White Weenie Primer - part I

[Bastian]

WHITE WEENIE PRIMER
Pedro Godinho aka Bastian, July 2002


INTRODUCTION:

White Weenie is one of the oldest archetypes there is. It has been existing ever since the very first sets and is a simple yet effective deck to build and play. Unfortunetely, throughout the time type 1 White Weenie slowly gave up its power to control decks with the restriction of Black Vise and the arrival of more powerful control cards offered by Urza Block.

This primer is intended to give a brief explanation on White Weenie, how to play it and built it to be as competitive as possible in the modern type 1 environment.

White is amongst the most versatile colors of the game, since it can offer cards that will deal with any type of permanent, ranging from enchantments and artifacts to creatures or lands. It also has some of the most resilient weenies in the game. Its creatures are far tougher to deal with it than any other weenie other colors have to offer. The color protected creatures white has make them extremely valuable and harder to destroy.

White weenie makes use of both those creatures and white's versatility to make for an aggro deck that can offer versatility unlike any other offered by other mono-colored aggro strategies.

Unlike many decks what defines white weenie, is not a set of predefined cards, aka staples, but a structure of its own.


BASIC STRUCTURE:

White Weenie usually packs about 20 creatures, 8 removal spells, 20 lands and the rest in "tricks" (land tax, scroll rack, enlightened tutor, zuran orb...)

Here's an example of how a mono-color white weenie is:

21 creatures
3 Order of Leitbur
3 Order of the White Shield
4 Savannah Lions
4 Soltari Monk
4 Soltari Priest
3 Phyrexian War Beast

7 removal
1 Aura Fracture
3 Seal of Cleansing
3 Swords to Plowshares

10 "tricks"
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Empyrial Armor
4 Land Tax
1 Zuran Orb

22 mana
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Strip Mine
2 Wasteland
17 Plains

Sideboard:
3 Erase
4 Serenity
4 Powder Keg
4 Null Rod

Since there are literally dozens, if not hundreds of different cards for creature removal, land destruction and enchantment and/or artifact destruction and white weenies. I'll try to focus on some of the most popular choices and some others of my own. For a more complete review I suggest Oscar Tan's White Weenie primer.

THE WHITE WEENIES:

The effectiveness of a white weenie creature is determined by it's size and cost. No weenie should have a power (and sometimes toughness) lesser than it's casting cost. Thus creatures that don't follow this rule should have special abilities before being considered.

Weenies are a creature that cost no more than 3 mana to cast. Most of white's weenies casting cost ranges between 1-2 mana although other used weenies such as Paladin en-Vec or Mystic Crusader cost 3 mana to cast. It's uncommon but some white weenie decks do pack 4cc creatures, although these outstand themselves as being amongst the most solid creatures there are at that cost like Masticore.

A rule of thumb is not to use a creature with a power lesser than it's casting cost. Thus most of the creatures in white weenie have a 2cc cost and 2 power.

White Weenie's speed is defined by the speed of its creatures. Although white is far slower than other mono-colored aggro strategies, its weenies are harder to destroy. White's weenies are amongst the best to attack or defend with, since they have protection from a color (mostly from black and/or red) or first striking abilities which make them excel at creature to creature combat.

I'll try to talk about some of the most and less popular card choices amongst some other less usual ones I've found throughout personal experience with the deck.

Commander Eesha: every time a new set is released I seek out what it can offer to white weenie, and with the release of Judgement I noticed this:

Commander Eesha      2WW
Creature - Bird Soldier Legend
Judgement Rare
2/4; Flying, protection from creatures.

What makes the Commander so interesting is that it can block morphlings AND LIVE!! The same applies to Masticore, Covetous Dragon, and any other creature thrown at you. If it wasn't for the 4 mana cost I would certainly play a couple in my white weenie.
The 4 toughness makes it invulnerable to a single bolt too.

Glittering Lion/Lynx: I once used, for a while, the Prophecy cats in my white weenie, and they were actually quite effective. They managed for, sometime, to dodge the damage of both Masticore and Morphling (my two biggest concerns while playing white weenie).

Glittering Lynx      W
Creature - Cat
Prophecy Common
1/1; Prevent all damage that would be dealt to Glittering Lynx. 2: Until end of turn, Glittering Lynx loses “Prevent all damage that would be dealt to Glittering Lynx.” Any player may play this ability.

Glittering Lion      2W
Creature - Cat
Prophecy Uncommon
2/2; Prevent all damage that would be dealt to Glittering Lion. 3: Until end of turn, Glittering Lion loses “Prevent all damage that would be dealt to Glittering Lion.” Any player may play this ability.

The glittering cats are specially good vs other aggro decks which tap out themselves, since this means they won't be able to use their ability to destroy them. eventually gave up on them once my opponents started to pay for their ability and blocking the creatures to kill them... (hadn't noticed that could happen).

Glittering White Weenie; Pedro Godinho aka Bastian
3 Order of Leitbur
3 Order of the White Shield
4 Savannah Lions
4 Soltari Monk
4 Soltari Priest
4 Glittering Lynx
3 Glittering Lion

1 Aura Fracture
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Land Tax
3 Seal of Cleansing

3 Cursed Totem
3 Null Rod
1 Zuran Orb

Tricks with the cats' abilities are pretty obvious. Cursed totem prevents the opponent from using them. The same could be done with Winter Orb.
The cats are not exactly very good, and I eventually turned back to the classic white weenies, but they're not as bad as they seem.

Crimson/Obsidian Acolyte: if you ever considered running Mother chose these instead. The Invasion Acolytes can attack and still use their ability. Furthermore they have protection from red/black ensuring they aren't as easy to kill as Mom. However since white is already so good vs black, and has so many pro: black creatures the Obsidian Acolyte falls into a similiar comparison to Crimson Acolyte as Soltari Monk does to Soltari Priest. Just as the priest is better than monk (depending on the metagame, of course), so will Crimson Acolyte be better than the obsidian. If I ever considered to run one of the acolytes it would be the crimson, and that only if my metagame was filled with red.

Longbow Archer: the archer is used in some white weenie decks since it can chump block superman or block an Hypnotic Specter although at its price white knight or order of leitbur/white shield are far better.

Masticore: I don't advise under any circumstances the use of 4cc creatures in White Weenie, and Masticore, no matter how good it is, is no exception. There have been white weenie decks that pack 1-2 Masticores, but it's too expensive and too slow for a deck that needs to be faster like White Weenie.

Mother of Runes: unlike many would like to believe mum isn't good enough in type 1. Tapping to make a creature have protection vs some other creature, or the abyss, is wasting time since the other creatures should already be pretty resistent themselves. Mother won't be able to attack and use its ability which means it will only make the deck slower.

Mystic Crusader: the crusader is nearly as good as the Paladin, but not as good. Since the Paladin doesn't make the cut, why should this? At threshold it gains flying and becomes 3/2, but threshold is too slow for type 1.

Paladin en-Vec: the paladin was all the hype for white weenie decks when Exodus came out. 2/2 with protection from both black and red and also first striking is real good, right? Yes it is, but the Paladin was eventually overthrown for a better creature at 3cc. Remember that for 1WW you ought to be having a creature that should have at least 3 power...

Phyrexian War Beast: I used Paladin en-vec until my eyes got their attention on this. At 3cc the beast is a 3/4 creature which means it will be more difficult to ping (with Masticore) and impossible to destroy with the damage from a single Cursed Scroll. Since it's an artifact creature the war beast also evades The Abyss. Before playing the Paladin, remember the War Beast;)
If it dies it's disadvantage can be turned to your advantage, because it will help you trigger Land Tax.

Savannah Lions: the original 2 power for 1 mana this card was copied throughout the sets, which tried to make something close to the lions. The lions are the real deal and every white weenie deck should pack four of these.

Soltari Priest: the best white weenie there is vs red. It can also evade creatures that white can't usually handle (ex: Morphling) and will allow you to race for that final point of damage. Unfortunetely, due to it's shadow status it can't block creatures which don't have shadow as well. It's an excelent creature still.

Soltari Monk: the priest's pro: black brother. This isn't exactly as good as Priest is since white already has two great creatures vs black (the Orders) and this can't be used to block something as a Nantuko Shade or a Phyrexian Negator if needed to. It has the same advantages as the priest, and can be used to block either Dauthi Horror and Dauthi Slayer, but... let's face it: which type 1 suicide black actually packs either?

Soltari Visionary: it's a 3cc 2/2 that's virtually unblockable and destroys enchantments. This isn't good enough since to deal with enchantments disenchant effects are better and more versatile. Besides the card doesn't fit the weenie rule of having a power/toughness equal or bigger than it's casting cost and its ability isn't that amazing to make it worth using the visionary.

Warrior en-Kor: read Longbow Archer. Another problem with Warrior en-Kor is that it needs the presence of another creature in play to be effective, and all white weenies should be good whether with or without any other creature in play.

White Knight: the grandfather of all white weenies. The original 2/2 for 2 mana with protection from black and first strike, the Knight is still a great white weenie creature, only surpassed by the Orders.

Order of Leitbur/Order of the White Shield: these two are the very best white weenies there are since, unlike the White Knight, these can be pumped for more damage, and while this may seem unimportant dealing that one extra point of damage can be crucial to an aggro deck. Protection from black is VERY IMPORTANT since that means both Orders evade The Abyss.


UTILITY:

CREATURE REMOVAL

White is at its best on what concerns removing and destroying any kind of permanent, especially creatures.

Balance is white's best spell and a hyped one as well. While balance can take out several lands vs control and even that nasty Morphling, it may as well cost your creatures and in the end I found it not worth the trouble. If on one hand Balance shines in control, on the other it will be a wasted slot that will rest in your hand most of the time.

Why does white weenie doesn't need Balance? Because white weenie is an aggressive deck that drops fast creatures and that means that vs other aggro decks you'll have at least as many creatures as they do, and vs control players you'll usually have less creatures than them. What happens is that Balance will either kill your creatures or kill nothing.
Sure sometimes it can kill a Morphling, or even turn the event of the whole game, but no matter how powerful this card in aggro decks, such as white weenie, it will be a dead card most of the time.

Swords to Plowshares: the best creature removal spell white weenie has. Need I say more?

Tariff: Tariff is a rather unknown rare from Weatherlight. For those of you who don't know...
   
Tariff      1W
Sorcery
Weatherlight Rare
Each player sacrifices the creature he or she controls with the highest converted mana cost unless he or she pays that creature's mana cost. If two creatures a player controls are tied for highest cost, that player chooses one.
   
Tariff isn't as well known as many other white removal cards. While I worked on the mono-colored white weenie I suddenly faced a problem: how would I fight Morphling? Thus I found Tariff, which although is quite comparable as a Chainer's Edict for white. It will, most surelly, cost you a creature, but you should be packing far more creatures than control will. Usually control decks won't pack more than a couple of supermen and sacking a creature and paying 1W is but a small price to kill a creature that can spell your doom.

Vengeful Dreams: it acts as a mass exile for just WW. It can work quite well with land tax too. Unfortunetely type 1 isn't a format that plays many creatures, and when it does, it doesn't play more than usually a couple of threats and wasting three cards (the dreams and two others) to remove a couple creatures from game isn't really that good.

Wrath of God: wrath may be pretty good in just about every environment. It isn't just as much in type 1 since control is much more dominant than decks featuring several creatures. It may kill Morphling, but at 4cc it also makes an excelent target for Mana Drain...
Since type 1 is not a format you'll see filled up with many creatures neither of these mass removal spells is really good. One costs more cards from your hand than the creatures it removes, the other is just plain expensive.

Less orthodox choices for creature removal include the use of artifacts like Masticore, cursed scroll or even powder keg which give white cheap mass removal or recurring sources of damage.

The scroll is pretty good, and although it's nowhere as close as Black Vise it can deal with creatures and do some extra damage. Be careful though, land tax-scroll rack (the tax-rack combo) won't work well with it. It can work well with land tax alone, even if it fills your hand, as long as you keep the deck mono-white. Since most of your hand will be plains just name plains when using the scroll.
Masticore is a very powefull creature and probably the only 4cc card that's worthy to be played in white weenie, even more than armageddon itself.

Type 1 metagames sometimes thrive with decks sporting fast artifact mana vs which armageddons won't hurt that much. Furthermore the use of mana drain makes it more restrictive for aggro decks to use 4cc spells because by the time they get them they'll usually get countered, or worse, get mana drained.

The keg is actually a great card for white weenie. Although it may destroy some of your creatures think of it as a Wrath of God for only 2 mana. If many white weenie decks packed wrath of god, why shouldn't this be able to pack powder keg just as well? At 0 counters it kills moxes and sarcomancy. At 1 counter it kills just about every creature sligh and stompy have, plus you'll get to keep your creatures! As a mass removal spell the keg as the potential to be better than wrath of god in type 1.


ARTIFACT/ENCHANTMENT REMOVAL

Abolish is very popular amongst some people, and it works quite well with land tax. What makes it less good is that it costs 1WW so if you don't want to pay it's alternative cc you have no other option other than to fork over the three mana. It may seem good, but it's not as good as Seal of Cleansing or Disenchant.

Aura Fracture: this card was very popular way keeper had to deal with back to basics (is aura still used in keeper decks?). It goes quite well with land tax, since it makes your land count drop, allowing you to trigger tax and getting three more lands for Aura Fracture.

Aura of Silence: Weatherlight offered a card that became a stapple in nearly all white weenie decks at that time. It still is a very solid card, and making all of your opponents moxes, abyss, masticore, cost 2 more can be quite crippling. It can also offer a tempo that disenchant can, although the former has the element of surprise.

Disenchant: the classic artifact/enchantment removal card. Has been around since Alpha and will probably find it's way in every base set and nearly all standalones. This is one of the best cards there is to deal with enchantments or artifacts.

Dismantling Blow: nowhere as good as disenchant. Are you thinking of using kicker? Think again. By the time you can pay it you should be either losing the game or winning it. Why use this?? Leave the blow to keeper.

Erase: one of my favorite cards. Depending on what you're facing enchantments can be more troublesome than artifacts. Ever fought against Deck Parfait? The mono-white control deck managed to surpass my enchantment destruction thanks to Argivian Find and Replenish. It's also a great card to kill Nether Void since under void it will only cost you 3W and it will remove the nasty enchant world from play for once and for all.

Null Rod: Null Rod isn't exactly a card that blows off artifacts but it does shut them down. When some of aggro's worst enemies are control's fast artifact mana, kegs or masticores Null Rod can shut down entire decks or slow them down enough for you to take advantage. A stapple on many aggro decks.
It is also a popular response to combo decks since it can shut down most of their mana producers.

Seal of Cleansing: Nemesis brought on what I think is the best white card to deal with enchantments or artifacts. It's very similiar to disenchant, but the seal is an enchantment that works in a similiar fashion to Aura of Silence. Thus it gets the best of two worlds: aura's tempo and disenchants easy cost.

Serenity: Stacker. The Mishra's Workshop deck that managed to play Juggernauts, Masticores and Su-Chis faster than you could blink gave white weenie A LOT of trouble, until I found Serenity. Serenity acts as a wrath of god vs Stacker since it won't allow regeneration (which means Masticore won't be able to survive this neither). Taking stacker's creatures one by one won't be good enough to outrun their damaging abilities and before you're done with them, they're done with you.
Serenity is more of a metagame call although it did pretty well against decks that relied on artifacts (stacker) or enchantments (parfait, enchantress and popalescence).

LAND DESTRUCTION

Armageddon: geddon is the classic land destruction white weenie has been using ever since Alpha. It's a great card but it doesn't make the cut for competitive type 1. Why? The decks vs which geddon would be best are control, and expect no control player to leave this card uncounterd. At 4cc it's also very dangerous to allow the control player to mana drain it.
Vs other aggro decks it can do well, and cripple them, but it's usually too slow for type 1.

Cataclysm: cataclysm was, along with some others, a popular card in its time. For 2WW you can wipe out the board of permanents and leave a permanent of a kind. Unfortunetely this card is also rather slow for type 1. Unfortunetely Diabolic Edict is a popular card and this will oftenly hurt the player who casts it rather than the other one. If your opponent decides to leave in play Moat/Abyss, a mox or a keg, a land and a morphling or masticore, you're in for some nasty butt kicking...

Cleansing: Cleansing was one of the cards I considered while looking for a decent answer vs lands. It's an uncommon from The Dark.

Cleansing   WWW
Sorcery
The Dark Uncommon
For each land, destroy that land unless its controller pays 1 life.

At first sight this card seemed great. WWW is not hard for a mono-white white weenie to pay for and it is faster than armageddon. The downside is that like the punisher spells from Judgement this will leave the opponent the choices that will hurt them the least, thus making this card inferior to armageddon.

Winter Orb: the orb features a similiar place in land destruction, just like null rod for artifact destruction. They don't really destroy the permanents, but their disruptive abilities and effectiveness earned both a place. Winter Orb can be very good vs control decks and if you find it better you can use it in Null Rod's place.

Remember that in type 1 the casting cost is all. Being able to outrun a control deck is key to beating it. I'm focusing more on control decks because their atop the food chain of type 1 metagame and they feed on aggro decks. Being able to play cheap spells which won't give a big advantage in case they get mana drained is key in type 1.


TRICKS:

Creature enhacements

Global enchacers:
Making your creatures bigger and better was one of the basic ideas inherent to many white weenie decks ever since the beggining. On the beggining we got the printing of Crusade, which was, and still is, one of the best creature enchacers there is. Glorious Anthem, later released on Urza's Saga is just as good, although it costs 1 more mana and it allows you to pump just your creatures, no matter their color...

They are pretty good at increasing your creatures resistence which makes them harder to be killed with Masticore, although at the same price of Crusade you would probably rather be playing Null Rod.

Both made an appearance in Tempest-Urza Block standard (type 2) white weenie decks, and they were used and abused before Waylay got its errata. They kept on being used when Mercadian Masques came out and released a new type of white weenies: the rebels.

Jihad: it has the potential to be better than any other (crusade, anthem, sacrament) if your opponent is playing colored permanents. Since that's not always the case vs control decks Jihad is really not that effective (not to mention it's rather expensive at $50 each!). Vs aggro decks, such as stompy, suicide black, sligh, Jihad is at its best, as long as there is a permanent in play.

Army of Allah: another Arabian Nights classic. Unlike the enchantments Army of Allah is an instant. Army of Allah has the element of surprise but suffers from the same problem as other global pumpers do: to deal more damage you need more creatures in play and often that means overxtending yourself.

Divine Sacrament: costs as much as glorious anthem. Before threshold it's a crusade, afterwards it's a double crusade.
For a long time I longed for such a global creature pumper that gave more than a normal crusade. Common Cause from mercadian masques failed my expectations while Divine Sacrament nearly met them.
Unfortunetely the sacrament just like any of the others needs you to overextend the creatures in play, forcing yourself to risk much more. Thus these cards are rather inefficient for type 1 white weenie.

Empyrial Armor was all the rage in extended and mirage-tempest type 2 white weenie decks. Further on it was used in Armor/Cataclysm White Weenie decks to a great deal of sucess, and managing to take Matt Linde to the top on the US nationals in 1998.
It's the most popular white weenie pumper there is, allowing one of your creatures to become a monster and easily go for the kill.

Armor is better than crusade in type 1. To deal X damage with crusade you need X creatures in play while with to deal X damage with Armor you only need X cards in hand. Armor works wonders with Land Tax and doesn't make you overextend as other pumpers do.

On the downside to play an armor you need a creature in play, which means that you won't play it at any time, but at a precise time on a creature. Another issue is that the creature you target armor with can be destroyed at that time, making you lose both the armor and the creature and turning the armor into card disadvantage.
On the worst case scenario Empyrial Armor is misdirected into one of your opponent's creatures. NOT PRETTY, I assure you, since it can mean game over for you.
At 1WW the armor isn't exactly a cheap enchantment and suffers from the same problem as some spells do. Sure it has an amazing effect, but at 3cc it also makes quite a target for draining, and that kind of moves can determine the outcome of a game.

I believe that armor is the best creature pumper there is for white weenie, but ultimately I decided to abandon all creature enchacers because I felt I was wasting slots for cards that would usually get countered or make me play the deck in a way that doesn't work nowadays (at least in modern type 1).

Flickering Ward: the ward is not exactly better nor worse than Mother of Runes. It is however harder to deal with because it's cheap and can return to hand to be recast afterwards. I tried it for a while as protection vs Morphling (you wouldn't believe the hard time mono-white WW has with superman), but in the end there are other, more viable solutions. Creatures with protection from blue will with no doubt survive Morphling. You however will not;)


Other "tricks"

Abeyance/Orim's Chant can act as a virtual time walk, providing you with an extra turn and preventing your opponent from playing spells, but it just stalls rather than to be aggressive, and so it doesn't fit white weenie's theme. Both are good cards but best left for combo decks or deck parfait.

Black Vise: back in the very first years of magic, this is what made aggro decks shine. The vise is one of the most powerful artifacts ever printed and the power to take out about 9-10 points of damage in the first turns with an artifact that just costs 1 is really too good. Other cards that tried to fill the vises shoes such as Iron Maiden and Viseling are nowhere as good as the vise is.
Unrestricted black vise was what made white weenie so good in the old days. Unfortunetely (or should I say fortunetely?) the card was restricted. But don't overlook it! Black vise is one of those obscure restricted cards everyone forgets how good it really is just because they think its power was only in numbers. Even after restriction drawing an early vise and casting it can determin your victory vs the opposing deck if it isn't able to drop its hand below 5.

Whether to use it or not is something that one can only really tell for the times it is useful. On an aggro metagame is obviously weak. On a control metagame it's far better. Another thing on which it also depends is luck: just how many times will you be drawing the vise when you need it? There's about 12% chances of drawing black vise on your opening hand, but doing so can just be what will make you win. Having a card that, no matter how slim the chances of having it when you need, can mean your victory, is a card worthy of serious consideration while making your deck.

The best way to use it is to pack 3-4 land taxes and 2-3 scroll racks (I consider 3 to be excessive, since with 2 scroll racks and 1 enlightened tutor you're virtually playing 3 racks).

Enlightened Tutor acts as a virtual copy of any artifact or enchantment on your deck, which makes it pretty good to get some cards. Suddenly you are playing with 5 land taxes, 5 empyrial armors, 2 zuran orbs. You lose a draw to get the card you tutored for but you'll be getting the card you are needing. Enlightened tutor is extremely useful.

Honorable Passage is a powerful and popular red hoser since besides preventing damage from any source it can redirect that damage to its controler if it's a red source of damage.
Samite Ministrations works in a similiar way to the passage, and although it can trigger with red or black sources of damage it gains life which is not so important as dealing damage for an aggro deck.

Land Tax: Legends was and is one of the most important sets ever released, and what would be of type 1 without it? Legend's contribuition for white weenie is a very cheap enchantment that can get you three basic lands a turn just for W. The downside is that you have to have lesser lands than your opponent, but really... just how hard is that for white weenie to achieve? Always pack four in mono-colored white weenie.
Land tax will thin the deck, thus decreasing the chance of drawing into more, and needless land and provide a shuffle all for just W. Remember that you can still use it after having no lands in the library, just as long as you have less lands than the opponent does.

Besides providing with card advantage, thinning and shuffling the deck land tax is probably also the best card there is to handle discard and land destruction. It fills your hand with 3 basic lands assuring you will never be missing lands and that all that nasty random discard will have less chances of hitting the most important cards in your hand.

Pariah is one of the few decent white weenie cards from urza block. It can be used on a creature with protection from a color (or regeneration) so that all damage dealt to you is redirected to it. It makes you virtually invulnerable. It can also be played on an opposing creature to destroy it, since the damage dealt to you will be redirected to it.

Pegasus Stampede: while looking out for something that would create tokens and would block Morphling I found Pegasus Stampede. For a while it was a nice card, although it's best left for casual play.

Pegasus Stampede      1W
Sorcery
Buyback-Sacrifice a land.
Put a 1/1 white Pegasus creature token with flying into play.

With land tax you can works great! Sacrifice the lands to pay the buyback and keep using tax and casting pegasus stampede.

Scroll Rack: it's impossible to talk about land tax without mentioning Scroll Rack. The tax-rack combo is a cheap, efficient combo that allows a player to put three cards into head each turn. Pull 3 basic lands with Land Tax, and exchange them back with scroll rack for 3 new cards. Repeat each turn. Tax-rack was nicknamed the "white necro" and although it's really not as powerful as necropotence, it can already be a pain for the opponent who has to deal with it. Remember that you don't need land tax in play to start using scroll rack. Either the rack or tax are both efficient cards alone, and they'll become far better once the other hits play.

The main issue with this combo is that, like Balance, it's overrated. Just because you can have a cheap card drawing engine doesn't mean that you'll always have it. Playing and protecting tax-rack is a lot harder than most people think, since a decent player won't allow it to be kept in play or even get played: counterspells, powder kegs, artifact/enchantment destruction are always at hand.

I used this combo for a while and eventually dropped it because it wasn't up to my expectations and it wasn't helping me that much either.

Solitary Confinement is one of the most popular and overrated cards in Judgement. This white enchantment can actually make you invulnerable to any kind of threat: damage or anything else that targets you. It makes you invulnerable vs chainer or diabolic edict, damage, discard... The disadvantage is that you have to discard a card in your upkeep and discard your draw phase.
This pretty much means that you have to waste two cards a turn to keep in play an enchantment that won't do pretty much more than assure you that you live for about three more turns (if you have a seven-card hand). This card does have some sinergy with Land Tax, since tax works on your upkeep, thus allowing you to get at least 2 lands to discard to the confinement

Since you won't be drawing any new threats this card won't be doing more than to stall the inevitable which will be the threats your opponent will be keeping for you when the protective bubble goes away goes away. But even so you still won't be drawing any new threats. This card is too passive for an aggro deck.

Story Circle is one of the most powerful protection circles there is. It can help you avoid Morphling damage and is very good vs mono-colored strategies. Worship or pariah are probably better solutions though since the circle is perhaps too mana intensive for white weenie.

Tithe is a watered down land tax with a twist: it can get you dual lands. Tithe is always played in white weenie with a splash to get the land it's needed.

Warmth: if your opponents can't hit your creatures with direct damage, they will be targeting you. Warmth is far better than a normal circle of protection: red for white weenie because it isn't mana intensive like the circle is, and because it will considerably slow down the damage dealt by the red deck.

Worship it's one of the most popular white cards ever printed and can, just like solitary confinement and pariah do, make you invulnerable vs any source of damage. Worship instead of preventing damage doesn't allow your life total to go below 1 as long as you keep a creature in play. Since white weenie creatures are so resistant they combine very well with worship. Unfortunetely worship has a rather prohibitive cost for type 1 white weenie, and for the same price you'd rather be playing armageddon.

Zuran Orb: the orb is a mostly defensive card, but it works so well with land tax and tax-rack combo that it deserves a slot in the deck. A single slot is all it needs to be effective since Enlightened Tutor virtually acts as a second orb. You really don't want to waste more than one slot to this one on a deck like white weenie.
It is underrated by some people, since this card managed to keep me alive long enough to sometimes win the damage race to a morphling while attacking with my creatures.


LANDS AND OTHER SOURCES OF MANA:

Plains: the best white weenie card ever printed:)

The original creature land, Mishra's Factory, is a great card but just doesn't make the cut for white weenie. If you are relying heavily on land tax then this card will make you have to play more lands than you need, since you would need at least two plains and a mishra's factory, so you can cast those WW cost creatures. Another issue with the factory is that early on it can make you lose a turn.

With factory you'd go:

turn 1: plains
turn 2: factory
turn 3: plains

So, you'd only be playing Order of the White Shield, White Knights, etc, from turn three beyond, when you could already be playing them turn two. Factory is a good card but it slows white weenie even more which can be crucial to the WW deck.

Forbidding Tower is not really better than factory. It's less agressive since it was mainly made for blocking purposes. Although it provides white mana, unlike the factory, it loses you a turn because it will come into play tapped.
If the tower turned into a larger creature perhaps it would be worth the trouble, but as it is it's worse than factory.

Kjeldoran Outpost is one of white weenie's classics. Although it was a powerful card in its time nowadays the outpost is just wasteland bait and it will hardly stay in play long enough to be useful. It is fun for casual, but otherwise it has already seen better days. It's really not worth the slot, and to produce tokens there are better things.

Wasteland/Strip Mine: even after strip mine was restricted we got wasteland, which since the metagame is filled up with non-basic lands is nearly as good. There's not much to say other than they're (nearly) always used.

Dual lands: efficient if you want to splash. If using them use always pack Tithe.

Painlands/City of Brass: these don't need a big explanation. They're usually used to make it up for the need to have a consistent mana base for the color splashes white weenie usually does.

Undiscovered Paradise: the paradise may seem a weird choice, but it gives you white and red mana and doesn't hurt you. The drawback is not a problem since you're playing mostly very cheap spells.

Mox Pearl: for those of you who have it I would say that mox pearl is worthy to be played in all white weenie decks unless you're somewhat relying on something as Null Rod. Otherwise it helps you have fewer lands in play and trigger Land Tax.

Mox Diamond: another overrated card in white weenie. Mox Diamond can provide you with any kind of mana, which is good if you are playing a splash and tithes and even if you're not. Unfortunetely it demands the discard of a land card. If you want to pack Mox Diamond make sure to pack enough lands.

With Mox Diamond:
hand with 1 mox diamond, 1 plains:
turn 1: diamond, turn 2: nothing...

With a plains in the diamond slot:
turn 1: plains, turn 2: plains.

This defines the diference between being able to cast an Order on turn 2 or not, and can compromise the speed of the deck.

Black Lotus: if you have it pack it always no matter what in your white weenie.

Lotus Petal: not good enough for white weenie since a basic plains is far better.


HOW TO PLAY WHITE WEENIE

White Weenie is a very simple deck to play. Drop a couple of creatures and swing with them while using other spells to deal with any threats your opponent plays. That doesn't mean that attacking is always the answer. White weenie is an aggressive deck and should be played like that, although there are certain situations in which you'd rather be blocking.

Sometimes, when you are low on life you would rather chump block to kill a threat so that any surviving creatures can go for the final points of damage. Sometimes using your creatures as walls until you can drop another threat that can go for the final points of damage also happens.

A good example of this situation was a match vs suicide black that had gone wrong. I had a pro: black creature and a savannah lions, and my opponent a zombie and a Nantuko Shade. If I attacked with my creatures they wouldn't kill him that same turn, but if he did attack me in turn I would be killed.

The answer was to trade my lions for his zombie and keep blocking shade until I could drop another threat to attack him with. Eventually I drew off another Order and I was able to attack and kill my opponent while the other stood as a wall. Of course that I could have drawn into another answer for the shade such as Swords to Plowshares but the order came in first.

Don't hesitate to always sacrifice a creature in chump blocking if that means to live another turn since the card you need might just turn up in the following turns. NEVER give up the game until the game is over.

I don't personally advise the use of tax-rack. Tax-rack is overrated and you end up wasting slots and time to set up a combo that can easily be countered or destroyed. Vs aggro decks white weenie should already be doing well without the help of tax-rack. And although being able to have three extra cards every turn is a great answer to fight back a control deck, it is also very hard to pull out such a combo vs control. A good control player will never allow stuff like armageddon or the tax-rack combo to be played. That means you'll be wasting time and slots which could be used in for other more significant threats.

Facing a Morphling or a Masticore are probably the two most horrible things that white weenie can pass through (I can imagine some nearly as nasty though), and since white has so little means to deal with either (well, you have swords for masticore, but you really need everything you can get your hand on) you might need Balance.

Another issue with Balance is that it requires thought to play. Just playing Balance isn't the answer...
If the opponent drops a Morphling and you have a couple of non-shadow weenies in play and if you try to attack with them, the opponent will, if he needs and wants to, untap superman and kill the weenies and establish board control.

Unless your creatures can evade Morphling and win the damage race it's better to sacrifice your creatures so you can Balance and force the opponent to sacrifice the Morphling. Another possible solution is to play more creatures than Morphling can kill and swarm attack for the win

Either way remember that when Morphling drops deal with it or race for the final point of damage, because if you can't do so Morphling will kill you in about four turns. This is just an example since White weenie is a simple, effective deck to play which is also cheap and easy to build.

Unfortunately, as would later be proven it just wasn't enough to make it through the modern Type 1. I make special mention to the modern format, since in the beggining, with unrestricted Black Vise, and way before the cards from Urza Block came along, the mono-colored incarnation of this deck was far more powerful.

But this doesn't mean white weenie is dead in type 1. It can still be played, but like Matt D'Avanzo tried to convice me on several times, it would take a splash to become better than it is...\n\n

[Bastian]

WHITE WEENIE PRIMER - PART II

SPLASHING COLORS

BLUE

Splashing colors into white weenie is something that has been done ever since the first white weenie decks were made. The purpose is to cover up what white misses and can't do. So blue could provide with power blue, sleight of mind, bounce, cheap counterspells and flyers, black with tutoring and cheap discard, red with direct damage and green with other creatures and creature enhacers such as giant growth or, more recently, rancor.

The first white weenie decks packed some tundras and sometimes islands, and splashed blue so they could play big blue (Ancestral Recall, Time Walk and Timetwister), the Sleight of Mind tech and Power Sinks.

White Weenie, July 1995:

4 Tundra Wolves
4 Repentant Blacksmith
4 Order of Leitbur
4 White Knight
3 Mesa Pegasus
2 Osai Vulture
1 Thunder Spirit

4 Crusade
4 Army of Allah
2 Jihad
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Armageddon
2 Disenchant

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Zuran Orb
1 Howling Mine

1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Saphire
1 Black Lotus
4 Tundra
16 Plains

Sideboard:
4 Sleight of Mind
2 Disenchant
1 COP: Red
3 COP: Black
3 COP: White

As you can see, primitive white weenie still had MUCH to learn until it got where it is today. But even so this was a tourney winner back then, although control decks weren't not even nearly as powerful as they were today.

Another, more interesting design, is the following Winter Orb-Black Vise white weenie although it packs less creatures:

WOrb-Vise Weenie, August 1995
4 Savannah Lions
3 Tundra Wolves
3 Icatian Javalineers
4 White Knight
3 Mesa Pegasus

2 Disenchant
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Armageddon
1 Land Tax

2 Power Sink
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister

4 Black Vise
3 Winter Orb
2 Icy Manipulator
1 Zuran Orb

1 Mox Saphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
4 Tundra
16 Plains

Sideboard:
3 Sleight of Mind
1 Disenchant
2 COP: Red
1 COP: Black
1 COP: White
1 COP: Green
1 COP: Blue
3 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Island

I may be wrong, but this deck, if well played, could go give present control decks some trouble, for a very simple reason: unrestricted black vise. It wouldn't win any, but back then it was all that it was necessary. Unfortunetely white has been the most neglected color throughout time, and so white weenie lost its original power.

Later on, in the next year, Tom Chanpheng would bring the following deck to the top:

1996 World Champion, Tom Chanpheng
Type II
4 Savannah Lions
4 Orders of Leitbur
4 Orders of the White Shield
4 White Knight
2 Phyrexian Warbeasts
2 Serra Angels

4 Disenchant
1 Balance
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Reprisal

1 Land Tax
1 Reinforcement
1 Armageddon
1 Zuran Orb
1 Lodestone Bauble
1 Sleight of Mind

11 Plains
4 Adarkar Wastes
1 Kjeldoran Outpost
4 Strip Mines
4 Mishra's Factories

Sideboard:
4 Divine Offering
2 Aurenson's Aura
1 Sleight of Mind
1 Reprisal
1 Exile
1 Kjeldoran Outpost
2 Serrated Arrows
1 Spirit Link
1 Energy Storm
1 Black Vise

Sidenote: In the finals Tom faced a necrodeck, and since he was packing 12 pro: black creatures he really didn't have much problem on proceeding to defeat the deck. One vast improvement over older white weenie decks was NOT playing crusades or any kind of pumper since a good white weenie deck would need none and because crusades themselves dealt no damage. This is right, and it's a very important rule while thinking on modern white weenie.
There are however some cases where white weenie used crusade-like enchantments to full effect. Such decks are Kyle Rose's White Lightning, which abused the Waylay ruling or the more recent rebel decks.

Later white weenie decks with a splash of blue would try to pack other, more recent (or more classic) powerful cards such as...

"Big Blue" (Ancestral Recall, Time walk, Timetwister): all three of these cards always found a way into the first white weenie decks ever made. Ancestral Recall is the best card there is in magic, and time walk is the best cantrip. Timetwister isn't as good as it was before, but it can fill your hand of threats and recycle all of your dead weenies. If playing white weenie with blue you should always pack ancestral recall and time walk. Timetwister is something you should think well before, because your opponent can turn the spell to his or her advantage.

Serendib Efreet: the efreet is a good midrange weenie, providing you with a 3/4 flyer for three mana. The drawback is something you can work around and the ability to fly over Moat, and most importantly, fly over and be out of Masticore's pinging range is invaluable.
Another similiar creature is Wormfang Drake:

Wormfang Drake      2U
Creature - Nightmare Drake
Judgement Uncommon
Flying
3/4; When Wormfang Drake comes into play sacrifice it unless you remove a creature you control other than Wormfang Drake from the game.
When Wormfang Drake leaves play, return the removed card to play under its owner's control.

The drake is nearly as good as the efreet. If you're playing a deck which has a great ammount of creatures it can be considered even better, since removing one of them won't hurt you that much. But in white weenie you want to keep the rythm and be as agressive as possible, so the drake doesn't quite make the cut.

Tradewind Rider is a very popular card in white weenie decks that can pack a splash of blue since it can deal with any threat. It was used together with armageddon. Destroy all of your opponent's lands and bounce every other one that he plays back into hand. It's high toughness makes it a formidable card vs bolts and incinerate. But, just like Wormfang Drake, you have to tap out two of your creatures to be able to use the rider's ability, and that means not attacking with it.

If for one side it's good to use it with white weenies, since they're cheap and tough, one can't actually say that a deck that does so is a white weenie deck, because it tries to accomplish something totally diferent from what white weenie should be doing.

Counterspells are a cheap way to avoid a threat from being dropped in play, and many white weenie decks have tried to play them before, from arcane denial to mana leak. In theory the idea works, but it will make white weenie weaker since it dillutes its purpose which is to kill and not provide answers for threats, but to establis threats itself. ANYTHING that diverts white weenie from its aggressive strategy only makes white weenie weaker.

Meddling Mage is what we got because Chris Pikula won an Invitational. In type 1 it's better to play pikula in the sideboard and pull it only for the second and third games, since by then you would make an idea of what to expect. Doing otherwise means that you would be wasting four slots to play a bear that costs UW and most of the time will do nothing throughout the first game.
Whenever playing pikula vs control be sure to name Morphling, because no matter if the opponent plays balance, yawgmoth's will, whatever, it's morphling they will try to cast.
Other cards that you can name are Balance, Masticore or Powder Keg. Meddling Mage is also a great card vs combo decks vs which white weenie would usually lose. Just name the key card they need to play to win you and watch the combo player recoil.

Rootwater Thief must be the best merfolk there is, and in a format with so many restricted cards even better. Playing this and use its ability a couple of times can pretty much mean game over for the opponent since this card can remove Morphlings and other threats from the opponent's deck before they hit play. Rootwater thief is pretty much comparable to Dwarven Miner since both can shut down control decks, have the same size, cost the same (one mana and one colored mana) and their abilities cost nearly the same to trigger.

Psionic Blast is a solid card. Dealing four damage for three mana with a blue card is not so bad and some white weenie decks splashing for blue used to use this. The direct damage can throw in the last points of damage but it can also kill you.

Standstill is no Ancestral Recall. Make sure to be aware of that since when this enchantment came out that was what many people made out of it. While it is a good card, chances are that your opponent will have board control, and you'll be forced to play a card to stop the game from stalling and allowing your opponent to draw 3 cards.

The trick to play with standstill is to drop a threat or two and then play standstill before your opponent drops a threat like powder keg, morphling or masticore. Now you can keep attacking and if your opponent wants to play something he'll have to have you draw 3 cards.

Here's an example of a more recent WW/u (white weenie with a splash of blue):

The Smurfs 2.2; Pedro Godinho aka Bastian
3 Order of Leitbur
3 Order of the White Shield
4 Meddling Mage
4 Savannah Lions
4 Soltari Priest
3 Serendib Efreet

1 Balance
4 Seal of Cleansing
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Standstill
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Tithe
4 Null Rod

1 Black Lotus
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Tundra
1 Strip Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise
6 Plains

Sideboard:
4 Erase
3 Powder Keg
3 Serenity
3 Story Circle
1 Timetwister
1 Black Vise

RED

There isn't really much that can be said about splashing red. Red gives white weenie direct damage, allowing to make up for the lack of speed white has, along with a few more tricks. Most times white weenie will get through all the damage it needs vs an opponent but eventually it loses because it:

a) lost all its creatures
b) the opponent played an important spell or creature

a) can happen when fighting other aggro decks. White Weenie's creatures are very tough but they're not invincible, and sometimes you'll end up trading a creature for one of your opponent's. Since most of the deck's creatures have first strike- orders and white knight- you either kill a small creature with a single direct damage spell or, in case you face something larger, attack with your first strikers and before damage resolution deal with a direct damage spell on the fatty.
The opponent will try to kill your creature but after damage is assigned your creature's first strike kicks in. Your creature survives, fatty dies.

b) is what happens when your opponent plays a card that turns the game 180º around to his or her favour. Cards that fit this level of power are yawgmoth's will, balance, morphling or masticore. If an opponent manages to play something like this cards and you suddenly find yourself losing direct damage will allow you to push the last final points of damage white weenie would normally not be able to deal.

Other solid cards red can provide to white weenie are Gorilla Shaman, aka mox monkey, Dwarven Miner and Blood Moon.
The shaman is an old type 1 stapple in many decks. It will kill all of your opponent's cheap mana (moxes, sol ring, lotus) and if you eventually have that much mana it can also take things like powder keg.

Dwarven Miner is another card that found its way into several sideboards. When playing a long game vs a control strategy which uses a mana base of several non-basic lands the miner can slowly cripple the opponent. I can't count the times this card has managed to help me in keeper matches! (Thanks to Zherbus for that one;) Along with the miner is Blood Moon, a very old hoser, but still a pretty solid one. Making all of your oponent's non-basic lands become mountains can mean game. And when you have a card that can dictate the outcome of an entire game vs one of the best decks there is in the format (keeper) you know you're gonna need it.

Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast are great cards that found their ways into some sideboards. They can counter Morphlings, opposing card drawers such as fact or fiction, ancestral recall, and even cripple and stop combo decks vs which aggro strategies would normally not be able to win.

Finnally there's Wheel of Fortune. The wheel gives you 7 cards but most probably your opponent will be the same to make use of his or hers before you can play yours. Even so it's a great card drawer and it fits perfectly into any aggressive strategy. It really doesn't need further explanation.

One of the best type 1 white weenie decks with a red splash is from Steve O'Connell's
aka Zherbus:

Holy Tommy Gun
4 Savannah Lions
2 Jackal Pups
3 Gorilla Shaman
4 Order of White Shield
4 Soltari Priest
2 Soltari Monk
2 Phyrexian Warbeast
1 Masticore

4 Land Tax
2 Scroll Rack
1 Zuran Orb
1 Enlightened Tutor

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Balance

1 Library of Alexandria
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Diamond
9 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Plateau

Sideboard:
1 Masticore
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Swords to Plowshares
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Blood Moon
3 Cursed Totem
1 Aura of Silence

It packs the tax-rack combo to establish a card advantage engine (it would be wrong saying "card drawing" because the combo doesn't draw anything) along with red for some control hosers (blood moon, red elemental blast), pups, and, of course, direct damage.
This is presently one of the best white weenie decks there is in type 1 and I would advise it to anyone who likes white weenie and is eager to use the tax-rack combo. According to Steve the deck isn't that hot vs keeper, but otherwise it's a pretty solid white weenie.

GREEN AND BLACK

White weenie can splash for green for larger creatures such as Noble Panther (secret keeper-decking tech;), Fleetfoot Panther, Anurid Brushhopper, Charging Troll and and many others...
Green can provide white weenie with more cheap creatures at 1cc such as Wild Dogs or Ghazban Ogre which white lacks so much (the only real decent 1cc creature type 1 white weenie has is Savannah Lions).

Green can also provide aditional utility like Rancor, Sylvan Library, Living Wish, Eladamri's Vineyard, Wax/Wane or Ray of Revelation.

If green can really give that much stuff to white weenie why then not splash for it?

Green doesn't add anything that white weenie already can't do on its own. Rancor is one of the best creature enchantments there is but all by itself it will deal no damage. Wax/Wane and Ray of Revelation are actually pretty good, but not worth the splash of green, why use sylvan library when you can pack power blue and wheel of fortune?

The only reason to use green in white weenie would be because of the creatures available. They're cheap, big and effective, and yet nearly all of them will be easily sucked by the Abyss. That's why green makes a lousy splash for white weenie. It doesn't add anything new, and it won't make the deck better or faster than already it is.

Hey, if not even white weenie with a splash of green is good in the current type 2 environment, it certainly won't be any more efficient in type 1.

Black manages to be even worse than green. The idea of splashing for black and using tutors, negators, duress and gerrard's verdict was very appealling at a time, but in the end I had something that wasn't quite white weenie, nor quite suicide black and that worked worse than any of those decks.

I believe that the black splash might be worthwhile to use green hosers. Spectral Lynx and Perish are the only two good reasons to add black to white weenie. On current extended, and until before November rotation, I believe that Spectral Lynx is actually the best white weenie there is in extended!
It can block any green creature which makes it excelent vs decks like secret force and stompy, and it has regeneration which allows it to escape stuff like masticore and powder keg. Perish is the ultimate green hoser.

Unfortunetely (or should I say fortunetely?) green isn't as popular in type 1 as it is in extended, so the black splash is not worth the trouble either.

Splashing colors into white weenie can help the deck and fill in some gaps which white can't fill such as disruption, direct damage, card advantage or better creatures.

The problem is that when you do so you'll be weakening the mana base and not straying from what was meant to be the original purpose of white weenie: to be an aggro deck. Trying to add more answers to threats than to play threats itself the white weenie deck grows weaker. A very good example of this is Nicolai Herzog's white weenie deck in the 1999 Invitational.

4 Savannah Lions
4 Soltari Monk
3 Order of Leitbur
3 Order of the White Shield
1 Gorilla Shaman

4 Lightning Bolt
1 Balance
1 Disenchant
2 Aura of Silence

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Duress
1 Forsaken Wastes

3 Tithe
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Diamond
4 Plateau
4 Scrubland
2 Tundra
1 City of Brass
1 Plains
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Karma
1 Circle of Protection: Black
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Aura of Silence
3 Pyroblast
1 Price of Progress
2 Null Rod
1 Red Elemental Blast

Herzog's deck is solid enough and packs specific choices for what were two popular choices: Trix and Necro decks. Stuff like Forsaken Wastes, direct damage along with splashes for power and some other cards. What makes the deck so bad is that vs a more balanced metagame, with a diverse field of control, combo and aggro, this deck would probably lose a lot. Why? It's unfocused.

White weenie, no matter the format, should act as an aggro deck, and instead of providing answers to threats, it should be playing threats itself. Instead of trying to splash for answers white weenie should splash for what it's meant to do: KILL the opponent. So any splashes done in white weenie should be done thinking about that.

THE PRESENT...

Magic is a card game, and this means that you can't simply take a deck and tell that this deck is better than that, since players' skills and luck are major factors in determining the outcome of a match.

For example, a keeper deck might just well be the best type 1 deck there is, since it's versatile, it's the best pick to take to any metagame and still win. However it's possibly one of the most, if not the most complex magic deck there is because of all the tricks and choices one can make. A good white weenie player can win a keeper deck if the oponent doesn't know how to play it. The same happens with several other decks.

I'm just saying this because most people dismiss white weenie as a weak deck. It certainly isn't the better, but with experience, and tuning the deck can perform better than it does.

Presently when building white weenie go for the splash since you'll need it in order to make the deck viable. I'm sorry for all the purists out there. I prefered and still prefer to be playing straight white white weenie, but even if the deck wins some games it just won't be nearly as poweful as it was back when black vise was unrestricted. So splashing is really the best way to go...

One of my recent attempts at doing so packed blue for card drawing and splashed red for direct damage. I removed nearly all artifact/enchantment destruction since I wanted the deck to be as focused as possible. Most of my weenies could avoid Abyss and Moat is really not that played. What my weenies didn't hit, my burn spells would finish.

Stars n' Stripes
3 Gorilla Shaman
4 Order of Leitbur
4 Savannah Lions
4 Soltari Priest
4 White Knight
        
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
4 Tithe
3 Seal of Cleansing
  
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Battlefield Forge
4 City of Brass
4 Tundra
4 Plateau
3 Plains

Sideboard:
1 Black Vise
4 Meddling Mage
4 Null Rod
4 Price of Progress
2 Swords to Plowshares

Notice that the Pikula's were confined to the sideboard since they weren't good enough to make it maindeck. Most of the time, during game one you'll name something without actually being sure on whether that card's on the opponent's deck or not. So they're better left to the sideboard and replaced by something else.

The deck worked well, although it had serious issues with the mana base. Sometimes I needed red and I hadn't it, some others I wanted blue and I hadn't any either. Eventually I proceeded to take out the blue spells since I was losing focus. Thus I invested more on the red mana and came out with:

Strawberry Cake.dec
3 Gorilla Shaman
4 Order of Leitbur
4 Savannah Lions
4 Soltari Priest
4 White Knight

1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
3 Tithe
3 Seal of Cleansing
        
1 Black Lotus
1 Strip Mine
2 City of Brass
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Plateau
6 Plains

Sideboard:
3 Dwarven Miner
4 Null Rod
4 Price of Progress
4 Swords to Plowshares

This deck didn't have the same mana issues has the last one, but I knew there was still much tuning to be done. Actually, after this deck was posted around Steve O'Connell made some changes and got me the present white weenie deck I play!

Strawberry Cake 1/2; (1/2 by Bastian and 1/2 by Zherbus
3 Dwarven Miner
2 Jackal Pup
2 Order of Leitbur
4 Savannah Lions
4 Soltari Priest
4 White Knight

1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Incinerate
4 Tithe
3 Null Rod

1 Black Lotus
1 Strip Mine
2 Wasteland
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Plateau
8 Plains

Sideboard:
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
3 Blood Moon
3 Seal of Cleansing
3 Swords to Plowshares

Although I came up with the original "Strawberry cake" white weenie I credit the final version to both me and Steve.

THE CREATURES
The deck packs the usual suspects, four Savannah Lions and four Soltari Priests, along with some protection from black guys and red creatures.

I picked up two Orders of Leitbur and four White Knights. Although the white knight is inferior to an order it has one thing that makes him worthy: 2 toughness. When fighting a keeper deck and having the keeper deck take out one creature with fire/ice or two can make a difference. A couple of 1-toughness creatures are immediatly removed with Fire.

Jackal Pup gives the creature base another solid creature in the 1cc slot. Although I don't exactly like packing pups in white weenie so far they've been good, although replacing them with two more orders isn't a bad idea (depending on what you face).
What's probably the strangest pick for maindeck is Dwarven Miner and no gorilla shaman. Miners make good sideboard choices, so why play three maindeck? Well, unlike Blood Moon, miner can attack, even if just for one point of damage, and their ability to destroy non-basic lands makes them a priceless adition vs keeper decks. I can't count the times I would have lost vs keeper if it wasn't for an active Miner.
Keeper's mana base is not a solid one and attacking key lands they need to cast some spells can hurt the keeper player a lot.

Gorilla shaman, aka mox monkey, is absent from the deck because of the inclusion of maindeck Null Rods. Although Null Rods can't attack and keep an eye on artifact mana, it will stop all production of artifact mana and stop two great white weenie enemies: Masticore and Powder Keg while it would cost five mana for the monkey to destroy the keg and a whooping nine mana to destroy masticore (like if that was going to happen...).

UTILITY
I found white weenie decks to be solid enough to manage to deal damage to a control player, but by the time you are going to deal the final points of damage, he suddenly drops Morphling, Masticore or plays Yawgmoth's Will and it's game over for you. The lack of an alternative damage source in white weenie is somewhat responsible for many of its previous defeats.

Burn does not only fix that but it makes combat vs other creatures better. Since 6 of your creatures have first strike you can easily attack with a weenie, and when the opponent blocks with something larger (ex: a covetous dragon), play a burn spell and apply first strike. Thus the fatty gets less thoughness and even though it doesn't die it will die when first strike kicks in. (Sidenote: Remember you can use Incinerate on a masticore and try to kill it with a creature since the 'core won't be able to regenerate that turn. Of course you need to have the opponent tapped out so it doesn't kill your creature first).
I'm playing an additional four chain lightning in the deck instead of seals of cleansing or swords to plowshares since this makes the deck more aggressive. Seals and swords are best left to deal with matches where harder where threats like Masticore appear.

LANDS
If it wasn't for Apocalypse painlands I bet this deck wouldn't be viable, so hooray to wizards for printing them:)

Undiscovered Paradise may seem a questionable choice, but since you really need to play a lot of red, undiscovered paradise acts as an extra red mana source that will make sure you won't be asking for a land that gives red mana. Since most of the deck's spells are so cheap you can live with the paradise's drawback.

I thought about using Mishra's Factories instead of wastelands/strip mine, but since the deck is already aggressive enough and I'll probably face mostly keeper it suits my needs. If you however face decks which are working with more basics I'd pick up mishra's for the place and take. Remember that if you do this you should pack some other hoser instead of Blood Moon in the sideboard.

SIDEBOARD
Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast: counter a Morphling, counter a counter, counter or destroy anything blue. Besides being good vs control you can also pack it vs certain combo decks that heavily rely on blue cards to win. Ex: academy, worldgorger dragon (if it tries to kill with a huge stroke of genius), trix...

Blood Moon: before Back to Basics there was this. This is nearly as good as back to basics (back to basics is BLUE) but it can severely hurt keeper decks and other decks relying on non-basics. See dwarven miner.

Seal of Cleansing/Swords to Plowshares: these really don't need an introduction, do they? Pack them in to deal with stacker's creatures, fatties like phyrexian colossus and covetous dragon (the funker) or other nasties a single burn spell can't deal with.


STRAWBERRY CAKE VS THE WORLD

White weenie decks have, as I sooner said, dismissed as weak decks. But that doesn't mean they can't be better and compete with what we consider to be stronger archetypes. All it takes is effort, tuning and experience.

"Strawberry cake" has been made taking into consideration a mostly control metagame, not only because type 1 metagames usually shift towards control but because white weenie should already be good at beating other aggressive decks. While it won't be as good many game 1s as it could possibly be, with a propper sideboard games two and three should be always in the favor of white weenie.

THE MATCHES:

Keeper: curiously enough this isn't a one of the worst matches white weenie has! The deck packs pro: black creatures which can evade abyss.  Balance and other removal spells are dangerous, but they won't damage you unless you overextend.

Any decent white weenie can make it through early and midgame, but as soon as Morphling hits the table you're in a four-turn clock against the time before the game ends. DO NEVER have more than a couple of threats in play unless Morphling has already hit the table and you need to play a third creature so you can win the damage race.

Dwarven Miner can be easily destroyed, but if keeper can't handle the miner before it becomes active the keeper player is in for some trouble which can mean defeat. Blood Moon is also good and can win the game since all of your opponents lands suddenly become mountains. Besides Blood Moon side in the red blasts for four chain lightnings and 2 Incinarates (or pups).

OSE (Old School Control): OSE is a tougher matchup than keeper, due to its agressive nature. Mishra's Factories, Masticore and Powder Kegs (which are usually uncommon in keeper) and Morphling are a combination of everything white weenie hates the most.

Abyss is not a problem, but Kegs and Masticore represent are a big pain for white weenie. That's why Null Rod is strawberry cake. It's great in type 1 and furthermore it stops nearly all things white weenie is afraid of. Suddenly Masticore is nothing more than a 4/4 with a drawback and keg... is just a 2cc obsolete artifact. Surely it's still not easy to play Null Rod and OSE has Morphling, but unlike keeper it has a harder time with dealing with artifacts when the keg is shut down.
Remember though that it still has gorilla shaman and it's not very hard for a deck sporting a few mana artifacts to pay five mana to get rid of the rod, and they'll willingfully do so, but before that happens you should have some burn spell at hand.

The problem is to actually play the rod without it getting countered in the way. There's no real skill at that other than to either wait the opponent is tapped out or to hope he doesn't have a counterspell ready. But usually if you don't get to push Null Rod early game you would hardly manage to play it later on...

Factories are usually nasty things to deal with when you play any other version of white weenie but since you're sporting several land destruction cards along with a pack of burn destroying a factory is easy.

The sided in cards are usually the same, except you should also side in swords to plowshares to deal with OSE's creatures (factories, masticore and shaman). Wheel and chain lightning come out for swords and blasts.

Monoblue: monoblue is significantly weaker since Fact or Fiction was restricted. The blue blue season is over and nowadays a more balanced metagame prevails.
Monoblue's cards such as back to basics can be give you some fits but they won't win the blue player the game that easily. The main problems blue can present are usually keg, masticore and mishra's factories (if they're there) but all these are shut down by Null Rod. Unfortunetely if you thought casting Null Rod vs OSE was hard wait until you try to do it vs a deck featuring mostly counters. Ophidians, although not always used, appear once in a while. Burn them down with any bolt or incinerate.

Wastelands and miners have no place vs monoblue (unless they're packing factories and some more non-basics such as library of alexandria) and they should be sided out for the red blasts which are great vs monoblue. Remember that you can counter a Morphling with those and the red blasts should be played only to protect an important spell from being countered (Null Rod) or to counter Morphling.

Oath: whatever version comes along, you're lucky because since type 1 rarely sees creature based decks oath is not as strong as its extended cousin. While it makes a rare appearance it's another tough match. Game 1 just play as agressively as you can, because if Oath hits play chances of winning will become suddenly very slim.

Through the rest of the match you can just side in seals and swords to plowshares for three Null rods and three dwarven miners. It's not like if the oath deck (even u/g variants) won't be packing non-basics, but since dwarven miner is not a good agressive card, playing it vs oath when you really don't need to can cost you the game.

Deck parfait: deck parfait is a fun deck, and one that shouldn't win, but it can still be a major headache thanks to its ability to bring back certain cards from the grave with argivian find and replenish.
Usually there's no special strategy to be used with parfait since it's a very defensive deck and there are not many cards to worry about. Kegs and cores are there to (once more) annoy white weenie, but they can be dispatched after you side in seals of cleansing. Null rod can also stop the annoying tax-rack engine.
The worst card parfait can play is moat since it will prevent all your creatures from attacking and that may well mean game. Use burn to push over more damage and quickly finish the parfait player before he does this.

If by any chances you start encountering an annoying parfait deck you really want or need to defeat remember that you can use Erase or Serenity. Erase makes it impossible to bring back enchantments back and serenity will act as wrath of god to both enchantments and artifacts (it will destroy masticore too, with no chance of it being regenerated).

Zoo: zoo isn't a threat to white weenie. Even though it can pack fatter creatures than white weenie does strawberry cake.dec can quickly burn them down (usually nowadays zoo packs midrange creatures like serendib efreet, call of the herd or untargetable mongeese). All of zoo's creatures can be easily destroyed by strawberry cake's burn or creatures.
Zoo's mana base is very fragile if facing dwarven miners and wastelands.

Stacker: the worst thing about stacker is that unlike any other creatures white weenie's creatures won't have protection vs stackers juggernauts, su-chis and others. Additional burn makes it hard for white weenie to compete with stacker, but not impossible.

Juggernauts can be easily destroyed with burn and su-chis with a mix of burn and blocking (with first strikers). Stacker's creatures are bigger and somewhat difficult to destroy, but remember that juggernauts can be killed with burn, and that the deck can be easily shut down with a null rod. Play Null Rod and seal the game.

Like in many some of the most dificult matches strawberry cake faces game 1 will be in favour of stacker, but after siding in swords and seals you should win.

The Funker: although the funker is one of the best type 1 aggro decks it's not as hard as stacker is because it's less focused and packs less creatures. Dropping a Null Rod will seal the game, and you'll probably be close to killing them. Dealing with covetous dragons can be done thanks to the several burn spells. Don't be afraid of trading a creature for it if you need to: a two-power creature and a burn spell mean five damage which is enough to kill the dragon.

Phyrexian Colossus can mean game if you don't manage to outrun it, but since you're packing so many direct damage spells, they won't dare to play it if they're down on life, (the colossus can only untap if you pay eight life). Another Urza's Saga artifact to look out for is Phyrexian processor. The processor mininons are black and although they can be easily blocked eventually the processor will produce more creatures than you can block and you will die.

Since the funker packs so few non-basics it's pretty easy to disrupt their mana base and making sure they never cast the spells they need before you win. Dwarven Miner and wastelands are priceless in this match, and so are swords to plowshares which should come for chain lightnings.

Nether Void: I still remember some of my void matches vs Steve O'Connell. Steve was nice enough to then use Masticore (thanks a lot Steve), and usually games ended up with masticore eating my creatures and void locking the game.
Thankfully enough not everyone likes to use masticore in their nether void builts and kegs can be only used once so as long as you don't overextend you won't have problems with that.

Still you should play as quickly as possible, killing negators/shades and hippies before they hit you and aiming for the opponent before void hits. Remember that even if nether void hits the table you can still play each of your burn spells at 3R each a turn, which is still quite bad for the nether void player because he won't be preventing you from playing your spells, it will just be making you slower.

Suicide Black: I can't really talk about suicide black matches since they would probably be too one-sided. I seem to have an awful luck in this match and although strawberry cake ought to win it I always seem to be at 50/50.

All you need to do is race for the kill and usually ignore his creatures, (except for negators and shades, you should deal with those) and aim for the kill. By the end of the game you may have most of your creatures blocking some of your opponent's but it won't take much to win the match.

Games 2 and 3 usually bring in dystopia and, *gasp* Masticore. Although dystopia can be played around (to some extent) with the help of direct damage you should bring in seals of cleansing and swords in the final games for wastelands and miners and pray for them not to be discarded.

Stompy: stompy isn't usually the best match white weenie faces but the large ammount of burn makes it possible to keep the board clear and easy for you to win. The only cards to fear should be Hidden Gibbons and Hidden Herd and Powder Keg (in case the stompy player is packing them in the sideboard). Even so this match is in favour of white weenie and can be easily won.

Sligh: sligh is an easy matchup for this deck since it can handle any creature it plays and there's hardly much to be said about it. You're probably playing as many burn spells and your creatures are better. This match hardly needs an explanation and you should feel quite ashamed if you lose it.
An active cursed scroll can cause you some trouble, but you should be winning the game by the time it becomes active. The other games the match can only get better.

Anarchy sometimes sees play, even if rarely, as way to deal with enchantments (and random white weenie decks...), but the trick to survive mass removal spells is to never overextend.

White weenie: there's really not a mirror match for the deck since white weenie has so many diferent variants. Mono-white being the most popular it will be easy for you to win, even if they are playing tax-rack. Tax-rack doesn't win the game, it's the cards that it gets that will do it. The burn you're can easily kill opposing weenies.
White weenie with blue is not much better and you can beat them just as easily.

The only white weenie deck worth mentioning is holy tommy gun which manages to play tax-rack and splashes red for added utility. The deck packs blood moons in the sideboard and a single masticore maindeck (depending on the version) but you should be able to outplay them since you're playing more burn and masticore can be easily dealt with after you drop null rod or swords.

Academy: combo decks are nearly impossible to beat with aggro decks, and achieving that task becomes even more difficult if you are playing with white weenie against the most powerful of them all. Be prepared to lose (after all you're not going to be able to win them all).
Chances of victory rely on the red blasts which can be used to counter key blue spells (like the huge stroke of genius/braingeyser that will hit you) and Null Rod can stop the game. Wastelands and dwarven miner, if you manage to set it up, can kill the Tolarian Academy, but remember, this is a very fast and powerful deck and you should have very slim chances of beating it.

Worldgorger Dragon combo: Judgement brought us another combo card, fortunetely the deck it makes it's not degenerate like academy once was. Worldgorger dragon+animate dead/dance of the dead means infinite mana and a huge stroke of genius on your way. You can try to counter it with sided in red blasts but remember that some variations of this deck rely on Magma Mine for the kill.
Siding in seals, swords and red blasts will make it easier for you to win. Blasts can counter stroke of genius and seals destroy magma mines or the enchantment that will animate the dragon from the grave. Swords can be used to remove the dragon from the game when the combo starts preventing the opponent from having infinite mana. Just add swords to plowshares to the stack after the dragon comes into play for the first time. That will remove it from the game and your opponent will end up losing all his permanents!

Sometimes I've seen worldgorger.dec go as soon as game 2, sometimes later on, it all depends on the luck of both players but white weenie can easily disrupt this deck.

Mask/Dreadnought: this is another recent combo that's not very common to come across. Dropping a 12/12 on turn 1 is possible and that can pretty much mean game over for you.
The only way to prevent the deck from winning is to be as aggressive as possible although game 1 is in favour of the opponent.
Games two and three you'll have Null Rods, swords to plowshares which add to 9 cards to fight back the deck. Null rods disable masks and the others destroy dreadnought. Unless your opponent manages to get either before you have the answers you should be able to win.

IN THE FUTURE...

White weenie decks have been around in a way or another ever since Alpha and they'll keep popping by from time to time, in just about any format. White weenie may have lost the power it once had (with the restriction of Black Vise) and one can only hope that someday something good is printed (or unrestricted..).

But this doesn't mean white weenie isn't good right now! White weenie is a solid aggro deck capable of dealing with just about any deck there is, and even if it doesn't always win it will still give many decks a run for their money.[/B]

[Bastian]

Ok, that's it. I've been writing this primer for some time now, since Zherbus asked for a second primer for each deck so we can have two different views on the same archetype.

Since white weenie has always been my pet deck, and one I came to know quite well it was the one I wrote about (for those of you don't know I was White Knight in Beyond Dominia).

Anyway the primer's up, please read it and... be nice (?)  

[Matt The Great]

Under the section on Land Tax you need to have a reminder not to Tax after casting Elightened Tutor.

Reword Solitary Confinement section from:

Quote The disadvantage is that you have to discard a card in your upkeep and discard your draw phase

to

Quote The disadvantage is that you have to discard a card in your upkeep and skip your draw phase

[Bastian]

Thanks Matt, after all that's what I posted the primer up: for review. There's still a lot of things that I haven't noticed even after reviewing it myself.

[Sylvester]

Matt:NGE rules

Pedro, Whether, not wether (nitpicking, sorry).

Apart from that, could you provide ares of explorations? Like, not possible answer, but rather questions, problems that need to be answered for WW.

[Bastian]

I'm sorry for any grammar mistakes you may find. As you must have already understood my language is not english  

The primer is up for review, and the only things I'm going to correct right now are my grammar mistakes. But keep giving on suggestions. I'll be gathering them all and I'll introduce them in the primer in the end.

Oh, and if you find any grammar error please quote or copy and paste where those errors are. It's VERY hard to go through the entire primer to search for a word (sylvester, I'm saying this because I haven't found that "wether" word yet).

[Bastian]

Sylvester, why don't you make a stompy primer

[Greven]

You did a very good job on this, good work Bastian. I personally like to play Mother in my Weenie decks, just because of her strentgh in the aggro matchup, perhaps that should be considered...

[Bastian]

Vs aggro decks you don't want to play mother. Mom has always been too slow for type 1. All you get is a 1/1 for w that needs to be tapped for its ability when you need the deck to be aggressive.

If this was another format (extended, for example) I would name mom as the best 1cc drop but just because there were no lions.

[Sylvester]

WK: I'd ahve no idea what to talk about in Stompy... I could give like little pointers (and stat tables  ), but nmothing more.

Also, for your grammar errors... i think i'll copy that in a wordprocessor, and edit everything that is to be change in red or something like that.

[Bastian]

Tanks Sylvester, I'd appreciate that.

As for the stompy primer, if I well remember you were the stompy player around, weren't you? Thought perhaps you could handle the primer as well..

[grey area]

I already started a grammer edit for part I. I will send it to you in a day or two when I have time to finish. Overall the errors are minor so don't be too worried about grammer. It would help a great deal to run it through a word processor yourself. If you don't have a word processor with an english spell checker you could sign up for a free yahoo mail account and e-mail the file to yourself. Yahoo mail has a spell checker. If the e-mail would be too large you could do it in sections. That would pick up 80-90% of the things I found so far.

[Bastian]

If I had a decent word processor which could check my grammar errors I would have used it already. Gotta get one myself... Any suggestions?

[Tom Gibbs]

The best way to check grammar is with an actual human... but they're really lazy =/

[drkavngr]

Bastian,

Open Office is free, and works for many platforms.

http://www.openoffice.org/

If you have a highspeed connection then consider that.  Openword is a good wordprocessor.

[cooberp]

I think The Patriot and variants are the best versions of RWU aggro in T1, perhaps a decklist would merit inclusion.

[Bastian]

LOL, you are right coob, but I didn't know where I was going to fit them in. I was actually going to made an appendix called "patriotic white weenies" and was going to include "star spangled slaughter" played by Scott Johns and JP's Patriot there, but in the end I felt they would be just cluttering up the space.

Besides, in the end it was proven that JP's deck was only good in a rich control metagame and I didn't have JP's original deck. I had something of my own, but I wanted JP's version.

[Zherbus]

I love the primer. Thank you for keeping it mostly relevent to todays metagame. While history is important, after a while it becomes skim-able at best.

One thing you may want to mention about WW with matchups, is that most any matchup it can pack a good sb card for. For example, if you expect stacker, pack the artifact hate etc.

[Bastian]

I'm glad about the positive feedback from you all. Thanks  

I'll be collecting your suggestions and during the weekend I'll review the primer and try to make use of them to complete the it.

[Matt The Great]

Sylvester: Yeah, I was wondering when someone would get the reference. And say something about it.

Quote Dual lands: efficient if you want to splash. Use them with tithe so you virtually use the double of duals.

I'm not sure what you wanted to say here but regardless, this sentence needs revising.

As a purely cosmetic fix, it's generally an easier read if you capitalize the names of cards, even when referred to in passing ("I Shocked his Birds").

Quote HOW TO PLAY WHITE WEENIE

White Weenie is a very simple deck to play, and if such the most dificult decisions you will come across areDrop a couple of creatures and swing with them while using other spells to deal with any threats your opponent plays.

'if' should be 'as', 'difficult' has a typo, 'areDrop' should be 'are drop', and actually everything after the word 'across' looks like it was spliced in from another sentence.

Quote Attacking with the creatures is not always the answer. White weenie is an aggressive deck and should be played like that, although in certain circumstances you will rather be blocking.

'you will' should be 'you would', or, better yet, say something like "though WW is an aggressive deck, there are certain situations in which you'd rather be blocking."

This 'you will rather' problem crops up in several more places, I'd suggest pasting the whole thing into Word and doing EDIT>FIND to locate all such instances.

Quote A good example of this situation was a match vs suicide black that had went wrong

"...that had gone wrong"

Most of the 'strategy' between the paragraphs that start "White Weenie is a very simple deck to play" and "I don't personally advise the use of tax-rack. " is really pretty general Magic strategy and doesn't apply specifically to White Weenie.

You discuss the use of Balance twice in the first section alone, and don't make any new points the second time around.
The sentence:

Quote While the consultation can be great, chances are that upon a bad consultation you'll lose a big chunk of your library

is poor, because the very definition of a bad Consult is one that chews most of the library. It's also important to note that in very homogenous decks, the only 'bad' Consult is one that actually does deck you.

[Matt The Great]

More suggestions...

When discussing Balance, you say

Quote And even though some lands can be powerfull, such as library of alexandria is, it's not the library you should worry with, but with the cards it draws.

First, powerful has only one L. Second, this hardly pertains to a discussion of Balance, because a control player usually won't sacrifice his best land. Third, because the Library is the source of these cards it most certinly IS something to worry about.

Quote Unless you creatures which can evade Morphling and race it in the damage race

Needs to be:
"Unless your creatures can evade Morphling and win the damage race..."

Quote Another possible solution is to play more creatures than those Morphling can kill and use them to win the damage race.

Should be:
"Another possible solution is to play more creatures than Morphling can kill and swarm attack for the win"

Another general rule for professional writing is to never use numerals unless they're shorter than the written words.
Example:
"you'll be on a 4 turn clock race against the time."
'4' should be 'four'.
Also pertaining to that sentence, it should be written as "you'll be on a four turn clock"
OR, if you suspect your audience won't know what you mean by clock:
"you'll be in a race against time, because the Morphling can kill you in four turns."

"Easy and cheap to build too" is a sentence fragment, you'd be better off splicing it on the previous sentence.

Quote Unfortunetely, as it would prove later on,

Should be: "Unfortunately, as would later be proven,..."

That's all for Part One, I think. I'll do part two later.

[Bastian]

Thanks for the help Matt, I've been revising the primer and I'll be editing what I posted on this board.

I agree with all your corrections except for one. You mentioned that my opinion about the use of tax-rack is pretty much general strategy. It happens so that the tax-rack combo is extremely popular and nearly always someone thinks about type 1 white weenie they'll try to use the combo.

That means that I did have to talk about it since it's an important part about white weenie, not just general strategy.

[Bastian]

Ok, I'm done with the editing but there should be some errors waiting to be corrected, so if you see something please tell me.

I've made some small changes to some phrases to make them simpler and clearer. I also took out Balance from the tricks section of the first part, and wrote about it in the creature removal part.

[Matt The Great]

No no, I meant the stuff BEFORE tax-rack, all the stuff about holding back blockers and such.

[Bastian]

Ops.. hehe  

Well, either way I think I just cut some needless stuff. No need to worry about it.

[Bastian]

I have already made a final review of the primer and asked zherbus to upload it to the primers section.

But before he does so I'd like to ask if there are any more suggestions or corrections that you would like to make.