{"ops":[{"insert":"Date: Sometime Late 2023\nMono-White Walkers was the third deck I ever built, and has gone through many changes/updates. It stands as the deck I have put the most money, time, and effort in too, hoping to make the best it could be.\n\nThe original philosopy behind this list was \"ultimates are powerful, but planeswalkers need creatures to protect them on the way there.\" So, I curated a set of creature token generating walkers with solid ultimates/emblems (which happened to be in white), and planned to use Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion paired with the Inspiring Leader background to speed up ultimate timelines and buff creature tokens. As for why this deck is mono-colored, I was (and still am) intrigued by mono strategies and the tools they provide, such as Throne of Eldraine and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. The first draft worked to a decent degree of success, as in the summer of 2023, I'd say I won more games than I lost when piloting this list. However, I think that success was due, in most part, to my playgroup not having an understanding of how quickly emblems could be acquired, as well as not having perfect knolwedge of each loyalty ability I had access to. After a while, my playgroup could properly understand what core synergy pieces to hit/when to start worrying about a walker, and the viablity took a nosedive.\n\nHappy that I had made my friends respect planeswalkers, but unhappy with the deck's lose streak, I set out to find a solution. I quickly landed on cards that operate similar to Ghostly Prison/Propoganda, but for planeswalkers. I figured that if I could assemble a board that made it difficult to hit walkers, I could pillowfort until I was comfortable with playing one, and then safely sit around until ultimate time. But this alone wasn't enough, as there were very few cards that did this at the time, so I introduced Fog-like cards as extra insurance plans. I even threw Maze of Ith in there! In theory, all I needed to do was leave one mana up for a Holy Day or Ethereal Haze and I could bait opponent into thinking they could kill a walker and potentially leave them exposed and retain the walker's loyalty. After this shift, I was able to pick up a game here and there, but this strategy was so tailored to fight against decks that swung with creatures, that it tended to fail hard to spellslinger, aristocrat, or drain decks. \n\nWizard's of the Coast must have sensed my displeasure with the deck's low win rate, as they announced the Planeswalker Party pre-con, alongside the godsend that is Gatewatch Beacon. With Beacon and Laezel on field, I could instantly put 3 loyalty on a walker the moment it hit the battlefield, so I decided to get smarter about my loyalty math. I cut most of the walkers with abilites that required you to get more than 3 loyalty to ult it, and also put in multiple cards with proliferation effects, as they mathed out the same as Lae'zel/Beacon did. With this iteration of the deck, instant-ultimates were the name of the game. While Fog and Ghostly Prison-like cards still remained in the list, they only came out if absolutely necessary. Most of the time, walkers remained in hand until they could be instant ult-ed, unless conditions demanded otherwise. While it certainly felt good to play walkers like mega-sorceries, there was a new realization that came with that: if you have an emblem that gives everything you got indestructible or makes you 3 lifelinkers on your endstep forever, you suddenly are the threat until you are dead. The issue with this was that one emblem, while strong, usually couldn't stand up to 3 people focusing you down, unless you got lucky and pulled off got a second one, which was fairly improbable. \n\nThe inablity to withstand the heat that comes with having an emblem was a really just a symptom of a larger issue. The truth is that this deck had always had a hard time closing out games. Halo Fountain quickly became a primary win-condition long ago, considering the low average power of the tokens that were created made swinging a poor prospect. Some games, I just couldn't find it or if I did, I had a vigilance anthem up, preventing me from tapping my creatures by swinging with them to win with Halo Fountain.\n\nSo it was back to the drawing board, once again. Things were not looking up. The deck's intial strength could easily be attributed to my opponents just not reading my cards, Fogs and Prison-like effects were too situational, and instant ult-ing drew too much heat for us to deal with effectively. So what to you do? Well, I started by attemping to address each of these painpoints indivdually. Took out the Fogs (but kept the Maze and attack taxers, I was fond of them), reconsidered my walkers with the understanding that my playgroup knows what they do, and (with a heavy heart) dethroned Lae'zel and her instant ult tools. Though after this change, there wasn't much reason to play the deck left. Why play planeswalkers if not for ultimates? Why even play a mono-white deck when there are excellent walker support in more colors? I'm sorry to say that the only answer I have is: because I wanted to. I had gained a reputation as \"The White Man\" in my playgroup and planeswalkers were understood as my domain, and I couldn't just give up on this deck I have poured so much of myself into. So we push on, starting over, with the basics.\n\nFirstly, white does not scream \"card advantage.\" While we do have the benefit of four seperate tutors for planeswalkers in white (including a double tutor), card draw was pratically non-existent. Second, while skipping straight to an emblem is strong, but ultimately fragile and unsustainable. Third, we need to turn our dedication to white into a boon, rather than a bane. To address our first problem, I selected Mangara, the Diplomat as our new commander. A subtle card draw engine, that even added a punishment to swinging at my walkers or me. Then, we slimmed our walker lineup down to just the good token producing ones, only keeping a few with scary emblems. The thought process was that most of the +1 abilties on these walkers made tokens, so why not build into that? I mean, the original philosophy was that they protected themselves on the way to the ult after all, so lets give that a try. Lastly, I read every card that cared about the use of Plains, white mana, white creatures, white anything, and put them in. Tools like Endless Atlas, Endless Horizons, Throne of Eldraine, Keeper of the Accord, Emeria Shepherd, and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx serve as decent mono-white payoffs. Lastly, I threw in as much as I could to support token strategies, such as Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation, get token generation to overwhelming levels.\n\nSounds like a good pivot right? Well, I ultimately found that a version with Mangara at the head felt unfocused. He's almost too generic in a way. Sure, card draw in the command zone in mono-white is great, but Mangara encourages more of a politics style deck. Furthermore, with Mangara as commander, there was practically zero reason to the keep the deck as planeswalkers: there just isn't any real synergy there. It would much more easily operate as some sort of mono-white token goodstuff deck with cards like Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, and Myrel, Shield of the Argive. But even then, that deck would much rather have Mondrak, Glory Dominus or Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation at the head. With this in mind, I put Lae'zel and Inspriring Leader back in the command zone, as they serve nicely as both planeswalker and creature token payoffs. I did keep most of the creature token creating/multiplying effects however, as I still believe that instant ult-ing is not the way to go. I put the best ways to do it back into the deck, but the overall strategy is much more token focused now. Hopefully this will serve as a way to buff the token generation side of the deck, while also keeping some of that emblem/ultimate magic that we love planeswalkers for.\n\nWhile these changes are still in the early stages of being tested, I'm hopeful that these innovations will help make my playgroup occasionally fear Mono-White Walkers. I'll update this as time goes on, and more changes come up! Thank you for your time, and happy building!\n\n\nDate: 1/13/2024\nThe previous note was made a few months ago, and needless to say the deck has changed a lot since then! I figured I'd add an update just for the few who are interested in the thoughts I've had. First, to address the elephant in the room; I have swapped the background out, I am now playing Noble Heritage over Inspiring Leader. The fact of the matter is, when mono-white would go toe to toe with any dedicated token deck, it would consistently be unable to keep up with their token generation. In addition, winning the game with tokens felt exceptionally difficult, as it always felt like I could only make enough tokens to defend my walkers, but never enough to comfortably swing with. Also, Inspiring Leader was always an awkward card to play due to it sharing the same spot on the curve as Lae'zel. This meant that some games it never got cast or was outright forgotten about, which is never good. \n\nSo why swap to Noble Heritage? Well, it turns out that half of the white walkers +1 abilities give Lae'zel some really good keywords, such as Ajani, Caller of the Pride giving flying and double strike or Ajani Steadfast giving first strike, vigilance, and lifelink. With this in mind, the idea is that you can play Noble Heritage turn two and then on turn three, play a Lae'zel that will be a 6/6 (3/3 base plus 3 +1/+1 counters, as she gets two from Noble Heritage and an extra from her own line of text). From here, every turn, Lae'zel gets an additional 3 +1/+1 counters, resulting in her becoming massive incredibly quickly. In theory, she presents a turn 5 lethal that only requires you to hit your first three land drops (also assuming your opponent can't block). Here is that line:\nTurn 1, nada. (Ozolith, Luxior, or Sol Ring if you're lucky)"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Turn 2, cast Noble Heritage."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Turn 3, cast Lae'zel who enters as a 6/6 because of Noble Heritage."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Turn 4, make Lae'zel a 9/9 at upkeep and swing for 9 commander damage."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Turn 5, make Lae'zel a 12/12 and swing on the same player, reaching 21 commander damage and knocking them out of the game."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThis line (despite it's general unbelievablity) is done pretty much every game now, and results in a much more aggressive playstyle, where you're trying to get a big hit of commander damage in early on someone, and then finding a way to get the second commander damage hit in later in the game to knock them out. Now, you might ask, why play this as planeswalkers instead of a dedicated +1/+1 counter deck and to that I'd say... tutors. Mono-white is notoriously bad in terms of card draw, but when you are playing planeswalkers, you suddenly have access to Search for Glory, Ignite the Beacon, Call the Gatewatch, and Djeru, With Eyes Open (plus Open the Armory for equipment). This means that you suddenly have the ability to search for exactly what keyword or effect you need at any given moment, which is immensely helpful. \n\nWith this now being a voltron style deck, there are some minor changes I've made, such as adding Ozolith and cutting a few cards that care about token production. Overall, I'm very happy with this change and I was even able to pick up a win with it today! I'll update whenever I find something new to change or add!\n\n\nDate: 1/18/2024\nThere's a lot to report about the previous change, and I am happy to say it's all very positive. Since switching to Noble Heritage and adopting a more voltron-esqe win condition, the deck has brought home quite a few wins in terrifying fashion. The previously posted \"flow chart\" of turns 1 - 5 has proved to be surprisingly consistent and doable, mainly because it's somewhat easy to get the 9 damage in turn 4 and find some way to make Lae'zel unblockable or flying turn 5 to finish people off. Further, in pursuit of taking advantage of being a mono color deck, I have decided to pursue playing more one mana cards, such as Skrelv, Defector Mite as a searchable (via Search for Glory) Mother of Runes, Land Tax to make land drops a certainty, and Authority of the Consuls as a way to tap down early game blockers. Most multicolor decks spend their first turn playing a tapped land, in order to have access to it on later turns, but with this deck's ability to have access to untapped mana turn 1, I feel it's important to take advantage of that. To assist with this, I have also implemented a higher basic plains count, cutting a significant portion of our utility lands.\n\nYou may also notice a few more powerful staples in the deck such as Smothering Tithe, Land Tax, The One Ring, etc. I'll say this about their inclusion: I'm here to make a generally janky deck as effective as possible, and thus I'll take whatever help I can to do so. Additionally, some of these staples fit excellently into the mana curve, with Land Tax being a fantastic turn 1 play and The One Ring/Smothering Tithe feeling great on turn 4. Turns 2 and 3 are monopolized by our background and commander respectively, and in a deck that's looking to go as fast as this one is, I feel that it's important to play on curve and squeeze every drop of value out of every turn. \n\nI'd like to give an updated flow chart for turns 1 - 5, just as a way of showing the deck's early game process, so the following is a guide to those turns, assuming no mana acceleration but also consistent landrops.\nTurn 1: Cast Luxior, Shadowspear, Ozolith, Authority, Skrelv, Land Tax or Esper Sentinel. If you're lucky enough to have one of these turn 1 plays, you should be in a excellent position."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Turn 2: Cast Noble Heritage."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Turn 3: Cast Lae'zel, putting 3 +1/+1 counters on her due to Noble Heritage plus her baseline effect."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Turn 4: Put 3 more +1/+1 counters on Lae'zel at upkeep. Cast and equip Trailblazer's Boots/Swiftfoot Boots or cast an attack taxer such as Archangel of Tithes, Baird, or Archon of Absolution. Casting a Call the Gatewatch or Search for Glory for something like Ajani, Caller of the Pride or Ajani Steadfast is also solid. Attack with Lae'zel at someone with no blockers or someone who only controls their commander. This means you'll either connect or force them to slow their gameplan way down."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Turn 5: Put 3 more +1/+1 counters on Lae'zel at upkeep. Do any of the things listed on turn 4 if you haven't already or focus your efforts on connecting a second time with Lae'zel on the person you hit last turn, hopefully getting to 21 commander damage. "},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nNow, we all love a good flow chart and on paper it feels unbeatable, but lets zoom out for a moment and talk about threat assessment. This deck's gameplan is fast for sure, but it's also insanely telegraphed: a well placed removal spell or counterspell on the commander or background can really slow you down. But don't worry, you're not down and out immediately. If this happens, priority number one is to recast whichever of your commanders got removed or countered: they are the whole deck, don't let them stay off the battlefield for too long. If you are in a position where you lack the mana to recast one of your commanders, the best runner up play is something that protects you or gets you that mana, without drawing too much heat. Play an attack taxer, Land Tax, Throne of Eldraine, Endless Horizons, etc: cards that are going to make sure that mana is available on future turns or that you can keep heat off you until you draw into something that helps you get back on track. Slamming down a One Ring or Smothering Tithe or shotgunning a tutor is gonna keep the heat on you when you're already on the backfoot, which we really want to avoid. \n\nI'll update with more information if any changes are made, but I have to say... I feel like I'm getting close. This deck is scary consistent, super well thought out, and I feel like every card matters. I'm approaching a certain point where I'm not sure what else to do. I started off with the simple thought that \"planeswalkers should make their own blockers\" and eventually realized that going for a full token strategy was decent at keeping me/my walkers alive, but lacked the ability to close out the game on it's own. After a long while of trying to make token wins work, I realized that lots of my wins came from commander damage, so I pivoted to a more appropriate background and found that the deck could easily present a win condition within the first few turns. The walkers and their emblems were suddenly no longer the win condition, instead they were insanely searchable voltron tools that effectively captialized on Lae'zel ability to get massive incredibly quickly. This journey has been incredibly fufilling, but now that the deck is putting up consistent wins, I fear we approach the end of the innovation. But regardless, there will always be more decks to build and more cards to consider. Anyways, if you read all this, I hope that this jumbled collection of musings and deck theory gave you some insight or ideas and I wish you happy deckbuilding.\n\nDate: 4/1/2024\nThis update comes after a few months of playing the previously presented build and I have to say... it's some heat. I am very pleased with the results of over a year of tinkering and as I mentioned in my previous update, I think we are getting close to complete. However, in reflection, I found that there is a certain philosophy that I would like to walk back slightly: maxing out on mono-colored payoffs. I cut Endless Horizons and I added Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire back into the list. So why are these considered reducing the amount of mono-colored payoffs, and why was I so adamant about playing as many mono-colored payoffs as possible? \n\nWhen you're giving up the chance to play more than one color in your commander deck, you're at an adherent disadvantage compared to dual, tri, four count, or WUBRG decks. More colors means access to more cards, which means a few things. Increasing your accessible card pool by adding colors means you not only have access to the best cards in those colors, but also you no longer need to run cards that try to mimic a effect that the other color has better access to. For example, if you are playing a green deck, your options for creature removal are fairly limited or conditional (bites, fights, etc). This might lead you to playing some weaker removal spells to have at least something when the moment arises. However, the moment you add white to that deck, you suddenly have access to very good creature removal, and thus can remove those green removal spells. More colors means not only that you now have access to the best that color has to offer, but also that you now do not need to play bad cards to fill in certain gaps. \n\nYou're likely saying \"Sure, so what? What does this have to do with mono-colored payoffs?\" When you are restricted to only one color, you become limited to what that color offers (duh). This means you'll need to play those bad green removal spells or in our case, those bad white draw spells. So, you've suddenly shot yourself in the foot, what do you do about it? Well, because your card pool is so limited, you start to look not only for what your color does best, you also begin looking for cards that only your color/strategy can play (cards that have very strict pip devotion, cards that care about your color's basic lands, etc.) And in certain circumstances, like Throne of Eldraine or Nyxthos, Shrine to Nyx, these cards can be incredibly powerful. While these cards are certainly very good, there tends to be very few of them, which causes the mono-colored deckbuilder to search far and wide for cards whos effect only truly works in their deck- in the hopes of gaining access to something that warrants such a restriction. Endless Horizons, on paper, is quite the interesting card. Exile all of your basics to make hitting your landrops a certainty while also thinning your deck, increasing your chances to draw bombs. Because this card cares so much about basic lands (Plains in particular), it only really makes sense to play in a mono-colored deck and thus might seem like a reason to play mono-white... however, just because that is the only enviroment it makes sense to play it in, that doesn't mean it's suddenly a good card. What I'm trying to say is this; restricting yourself to only one color in Commander is generally a bad idea, and while there are tools that potentially can reward you for doing so, maintain the same level of scrutiny towards those cards as you do towards everything else. Just because your deck is in a unique position which makes a certain card playable, doesn't mean you should play it. Thus, I have cut Endless Horizons. \n\nAdditionally, two mono-colored payoffs can be in contention with each other, which can be frustrating considering how few of them are available to you in the first place. To some, they may say \"screw the contradiction, I need to max out on these reasons to play a mono-color deck\", but steady your hand and listen. A good example is Emeria, Sky Ruin. On first read, Emeria feels like a very impressive payoff for a mono-white deck- and I won't claim that it isn't. I liked the idea of it so much that awhile ago I decided to cut a critical mass of utility lands (which mono-colored decks have the ability to play a high count of, due to usually not needing mana-fixing) in favor of a higher basic land count to make sure Emeria's effect was online as often as possible. In practice, I have found that getting to Emeria's required basic land count is a long road, and in a deck with 13 creatures (including the commander) it's sometimes very underwhelming. On the other hand, I find myself missing the added utility of Maze of Ith-like effects or Eiganjo as a potential removal spell. Thus these two payoffs, having Emeria online as often as possible and the ability to play cool tech lands, were in conflict with each other. When faced with this situation, simply ask yourself which of the two do you enjoy more and which plays best with the deck. For me, the answer was that while I valued the plays Emeria makes possible (such as sending Lae'zel to grave when removed to reanimateat next upkeep and dodge commander tax), I valued having the ability to get extra utility out of my landbase more, and thus changed the deck accordingly. \n\nI'll leave you with this, creating a mono-colored deck is a very fun process, because it requires you to get creative with your card choice and deckbuilding philosophies. But, there is going to be something that your deck struggles to do, and thats okay, there are also going to be things that only your deck can do. Just make absolutely certain that in your search for mono-color meaning, you don't wade too far out into the waters of \"bad cards that your specific deck makes somewhat playable.\" \n\nLastly, in terms of recent card changes, the majority of them are just the inclusion of more removal and more powerful staples as I try to take this pet deck to the moon! Quickly though, I am experimenting with having a higher overall count of removal spells, and will express my thoughts on them at a later time. Thank you for reading and happy deckbuilding!\n"}]}