White Trash!

[Stormanimagus]

So I know the title isn't my own creation, but I liked it when I saw it under a placing decklist so I figured I'd adopt it. Anyway, I wanted to start a threat about a deck I'm having some success with on Cockatrice. I've been honing it for a while now and I feel like I finally may have the correct balanced list for the meta. I give you:


White Trash

Land (19):
10 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Strip Mine

Artifacts (16):
4 Grafdigger's Cage
4 AEther Vial
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

Legendary Artifact (1):
1 Elbrus, the Binding Blade // Withengar Unbound

Artifact Creatures (4):
4 Phyrexian Revoker

Creatures (16):
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Leonin Relic-Warder

Instants (4):
4 Swords to Plowshares

Sideboard (15):
4 Ravenous Trap
2 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Path to Exile

This deck seeks to execute the mana-denial plan while beating down and "comboing out" with Elbrus. Never before has white had such a powerful dude as Elbrus and that is exciting. Having a near blightsteel-esque win con is pretty sick, but in White? that is freaking awesome. the deck could always use more tweaking, but for now it has been performing well, and I like that.

Thoughts or suggestions?

-Storm

[Stormanimagus]

No one has anything to contribute? I thought White Weenie would be a curiosity for many seasoned Fish players. I've been testing vs. Blue with this list and doing quite well (beat Rich Shay 2 days ago in 2 pretty routine games -- he was on remora so that may have had something to do with it). Where this deck seems to have issues is fast shop lists that run things like precursor golem or Slash Panther. Not sure how that weakness can be offset. My old list ran Student of Warfare to try and battle shops, but I just don't see it being that useful otherwise.

Comments?

-Storm

[nataz]

porcelain legionnaire has been a house against my slash panther lists. 3/x first strike at an effective 2cc beats just about everything the deck commonly throws out. Rather annoying actually.

[Commandant]

Quite frankly I believe you do not get comments on these builds because there's nothing interesting to them. For all intensive purposes you have posted a rather narrow and underpowered deck list with a few one liners and expect massive amounts of feedback, this seems silly.

White Weenie does not make a reason to play Vintage and that's disregarding the fact that the abilities of this list to interact with modern Vintage archetypes is borderline and boring at that. To each their own I guess.

Also this:

porcelain legionnaire has been a house against my slash panther lists. 3/x first strike at an effective 2cc beats just about everything the deck commonly throws out. Rather annoying actually.

[Stormanimagus]

Quite frankly I believe you do not get comments on these builds because there's nothing interesting to them. For all intensive purposes you have posted a rather narrow and underpowered deck list with a few one liners and expect massive amounts of feedback, this seems silly.

White Weenie does not make a reason to play Vintage and that's disregarding the fact that the abilities of this list to interact with modern Vintage archetypes is borderline and boring at that. To each their own I guess.

Also this:

porcelain legionnaire has been a house against my slash panther lists. 3/x first strike at an effective 2cc beats just about everything the deck commonly throws out. Rather annoying actually.

Nothing interesting? This deck has a lot of potential to wreck decks that are heavily reliant on fast spell chains (Gush) and it destroys remora gush thus far. I also think it'll beat some less aggro versions of shops as well as opposing fish and Oath. Dredge is rough but winnable with an early piece of hate + Thalia + Waste. This deck should crush Landstill (though I havn't tested that one). Where this deck might suffer is the new Tezzeret decks that are bound to emerge in the new meta. Without Stony Silence you lose a ton of game to that deck (it's the price you pay for running Vial). Anyway, I've said my piece. Don't offhandedly dismiss decks like this Commandant. I've played this game for years and I know what makes cards/interactions powerful. I've played Oath, TPS and even Gush at tournaments enough through the years to know they are powerful strategies. I just think decks like this should be more heavily weighted in the discussion than they are at present, especially in light of recent spoilers.

-Storm

[Blue Lotus]

porcelain legionnaire has been a house against my slash panther lists. 3/x first strike at an effective 2cc beats just about everything the deck commonly throws out. Rather annoying actually.

I've been using contagion clasp out of the board as an answer if that helps you. It's basically a 2 for one if you are running smokestack and to an extent tangle wire.

[overseer1234]

Here's what I've started testing:

4x    Æther Vial
1x    Batterskull
4x    Chalice of the Void    
4x    Grafdigger’s Cage 
1x    Sword of Fire and Ice
1x    Umezawa’s Jitte

4x    Phyrexian Revoker
   
4x    Leonin Arbiter       
4x    Stoneforge Mystic
3x    Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

4x    Mental Misstep    
4x    Swords to Plowshares    

17x    Plains
1x    Strip Mine
4x    Wasteland

So far so good, but still some things that I'm not sure about....

Just my 2 cnts

[xouman]

I was missing stony silence a lot, but then I noticed vial again. It seems that your only answer to time vault is revoker. While it's true you can play it with vial and avoid counters, it can still be bounced or destroyed. Also this list is well prepared against tinker, but I expect tinker to be less dominant or at least better prepared, and be tendrils or vault the cards to take in mind (talking about blue decks).

And I don't like thalia as a 4-of, I'd play 2/2 with katakis, glowriders or mindcensors.

Nevertheless, the deck looks great, white is improving each year in Vintage and I could see it achieving some tops around.

[Guli]

I want to comment on a more fundamental question. So what does going MONO white give us? Simple as that...

It is not like we are afraid of wasteland, especially with Vial usage. Also, Relic-Warder is the only bear that needs double white.

So what is it that prevents us to splash in at least another color for more stronger options?

[overseer1234]

I was missing stony silence a lot, but then I noticed vial again. It seems that your only answer to time vault is revoker. While it's true you can play it with vial and avoid counters, it can still be bounced or destroyed. Also this list is well prepared against tinker, but I expect tinker to be less dominant or at least better prepared, and be tendrils or vault the cards to take in mind (talking about blue decks).

And I don't like thalia as a 4-of, I'd play 2/2 with katakis, glowriders or mindcensors.

Nevertheless, the deck looks great, white is improving each year in Vintage and I could see it achieving some tops around.

Stony silence/null rod make's vial and Stonforge mystic (actualy the equipment, but that the only reason to play her) bad, so maybe if you realy want to play it you could add them instead of the vials, and play porcelain legionaire's, and leonin relic warder's instead of the stoneforge+equipment...

But I feel that without stoneforge+equip our 2/x dorks don't end the game quick enough....

Also, if you play revoker and fetch SoFaI, with mystic, it becomes a well protected clock+disruption....

[tito del monte]

Insert Quote
I want to comment on a more fundamental question. So what does going MONO white give us? Simple as that...

It is not like we are afraid of wasteland, especially with Vial usage. Also, Relic-Warder is the only bear that needs double white.

So what is it that prevents us to splash in at least another color for more stronger options?

That's a fair question - and I would say the only reason is the possibility of playing the 9-Strip effect manabase. If so it seems a shame not to back that up with mana denial in the form of Stony Silence (although Revoker can name moxen of course.. )

I did fiddle round trying to make a WW list a few sets ago and all I would say looking at these lists is: Is vial really worth it? None of the lists look like they're running enough creatures to really maximise it and secondly, with the printing of Grafkeeper's cage, the number of Mental Missteps being played is only going up - I don't think you can expect to run Vial in such a metagame without running Missteps yourself.

Anyway - it does feel like the possibility of playing mono white is increasing. Whether it's quite there yet, not sure.

[Stormanimagus]

Insert Quote
I want to comment on a more fundamental question. So what does going MONO white give us? Simple as that...

It is not like we are afraid of wasteland, especially with Vial usage. Also, Relic-Warder is the only bear that needs double white.

So what is it that prevents us to splash in at least another color for more stronger options?

That's a fair question - and I would say the only reason is the possibility of playing the 9-Strip effect manabase. If so it seems a shame not to back that up with mana denial in the form of Stony Silence (although Revoker can name moxen of course.. )

I did fiddle round trying to make a WW list a few sets ago and all I would say looking at these lists is: Is vial really worth it? None of the lists look like they're running enough creatures to really maximise it and secondly, with the printing of Grafkeeper's cage, the number of Mental Missteps being played is only going up - I don't think you can expect to run Vial in such a metagame without running Missteps yourself.

Anyway - it does feel like the possibility of playing mono white is increasing. Whether it's quite there yet, not sure.

9 Strip effects IS the reason to not go GW btw. If you go GW then you'll want fetches and Leonin Arbiter becomes worse. Obviously you could still run him and simply fetch your way to 2 mana in order to PLAY him but I'm not sure that in GW having 9 colorless mana sources is such a good idea. Gaddock costs GW and Qasali does as well. I don't want to be sitting there waiting to cast 2 key cards while my opponent misstepped my turn 1 Vial or has Revoker/Rod of his own on it. That's why I run mono-white.

As to the Silence vs. Not question. It's very painful to not be running it, but the reason is not because of Vial. The reason I don't run Silence is because Mystic + Elbrus is such a beating and you need to be able to equip Elbrus to activate making the 13/13.

-Storm

[Darkenslight]

Using this list:

Here's what I've started testing:

4x    Æther Vial
1x    Batterskull
4x    Chalice of the Void    
4x    Grafdigger’s Cage 
1x    Sword of Fire and Ice
1x    Umezawa’s Jitte

4x    Phyrexian Revoker
   
4x    Leonin Arbiter       
4x    Stoneforge Mystic
3x    Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

4x    Mental Misstep    
4x    Swords to Plowshares    

17x    Plains
1x    Strip Mine
4x    Wasteland

I have a few suggestions:

Lose the SFM package: in their place, add in:

4 Glowrider
3 Grand Abolisher

And drop the Chalices for either 4 Stony Silence or 3 Crucible of Worlds and one Hokori, Dust Drinker.  Drop out 7 plains for 3 Flagstones of Trokair and 4 Ghost Quarter.  That way, you have a long-term hard lock.

For the side, I'd recommend the following:

4 Haazda Shield-Mate
4 Stonecloaker
4 Soul Sculptor
3 Masako the Humorless

Not too sure on the Sideboard: I've tried to make it all creatures in order to play best with the 8 noncreatureSpheres in the main.  The Shieldm-mate and the Sculptor are there for strategies which cast few creatures, such as Dredge and Oath - we already have hate mainboard with the Cage. MAsako is there for the creature decks in the format, and allow for the surprise factor when they counterstrike.  Stonecloaker is there for other graveyard strategies based around single cards, such as Welder and Tendrils alt-wincons.

I'm not 100%, but I think this would be the way to go, meta-permitting.

[overseer1234]

If you'd like to play stony silence  you'd also have to cut aether vial.

So that's -7 SFM+Equip, and -4 vial +4 stony silence means 7 open slots

Maybe cut the chalice afterwards, and that makes 11 open slots....

Thing that really seem to fight over those slots are:

Aven mindsencor (combined with arbitter this makes ghostquarter really shine)
Glowrider (sphere 4 to 7)
Porcelain legionaire (we need something that can put up a fight with other creature stategy's)
Ethersworn Canonist (however this might be overkill)
Mother of runes (we really need some protection for our 2/x dorks)
Leonin relic warder (pinpoint artifact/enchantment removal, and we need somethin to drop on turn 1 other then the cage, since we've just cut vial and chalice...)

[credmond]

Elbrus actually looks quite nice. Its a tinker of sorts for critters. One thing you might need is critters with evasion to make sure the equipped creature hits. Otherwise the opponent will always chump it if he can. Aven mindcensor looks like a good candidate to fit that role.

[Darkenslight]

Elbrus actually looks quite nice. Its a tinker of sorts for critters. One thing you might need is critters with evasion to make sure the equipped creature hits. Otherwise the opponent will always chump it if he can. Aven mindcensor looks like a good candidate to fit that role.

The thing about this is that it absolutely requires SFM to even be remotely viable.

[Stormanimagus]

Elbrus actually looks quite nice. Its a tinker of sorts for critters. One thing you might need is critters with evasion to make sure the equipped creature hits. Otherwise the opponent will always chump it if he can. Aven mindcensor looks like a good candidate to fit that role.

The thing about this is that it absolutely requires SFM to even be remotely viable.

Blightsteel Colossus requires Tinker to be remotely viable. What is your point?

[Onslaught]

Thorn of Amethyst seems like it would be good in any deck with Thalia and Glowrider.

[tito del monte]

Elbrus actually looks quite nice. Its a tinker of sorts for critters. One thing you might need is critters with evasion to make sure the equipped creature hits. Otherwise the opponent will always chump it if he can. Aven mindcensor looks like a good candidate to fit that role.

The thing about this is that it absolutely requires SFM to even be remotely viable.

Blightsteel Colossus requires Tinker to be remotely viable. What is your point?

His point is, is it worth playing SFM over Stoney Silence. If you are going to be one of the decks playing the new Cage and pushing blue decks back towards Time Vault as a win condition, it becomes a valid question to ask if you shouldn't be playing Stoney Silence (or Null Rod) over SFM. I appreciate only testing will tell (for example in your build Storm, if the Revokers are robust enough to shut down Vault decks, whilst Vial gives you game against shops).

[Darkenslight]

Thorn of Amethyst seems like it would be good in any deck with Thalia and Glowrider.

Not really - who wants to pay for a bog-standard Sphere effect that isn't also a creature?

Blightsteel Colossus requires Tinker to be remotely viable. What is your point?

My point is that you're essentially playing a Hate game, as you're much less powered than pretty much any deck.  Stony Silence could probably become Katakis, so that it doesn't take a ton of mana to cast under your Sphere effects.  You're essentially countering Workshops, with splash hate for anything playing jewellery.  You want to be locking the game up whilst beating your opponents down.  SFM gets you equipment, and the only "good" equipment isn't even guaranteed to win you the game.  Note that I suggested removing all other artifacts except Aether Vial.  Vial allows you to cheat on casting your dudes.

I'd consider, from my earlier post, even changing another Crucible to a Hokori, Dust Drinker, so that you have the random lockdown wins.

[the_lord_shaper]

You could run both SFM and stony silence in the same list. Just tutor batterskull. The living weapon still triggers under rod or stony silence. It's not quite a 13/13 but then again you get rod or stony, so it may be worth it. You can just run the additional equipment in the side board.

[bakofried]

Mortarpod can also fire off once under a SSilence. Something to consider.

[Smmenen]

Storm: I definitely agree with you about SFM, but I don't think that means Stony Silence should be ruled out.

You also can't run more than 3 Thalias, so you'll need to shave one off. 

If you are going to play Vial, I would definitely run Relic Warders.   

I also prefer Batterskull to SOFI.   

What do you think about Mental Misstep?

[nataz]

the mana bugs me. Do you really want 26 mana + vial?

I'd consider mana crypt as well. Between SFM ability, equipment, or 2x spells per turn you should be able to spend it every turn. 

[bax]

The SFM doesn't combo well with the Arbirter, for this reason i would replace the 4x arbiter with 4x Aven. After all if you are going to play this full mox the deck can support Aven in place of Arbiter.

Plus with SFM i want a toolbox of equip, i want skullclamp, batterskull and sword of F&I (and jitte in side).

Tempting considering the 3x Kataki maindeck (even with our full mox up) and maybe even a 2x Mangara - Talia has to go down at least to 3x. With all those legendary stuff there would be plenty of possible drawing with skullclamp and a serious temptation to play more than 1 karakas.

[Guli]

With Vial and Acceleration AND the fact that people run more removal MD white aggro control should playtest



- Protects versus removal/bounce
- Can create evasion
- Not only creatures, but all your permanents can be saved

[Cane1024]

Thank you for starting this thread Storm. Ever since the printing of Cage and Thaylia I too have been thinking that mono white may have gotten exactly what it needed to contend on a descent level. I love your idea to death, but I'm still on the fence with the Stoneforge/Aether vile strategy. I think we should take a look into some of white's awesome and vicious lock pieces and see what we can abuse. First, to compete in vintage with this deck we need an early-game strategy that interacts and impacts quickly especially on the first turn, importantly throwing down speedy lock pieces, then crippling them with even more in the 2nd turn onward. To accomplish this, we can go with fast lock pieces and acceleration via Ancient tomb. I suggest we look at a combination of Chalice, Cage, Null rod, and maybe Thorn of Amethyst backed by Ancient Tomb, which can also help against a tough match up, Shops. Crucible of worlds is a card that I wish could have a home in this deck, yet it may not be so easy to cast around thorns, glowrider and Thaylia. My card choices:

Thorn of Amethyst:  With Glowrider/Thaylia in play first, it becomes a pain to cast, thus much weaker. But with this card in your opener, you can really slow an opponent down. But I'm honestly 50/50 on this card and it needs testing. Maybe running 2 would end up being the right decision.

Glowrider: Great for this deck, I would advise testing it. Can provide a lot of cushion with strip effects, and give you the room to lay down creature-based lock pieces.

Thaylia, Guardian of Thraben: Can't run more than 3, but she's a house.

Chalice of the Void: Damn near essential, for reasons I mentioned earlier about the importance of interacting early. The decks out there will easily get ahead without you packing these. Chalice at 1 does not hurt you much either, well at least with the route I am suggesting.

Null Rod/Stony Silence: If you run tomb, I would go with rod. Null Rod with 1 or 2 more lock pieces out is such a beating.

Grafdiggers Cage: No need for explanation here. This card annihilates game plans.

Ethersworn Canonist: Slowing down your opponent seems like a good idea to me. Canonist has some synergy with Cage and Mindsensor, attacking different lines of play.

Aven Mindsensor: Wow, this guy with Cage is so good. The one zone that Cage doesn't attack, Mindsensor really hits hard.

Phyrexian Revoker: Talk about smoothing out the edges of the deck, revoker does just that. Stopping cards on the field where other cards in the deck prevent them from getting into play.

Leonin Relic-warder and Swords to plowshares: Essential removal for what slips past. I would run 4 of each because Shops and Fish seem to be the worst match ups.

The interactions of these lock pieces are devestating. Adding in the strip effects and removal is the icing. I feel that the MVP other than Grafdiggers Cage has to be Aven Mindsensor, because of the crippling combo it has with cage. Talk about lights out! One problem with this list is that it has no fattys to put pressure or combat fish. Any suggestions on this problem? I'm also still working on a mana base but it would include Black lotus, Mox pearl, 6 to 8 strip effects, ancient tombs, and obviously plains. I just wanted to get this idea out there and contribute to this exciting idea. Lets not give up on it Storm. I have not come up with a sideboard yet but options other than whats been said could be Kami of Ancient Law (OATH) and Samurai of the Pale Curtain (DREDGE).

[Smmenen]

I tested my version of the deck last weekend, and it performed very well.

I'm going to unveil my list and 11 other Cage lists in an article this weekend/early next week.   I'm wiped out!

[Cane1024]

Awesome, can't wait to hear how it did. I'm going to do some further testing and share my results as well. One quick question for you Smmenen without you spoiling too much, did you go mono-white or splash another color?

[Smmenen]

Awesome, can't wait to hear how it did. I'm going to do some further testing and share my results as well. One quick question for you Smmenen without you spoiling too much, did you go mono-white or splash another color?

I built mono-white, although it has Mental Missteps maindeck, and then I built every other color permuation.   That's why there are 12 decklists: I designed and carefully constructed a decklist for every non-blue color permutation utilizing Cage.   I was impressed and surprised by many of them.   

White is extremely strong though, and I quickly discovered what was real and what was fool's gold.