when they are relevant that otherwise stay in your hand.
Konda, Lord of Eiganjo
Konda, Lord of Eiganjo
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Build Options:
  • Lure - Forcing opponents to block him gives us our size growth.
  • Equipment - gaining more size and trample or flying seem potentially all relevant.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Efficiency - The commander costs a lot and doesn't really hit that hard or have any evasion to hit hard if he does gain stats.
  • Clones - The commander is expensive to cast and gets shut down mostly by a clone of itself.
Conclusion
I like the feel of this commander but it seems like he needs so much help to actually feel like a threat and he costs so much to get going. In a lot of cases the things you get from this commander can be found with Avacyn, Angel of Hope as your commander instead but she has evasion and size naturally as well. My concern is just he is so inefficient and the amount of work to make him work is so high that I just don't see a lot of reason to run him instead of Avacyn, Angel of Hope. He comes with a sweet creature type but you really can't force samurai tribal for commander and the amount of buffs he needs to be viable is too high.
Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon"
Kongming, Sleeping Dragon
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Build Options:
  • Tokens - Given the commander is an anthem the best payoff is going to be token tactics.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Low Commander Impact - The commander is a 4 mana anthem with poor stats and mostly irrelevant creature types.
Conclusion
There are so many token synergy commander to choose from that I just don't really see a big appeal for this commander. The overall power level is definitely on the low side.
Kwende, Pride of Femeref
Kwende, Pride of Femeref
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Build Options:
  • First Strikers - taking efficient creatures and curving them to be double strikers might be valuable.
  • First Strike Enablers - So, the caveat is that if you run a lot of the anthem effects to give first strike you probably want to run less first strike creatures. These anthem effects combine well with the commander though to give double strike en mass.
  • Equipment - There are a lot of equipment now that trigger on doing damage. Gaining size buffs, evasion, and value on striking could all be helpful with a commander like this.
  • Tribal - Lots of knights have first strike and there are a few that give anthems for knights (not many).
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Fragile - The commander is a 4 mana 2/2 which can make him weak to some removal. Someone curving an Umezawa's Jitte or Sword of Fire and Ice are two things that come to my mind offhand which would result sort of poorly.
  • Control - Control can always be hard for mono white but my point here is that this commander often relies on having several threats / equipment in play to create a board. The more cards you need in order to have a decent board the worse it tends to do against control mechanics.
Conclusion
Its possible to field a LOT of power quickly with this commander. Equipment get really crazy fast with double strike and the option to give double strike to reasonable threats is kind of interesting. I feel like this will sort of feel like a glass cannon sort of deck though in that its good games come down to multiple card assemble effects and walking into opponents who are trying to be proactive rather than reactive. The power of this commander with Swords looks very appealing when you can make him connect but I also worry about how much attention something like that might bring. My concern offhand is that this looks like it might be a little flashy and fragile.
Kytheon, Hero of Akros
Kytheon, Hero of Akros
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Build Options:
  • Mass Land Disruption - Being that Kytheon is cheap to cast it can be to your benefit to get in, get set up, and then disrupt opponents resources.
  • Equipment - Kytheon doesn't scale all that well into games. He has no evasion and his size starts small. Becoming larget and adding evasions and or card advantage can help your deck remain relevant as games go on.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Scaling - Kytheon comes in early and can get some work done quickly. His weakness tends to be towards if someone slows you down via something that sweeps your board. In order to keep him relevant you probably need some toys to buff him and let him connect. You might be able to kill a player but the concern is going to be more on trying to clear a whole table with a commander like this.
Conclusion
The biggest benefit of a cheap commander like this is going to be how quick you can set up and get some work done. The problem is that other players probably come online with more powerful strategies before you can close games out. The struggle with cheap commanders like this is always going to be how to make them relevant when someone blows up all nonland permanents. The number of cards you need to suit up and make your commander relivant is probably a bit high in comparison to a lot of commanders who come online soon after him. I would consider this an uphill battle sort of commander where it will be significantly harder than just playing mono white.
Lena, Selfless Champion
Lena, Selfless Champion
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Build Options:
  • Looping - The power of this commander is going to be HEAVILY dependent on if you can loop her to re-trigger her ETB repeatedly. The value of her ability without setting up loops isn't really that impressive but with loops it becomes quite reasonable.
  • Utility and value creatures - The power of Lena comes down to how many non token creatures you have. She also can protect valuable creatures that lend utility with her sac effect. Finding ways to generate card advantage on creatures might be important for this.
  • Rez - Not all resurrect effects are good but some of them you can abuse with some of the looping effects or play well towards
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Expensive Commander - Lena costs 6 mana, wants you to have a board of other creatures, and recasting her can be potentially rough. Lots of the cool loops for her depend on her getting set up in the first place and then being left alone to do her thing. It can take some time to do that.
Conclusion
This commander actually makes me think of Siege-Gang Commander in quite a few ways. I think getting 3 tokens is fairly reasonable when casting her and if you are getting more than that its nice but probably a bit much to ask for. You really want to avoid casting her many times from the command zone and the setup for her to actually make tokens might be a pain so I think you probably want to stick to creatures that she protects with her effect. She can theoretically go infinite with the mana altars + ways to loop her.
Lieutenant Kirtar
Lieutenant Kirtar
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Build Options:
  • Rattlesnake Pillow Fort - Being a mono white commander with a low threat profile you can probably get by with defending yourself with a low presence commander.
  • Equipment - The commander is cheap and it flies. Adding some equipment for value and extra stats seems like a great way to power up.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Low Power - So, there are pros and cons to being percieved as a smaller threat. The advantage is you might eat less removal and people might be less concerned about you connecting and getting equipment value because they aren't being hit as hard. The downside is that your ability to kill and close out games will also be weaker.
  • Fort - Pillow fort is a deterrent but it rarely holds up to someone who is determined for you to be pressured. Its generally a defense measure that makes other players appealing targets. It is in a nutshell a fragile political defense.
Conclusion
Kirtar is the type of commander that you want to be looking at assuming everyone isn't always automatically trying to kill you regardless of what you build. This is a great underdog sort of commander for someone who wants to be perceived as a less threatening early game threat and generate value off of equipment attacking while holding up some measure of defense. In the late game you unleash Eldrazi monsters and giant angel end game threats to try to close games out. You can still potentially pick up enough power to close games out with the commander but this to me is more of an early game value, chip damage style of commander rather than someone I would call a voltron commander.
Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero
Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Lin Sivvi cares about rebels. Its hard to have a Lin Sivvi deck without at least some elements of tribal. Being tribal doesn't have to mean that you are running a large number of tribal cards but its likely that you end up with at least ten rebels in your deck with Lin Sivvi as your commander.
  • Toolbox - Having the right tool for the right situation can be huge. Toolbox decks are very versatile and can shift and respond to a lot of situations.
  • Draw Go - Lin Sivvi is an instant speed mana sink. Being responsive in nature lets you
  • Topdeck Manipulation - Topdeck manipulation gets MUCH more powerful when you intend to tutor every turn. You get a shot at the best cards and pass on more situational cards and or cards that you can tutor.
  • Equipment - Cheap evasive creatures tend to carry equipment well. The ability to hit harder and or generate card advantage is useful on cheap evasive creatures this deck tends to tutor.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Haymakers / Combo - Lin Sivvi is very good against decks that plan to attack repeatedly or deal noncombat damage that doesn't in one effect kill you. Where she tends to be a bit more lacking is if opponents are trying to swarm wide and kill you in one shot or combo win.
  • Exile Removal - Exile removal and repeat graveyard hate effects can be the weakness of lin sivvi as she can normally recycle her toolbox but if someone exiles a card its just done. In a lot of cases you don't have a ton of redundancy so losing effects can weaken the deck.
Conclusion
Lin Sivvi's strengths tend to lie in being able to react to the game. She has a lot of power against voltron, single attackers, and black / red strategies given what she can tutor. In a lot of cases Lin Sivvi can be considered one of the stronger mono white 75% commanders due to her flexibility and resiliency. While the power of a lot of the allies are kind of low having the right one for the right time is still some measure of card advantage which is one of the things that white struggles with. This commander tends to be played as a responsive control draw go deck and is one of the stronger non combo white commanders.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
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Build Options:
  • Equipment - Its a common theme for white but when your commander is affordable to cast with evasion it tends to be a common consideration. Getting in for more damage and possibly generating some card advantage helps.
  • Hate - Given Linvala is a hatebear herself, its possible to go down a theme of hate effects. If you can turn effects into creatures then Linvala cuts them off from their abilities.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Commander is Situational - There is a big roll of the dice that disabling opponents creatures activated abilities will be relevant with Linvala. When she is relevant it will feel incredibly bad for your opponents but they might also avoid those commanders when they play you after they know you have a deck like this. I would say that on average, it seems like its only maybe 1/6 - 1/10 commanders that this really seems to affect but every meta will be entirely different.
Conclusion
If Linvala's hatebear ability isn't relevant then she really mostly rolls off as a weaker more reactive and situational version of Gisela, the Broken Blade. Its hard to say that given that they aren't exactly the same but the number of cards with synergy to Linvala isn't extremely high and you can trade off the hate effect for more power and lifegain strategies.
Linvala, the Preserver
Linvala, the Preserver
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Build Options:
  • Flicker / Looping - Ideally you can move the commander through play and trigger the ETB effects multiple times without just recasting them.
  • Angels - There isn't a ton of synergy but given we get two angel bodies from the commander getting some sort of tribal buff might be a thing.
  • Giving away resources - Giving opponents life and creatures might allow you to create more tokens and gain more life.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Dependent on Opponents - In order to gain life or create tokens an opponent has to have more things than you. This means that you are sort of reactive to opponents. If nobody is playing a swarm style of deck then you probably can't create the tokens. The life effect is also very wonky and weak to sudden bursts of output from opponents or combo.
  • Weak Payoff - Even after you get your ETB payoff, its kind of weak. Its a six mana commander and maybe we get a 3/3 angel and maybe we get 5 life from paying 6 mana to cast them the first time. Its not exactly stellar.
Conclusion
To be honest, I find it incredibly hard to abuse this commander. Ideally you want to flicker and move her in and out of play but all of her abilities are dependent on having less than opponents which actually makes it very hard to abuse her. I feel like wizards tried turning her into some sort of a weird combination of Thragtusk and Timely Reinforcements. I don't really feel that there is enough synergy to build around this Linvala unfortunately I feel like there are a lot of better choices where you can be more proactive in your gameplan.
Liu Bei, Lord of Shu
Liu Bei, Lord of Shu
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Build Options:
  • Equipment - The commander is essentially unblockable. Its EXTREMELY rare that you see another horsemanship card used in commander.
  • Guan Yu, Sainted Warrior / Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior - Given that Liu Bei specifically gets buffed by these two I guess this is synergy. That said, I think these cards are really terrible and their price tags totally don't justify what they would actually do for this deck. The reason to run these two is almost 100% for flavor reasons because they are cool and lend to the flavor of the commander.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Weak Stats - Its a two powered, five cost commander. Its not exactly something to write home about.
  • Lacks Versatility - Liu Bei lacks versatility in that essentially he can't block well. He is good at attacking primarily and while you can block with him it probably takes vigilance as a pickup as well as several buffs for him to do it halfway decently.
  • Mazes / Theft / Spot Removal - He can't be blocked but there are a lot of other ways to disrupt him. This can be very true for a lot of commanders but given that he lacks versatility and he is a high cost low stat commander I think all of these things are extra true here.
Conclusion
Liu Bei isn't a commander you run for the power he brings to the table. You run him to flex your wallet, show off, and tell a story. There are some commanders who aren't optimal and I think Liu Bei falls into that category but I think there is enough of a cool factor given how obscure he is that its almost like, cool how bad he is. If you ever get Liu Bei into play with both Guan Yu, Sainted Warrior and or Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior you sort of execute a flavor win that kind of makes it irrelevant if you actually win or not.
Lyra Dawnbringer
Lyra Dawnbringer
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Lyra buffs and gives lifelink to all angels. It gives a good incentive to at least pick up other already reasonable and or good angels.
  • Lifegain - Wizards keeps printing more lifegain payoff effects.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Control - Lyra is very reasonable and strong against aggro and potentially token decks. You can spin up a fast reasonable threat and gain life to make it harder to trade hits against. The benefits of Lyra though can be difficult to leverage against a control deck as they tend to win via attrition of cards rather than making life totals matter.
Conclusion
As far as mono white lifegain type commanders go, Lyra is very reasonable in that she is a good standalone threat and it doesn't take a lot of cards to have a good threat in play. I would generally speaking compare her with Gisela, the Broken Blade given that their statline and what they do is similar. The advantage of Lyra being that she gives additional support to running other angels where as Gisela likely wants to go a little more of a voltron route.
This resource is continued on the next post. It becomes increasingly difficult to manage one extremely long post so it is easier for me to break it up a little.
Last edited by ISBPathfinder 3 years ago, edited 43 times in total.
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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Mageta the Lion
Mageta the Lion
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Build Options:
  • Robust Creatures - Given that Mageta wraths all other creatures I think I would consider possibly playing with some amount of cards that transform into creatures or possibly creatures that are indestructible.
  • Draw / Land tutors - You need to discard two cards in order to activate Mageta so you probably want some ways to fill your hand up.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Huge Card Disadvantage - Discarding two cards to activate Mageta is HUGE. Mono white already has a hard time keeping up with card advantage and this is a big concern.
  • Closing Out Games - I have no idea what the plan to close out games with this commander would be. Its likely some sort of resolve some other threat or put a bunch of buffs on the commander.
  • Opponent Perception - I have not played with or against Mageta but I have seen some Child of Alara on rare occasion and I the few times I saw that literally everyone took every pot shot they could when they could at that deck. When opponents see a wrath stick of a commander they tend to turn sideways straight into it. These decks don't tend to play politics when they cant trigger their wraths and opponents will start the game off triggered at your choice of commander.
Conclusion
I always have this fear with commanders that are essentially wraths in the command zone that essentially the entire game, you will just be attacked by anyone and everyone. There is the question of how you plan to win, and there is the perceived threat of your commander that will be much higher than what they will ever actually accomplish in my opinion. Mageta is kind of awkward of the wrath commanders in that he needs to tap and also has a massive card disadvantage in order to activate. Playing mono white is already a heck of a challenge so what you really don't want is a low powered high perceived threat commander. My fear is that that is exactly what Mageta is. Opponents are unlikely to let you sit back but the numbers to make your commander work are inferior to a lot of other similar effects like say Child of Alara or Kagemaro, First to Suffer. I guess this is me giving a cautionary warning to any interested in Mageta. Its not that it can't work, I just think there are additional elements to strongly consider before going deep on this commander.
Major Teroh
Major Teroh
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Build Options:
  • Color distortion - Changing the colors of creatures to black so you can exile it I guess is a thing.
  • Equipment - Evasive flyers can carry equipment alright.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • SUPER Situational - if you are playing against a bunch of black decks, this commander might be amusing. I think its just entirely too situational though.
  • Poor stats - Its a 2/3 for 4 commander with just ok evasion.
Conclusion
Don't have anything to do with this commander. There are just so much better commanders out there. The hate effect that it brings to the table is going to be one of the more narrow hate effects on a commander you could have and the stats for the mana aren't great. Maybe some sort of theme commander but I think this is likely going to be a low powered deck with few synergy cards. The stats you get for his mana are terrible and his ability is beyond situational.
Mangara of Corondor
Mangara of Corondor
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Build Options:
  • Flicker - Mangara's ability to exile herself only happens on resolution so if she goes somewhere else in the meantime, it means that you essentially reload her for her next use. Keep in mind that you have to be able to flicker in response to her ability so you can't use slow flickers like Conjurer's Closet to pull this off and generally its hard to use this more than once per turn rotation without haste enabling and immediate flicker return effects.
  • Haste - Mangara wants to tap to use so giving her haste loads her for faster use.
  • Untap - If you find a way to untap a creature you can tap Mangara to her own ability and then activate an untap retaining priority to tap her again. This is a way to buy more uses per use of Mangara.
  • Cycling - The only reason I kind of make this suggestion is because of the fact that Astral Drift and Astral Slide exist and I just pointed out that flickering is good. I think this is a bit of a long shot but it could possibly be done.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • High perceived threat - Opponents are not going to like what you are trying to do. The question is always if a high perceived threat can pay off or not. Generally speaking this deck wants its commander combined with some abuse effects. The ability to use the commander multiple times in a turn and if possible keep herself in play afterwards is going to take some setup and opponents will not be happy to ever see that situation.
  • Low game closure - Mangara is a three mana 1/1 after all. The ability to close out games is going to be almost non existent on her own. You will need ways to make her relevant or just try to close the game out with something else.
Conclusion
Mangara is a huge rattlesnake type commander. She sits back and sort of says, keep it reasonable and maybe not at me and you can maybe keep your thing. I think that the ideal way to play Mangara is somewhat like a pillow fort deck where opponents ideally just don't want you too pieved at them but the problem with that type of play is that is assuming you aren't going to loop and or multi abuse her. When you start threatening to use her 2+ times a turn or even use and keep her opponents will be less pleased. The ideal situations of oppression for her tend to look like a means to instantly flicker her back repeatedly and a haste outlet or a means to tap her multiple times before letting her abilities resolve. My biggest concerns with Mangara is how much threat she really represents for opponents and your ability to close out games with her at the helm. I think she could potentially play a responsive removal role decently if you don't get overwhelmed.
Mangara, the Diplomat
Mangara, the Diplomat
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Build Options:
  • Planeswalkers - Planeswalkers often require opponents to attack them down. The upside of that is that it will trigger Mangara's draw if they do.
  • Vigilant Buffs - I sort of like some of the vigilant buffs that you can get as it lets you poke and defend both with a lifelinker. Making Mangara, the Diplomat more viable in combat helps on mutlple fronts but the fact that he also has lifelink makes some of the vigilant size boosters interesting.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Defensive Draw Commander - I think this deck is likely not that aggressive of a deck and it likely needs to draw specific cards from the deck to mount an offense.
Conclusion
I think that Mangara, the Diplomat doesn't have a ton of direction to him. You can sort of do whatever you want and he likely will draw you a few cards (more often from an opponent casting 2+ spells). I have played with him a little bit as a singleton in other decks and he isn't bad but I also don't really know what to do with him at the helm as I have considered it a few times but I just don't see a lot of places to go with him other than let him draw some cards and find some sort of wincon out of the deck. I don't have a lot to really chime in for this because I think Mangara is a decent commander just as is and you can put a pile of mono white cards behind him and run sort of whatever you want.
Masako the Humorless
Masako the Humorless
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Build Options:
  • Beaters - The idea with this commander is to turn sideways and be able to defend yourself.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Known Trick - Showing her to be your commander takes away a lot of the value of her being sort of a combat trick.
  • Low Impact - The overall role of this commander and the ability to build into synergy both look very low.
Conclusion
Masako was designed to be a combat trick. By putting her in your command zone you really remove a lot of the intention for her to be an unknown trick on your opponents. I think it takes away a lot of the reason to run her unfortunately. I think for the most part running Heliod, God of the Sun gives you most of the same functionality but a lot of other things like an indestructable attacker / blocker and a mana dump. Unfortunately Masako just loses a lot of the intention when having her be your commander.
Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Mavren Fein is a vampire and makes vampire tokens. Getting some sort of payoff seems fine.
  • Evasion - Keep your fragile little guys alive.
  • Anthems - Make a swarm of vampires hit harder.
  • Land Disruption - given that you get value out of every attack you can make and come in early. Slowing opponents down on their lands could be an option.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Fragile - You need to attack with a non token vampire and the commander is a 2/2 and most white vampire options are also not very robust.
  • Slow Spinup - This deck looks like it takes a while to become a threat and sweepers will put you way back.
Conclusion
Its really unfortunate that you can only get one vampire token per attack. Mavren Fein feels a little too slow in my mind due to that. What I really sort of see is Brimaz, King of Oreskos but with worse stats and probably a better creature type. The upside to Mavren is that vampires are clearly here to stay and I think the pool of synergy cards and cards to maybe buff white vampires might continue to expand at a reasonable pace. I think overall though, Mavren is a little too slow and fair. Its possible that using land destruction buys him time but I am not even sure if that makes him good enough assuming you play those tactics.
Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker
Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker
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Build Options:
  • Fort - One of the biggest concerns with Michiko Konda is going to be opponents trying to kill you in one shot without letting your triggers punish them. From this standpoint I think it makes a lot of sense to reduce the damage you take and make it take some time to chip you out of a game.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Fragile Dissuasion - In a lot of ways you are giving people a reason to not poke at you for incidental damage.
  • Weak Wincons - The commander is a 2/2 for 4 with no combat prowess. The way in which to actually close games out is questionable.
Conclusion
I get the impression that this commander can play for second place reasonably but I don't get the impression that it would be strong to actually win games. Michiko Konda gives a big reason not to poke at her slowly but combo and haymaker strategies could easily overwhelm the defenses. Ideally if she lent to better colors you could use the upfront time to establish better into a better board but in mono white having a stall only commander is very questionable. I see this commander as sort of a political pillowfort commander but I don't really expect that it will be an easy case to win games with this commander.
Mikaeus, the Lunarch
Mikaeus, the Lunarch
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Build Options:
  • Land Disruption - Mikaeus, the Lunarch generates more value the longer he gets to stick to the board. Slowing opponents down on their lands might buy you more time to do that.
  • Untap Effects - Every tap of Mikaeus, the Lunarch results in more value.
  • Tokens - Go wide and make them big.
  • Big Mana - Mikaeus has an x in his cost and you generally want to make tokens and buff them.
  • Counters Synergy - Make everything better by getting some synergy for those counters.
  • Proliferate - Mikaeus passes out counters to everything already so proliferating makes them add up faster and keeps you able to push more counters off of Mikaeus himself to the others.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Sweepers - Its going to be rough to rebuild. Lots of the concepts here are putting several cards into play and giving them the time to matter.
Conclusion
Mikaeus, the Lunarch in my opinion is a really sweet commander who has the basic problem of needing to overbuild the board and being in mono white. When you get wrathed, you are going to really really feel it as its going to take too many resources to build up sufficient board presence and it might also take several turns of being in play to get there. Its unfortunate because I really like a lot of the synergy cards and potential ways to build but I always come back to the problem that its probably going to not bounce back well from wraths. Its possible to run land disruption and hope that it carries you and buys you the time you need to make tokens and dish out the counters to matter. You can also run bigger token generation which I didn't bother listing here because I was mentioning the mass land destruction options. Its a sweet commander but it also takes a bit of time and a few cards to create board presence.
Myojin of Cleansing Fire
Myojin of Cleansing Fire
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Build Options:
  • Bounce - Given he gets a counter when cast from hand getting him to play and then back to hand can get you a counter.
  • Divinity - There are a few ways to give divinity counters to things which is sweet for a commander who cares about them.
  • Proliferate - Getting more divinity counters sounds good once you get one right?
  • Tutors - Lets face it, there aren't that many cards to make this work and you need more ways to get those cards.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Painfully Slow - Being an 8 mana commander that you need to jump through hoops to get a divinity counter is going to make this REALLY slow and painful.
Conclusion
This is an 8 mana commander who doesn't get to do their thing when cast from command zone. They have weak stats for their cost and need to jump through extra hoops to make them work. That said, I think if you get them to work, it would be hilarious. This is a huge uphill battle though and I don't overly suggest anyone try it but it would be really funny to make it work.
Nagao, Bound by Honor
Nagao, Bound by Honor
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Nagao has some small synergy with other samurai.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Weak Stats - Its a 3/3 for 4 who attacks as a 4/4 for 4 who gets slightly bigger when it gets blocked. That's fine, but it lacks anything else redeeming about it.
  • Weak Synergy - Its hard to justify trying to swarm with tribal for this incredibly weak buff.
Conclusion
I don't really see much to talk about with this commander. Its not that efficient of stats and it doesn't really have a very interesting or good ability. Its an uncommon from back in the day and it shows that. Samurai are not particularly common or good for commander and its not a creature type that gets reprinted much.
Odric, Lunarch Marshal
Odric, Lunarch Marshal
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Build Options:
  • Vanilla Abilities - The commander acts like an odd anthem. Assuming you can be sharing 2-4 abilities about the creatures can get really buffed up.
  • Sweepers - Assuming you can pick up indestructibility for your creatures you can cast them in combat or second main phase for a one sided blowout.
  • Equipment - Giving out static abilities, buffing stat sizes, and generating card advantage are all things that seem good here.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Sweepers - Opponents can sweep before combat and they can use sweepers that get past indestructibility.
  • Combo Wincons - This deck has a lot of its roots in combat. It makes effects that ignore defenses and life total worse.
Conclusion
Odric, Lunarch Marshal brings a lot to the table assuming combat is the primary ways in which you will win or lose games. I think indestructible threats are going to be the highest want for him. After that you really want a wide spread of things with double strike, flying, and lifelink all being high wants in my opinion as they add a lot to your offensive and defensive capabilities. You ideally want effects that pick you up a bunch of relevant effects to share about but overlapping effects really doesn't do much of anything for you. Its possible that some stat efficient creatures or tokens might be relevant to spread the effects to. Eldrazi monsters could also be something to consider if you have a lot of sources of haste. Ultimately I think that Odric is a GREAT anthem lord. The question I have is how fragile
Odric, Master Tactician
Odric, Master Tactician
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Build Options:
  • Tokens - You need 4 attackers with the commander being one of them. Tokens are a good way to make this work.
  • Indestructible Threats - It helps having something be just SUPER sticky as it makes it easier to hit those 4+ attackers.
  • Manlands - Letting lands animate and turn sideways is a good way to keep wraths from being too painful.
  • Equipment - There are some great equipment geared for both when a creature is not blocked in combat as well as when creatures are blocked in combat. The ones on block seem even more interesting given you can pick how combat lines up with Odric, Master Tactician.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Sweepers - Requiring Odric + 3 attackers often takes a little bit to build up. Depending on how many sweepers you expect having fast rebuild effects, robust token producers, and or manlands all help to some degree in reestablishing but its always going to slow things down.
  • Commander Target - The commander will be a target for spot removal or wraths. It will possibly make it challenging to stick him to the board.
Conclusion
With a lot of mono white commanders, you can sort of take on a low threat standpoint based on being mono color. When people see Odric they are going to see removal and or evasion in your command zone. I think to some degree the amount of interaction you expect from your opponent is going to outline how good of a time you will have with this commander. I think this commander has a lot of potential against a lot of strategies but if your opponent is full of removal you might feel it. Odric will be powerful at disrupting opposing utility and value commanders as well as sending damage past blockers.
Oketra the True
Oketra the True
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Build Options:
  • Control - The longer you live, the more lands you will have in play. This commander does more the later in the game you get so pushing sweepers to slow opponents down is a thing.
  • Tokens - There is the option to add additional token production or pump effects to the list. Given the commander gives token production for mana its likely that if you go with token production you want ones that make tokens on their own rather than pay per token or just go for token support.
  • Ramp - More mana = more tokens.
  • Evasion - Flying, trample, or unblockable buffs could all make Oketra a lot more threatening.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Ramp - Having a dedicated late game mana sink is good but if you go up against a green ramp deck you might feel the weakness of being mono white. The cost per token we get isn't really cheap and what a green ramp deck can do with its mana often outshines what we can do in mono white.
Conclusion
Having a sticky mana sink as a commander often plays decently against control assuming they don't steal your commander. Against aggro you have wraths as an option. I suppose its worth asking if its better to run Oketra or Heliod given that they are rather similar in a lot of ways. The fact that Heliod's tokens are enchantments can also make him play a little differently not to mention the mass vigilance. The upside of Oketra comes down to the commander being able to attack so I suppose maybe a more aggressive plan could work. The lack of evasion
Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo
Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo
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Build Options:
  • Alt Wincons - You won't be winning with the commander so I suppose alt wincons are the way to go.
  • Damage Prevention - Preventing damage to Opal-Eye lets you potentially block one threat and soak a second.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Most Things - The commander is a low powered one in a low powered color.
Conclusion
The commander is a low threat perception defensive commander in a low threat perception color. You might be able to play alt wincons from the deck and surprise opponents as well as possibly lay low until you can deploy them. If anyone focuses you though you might have a hard time keeping up. Most types of archetypes can overwhelm you if you can't lay low and send them elsewhere.
Orim, Samite Healer
Orim, Samite Healer
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Its a cheap legendary cleric. I guess tribal is an option given clerics mostly don't have a tribal based legend at the time I am writing this.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Most Things - This commander is a bit weak and mono white.
Conclusion
This commander is kind of weak. I don't see a lot of synergy with much of anything.
Oriss, Samite Guardian
Oriss, Samite Guardian
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Build Options:
  • Pariah - Redirecting all damage to one creature and then preventing the damage with Oriss seems like a thing.
  • Tribal - Another legendary cleric. Given that clerics don't really have a tribal commander at this time most any legendary cleric could be a cleric deck.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Control / Ramp - I have played a few Pariah effect decks and generally speaking they tend to be stronger vs aggro and token decks and weaker against control or ramp deck strategies.
  • Closing out Games - This commander and the synergy cards don't really contribute towards ending games much of at all.
Conclusion
Pariah concepts tend to do well against proactive decks with lighter interaction elements. Token decks often fall into this category as well. Some of the concern for a deck like this tends to be being able to close out games especially against a more controlling or ramp strategy.
Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens
Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Spirits don't often get a tribal commander but they do often get new spirits added.
  • Bounce - There aren't a lot in white but some of the bounce to hand could have some relevance in stretching you spirits.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Weak Tribe - I don't really see a way to get around the fact that spirits and arcane are kind of a weak group of cards. There are a few that stand out but not really as tribal cards so much as just reasonable cards.
  • Commander Centric - Its a seven cost commander who wants to be in play before casting other stuff. That is slow.
Conclusion
I don't think that the spirit and arcane legendary cycle was particularly powerful. Arcane spells are essentially dead in the water and probably never coming back and spirits while occasionally strong, don't exactly show up super often as good cards. I think this commander could cost like.... 4 mana and I still wouldn't feel that they were all that strong.
Pang Tong, "Young Phoenix"
Pang Tong, "Young Phoenix"
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Conclusion
I just can't find anything redeeming to say about this commander. I love the art and vibe, its just not a good magic card. If you are playing this commander, you are doing so for flavor / theme. You theoretically could run him with equipment, but his stats are terrible and he lacks any evasion. If you would like to run him, you are doing it to flex or be a theme rather than being optimal.
Patron of the Kitsune
Patron of the Kitsune
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Build Options:
  • Lifegain Matters - Essentially, run payoffs for lifegain.
  • Tokens - More attackers = more lifegain triggers.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Control - Most lifegain matter effects understandably do farly well against aggro and token swarm tactics. The challenge tends to be getting set up and maintaining a board.
Conclusion
I think there is a lot of correlation between Patron and Linden, the Steadfast Queen. The fact that Patron triggers for anyone attacking as well as having bigger stats at the cost of more mana, its hard to say who is more ideal. Its likely that Linden, the Steadfast Queen might play a little better against ramp and or control decks but worse vs aggro and or token decks. The reason I say that is for example if you had Patron against Rhys the Redeemed it would be really hard for them to ever kill you without buffs which tend to be less of a focus of that sort of deck than just expanding infinitely.
Pianna, Nomad Captain
Pianna, Nomad Captain
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Build Options:
  • Token Swarm - The commander is an anthem making swarm tactics effective.
  • Preserve Attackers - Methods to keep attackers from dying will help keep the commander alive and let you preserve your swarm to some degree.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Sweepers - This deck is going to rely on curving into a wide board.
  • Blockers - Losing your commander, tokens, and or token makers in combat will be something you should look to overcome. Assuming there will always be someone land screwed with no blockers is a bad assumption to make.
Conclusion
My fear with this type of commander is that as people get to the midrange of the game they will start to have more blocking options. Beyond that, a sweeper will put you really far behind. I can see this commander being capable of curving some decent pressure I just don't think it has the card advantage to overcome the first wrath of the game. This commander feels a bit to me like the type of commander that might be able to get away with running all of the mass land destruction and just curving in low. That sort of tactic tends to be fairly hostile though as far as socially acceptable tactics go and I don't really think this commander is where you want to be against higher tiers of decks. The thing to overcome with this commander tends to be lack of card advantage, how to not get swept as hard, and how is your commander relivant when recasting it post wrath.
Radiant, Archangel
Radiant, Archangel
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Build Options:
  • Flying Tokens - The commander gets buffed by other flyers. It seems like flying tokens would help with that.
  • Enchantress / Lifegain - I mention these tactics just because there are some token producers that care about gaining life or playing enchantments as a trigger to make flying tokens.
  • Equipment - I often see flying commanders as a good delivery system for equipment value generation.
  • Monarch - I have grown on the idea of running the Monarch cards of late in decks with flying + vigilance on the commander. The ability to punish those who try to take it from you is strong as well as your ability to steal it back from them.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Selective Synergy - The commander is a down powered Serra Angel on an empty board. Its true that it likely will get larger than this but I also think the number of cards that make flying tokens are still really sort of low as a whole. I listed a number of cards for this commander but I was having to delve into lifegain and or enchantress tactics for many of them.
  • Mazes - I think the payoff for this type of commander is generally swinging in. Usually having fling will get you past an over abundance of cheap chump blockers but a Kor Haven / Maze of Ith / Mystifying Maze / Spires of Orazca could make you have a bad day.
Conclusion
I think that for a battlecruser style of meta, Radiant, Archangel could be quite reasonable as some sort of psudo lifegain style of token producing deck. If you go up against more competitive combo, MLD, Stasis type of decks I don't think its very good but I think in an average meta its probably a fine commander. I have been kind of fond of large vigilant flying commanders personally and I think this one checks off enough boxes that it could be a decent commander choice. My only real concern with the commander is that its a 3/3 for 5 base. I think it often will be larger than that but being kind of just a Serra Angel base is a concern of mine. Run plenty of Strip Mine / Tectonic Edge / Wasteland type of effects with this commander to both deal with problem lands and Mazes.
Raksha Golden Cub
Raksha Golden Cub
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Build Options:
  • Cat Tribal - Given that he is a big anthem for cats, finding other cats that look reasonable would be something to start with.
  • Voltron - You need equipment for the commander to really turn on.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Commander Cost - Seven mana is a lot to pay for a commander.
  • Commander Complexity - Needing the commander to be equipped and possibly other cats in play to really appreciate the buff of this commander is a bit much.
  • Control - Given the complexity of setup for this commander, someone throwing wrenches into the spokes isn't going to be great.
Conclusion
The number of good white cat cards is still very much a limited commodity. It grows with time making this commander more reasonable but I think its still a limiting factor as of right now. When it comes to any commander that costs six or more I tend to want them to be largely impactful but this one also needs to be equipped and at his best wants other cats in play. That is a lot of boxes to checkmark is all I am saying. Personally I think the complexity of this commander is a bit high to justify the payoff but if we see a few more good cats or cheap equipping equipment it could go a long ways for him. I think this commander would be very weak to control decks and represent a slow clock for what is likely not a control deck. This commander is cool but probably on the lower end of playability more likely played as a cool theme deck than as a mono white powerhouse.
Rashida Scalebane
Rashida Scalebane
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Build Options:
  • Creature Type Changing - Changing a creature's type to dragon I guess.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Anyone not playing dragon tribal.
Conclusion
This commander desperately needs some sort of colorless Unnatural Selection effect. As it stands, unless you pick the right deck to counter someone else's deck its not very likely that you will see much use from this commander. They don't have efficient stats for the mana or any vanilla abilities. The activated ability is just too narrow.
Rashka the Slayer
Rashka the Slayer
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Build Options:
Synergistic Cards:
Weaknesses:
  • Everything - Its a 3/3 for 3WW with poor defensive capabilities.
Conclusion
This cool art homelands legend is just dreadful by today's standards. I guess possibly you could lull opponents to a false sense of safety in that your commander is bad and you are in mono white. I don't think I can really go anywhere else with this legend.
Regna, the Redeemer
Regna, the Redeemer
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Build Options:
  • Life gain triggers - Triggering to gain life is good, but more importantly things that can trigger this on opponents turns to let us get more value from the commander.
  • Tutors - Given how important the soul sister effects seem for this deck tutors to get them seem sort of big.
  • Anthems - Usually killing someone with 1/1s is kind of terrible.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Key Pieces - This deck is going to rely on getting a few strong pieces and maintaining them. Its true that gaining life is something that white can do across a lot of fronts but the really good ones will trigger life gain on opponents turns too.
  • Sweepers - As with most token decks, someone destroying all creatures can put this one behind.
Conclusion
This deck can probably generate a lot of token throughput in the right situations. There are several ways you can set up to generate tokens on each player's turn with this deck and given the commander is a lifegain payoff you can easily generate 8 tokens in a turn rotation in the right sort of setup in a four player game. The problem is that isn't enough as you still need to do that for a few turns and or find a strong anthem effect to make them do more than just poke for one damage. This is sort of like a three card combo that takes time for it to work and everyone sees what you are trying to do from the get go. It can have a strong outcome but its also easy to see coming and really its likely better to pair Regna, the Redeemer with Krav, the Unredeemed than it is to run her mono white.
Reya Dawnbringer
Reya Dawnbringer
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Build Options:
  • Filter - The ability to discard cards directly to be rezed to play helps the commander and keeps you from needing to cast them.
  • Powerful Creatures - Generally speaking, you want to run high impact creatures that must be answered. When they do get answered, ideally you can rez them back to play.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Graveyard Hate - The entire point of the commander can be removed by graveyard hate.
  • Expensive Commander - Getting the commander out as well as recasting her will be a very hard task.
Conclusion
I think that Reya Dawnbringer is really cool but we have gotten a lot of recursion since her age such as Emeria Shepherd and Emeria, the Sky Ruin that make me question how powerful Raya herself as a commander is. There is a long time between casting Reya Dawnbringer and her first rez trigger and her mana cost is really high. I can't help but to compare her to Bruna, the Fading Light who only gets one rez but gets it on cast. The guarantee of value in that as well as a stronger body with vigilance built in for less mana is compelling to me. I myself have a Bruna deck though so I might have some bias towards that but I can't help but to compare the two commanders given the similar concept of them. Reya has the benefit of not needing to be a tribal deck but is also slower and comes with a slow rez trigger. I wish Raya was a bit cheaper or had a better statline / ability line to her.
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
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Build Options:
  • Damage Redirect - Effects that take the damage that is intended to you and redirect them are strong when preventing damage to creatures you control.
  • Whenever Attack - There are a number of effects that generate some level of value on attack that are hard to keep alive. This commander helps them.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Control - This deck can fall apart to well timed removal spells or just decks whose plan is to grind you out.
  • Ramp - This deck can be very defensive at times making it better against aggressive strategies but its gameplan tends to be a bit slower making it weaker to a resource imbalance.
Conclusion
I have played this commander myself and its nice in that it has elements of both being proactive as well as being defensive. I found the Pariah effects to be very strong against a number of fast and linear decks but I had a much harder time against control and ramp strategies. I took some of the concept of fragile creatures with on attack triggers and I explored an Iroas, God of Victory concept that was a lot more aggressive with some of the Hero of Bladehold concepts given that red also has a number of effects similar to that. I think that Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant has a very unique angle on the game though through means of the Pariah creatures.
Sensei Golden-Tail
Sensei Golden-Tail
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Build Options:
  • Vigilance - Adding vigilance allows you to give out another bushido counter in the second main phase.
  • Equipment - Whenever I look at cheap to cast white commanders I often follow up with a consideration for value generating equipment and or equipment to keep them alive and relivant.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Sorcery Speed Activation - Removing the option to power up the bushido counters before blockers are declared when having vigilance or at opponents end of turn to have block options really hurts.
  • Low Powered Commander - Recasting your commander later will not be as impressive as the first time you cast it. This commander has more impact upfront and less as time goes on generally speaking.
Conclusion
I do think this commander is really cool but honestly its sort of a different era kind of an issue. The fact that you need to apply the counters at sorcery speed means you have to tap the commander down on your turn to put the counters on and those counters are lost when it leaves play. If it could at the minimum apply the counters at instant speed I think it would have been a huge improvement allowing it to apply the counter before blockers could be declared or at the opponents end of turn allowing for blocking options. I think this commander is almost where I want it to be but ultimately it having been a Kamigawa card it ended up a little on the low end of the power scale. I think an early attacker / equipment carrier could be viable as a commander but ultimately the way they forced the ability to work at sorcery speed might be what really punishes this commander more than anything.
Sephara, Sky's Blade
Sephara, Sky's Blade
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Build Options:
  • Flying Swarm - Getting four plus flyers gives a cheap way to cast the commander as well as protect a flying swarm.
  • Lifegain / Enchantress - I will mention these together just because I think both are a bit more minor but there are a number of flying token producers that trigger off of these mechanics. I think flying swarm is kind of the main focus but a subtheme of either or both of these could be present to inflate the number of flying token producers that are not one shot effects.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Card Pool - I think the pool of cards that would be considered are still somewhat low. Lots of the flying token producers are one shot effects with not that impressive of effect for commander.
Conclusion
I think that Sephara, Sky's Blade is a commander that gets new toys that might make her more compelling at any point. The fact that she has synergy with any and all flyers rather than being closed in on a specific tribe means that you might see new and exciting cards from literally any new cards from wizards. Its possible that if she is not compelling right now that there may be some new card printed at any point in time that changes that. While being a bit odd as a commander the fact that she protects the creatures that help cast her is really cool and she makes for a strong offense while supporting her cast enable creatures to make them really powerful on defense. I think its a really cool and unique way of play that likely will see new cards all the time that could make her list which is cool.
Sidar Jabari
Sidar Jabari
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Humans or Knights are both decent tribes.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Real Decks - Lets be honest here.... We are talking about a 2/2 for 3W with flanking.
Conclusion
This commander is only going to be played as a theme deck or to flex. The commander has a terrible stat line for the mana and almost no relevant abilities.
Soraya the Falconer
Soraya the Falconer
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Commander is a tribal anthem.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Lack of birds - Bird tribal just hasn't really been expanded on that much over the years.
Conclusion
Bird tribal has historically not gotten that much love in mono white. The commander for its time is actually not that bad when comparing several others but we haven't seen bird tokens nearly to the extent that we would want and need for this commander to be good. There are actually several that stand out as being quite reasonable but you really don't want to build a tribal deck on the back of 4-8 cards. This tribe could use some love and if did I really do think this commander is at least ok.
Sram, Senior Edificer
Sram, Senior Edificer
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Build Options:
  • Equipment - Equipment are great and drawing cards while playing equipment is great. Generally speaking with Sram many people will run what is called cherios which is generally very cheap equipment intended to chain fast through the deck.
  • Auras - Auras can range from protection, removal, evasion, and or buffing. The downside to them is that they go away when the creature is removed but with drawing a card on cast they are a lot more reasonable.
  • Enchantress - This is a bit more of a sub theme if you do auras as a focus but there are a lot of creatures and even some enchantments that care about enchantments being cast or entering play.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Theft / Transform - Usually Sram, Senior Edificer decks are somewhat commander centric. Losing access to the commander often makes a lot of the cheap effects that were supposed to cantrip not do enough. Keeping access to Sram is big so I would generally speaking suggest running Homeward Path, Sanctum of Eternity, and possibly means of removing him from play if he is transformed or stolen.
Conclusion
Sram, Senior Edificer is often considered to be one of higher competitive mono white legends. He is more often seen as an equipment build than he is as auras but I think many overlook the fact that you likely should do some level of cross over with either an auras or an equipment build. Having played an auras build myself I think the commander disruption through means of Arrest effects that cantrip is huge and often overlooked. In an auras build getting ramp out of Sword of the Animist / Dowsing Dagger or access to hexproof through Swiftfoot Boots is also something to not disregard. Card draw is usually considered to be one of white's weak points so I would say that this commander really helps against that.
Sylvia Brightspear
Sylvia Brightspear
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Build Options:
  • Voltron - Being a 2/2 double strike for 3 makes for a fast clock. Giving Sylvia some evasion and buffs could be viable.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Chump Blockers - running into a 1/1 token doesn't seem great. Getting evasion and size are both important for this commander.
  • Cheap Interaction - lots of voltron commanders tend to have hexproof or prioritize not being targeted through one means or another. If you suit up to be blown out of the sky for one or two mana it doesn't feel great.
  • Mazes - Being stopped by a Maze of Ith / Kor Haven repeatedly wouldn't be fun. Make sure to pack Strip Mines.
Conclusion
I am not sure that there is much of a reason to stay to mono white with Sylvia Brightspear. As a mono white deck the selling point is primarily a voltron strategy which is hard to make use of many of the advantages of mono white. Adding red and having access to Khorvath Brightflame as well seems like it doesn't really interfere with much and it probably adds a lot more. If focusing on Sylvia Brightspear between the two of them and not on dragon tribal I think its also worth comparing the partner pair to Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas which in my mind is a very similar statline / ability setup.
Takeno, Samurai General
Takeno, Samurai General
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Its a bit tricky because this isn't just a Samurai tribal deck, its a Bushido Samurai tribal deck. Its important because it means that changeling such as Mirror Entity don't really benefit from the commander.
  • Helm of the Host - I don't like singling out one card like this but in the first turn, this makes a 7/7 samurai and upgrades your commander from a 3/3 to a 7/7. The turn after that it makes a 11/11 and upgrades your commander and the other to the same.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Statline - Its a 3/3 for 5W that buffs other samurai.
  • Narrow Tribe - Samurai have only been in one block as of when I write this and Kamigawa block was considered a weak block. Samurai are far from great creatures and busihido is generally on somewhat of weak limited creatures.
Conclusion
As of right now, I think that this commander is quite weak. Even if we do see Samurai and Bushido return I doubt this commander will be considered much stronger at any point. The Helm of the Host copies is probably the most amusing thing I have come up with for this commander and I think it would be really sweet to see that realized. I do think that this commander is quite weak though as a whole but it would be amusing to see a swarm of copies of him in play mowing players down.
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
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Build Options:
  • Sac - The ability to sacrifice creatures who generate value on ETB / death and then recur them to play is powerful.
  • Artificer - All artifacts are rez effects as well. It means that many of the cards that are non creatures
  • Low Curve - It is important to run cheap creatures as part of Teshar's rez ability. Its also worth noting that having these creatures ETB or die trigger some sort of value is important to generate advantage from moving them through play.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Commander Centric - Four mana for a commander really isn't bad but the curve of this deck is also sort of low. If someone puts the screws to your commander early and or often this sort of deck can have issues taking off. It needs its commander and often its built on somewhat of a low curve with lower land counts.
  • Grave Hate - Encountering it as a one shot isn't that big of a deal in a lot of cases but if someone comes across several grave hate effects it can really slow this deck down.
Conclusion
Let me start out by saying that Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle is probably the most or tied as the most competitive mono white commander as of me writing this. This commander will go infinite when you sneeze. It literally goes infinite all the time with all sorts of cards even if you aren't trying to. I built and played a list myself where I tried to not go infinite but you have to sort of not run just generically good cards that interact with this commander to make it happen and even then there are probably some convoluted combo still in there. If you want to play a combo engine, this is a great commander. If you do NOT want to combo, its real hard to play this commander as there are just too many cards that combo off out of nowhere. This commander is very powerful and a solid option for those who want a deck that combo wins. Lots of the recursive artifact creatures as well as mana altars end up pushing for infinite loops. Cost reduction for artifacts can also potentially set up infinite recursion loops as well.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
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Build Options:
  • Mass Land Destruction - Disrupting opponents gameplan by setting them back resources buys you time to take advantage of your early game plays.
  • Equipment - Specifically speaking, equipment that generates value the longer it is attached that can come in early.
  • Tax - Increasing the tax effect and especially if you can raise it on noncreatures while running more creatures can help add to the commander's ability.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Time - This sort of deck generally gets weaker over time or if it doesn't find and resolve specific things in order. Any deck that taxes opponents is only a stall mechanic that requires you to have a clock that can race against the time you are buying.
  • Efficient Defenses - Things like Ophiomancer / Ghostly Prison / Fog Bank that are fire and forget defenses can be a problem for this type of deck. It will slow you down potentially to a stop. Whenever you are running a tempo style of deck you are racing your opponents to see if you can kill them before they begin to do stronger things.
Conclusion
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is a bit of a counter commander to a lot of cheap cantrip style of decks. It generally takes a lot of those cheap and efficient draw cards like Sign in Blood / Brainstorm and adds a tax to them that makes it much harder to chain together actions in a turn. Generally speaking, Thalia slows decks down a bit but often has a hard time making a few turns be a huge difference. One of the more successful ways to play Thalia is generally speaking to pair her with land destruction and try to cut opponents out of games. In more fair metas she would probably have a strong start and start to have issues as opponents began playing larger threats in the mid to late game. Its a challenge to take a small commander like this and get the work in you would need to kill players before they can stabilize given the multiple opponents and life totals of this format. Thalia has a decent early game performance and falls off as the game goes on which is often not desirable in multiplayer commander. I think both versions of Thalia can be similar but your meta may dictate which is better if your are considering either of them.
Thalia, Heretic Cathar
Thalia, Heretic Cathar
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Build Options:
  • Mass Land Destruction - Disrupting opponents gameplan by setting them back resources buys you time to take advantage of your early game plays.
  • Land Disruption - Tapping down or refusing lands to untap is heavily disruptive and will add to the natural slow down of the commander buying additional time.
  • Equipment - Specifically speaking, equipment that generates value the longer it is attached that can come in early.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Time - This sort of deck generally gets weaker over time or if it doesn't find and resolve specific things in order. Any deck that taxes opponents is only a stall mechanic that requires you to have a clock that can race against the time you are buying.
  • Efficient Defenses - Things like Ophiomancer / Ghostly Prison / Fog Bank that are fire and forget defenses can be a problem for this type of deck. It will slow you down potentially to a stop. Whenever you are running a tempo style of deck you are racing your opponents to see if you can kill them before they begin to do stronger things.
Conclusion
Similarly to Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, I consider Thalia, Heretic Cathar to be a tempo style of deck. It operates on a different axis though hitting opponents lands and defenders rather than chaining spells. Thalia, Heretic Cathar is generally going to hit multicolored decks harder especially focusing on those decks with more colors to them as things like fetchlands will enter tapped potentially twice or enter tapped and then force them to retrieve a basic with them. Thalia, Heretic Cathar is going to have more impact upfront and as the game goes on become less relevant because the amount of resource disruption will decrease over time as the lands they have in play will increase. It means that you will want to find tactics to speed up your clock as well as slow your opponents down further. Many of these sort of tactics may be frowned upon by the social norms of this format. I think both versions of Thalia operate on similar but different axis. I think that meta decisions may dictate which of them is more relevant to what you want to do but I think both likely want you to use tactics that are not necessarily friendly tactics.
Tivadar of Thorn
Tivadar of Thorn
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Build Options:
  • Colorshift / Creature Shift - Its not likely we see much more of this especially in white but if you can change the color or creature type of cards it does matter for this commander.
  • Tribal - Tivadar has been erataed to be a Human Knight. Those creature types aren't without some tribal element concepts.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Everything - Lets be honest here, this isn't a good commander.
Conclusion
If I could get a bunch of Unnatural Selection cards in colorless / white this might be an interesting commander. Unfortunately I would say that at best you are hoping to pair this commander against a tribal goblin red deck. There aren't enough cards to make the commander do much and the tribal elements are better served with a different commander at the helm.
Tomik, Distinguished Advokist
Tomik, Distinguished Advokist
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Build Options:
  • Equipment - I love cheap commanders with evasion when it comes to equipment strategies. Getting in early and often to generate value from equipment is great and it helps to offset one of white's issues which is card draw.
  • Sweet Utility Lands - The rest of Tomik's text is mostly forgettable but when an opponent reaches out to Strip Mine your sweet utility lands you get to flip them the bird.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Lower Impact Commander - Tomik is likely going to be a little lower impact on the game. He is more likely to be a source of chip damage than your closer.
Conclusion
I think that Tomik is the sort of commander that likely won't draw a lot of hate to you and your strategy. I think he will get in for some chip damage but ultimately you probably need some large buff for him to actually threaten to kill someone or rely on some other card from your deck to do that. I think cheap flyer commanders can be solid with equipment strategies though and I think the lower threat profile he brings to the table can lull opponents into a sense of security against you. I would say this type of commander is more for someone who wants to do some political deceit rather than slam down a powerhouse and see who can push to win first. This sort of commander is one where you try to hang your head low and push for value and survival.
Yomiji, Who Bars the Way
Yomiji, Who Bars the Way
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Build Options:
  • Combo - Its odd to say but the first thought that jumps to my mind is sacrificing Mox Amber or Mox Opal and cycling them infinitely. Once you can do that sacrificing any legendary permanent and looping them infinitely should do something right?
  • Locks - Oh man, I just keep finding all the lame things to do to people. Yosei lock anyone?
  • Sac - This concept does require you to be able to move cards from play to grave and back to hand.
  • Legends - Given that the commander gives some level of resiliency to legends it makes sense that he would want to see more legends in play.
  • Dust Bowl + Flagstones - Ok.... this one isn't that amazing but it would still be kind of funny to continuously throw a flagstones at someone's lands.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Expensive commander - A seven drop commander is really expensive. On top of that most of the things we want to do might require us to set up before the commander and then try to stumble into things working with no interaction from opponents.
  • Commander Centric - Most of what I have been theorycrafting is all dependent on the commander being in play.
  • Expensive recursion - So, there are some combos / locks but most of it looks really expensive if you don't go infinite.
  • Grave Hate - It will throw some wrenches in the plan.
Conclusion
This commander will probably catch people by surprise the first time you play it. They will probably have NO idea what you are doing. I think this is likely a more casual combo deck so its doubtful that anyone will be too mad if you do manage to pull things off. I think there is a ceiling to this commander given the cost and complexity of things but on the upside there are new legendary toys all the time to play with. The amount of mana this deck will need to throw things around is likely also sky high but its definitely something different.
Yosei, the Morning Star
Yosei, the Morning Star
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Build Options:
  • Locks - Resurrect loop locks involving sending Yosei through the graveyard repeatedly might let you lock your opponents out of games.
  • Sac Outlets - Moving Yosei to the graveyard is important for this deck.
  • Ramp - Getting Yousei out early and then turning him over repeatedly, most of these things tend to take some mana.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Grave Hate - Looping him requires you to go through the graveyard. If you have to recast him its not the end of the world but its going to take resources to do that.
  • Archenemy - You might literally get jumped out back after playing this commander. If not that, during the game as soon as you show your commander you will have made enemies. There is only one expectation of this commander and people will know what you are doing as soon as they see your commander.
Conclusion
This is a commander you will not be making friends while playing. Competitive decks will likely interact with and stop you so its more of to stomp on people who are not prepared for this sort of tactic. I do think that the power level of this type of deck is good, its more that it often requires using tactics that will pray on fair decks while not being able to interact on the axis needed for cEDH.
Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
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Build Options:
  • Wraths - Given that Zetalpa costs like a million mana, wrathing before your are setup or even after he comes down seems like a valid tactic for stalling opponents.
  • Voltron - the built in double strike / flying / trample on Zetalpa make him take stat buffs REALLY well to potentially one or two shot opponents.
  • Ramp - So, the tricky part about ramp is if you ramp with artifacts that some of the better sweepers might remove them. Ramping with lands is safer but also there are less ways to do that in mono white.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Chip Damage - You generally can't always sweep even if you are sweeper heavy. You will take chip damage and so dying from getting low can happen. Strategies like aristocrats also tend to be swept well and can extend into sweepers in a way that might kill you to sweep them.
  • Tokens - In a lot of cases token concepts can rebuild quickly and from nowhere suddenly have lethal damage attacking. Sweeping every time a token deck makes some tokens can be very challenging.
  • Theft / Transform - Taking the big beefy dino away would probably be not so great. Pack your Homeward Path and Sanctum of Eternity just in case as a lot of the removal you are going to want to run won't naturally kill him.
Conclusion
Zetalpa is easily compared with Avacyn, Angel of Hope being how they have similar costs, both fly and have indestructible. I think that in general Zetalpa has a little more of an aggressive slant to him given the double strike he picks up buffs better than Avacyn does. You could still do things like Worldslayer / Armageddon with Zetalpa but I think it would be less expected of him than it is with Avacyn. I think the two commanders are very similar in a lot of ways but they have their pros and cons to each. The fact that is a three turn clock by default and easily moves to a 1-2 turn clock with buffs is impressive. He does have some protection in large size and indestructible but I think its also very foretelling to see him in a command zone. Players will be readying for him all game so watch what sort of resources are being left up when you go to cast him.
Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior
Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior
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Build Options:
  • Voltron - Horsemanship might as well say unblockable. He really needs to hit harder though to speed that clock up to at least a three turn clock so the objective of 7+ power should be a goal.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Removal - This commander is primarily relying on being unblockable making him weak to interaction that isn't blocking tactics.
  • Mazes - This commander is primarily relying on being unblockable making him weak to interaction that isn't blocking tactics.
  • Fast Decks - Its a 4/4 for 4WW that needs a power boost to make it to a three turn kill. This isn't exactly what I would call fast.
Conclusion
An unblockable commander isn't a bad thing its just that he costs a lot of mana and still needs a size buff. At best its unlikely he is ever better than a two turn clock and the number of cards that can make him into that are very limited. When you do get him in and suited up, he is still very vulnerable to interaction that isn't just an attempt to block him. The speed at which he can kill players seems very questionable. I think there are better commanders out there for trying to run players down.
Zhao Zilong, Tiger General
Zhao Zilong, Tiger General
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Build Options:
  • Voltron - Horsemanship might as well say unblockable. He really needs to hit harder though to speed that clock up to at least a three turn clock so the objective of 7+ power should be a goal.
Synergistic Cards: Weaknesses:
  • Removal - This commander is primarily relying on being unblockable making him weak to interaction that isn't blocking tactics.
  • Mazes - This commander is primarily relying on being unblockable making him weak to interaction that isn't blocking tactics.
  • Fast Decks - Its a 3/3 for 3WW that needs a power boost to make the clock not forever. This isn't exactly what I would call fast.
Conclusion
I really copied most of the concept of this commander from Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior review because they are so similar. I actually think that Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior is maybe a touch better just given that his statline makes him only need +3 power to go to a three turn clock where as getting +4 power for Zhao Zilong, Tiger General is much harder to obtain. I think both of them are a bit underwhelming but I suppose its sort of debatable as to which is better or worse.
Zuberi, Golden Feather
Zuberi, Golden Feather
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Build Options:
  • Tribal - Well, I guess it wants to be tribal.
Synergistic Cards:
  • eww never mind griffin tribal is bad
Weaknesses:
  • Everything - This commander is for a tribe that lacks actual cards for it. If you search for rare / mythic griffin cards there are two other griffins that exist and neither of them would be something I would call commander playable.
Conclusion
Griffin tribal never took off. Most of the cards that fall into this tribe are from the same age frame and none of them have aged well.
Please note, this is an ongoing resource that is not complete at this time. Thanks for taking the time to read through. This has been a hell of a project to get started on. In a lot of cases I have had to put a lot of thought into how to build each of these commanders often resulting in me half building many of these commanders just to feel out the directions to go and suggest some cards to get started with.
Last edited by ISBPathfinder 3 years ago, edited 68 times in total.
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Post by Toshi » 4 years ago

Jesus, Brian!

That must've taken a lot of time to put down! I have to say i appreciate it a lot. I've always had a thing for mono decks and with w (undeservedly?) having such a bad rep, a tad more for said overlooked niche. To date it's the only mono color in which i've built a second deck.
Building multicolored decks is fun and all, but running a single - or no - color makes things unique. Yes, there may be a few cards you'll "have to" run, but not so many that your deck builds itself.

If you ever require support or input, let me know.

Keep up the good work!

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Post by DirkGently » 4 years ago

Oh man, I was really excited to see what you said about Pang Tong, "Young Phoenix", but then the list was over :(

Ambitious project. Looks good so far!
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

NoNeedToBragoBoutIt wrote:
4 years ago
Jesus, Brian!

That must've taken a lot of time to put down! I have to say i appreciate it a lot. I've always had a thing for mono decks and with w (undeservedly?) having such a bad rep, a tad more for said overlooked niche. To date it's the only mono color in which i've built a second deck.
Building multicolored decks is fun and all, but running a single - or no - color makes things unique. Yes, there may be a few cards you'll "have to" run, but not so many that your deck builds itself.

If you ever require support or input, let me know.

Keep up the good work!
Thanks I really like the flavor and feel of mono white. The hardest part of this project so far is that in breaking down a commander enough to write and give suggestions I have had temptations to build like 6 more mono white decks lol.
DirkGently wrote:
4 years ago
Oh man, I was really excited to see what you said about Pang Tong, "Young Phoenix", but then the list was over :(

Ambitious project. Looks good so far!
Thanks, yea I will get there soon (I hope). What I have right now has been the work of a few months and probably a few hundred hours so far. I contemplated holding off on putting it up until it was done but it might still take me a few months to get it there. I feel like how I was designing and doing them has changed a little as well so after I finish I wouldn't mind cleaning them up and giving a second pass to just make sure that formatting is correct and add a few extra thoughts. Its been such a big project so far and I am really trying to give every commander its fair shake so that this is a good intro to any and all commanders in mono white. There are obviously better commanders and worse ones but I am trying to give a fair shake to any that are at least like remotely decent.
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Post by xeroxedfool » 4 years ago

I think some distinction between the commanders would be nice. For instance, using bold or an asterisk to indicate commanders you find special and/or powerful.

Anyway, excellent guide. I've noticed that you post a new monowhite deck about every month for the last few years. Thanks for putting all that info into one good spot.
They're both Griffith, get it?

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

xeroxedfool wrote:
4 years ago
I think some distinction between the commanders would be nice. For instance, using bold or an asterisk to indicate commanders you find special and/or powerful.

Anyway, excellent guide. I've noticed that you post a new monowhite deck about every month for the last few years. Thanks for putting all that info into one good spot.
Perhaps I could give a rating to each commander. Originally I was trying to avoid doing so in favor of trying to encourage any and all but perhaps I could put a few metrics up. The challenge is differentiating on different metrics because there is like, sheer power, how interesting of a build it is, but then there is also like political commanders who would be hard to rate on the same scale. I will think about it for a while and see what I can come up with.
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Post by bobthefunny » 4 years ago

People's opinions on Commanders will vary greatly.

I'd add though that Heliod ends up playing like a combo deck. Typically my games would end with Ring of Three Wishes (or other enchantment/land tutors) pulling up Skybind and Serra's Sanctum, making a bajillion clerics, and blinking out all defenders, all while also blinking out the ring of wishes for resets and untaps, allowing me to fill my hand with whatever answer is needed at any given time.

While I enjoyed the deck pre-Skybind, the deck got very boring for me after Skybind was printed.


In the pros/cons (mainly pros) of mono white, I would add the following:
Equipment - White is the primary equipment color, with the highest amount of tutor, synergy, and recovery of equipment and artifacts. This can also help fill in a large number of holes, such as grabbing Sword of the Animist to match ramp, or Skullclamp or Sword of Fire and Ice for card draw. Key cards can include Stoneforge Mystic, Puresteel Paladin, Relic Seeker, Steelshaper's Gift, Stonehewer Giant, Nahiri, the Lithomancer, Salvage Scout, etc.

Recovery - White has some of the best Recovery options in the game. Better even than Green or Black, able to return almost any permanent type from the graveyard to the hand or even battlefield. It's only weakness is a relative inability to return non-permanent types in comparison to green (any) or red/blue (spells). Things like Salvage Scout, Restoration Specialist, Emmeria the Skyruin, Open the Vaults, Sun Titan, Miraculous Recovery, Brought Back, Rally the Ancestors, Marshals' Anthem, etc. While this isn't card draw, it's a highly potent form of card advantage in its place.

Sun Titan almost deserves its own section. Gift of Immortality as well, as it combos with Burnished Hart, Sun Titan, and pretty much any of your blink/flicker stuff, with is another strength of White.

Protection - White has the highest amount of single and mass protective abilities to stop people from messing with your stuff, from the obvious Teferi's Protection to mass indestructible of Rootborn Defences et, all. Only green does it better (Heroic intervention).

Removal - White is the primary color for almost any flavor of removal, having the best, most versatile, and cheapest single target and mass removal for almost any permanent type. This also includes multiple methods of removal, including destory, exile, tuck, etc - making it capable to bypass many types of protective abilities. The only exceptions being single target land removal, and single and mass Planeswalker removal, but some of that is covered by Generous Gift and Oblation.
Single Creature - Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile.
Mass Creature - Rout, Wrath of God, Terminus, Hallowed Burial, etc.
Single Artifact/Enchantment - Return to Dust, Aura of Silence, Act of Authority
Mass Artifact/Enchantment - Patrician's Scorn, Cleansing Meditation, Cleansing Nova, Serenity
Single Land -
Mass Land - Armageddon, Ravages of War, Catastrophe, etc.
Single Graveyard - Stonecloaker, Angel of Serenity(also creature removal or recovery), Apostle of Purifying light
Mass Graveyard - Rest in Peace, Containment Priest (kinda), Angel of Finality, Remorseful Cleric
Single Anything - Generous Gift, Oblation, Cavalier of Dawn.
Mass Anything - Akroma's Vengeance, Tragic Arrogance, Austere Command
Mass attacks - Wing Shards, Angel of the Dire Hour, etc.

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Post by DirkGently » 4 years ago

Random note: Best synergy card in celestial kirin by far is ugin's conjurant. Can hit whatever cmc you want, or be a 0-mana stifle-only armageddon. Probably worth mentioning in that list.
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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

bobthefunny wrote:
4 years ago
People's opinions on Commanders will vary greatly.

I'd add though that Heliod ends up playing like a combo deck. Typically my games would end with Ring of Three Wishes (or other enchantment/land tutors) pulling up Skybind and Serra's Sanctum, making a bajillion clerics, and blinking out all defenders, all while also blinking out the ring of wishes for resets and untaps, allowing me to fill my hand with whatever answer is needed at any given time.

While I enjoyed the deck pre-Skybind, the deck got very boring for me after Skybind was printed.


In the pros/cons (mainly pros) of mono white, I would add the following:
Equipment - White is the primary equipment color, with the highest amount of tutor, synergy, and recovery of equipment and artifacts. This can also help fill in a large number of holes, such as grabbing Sword of the Animist to match ramp, or Skullclamp or Sword of Fire and Ice for card draw. Key cards can include Stoneforge Mystic, Puresteel Paladin, Relic Seeker, Steelshaper's Gift, Stonehewer Giant, Nahiri, the Lithomancer, Salvage Scout, etc.

Recovery - White has some of the best Recovery options in the game. Better even than Green or Black, able to return almost any permanent type from the graveyard to the hand or even battlefield. It's only weakness is a relative inability to return non-permanent types in comparison to green (any) or red/blue (spells). Things like Salvage Scout, Restoration Specialist, Emmeria the Skyruin, Open the Vaults, Sun Titan, Miraculous Recovery, Brought Back, Rally the Ancestors, Marshals' Anthem, etc. While this isn't card draw, it's a highly potent form of card advantage in its place.

Sun Titan almost deserves its own section. Gift of Immortality as well, as it combos with Burnished Hart, Sun Titan, and pretty much any of your blink/flicker stuff, with is another strength of White.

Protection - White has the highest amount of single and mass protective abilities to stop people from messing with your stuff, from the obvious Teferi's Protection to mass indestructible of Rootborn Defences et, all. Only green does it better (Heroic intervention).

Removal - White is the primary color for almost any flavor of removal, having the best, most versatile, and cheapest single target and mass removal for almost any permanent type. This also includes multiple methods of removal, including destory, exile, tuck, etc - making it capable to bypass many types of protective abilities. The only exceptions being single target land removal, and single and mass Planeswalker removal, but some of that is covered by Generous Gift and Oblation.
Single Creature - Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile.
Mass Creature - Rout, Wrath of God, Terminus, Hallowed Burial, etc.
Single Artifact/Enchantment - Return to Dust, Aura of Silence, Act of Authority
Mass Artifact/Enchantment - Patrician's Scorn, Cleansing Meditation, Cleansing Nova, Serenity
Single Land -
Mass Land - Armageddon, Ravages of War, Catastrophe, etc.
Single Graveyard - Stonecloaker, Angel of Serenity(also creature removal or recovery), Apostle of Purifying light
Mass Graveyard - Rest in Peace, Containment Priest (kinda), Angel of Finality, Remorseful Cleric
Single Anything - Generous Gift, Oblation, Cavalier of Dawn.
Mass Anything - Akroma's Vengeance, Tragic Arrogance, Austere Command
Mass attacks - Wing Shards, Angel of the Dire Hour, etc.
It looks like I did overlook listing Serra's Sanctum for heliod. I will make sure to add it in. This project is actually what got me interested in making Heliod in the first place lol. I am also trying to keep the content similar even when I am more familiar with a commander than with one that I am not.

I considered trying to cover several things that white does well but in a lot of cases those things that you highlighted are just things that white does well not necessarily where mono white shines over a multicolored white pickup. Its probably relevant to try to come up with something that hightlights some effects and what white is good at though.
DirkGently wrote:
4 years ago
Random note: Best synergy card in celestial kirin by far is ugin's conjurant. Can hit whatever cmc you want, or be a 0-mana stifle-only armageddon. Probably worth mentioning in that list.
Yea, I have actually been writing this since before war of the spark came out so that wasn't even spoiled when I wrote that part lol. I will add that in though.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Damn man, mad props. I remember there was a similar thread on MTGS once upon a time, but I seem to recall it wilting away after some people tried to debate alternate angles and OP rode in nope'ing them.

Another good (as in relatively strong) direction to take white in is a general misery build where you knock everyone down to the same peg as you. You don't search libraries or cheat in creatures, so why should anyone else? The crowning jewel of this sort of nonsense is probably Humility. From experience, people hate playing against that stuff though.
 
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Man, if anything ever deserved a slow clap it's this. I'm glad to see you doing this, as I well know you are the eternal advocate for mono white. Great resource so far.

To my mind one of the best things about playing mono white is the mental challenge it brings. It's by no means as bad as it's reputation would have us believe, but there's shortcomings nonetheless, and playing around those for success often means getting tricky and thinking outside the box.

Also, underdog wins are hilariously fun.
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

I appreciate this resource! I've played Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, Akroma, Angel of Vengeance, Odric, Master Tactician, and Heliod, God of the Sun.

I'm currently eyeing the construction of Bruna, the Fading Light or Lyra Dawnbringer, and look forward to the completion of this resource.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
I appreciate this resource! I've played Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, Akroma, Angel of Vengeance, Odric, Master Tactician, and Heliod, God of the Sun.

I'm currently eyeing the construction of Bruna, the Fading Light or Lyra Dawnbringer, and look forward to the completion of this resource.
Bruna is a lot of fun. ISB and I both have fairly comparable Bruna decks at present, feel free to have a nosy at the lists if you're interested (he says in a shameless self plug).
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Post by Vessiliana » 4 years ago

Thank you for this! I'm looking forward to seeing Lyra come up. I love her...

Anyway, I remember your threads from Sally, and I am delighted to see your work here, since I've pretty much migrated.

Currently, I have two mono-white decks myself, Lyra and Zombie Oketra. I keep going back to Darien, though, and wondering...

And as an aside, I thought a really synergistic card for Akroma, Angel of Wrath would be Cathedral of War. It gets that last +1 in...

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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Bruna is a lot of fun. ISB and I both have fairly comparable Bruna decks at present, feel free to have a nosy at the lists if you're interested (he says in a shameless self plug).
I did see your list. I had Gisela, the Broken Blade on my shopping list for quite some time and picked one up from my LGS on Monday after reading your post. I think many of my recent lists have been on the edge of too proactive/focused for my group, and want to retreat back to something more reactive. Also, I'm such a sucker for mono-colour lists.

Now to look for ISBs...

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
Damn man, mad props. I remember there was a similar thread on MTGS once upon a time, but I seem to recall it wilting away after some people tried to debate alternate angles and OP rode in nope'ing them.

Another good (as in relatively strong) direction to take white in is a general misery build where you knock everyone down to the same peg as you. You don't search libraries or cheat in creatures, so why should anyone else? The crowning jewel of this sort of nonsense is probably Humility. From experience, people hate playing against that stuff though.
I am doing my best to respond to users and absorb and add requests. Obviously the resource is still incomplete so adding something big to all of the sections is going to take some amount of time but especially when trying to cover every single commander there is going to be things I miss and overlook. With a lot of these I am having to walk through and create rough drafts of concepts to explore. These concepts are untested but just kind of starting points of possible kick off ideas to get started with a commander so most of this can be trumped by anyone who actually plays the deck but I do what I can to give starting points.

I plan to do some sort of breakdown of different concepts that white can do in the first post. The tricky thing with hatebears is that in a lot of cases they tend to be niche and not always be effective. That can be really hard to pull off in mono white where card advantage is harder to come by. I will try to mention a lot of different mechanics and include hatebears but its a real concern.
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Man, if anything ever deserved a slow clap it's this. I'm glad to see you doing this, as I well know you are the eternal advocate for mono white. Great resource so far.

To my mind one of the best things about playing mono white is the mental challenge it brings. It's by no means as bad as it's reputation would have us believe, but there's shortcomings nonetheless, and playing around those for success often means getting tricky and thinking outside the box.

Also, underdog wins are hilariously fun.
I might be a mono white addict.
Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
I appreciate this resource! I've played Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, Akroma, Angel of Vengeance, Odric, Master Tactician, and Heliod, God of the Sun.

I'm currently eyeing the construction of Bruna, the Fading Light or Lyra Dawnbringer, and look forward to the completion of this resource.
Are you the twin I never knew about? I have built all of those lol.
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
I appreciate this resource! I've played Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, Akroma, Angel of Vengeance, Odric, Master Tactician, and Heliod, God of the Sun.

I'm currently eyeing the construction of Bruna, the Fading Light or Lyra Dawnbringer, and look forward to the completion of this resource.
Bruna is a lot of fun. ISB and I both have fairly comparable Bruna decks at present, feel free to have a nosy at the lists if you're interested (he says in a shameless self plug).
Shameless lol.
Vessiliana wrote:
4 years ago
Thank you for this! I'm looking forward to seeing Lyra come up. I love her...

Anyway, I remember your threads from Sally, and I am delighted to see your work here, since I've pretty much migrated.

Currently, I have two mono-white decks myself, Lyra and Zombie Oketra. I keep going back to Darien, though, and wondering...

And as an aside, I thought a really synergistic card for Akroma, Angel of Wrath would be Cathedral of War. It gets that last +1 in...
Thanks. I do have Cathedral of War listed for Akroma currently. Its a sweet card for her for sure.
Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Bruna is a lot of fun. ISB and I both have fairly comparable Bruna decks at present, feel free to have a nosy at the lists if you're interested (he says in a shameless self plug).
I did see your list. I had Gisela, the Broken Blade on my shopping list for quite some time and picked one up from my LGS on Monday after reading your post. I think many of my recent lists have been on the edge of too proactive/focused for my group, and want to retreat back to something more reactive. Also, I'm such a sucker for mono-colour lists.

Now to look for ISBs...
I have been lazy about porting lists. Some of my lists are a bit out of date as well but the last digital one I have is currently here.
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
4 years ago
Are you the twin I never knew about? I have built all of those lol.
Maybe!

Part of me also wants to try building Djeru. It's too bad there aren't more toolbox-ish planeswalkers in mono-white; White walkers almost entirely buff/create/remove creatures or gain life, and their functional interchangeability makes the tutoring aspect less entertaining. I think WAR really helped with both Teyo, the Shieldmage and The Wanderer (in terms of their passive abilities) to make Djeru potentially a real deck.

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Post by Toshi » 4 years ago

If i were to choose a third w commander, i'd propably build Gisela, the Broken Blade Voltron for her stats to CMC ratio and lifelink synergies or God-Eternal Oketra as a token engine.
Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
It's too bad there aren't more toolbox-ish planeswalkers in mono-white
Well, i wouldn't forget about Karn Liberated, Karn, Scion of Urza, Karn, the Great Creator, Ugin, the Ineffable and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.
Especially the newer iterations of either allow for some artifact durdle, with two of them providing card advantage as well.

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Post by Henlock » 4 years ago

Awesome Job, man!

I play Lin-Sivvi and Celestial Kirin in mono white.

In Kirin, getting the appropriate Mana cost is tricky sometimes, but soulshift can be very helpful. Angel of Flight Alabaster is also good if it manages to stay and your graveyard isn't blown up in the turn cycle. I'm not what are the most important CMC's for it (from tje top of my head I would say tbat 3 is the one I get the most, but that might be annimpression). It's actually a good question, I'll try to keep a record on it from now on.

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Post by Hawk » 4 years ago

Truly, truly amazing work. One of the most ambitious and wonderful projects out there and I'd be curious to see you tackle other monos.

I've rarely played Mono-white, just Darien, King of Kjeldor for a small spell. It may be too obvious but I was surprised to see no mention of The Soul Sisters (Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Ajani's Welcome, etc etc) in his synergy write-up. These are powerful with Darien because it can make hitting you ineffective, and multiple such effects actually cause you to gain instead of lose life. It was so obnoxious that I actually dropped them from my Darien list, since it was supposed to be a Mirror Strike/Fateful hour jank-fest.

EDIT: I've never played Celestial Kirin before (I'm tempted now!) but I wonder if Celestial Crusader and Drogskol Shieldmate deserve special mention as two of the few spirits with remotely playable gametext that also have Flash? Nikko-Onna also seems good since you can "reload" her somewhat reliably.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
ISBPathfinder wrote:
4 years ago
Are you the twin I never knew about? I have built all of those lol.
Maybe!

Part of me also wants to try building Djeru. It's too bad there aren't more toolbox-ish planeswalkers in mono-white; White walkers almost entirely buff/create/remove creatures or gain life, and their functional interchangeability makes the tutoring aspect less entertaining. I think WAR really helped with both Teyo, the Shieldmage and The Wanderer (in terms of their passive abilities) to make Djeru potentially a real deck.
I've played against a Djeru superfriends toolbox build before, and it actually played pretty well. You'd be surprised how much resilience the deck has, it basically kept going until everyone else ran out of steam. I only played against the guy the once but he won the game, seemingly without breaking a sweat. It seemed like a fun build - but then I do like the idea of unconventional superfriends.
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Post by Henlock » 4 years ago

[mention]Hawk[/mention] , Those are very good. You also have arcanes, too, but their quality is somehow low. Charge across the Araba is very helpful for winning, too, and now with Ugin's conjurant in the mix the prospect of sweeping up your plains before going armaggeddon added up some value. I would say tjat even the smaller version (Which is for only one creature, I don't remember the name) has become a bit more playable.

Shining shoal is the Arcane that shines in Kirin. The alt cost won't come up that often but you have a very good tool there to blow up stuff using mana.

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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
Maybe!

Part of me also wants to try building Djeru. It's too bad there aren't more toolbox-ish planeswalkers in mono-white; White walkers almost entirely buff/create/remove creatures or gain life, and their functional interchangeability makes the tutoring aspect less entertaining. I think WAR really helped with both Teyo, the Shieldmage and The Wanderer (in terms of their passive abilities) to make Djeru potentially a real deck.
I've played against a Djeru superfriends toolbox build before, and it actually played pretty well. You'd be surprised how much resilience the deck has, it basically kept going until everyone else ran out of steam. I only played against the guy the once but he won the game, seemingly without breaking a sweat. It seemed like a fun build - but then I do like the idea of unconventional superfriends.
Well, that's heartening. I wonder what pieces they used; esp. which Karns. I have the OG one (as well as OG Ugin), but have none of the new ones. I have a suspicion that the deck uses new Ugin and Dominaria Karn for card advantage.

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