The Common White Deck
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The white weenie hoards, an all commons banding deck out for the quick kill.
Who says white is all defense?
4
Benalish Hero
Neatly sums up the entire deck. Quick, fast, banding creatures.
By the time your opponent finally gets her
Shivan
out, she should be so low
on life that she is forced to block your banded hoard, trading the life of
her dragon to kill your humble hero.
4
Pikemen
Highly versatile creature. Although first strike is a
sub-theme of this deck, it is only icing on the cake. It is banding that
kills your opponent's valuable creatures while you lose only expendable ones.
4
Mesa Pegasus
One of the weaknesses of this deck is the absence of flyers. The Mesa is a
very valuable creature in this respect. It is often free to attack
independently, while still being able to band when an attack needs it's help.
Skyknights are very good creatures, however they are quite
expensive. The difference between 2 and 3 casting cost creatures is rather
large in a weenie deck.
4
Battering Ram
Although few decks use walls, an early
Wall of
Swords or
Wall of Air
can be quite devasting to a weenie deck. The Ram can get you out of that
corner. Besides, it is also a cheap bander.
4 Errand of Duty
With so many banders dead from Type II rotation, Errands are one of the few banders left.
There's little reason to play this on your own turn, because it will have summoning sickness anyway.
Better to trick your opponent into attacking before the ambush.
4
Infantry Veteran
Almost a bander, but can get around annoying
Basilisks (if anyone actually plays them in a tournament).
4 Phyrexian War Beast
The universal weenie. Rather expensive to cast, but worth the extra toughness needed for banding, especially in a deck that hardly needs land.
4 Samite Healer
and 4 Femeref Healer
Sammy and his annoying cousin are also often underestimated by experienced players. However, they
offer much needed protection from
Deserts. With
2 out, you can survive Tims.
And if you're playing a red deck, it may be wise to not always attack with
Sammy to help prevent losing all your creatures to one Fireball.
They also allow your 1/1 creatures to survive encounters with your
opponent's 1/1's.
3
Disenchant
Every defensive white deck needs some. This isn't exactly a defensive deck, but hey, what the heck,
put 'em in anyway.
3
Remedy
Getting a bit high on the defensive card count, but... Not quite as impressive as
Martyrdom, but
saves at least five 1/1's with just 2 mana.
18
Plains
Because this deck is both monochromatic and only really needs 2 mana to get
going, the land ratio is even less than a third. For this reason, you must
be very careful when deciding to add more cards requiring 3 or higher
casting cost.
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Deck Notes
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This deck is very focused. That is both one of its strengths and one of its
weaknesses. Since you almost never need more than 2 plains to cast a creature, it is
nearly immune to land destruction decks and will eat Howling
Mine/Vise decks
for lunch. Likewise, by the time a discard
deck gets going, all your
offense is already on the table. A blue permission deck will also run into
the problem that none of your creatures are really worth countering or
controlling, because your deck's strength is in the numbers, not individual
cards. It is often a good idea to simply hold unneeded land in your
hand, both to make your opponent fear you have something up your sleeve
and to survive Flashfires or
Stench of
Evil; even Gloom is much less
devastating than when used against other white decks. Meekstone
of course is laughable.
Because a deck this focused can defeat many other decks, there are also decks
out there that can really devastate this one. Although Tim's cousins
are a significant threat, however, like Pestilence,
not many experienced players use them. The real danger is in Earthquake,
Pyroclasm,
and Wrath
of God. Against these decks, it is often a good idea to save one or
even two creatures in your hand, in case all the creatures on the table
are wiped out. It is doubly advisable to save a War Beast in your hand if
you already have another on the table.
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Sideboard
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The sideboard will help you deal with some of the weaknesses mentioned above.
1 Disenchant
One of the greatest defensive cards in existance. Most cards only dream of handling artifacts and enchantments as quickly and efficiently as this.
4 Righteous Aura
Pull it out against burn and
hammer decks. Not quite a
Forcefield, but more flexible and cheaper to cast,
not to mention better against Specters too.
3 Martyrdom
Round out your deck to take on those
mass damage decks.
If you're really paranoid, you might want to throw in an additional one as well as another
Remedy.
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Improvements
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While tournament white weenie decks contain the likes of Crusades and
Jihads,
these uncommons will also serve you well.
Uncommon improvements:
4 Order of the White Shield
Ice Age's answer to Leitbur.
Quick and efficient. Just 3 mana needed to take out Juggernauts.
Never pump until after your opponent has declared blockers.
You might need to save that mana to conjure something after the attack.
4 Longbow Archer
or
4 White Knight
Two mana for two damage, plus numerous special abilities is a big plus.
4 Spirit Link
or
4 Reprisal
This ain't no Stp
but they'll have to do.
Retired cards:
4 Icatian Infantry
and
4 Kjeldoran Warrior
Alas the poor banders of yesteryear, we knew them well.
3 or 4
Swords to Plowshares
More often used in tournaments than Terror because it works on more creatures
and because it works on the first turn.
Giving your opponent extra life means less in the long run than when you are
playing a direct damage deck. Removing creatures from the game is only icing.
4
Morale
Finally, a non-creature! A relatively high cast-cost card for this deck, but not
useful early on anyway. Morales are excellent for dealing an unexpected
killing blow to your opponent. Save it in your hand until you go in
for the kill, or to deal with nasty surprises like Sandstorm.
If you can find them, Army of
Allah will speed up your kill time tremendously. However, being Arabian
Nights commons, there may be fewer Armies in existance than Revised and
4th Edition rares.
4
Holy Light
An excellent sideboard card to take out all other non-white weenie decks, Seasingers, Sorceress
Queens, and even Clay Statues.
Nearly useful enough to become a non-sideboard card, if you can get the mana
to play both Light and a Morale at the same time.
