White Spellslinging: Gandalf, White Rider:

Travnar · Post by **Travnar** » 11 months ago

Hey all, working on putting together a list for one of the mono white Gandalfs. Wanted some opinions on one I put together for Gandalf, White Rider.

It's a bit of fitting a square peg into a round hole with mono white spell slinging, but overall stays pretty close to white's wheel house with token generation. Let me know if there's anything that I might be missing.

Gandalf, White Rider: Spellslinger

Approximate Total Cost:

Ruiner · Post by **Ruiner** » 11 months ago

Call the Coppercoats can be a pretty awesome source of tokens.

Flickering Ward definitely feels like it should be in here as a way to repeatedly trigger the commander. Along similar lines, Whitemane Lion could put in some work.

Travnar · Post by **Travnar** » 11 months ago

Ruiner wrote: ↑
11 months ago
Call the Coppercoats can be a pretty awesome source of tokens.

Flickering Ward definitely feels like it should be in here as a way to repeatedly trigger the commander. Along similar lines, Whitemane Lion could put in some work.

Yeah I thought about Call, but I'd be worried it'd be a dead card occasionally.

Flickering and Whitemane def feel like they could find a spot. They don't exactly fit the theme of instant/sorceries, but could work.

TheAmericanSpirit · Post by **TheAmericanSpirit** » 11 months ago

Decree of Justice seems like a solid option as a hard to counter source of instant tokens.

duducrash · Post by **duducrash** » 11 months ago

It requires some build arround but Mavinda, Students' Advocate is great

Travnar · Post by **Travnar** » 11 months ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote: ↑
11 months ago
Decree of Justice seems like a solid option as a hard to counter source of instant tokens.

Hmm yeah that's pretty good. The cycle doesnt trigger Gandalf, but drawing a card is nice flexibility early game.

duducrash wrote: ↑
11 months ago
It requires some build arround but Mavinda, Students' Advocate is great

Yeah I think this would def push the strategy around a little bit. Might require a bit of rework, but would certainly be interesting.

Post by **ISBPathfinder** » 11 months ago

The commander triggers to mass pump on any spellcast so I would start out by looking at anything and everything that costs 1 mana and draws a card and include all of those. I know offhand there are a few artifacts like say Arcum's Astrolabe / Chromatic Star that I would at least entertain.

Travnar · Post by **Travnar** » 11 months ago

ISBPathfinder wrote: ↑
11 months ago
The commander triggers to mass pump on any spellcast so I would start out by looking at anything and everything that costs 1 mana and draws a card and include all of those. I know offhand there are a few artifacts like say Arcum's Astrolabe / Chromatic Star that I would at least entertain.

I think I need to find a sweet spot with enough token producers and pumpers. I havent been able to test the deck in any capacity yet, so will need some feeling out. But it might be a little too top heavy atm in regards to producers, so adding some 1 cmc draw cards might be a good idea.

Post by **pokken** » 11 months ago

I have always found Elspeth, Sun's Champion to overperform in token decks, since they block for it and then the ultimate kills everybody.

It has a bit of an awkward sequencing with Gandalf the White, but I think it might still be worth it for the flexibility. You're usually going to want to plus first and then be able to destroy next turn I *think*.

Ruiner · Post by **Ruiner** » 11 months ago

I probably should have thought of this in my earlier response, but I've been running a Monowhite tokens deck recently myself (no set commander, I just randomly pick one from the legends in my deck).

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar and Myrel, Shield of Argive can both create a ton of tokens for you pretty easily. Myrel does need a bit of a soldier presence so that may or may not work for you, but I'd definitely be looking to include one or both of them.

Travnar · Post by **Travnar** » 11 months ago

Made some updates, primarily pushed a lot of cantrips into the deck and pretty much added all the low cost token creators. I'm debating if Glamdring /Runechanter's Pike deserve spots. Those cards were sort of the idea of the deck in the first place, so I don't really want to drop them. But I also feel like they don't do a whole ton for the rest of the deck.

Decklist

// COMMANDER

1 Gandalf, White Rider

// CREATURES

1 Leonin Lightscribe

1 Monastery Mentor

1 Mondrak, Glory Dominus

// INSTANTS

1 Enlightened Tutor

1 Scout's Warning

1 Path to Exile

1 Swords to Plowshares

1 Bandage

1 Heal

1 To Arms!

1 Shelter

1 Teferi's Protection

1 Generous Gift

1 Midnight Haunting

1 Rally for the Throne

1 Charge of the Mites

1 Your Temple Is Under Attack

1 Excise the Imperfect

1 Return to Dust

1 Secure the Wastes

1 Grand Crescendo

// SORCERIES

1 Gather the Townsfolk

1 Secret Rendezvous

1 Spectral Procession

1 Release the Dogs

1 Sram's Expertise

1 Fell the Mighty

1 Increasing Devotion

1 Emeria's Call // Emeria, Shattered Skyclave

1 Ondu Inversion // Ondu Skyruins

1 Finale of Glory

1 Martial Coup

1 White Sun's Twilight

// ENCHANTMENTS

1 Flickering Ward

1 Legion's Landing // Adanto, the First Fort

1 Anointed Procession

1 Smothering Tithe

1 Rabble Rousing

// ARTIFACTS

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mishra's Bauble

1 Urza's Bauble

1 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Skullclamp

1 Sol Ring

1 Glamdring

1 Primal Amulet // Primal Wellspring

1 Gauntlet of Power

1 Caged Sun

1 Staff of the Storyteller

1 Horn of Valhalla // Ysgard's Call

// LAND

27 Plains

1 Blast Zone

1 Strip Mine

1 Urza's Saga

1 War Room

Approximate Total Cost:

yeti1069 · Post by **yeti1069** » 11 months ago

You look kind of light on creatures/spells that make creatures. You're up to about 20, it looks like, and even with those making multiple creatures mostly, it seems low to me.

Runechanter's Pike looks bad here, and Glamdring isn't much better. You have very little evasion, and no saboteur (on damage player) effects, so you pop one of those on a generic token and swing, and that becomes the creature your opponent chumps. There are a number of token producers that make flyers, which makes these a little better, but I don't know if that pushes this over the top. I feel like these want more consistent evasive creatures and/or trample.

I know the goal is mono-white spellslinger, but there are quite a few cheap (1-4 mana) creatures that bring extra bodies with them, some of which do so turn after turn, like the aforementioned Myrel. Repeatable token production is going to help tremendously here, I think, since that makes every spell you cast stronger anyway. Gandalf doesn't care about what kind of spell you cast, just that you're casting spells, so those can be creatures, planeswalkers, enchantments, or artifacts, too.

darrenhabib · Post by **darrenhabib** » 11 months ago

Call the Coppercoats as a dead card!? Have you played Magic?

March of Souls and Hour of Reckoning are basically only killing Gandalf in this deck.

Idol of Oblivion is great for draw.
Tocasia's Welcome and Welcoming Vampire are nice in this deck because you have instant speed creature creation.
Mentor of the Meek
Chivalric Alliance is both card draw and token generation.

Reconnaissance is one of my favorite cards in all of Magic. You can attack without consequences and this will be a big problem for this deck that opponents just block with their own durdlers. The trick is that in the end combat step after damage is dealt you can still untap all your creatures, so it's like they have vigilance as well.

Triplicate Spirits is better than you think because it can be cast for zero. Think of a turn when you've created some tokens with summoning sickness already and then they can pay for this.

Wand of the Worldsoul if you can tell I think convoke is one of the better mechanics for this deck.
With that in mind Clever Concealment.

I do like some interaction and Reprieve is a nice tempo play and with Gandalf, White Rider scry ability having "one-off" cards that can get you out of situations or get dominance is really a key element of Gandalf.

Flawless Maneuver, Shining Shoal, Reverent Mantra are all nice combat tricks (or other protection) that can be cast for zero, which is important in casting many cards in a turn.

With Gandalf scry Isolated Watchtower and Explorer's Scope are guaranteed to hit.

Windbrisk Heights is super great with Gandalf, White Rider for many reasons. But the hidden mode is that you can keep it in hand waiting for the inevitable removal of Gandalf where you put him 5th from top. You are either putting him under the Windbrisk Heights for no mana cost -or- putting the 4 cards to bottom so that you draw him and don't have to pay the commander tax.
In fact I think this card is so powerful that I'd play Ruin Ghost.

I'd play Heliod's Intervention over Return to Dust.

Just to round the deck off I'd play Tithe, Wayfarer's Bauble.

yeti1069 · Post by **yeti1069** » 11 months ago

darrenhabib wrote: ↑
11 months ago

On that note Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is great because most of your going wide tokens are white so will generate a lot of mana.

Nykthos looks for white pips, and most tokens have no mana cost.

Travnar · Post by **Travnar** » 11 months ago

Dropped the "spellslinger suite" (RIP) and made some changes based on recommendations. Feel like it's starting to get to the point where I need to actually play the deck to get a feel of it but want some last minute thoughts.

Decklist