Never had a good solo white deck, so I wanted to throw one together that I thought would work pretty well in an average game with my friends.
I tried to keep it low mana cost so it'll work quick, with cards like Knight of the White Orchid, Stoneforge Mystic, and Skullclamp for draw ability. Vault Skirge, Knight of Meadowgrain, and Soul Warden should offer more than enough lifegain, with Orim's Chant to help stall as well. Sun Titan and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite will be my big end gamers in an extended match, but I'm counting on the equipment and Honor of the Pure to boost my weenies enough that it will hopefully not get to that point.
So what do you guys think? I like how most of the cards will seemingly work well together, but am always open to suggestions if you think it could use a little more of something, or maybe an alternative to what I have. Like I mentioned, I'm not much of a white player, so any advice would be appreciated.
Never had a good solo white deck, so I wanted to throw one together that I thought would work pretty well in an average game with my friends.
I tried to keep it low mana cost so it'll work quick, with cards like Knight of the White Orchid, Stoneforge Mystic, and Skullclamp for draw ability. Vault Skirge, Knight of Meadowgrain, and Soul Warden should offer more than enough lifegain, with Orim's Chant to help stall as well. Sun Titan and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite will be my big end gamers in an extended match, but I'm counting on the equipment and Honor of the Pure to boost my weenies enough that it will hopefully not get to that point.
So what do you guys think? I like how most of the cards will seemingly work well together, but am always open to suggestions if you think it could use a little more of something, or maybe an alternative to what I have. Like I mentioned, I'm not much of a white player, so any advice would be appreciated.
If you dont want to concentrate on lifelink, i would replace the Soul Warden. He wont win the game for you and you have enough other lifelink options. Instead i suggest another first strike creature, these are all good: Porcelain Legionnaire (good round 2 drop)
If you dont want to concentrate on lifelink, i would replace the Soul Warden. He wont win the game for you and you have enough other lifelink options. Instead i suggest another first strike creature, these are all good: Porcelain Legionnaire (good round 2 drop)
The only decks I really have experience with in terms of mono white are,
1: Soldiers
2: Soul Sisters
3: Knights
The above deck kinda has bits and pieces of everything but the massive problem I see right off the bat is, you only have 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in your deck. Now if you must run this card you need to run 2, (yes I know about the legendary issue) because it is a GIANT target, huge huge huge target and if one gets removed (which it will) whats your next plan?
It just seems to me that your deck almost revolves around this single card as I can see no other real win conditions in your deck. Everything is low cost, low power, and things like Loxodon Warhammer don't really add a huge punch in my opinion because you only have 6 creatures with first strike to equip it to.
Perhaps if you do not play with people who run any sort of creature removal, first strike, deathtouch, ect that may be ok, but I think you need to focus on one thing and do it well. Like the above mentioned, Serra Ascendant is also a nice WinCon.
As for Sun Titan being another WinCon for you, that may seem so but without really using his ability to gain a huge benefit rather than just return say, a Knight of Meadowgrain this only reinforces my point of Ajani's Pridemate in this deck. You can use your Pridemate as complete pressure and always bring him back with a Sun Titan, and if you have at least 1 Soul Warden in play you have an instant 3/3 upon re-entry.
Foremost, I don't really like the idea of stalling with a white weenie deck. It goes against the basic philosophy of attack, attack, then attack more! The longer the game goes on, the lower your chances of winning with this type of deck. Each turn that passes, their creatures are going to be getting bigger than yours they might draw a sweeper, etc.
Stuff to remove:
I really don't like the vault skirge x4. They don't fit the deck, they fail to
benefit from Honor the Pure, plus you'll be losing life to cast them. How about some Soltari Champion here instead?
I'm also not a fan of the artifacts/mystic. Lightning greaves seems pointless, the 2 mana you spend casting to haste something could have just been used to cast another creature. Most of your creatures aren't worth protecting with shroud. Let them waste a removal on your early weenies. Generally, equipment slows you down a turn. You're better off just trashing all the artifacts and replacing them with real threats. (creatures)
If you really want to stick to using equipment, get some better equipment in there, namely a set of the swords like sword of war and peace etc.
As Gibbonmonk already mentioned, Mentor of the Meek is better than skullclamp because instead of killing your own creatures, you'll get a creature you can attack with that also gets bonuses from honor the pure.
Windbrisk Heights might be a nice utility land for your deck. And it's not a must have, but if you really enjoy playing this deck in the future, a Land Tax is a good investment because it really helps you thin out your land so you're always drawing creatures.
Also, you might eventually want to try and solidify your creatures into a certain type- Knight, human, or soldier are the easiest. There are buff cards like mobilization that have synergy with a certain type of white creature.
Anyway, that's quite a few suggestions, hopefully you'll find at least one of them useful!
I wouldn't be so quick to say Mentor the Meek is stronger than Skullclamp. 4 clamps mean I don't think I would like to play against this deck at the kitchen table.
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. I recieved lots of valuable input, and actually feel guilty I couldn't include some of the ideas that I thought were really good. I decided to have the deck more focused on creatures/lifelink. I added Ajani's Pridemate because paired with Soul Warden I can see it becoming devastating. I took out all the equipment in favor of the creatures, with Mentor of the Meek replacing the Skullclamp. The 4 Vault Skirge was just a cheap flier with lifelink that I threw in, but you guys are right, it doesn't fit well. But with Serra Ascendant and Serra Avenger I have better flying creatures that also fit into the theme of this deck as well. Windbrisk Heights is a fantastic utility land that might just help me drop my big guys early game if I get lucky. As careful as I was to look into cards for this deck, I still managed to overlook many of the cards you suggested, there's just too many, haha.
So how do you feel about this deck now? I'm feeling much more confident about it's playability, but wouldn't mind some last few comments before I go ahead and purchase it.
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. I recieved lots of valuable input, and actually feel guilty I couldn't include some of the ideas that I thought were really good. I decided to have the deck more focused on creatures/lifelink. I added Ajani's Pridemate because paired with Soul Warden I can see it becoming devastating. I took out all the equipment in favor of the creatures, with Mentor of the Meek replacing the Skullclamp. The 4 Vault Skirge was just a cheap flier with lifelink that I threw in, but you guys are right, it doesn't fit well. But with Serra Ascendant and Serra Avenger I have better flying creatures that also fit into the theme of this deck as well. Windbrisk Heights is a fantastic utility land that might just help me drop my big guys early game if I get lucky. As careful as I was to look into cards for this deck, I still managed to overlook many of the cards you suggested, there's just too many, haha.
So how do you feel about this deck now? I'm feeling much more confident about it's playability, but wouldn't mind some last few comments before I go ahead and purchase it.
So I have a few issue still with this, nothing big but just food for thought.
Knight of the White Orchid in many cases you only need to run two of him, the ability is great but you can find 1 other creature that can fill the spot. My experience with this is with most knight decks that run him they only run two and I have never seen a three or four of, granted you have 4 expensive creatures but standard mana draw may be enough since his ability only triggers upon you not having as much as your opponent.
Mentor of the Meek is a great card, BUT he does not work at all with Honor of the Pure. Honor of the Pure is a static ability so as soon as any creature comes into play he gets the additional +1+1 without triggering the ability of Mentor of the Meek, so in short these two cards don't mix and match.
Since you are running Knight of the White Orchid you most certainly want to replace Arrest with Path to Exile. Having a 1CC permanent removal vs something that can get removed for 3CC is an easy choice. Yes you give them additional mana, but you also retrieve a land for yourself with Knight of the White Orchid.
EDIT: Additional food for thought would be running four of these Flagstones of Trokair. These cards activate there own legendary clause which lets you draw two mana from your deck which is fantastic because it thins your deck out so you get better card draw.
I'm not sure I see the benefit of Path to Exile vs. Arrest. Sure, it permanently gets ride of their creature, but they also get another land to help them play more, bigger creatures next turn, where as Arrest cripples their creature and they have to spend more mana to fix it up again. Then again, I am pretty prejudice against any card that gives my opponent an advantage. I just think if I'm running mostly low cost creatures, I don't want to give them more mana to help even things out. Honor of the Pure paired with Mentor of the Meek is definitely something I overlooked, and needs remedied. Maybe I'll switch it out with Squadron Hawk for an extra flier, and they would also help thin my deck as well as push more creatures onto the field. Flagstones of Trokair is a more than welcome addition to my deck. I'll more than likely throw in a playset of them.
I'm not sure I see the benefit of Path to Exile vs. Arrest. Sure, it permanently gets ride of their creature, but they also get another land to help them play more, bigger creatures next turn, where as Arrest cripples their creature and they have to spend more mana to fix it up again. Then again, I am pretty prejudice against any card that gives my opponent an advantage. I just think if I'm running mostly low cost creatures, I don't want to give them more mana to help even things out. Honor of the Pure paired with Mentor of the Meek is definitely something I overlooked, and needs remedied. Maybe I'll switch it out with Squadron Hawk for an extra flier, and they would also help thin my deck as well as push more creatures onto the field. Flagstones of Trokair is a more than welcome addition to my deck. I'll more than likely throw in a playset of them.
Arrest can be good, but also 3CC. So even though you are giving a mana edge to your opponent you can blow down anything they put out with 1CC. If you only pay 1CC instead of 3CC you can then put down your Knight of the White Orchid the same turn you blew down your opponents creature and get a mana of your own for your large creatures.
But if you completely are dead set against it, you would be better off using Journey to Nowhere over Arrest hands down.
But, something to take note on, the top white removal spells in the game in terms of effectiveness and cost are;
That may be opinionated but it is the opinion of a lot of players out there, possibly not so much Condemn but for 1CC it is really solid.
If you take a look at my own Knight deck in my signature, you will see I run Path to Exile for the same reason as I give you, I run Knight of the White Orchid. You have to figure this, yes you give them mana, but you are also giving yourself mana.
The OP sounded like he plays this deck a lot in multiplayer. If so, toss the spot removal for some good white board sweepers. Wrath of God or Terminus. Spot removal is pretty lackluster when there is more than one opponent.
The OP sounded like he plays this deck a lot in multiplayer. If so, toss the spot removal for some good white board sweepers. Wrath of God or Terminus. Spot removal is pretty lackluster when there is more than one opponent.
I guess Day of Judgment works better if you're using Knight, but I don't see how Knight really factors into the lifegain plan.
I still think the deck could be fine-tuned. If you're going the soul sisters/lifegain route, you might as well go all in with it. I'd remove some of the extraneous stuff that doesn't really fit into that gameplan, like Orim's Chant, Honor of the Pure, Mentor of the Meek, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, for other things that do. Also get rid of the 3 Arrests for some kind of board sweepers, and you only need 2 really, if multiplayer is your thing.
Wrath of God and friends will hurt your deck more than it will hurt others usually. WW runs spot removal over board sweepers because we aren't trying to control the entire board, we just need spot removal to take down key things that would otherwise lose us the game. WW is not a control deck. We aren't trying to kill every creature that ever existed, just kill the things that are too big for our creatures to handle. We run dudes with first strike and pump exactly for that reason. Don't try and control things in an aggro deck, we will end up killing more of our own guys and slowing yourself down too much.
As good as skullclamp is, a lot of our guys have more than 1 toughness, so skullclamp won't even be that reliable. Mentor of the meek gives us another warm body to fight with. As for the point that he doesn't work with honor of the pure, that not entirely true. Sure, they can cause anti-synergy, but you have to realize that you won't have an honor and a mentor out at the same time every game. In fact, out of the hundreds of games I've played, only a handful of times have I ever run into this problem.
There is a reason why swords to plowshares and path to exile are the most overused removal in every format they are legal in, and arrest is never used. Mana cost, and instant speed. Arrest can't even go online until turn 3, and when it does, it means you lost tempo because you couldn't play any threats that turn. That's bad news in an aggro deck.
And you mentioned something about being hesitant against cards with drawbacks. The only good players in magic are the ones who are able to see a card for its true worth, even if its covered in bad abilities. Look at necropotence. That card alone won tournaments, for a few years in a row. Look at how many drawbacks that card has. People shunned the card when it first came out, calling it the worst card in ice age. And now its considered one of the best draw spells in magic, even giving good 'ol ancestral recall a run for its money. Moral of the story, don't shun a card just because it has a negative ability. The cards with drawbacks often times prove to be the best ones in magic.
Onto the actual deck:
So far, you look like you are basically running a soul sisters deck, which is all about lifegain. Embrace it. Serra Ascendant is one of the best dudes in the deck, please for the love of all that is magic run 4 of them. Also, soul warden has a little sister, called soul's attendant, that is basically copies 5-8. Another thing you are missing, Martyr of Sands, allows you to start the game with over 30 life on turn 2, which makes serra's ascendant bonkers.
Also, you have some cards that really have no place here besides the fact that they look good. Orim's chant is a waste of a card slot here, as you have no isochron sceptre or other stuff to go along with it. Those spots could be better used with something that fits with the deck more. And as much as I hate to say it, Elesh Norn really isn't all that wonderful here. It's too expensive for most WW lists, by the time you are actually able to play it the game will already be decided.
That's about all the criticism I have for one day.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
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4 Vault Skirge
4 Soul Warden
3 Knight of Meadowgrain
3 Knight of the White Orchid
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Sun Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Orim's Chant
4 Honor of the Pure
Equipment
4 Lightning Greaves
4 Skullclamp
4 Loxodon Warhammer
14 Plains
3 Fountain of Cho
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
Never had a good solo white deck, so I wanted to throw one together that I thought would work pretty well in an average game with my friends.
I tried to keep it low mana cost so it'll work quick, with cards like Knight of the White Orchid, Stoneforge Mystic, and Skullclamp for draw ability. Vault Skirge, Knight of Meadowgrain, and Soul Warden should offer more than enough lifegain, with Orim's Chant to help stall as well. Sun Titan and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite will be my big end gamers in an extended match, but I'm counting on the equipment and Honor of the Pure to boost my weenies enough that it will hopefully not get to that point.
So what do you guys think? I like how most of the cards will seemingly work well together, but am always open to suggestions if you think it could use a little more of something, or maybe an alternative to what I have. Like I mentioned, I'm not much of a white player, so any advice would be appreciated.
Personally, if you are running low costing creatures and any sort of reliable life gain such as Soul Warden and Knight of Meadowgrain you need to find a spot for four Ajani's Pridemate.
W White Weenie
That route i would add also Serra Ascendant.
If you dont want to concentrate on lifelink, i would replace the Soul Warden. He wont win the game for you and you have enough other lifelink options. Instead i suggest another first strike creature, these are all good:
Porcelain Legionnaire (good round 2 drop)
For card draw i would consider to replace the Skullclamps with Mentor of the Meek. It adds another body to your deck and its ability is also triggered with Sun Titan and Emeria, the Sky Ruin.
Sounding more like a soldier deck
The only decks I really have experience with in terms of mono white are,
1: Soldiers
2: Soul Sisters
3: Knights
The above deck kinda has bits and pieces of everything but the massive problem I see right off the bat is, you only have 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in your deck. Now if you must run this card you need to run 2, (yes I know about the legendary issue) because it is a GIANT target, huge huge huge target and if one gets removed (which it will) whats your next plan?
It just seems to me that your deck almost revolves around this single card as I can see no other real win conditions in your deck. Everything is low cost, low power, and things like Loxodon Warhammer don't really add a huge punch in my opinion because you only have 6 creatures with first strike to equip it to.
Perhaps if you do not play with people who run any sort of creature removal, first strike, deathtouch, ect that may be ok, but I think you need to focus on one thing and do it well. Like the above mentioned, Serra Ascendant is also a nice WinCon.
As for Sun Titan being another WinCon for you, that may seem so but without really using his ability to gain a huge benefit rather than just return say, a Knight of Meadowgrain this only reinforces my point of Ajani's Pridemate in this deck. You can use your Pridemate as complete pressure and always bring him back with a Sun Titan, and if you have at least 1 Soul Warden in play you have an instant 3/3 upon re-entry.
W White Weenie
Foremost, I don't really like the idea of stalling with a white weenie deck. It goes against the basic philosophy of attack, attack, then attack more! The longer the game goes on, the lower your chances of winning with this type of deck. Each turn that passes, their creatures are going to be getting bigger than yours they might draw a sweeper, etc.
Stuff to remove:
I really don't like the vault skirge x4. They don't fit the deck, they fail to
benefit from Honor the Pure, plus you'll be losing life to cast them. How about some Soltari Champion here instead?
I'm also not a fan of the artifacts/mystic. Lightning greaves seems pointless, the 2 mana you spend casting to haste something could have just been used to cast another creature. Most of your creatures aren't worth protecting with shroud. Let them waste a removal on your early weenies. Generally, equipment slows you down a turn. You're better off just trashing all the artifacts and replacing them with real threats. (creatures)
If you really want to stick to using equipment, get some better equipment in there, namely a set of the swords like sword of war and peace etc.
As Gibbonmonk already mentioned, Mentor of the Meek is better than skullclamp because instead of killing your own creatures, you'll get a creature you can attack with that also gets bonuses from honor the pure.
In my white weenie, I try to run as many mana efficient threats as possible. Then I lock down decks with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Winter Orb. She hurts your Honor of the Pure, but hurts other decks a lot more than you. You can also run Judge's Familiar with Thalia.
Some more efficient weenies you might want to check out:
Samurai of the Pale Curtain
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Serra Avenger
Mirran Crusader - A real beast with equipment like a sword!
Precinct Captain
I would also lower the cost of your "Finisher" creatures. Instead of 6 cc titans and even more for elish, how about either Elspeth, Knight Errant or Sublime Archangel? I realize they're pricey at over 20$ each right now, but you could also go with Ajani, Caller of the Pride Baneslayer Angel and Elspeth Tirel for slightly cheaper options.
Also, I like to have some removal in my deck for tough blockers/walls/ or creatures that
are going to kill you
I run a mix of Pacifism, Swords to Plowshares, and Disenchant to keep things cheap
but if you're going for a higher casting cost deck you could also run oblivion ring, arrest,
etc. and path to exile instead of plowshares if you'd rather give them land over life.
Windbrisk Heights might be a nice utility land for your deck. And it's not a must have, but if you really enjoy playing this deck in the future, a Land Tax is a good investment because it really helps you thin out your land so you're always drawing creatures.
Also, you might eventually want to try and solidify your creatures into a certain type- Knight, human, or soldier are the easiest. There are buff cards like mobilization that have synergy with a certain type of white creature.
Anyway, that's quite a few suggestions, hopefully you'll find at least one of them useful!
EDH Decks
RGMarhault Elsdragon (A Touch of Rampage)RG
GWTrostani, Early Bird (Wurm Tribal)GW
RWAgrus Kos, Bumbat Drinkin' BadassRW
RDiaochan, Hateful BeautyR
4 Soul Warden
4 Ajani's Pridemate
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
3 Serra Ascendant
3 Serra Avenger
3 Knight of the White Orchid
3 Mentor of the Meek
2 Sun Titan
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Orim's Chant
4 Honor of the Pure
3 Arrest
Planeswalker
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Land
14 Plains
2 Fountain of Cho
2 Emeria, Sky Ruin
2 Windbrisk Heights
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. I recieved lots of valuable input, and actually feel guilty I couldn't include some of the ideas that I thought were really good. I decided to have the deck more focused on creatures/lifelink. I added Ajani's Pridemate because paired with Soul Warden I can see it becoming devastating. I took out all the equipment in favor of the creatures, with Mentor of the Meek replacing the Skullclamp. The 4 Vault Skirge was just a cheap flier with lifelink that I threw in, but you guys are right, it doesn't fit well. But with Serra Ascendant and Serra Avenger I have better flying creatures that also fit into the theme of this deck as well. Windbrisk Heights is a fantastic utility land that might just help me drop my big guys early game if I get lucky. As careful as I was to look into cards for this deck, I still managed to overlook many of the cards you suggested, there's just too many, haha.
So how do you feel about this deck now? I'm feeling much more confident about it's playability, but wouldn't mind some last few comments before I go ahead and purchase it.
So I have a few issue still with this, nothing big but just food for thought.
Knight of the White Orchid in many cases you only need to run two of him, the ability is great but you can find 1 other creature that can fill the spot. My experience with this is with most knight decks that run him they only run two and I have never seen a three or four of, granted you have 4 expensive creatures but standard mana draw may be enough since his ability only triggers upon you not having as much as your opponent.
Mentor of the Meek is a great card, BUT he does not work at all with Honor of the Pure. Honor of the Pure is a static ability so as soon as any creature comes into play he gets the additional +1+1 without triggering the ability of Mentor of the Meek, so in short these two cards don't mix and match.
Since you are running Knight of the White Orchid you most certainly want to replace Arrest with Path to Exile. Having a 1CC permanent removal vs something that can get removed for 3CC is an easy choice. Yes you give them additional mana, but you also retrieve a land for yourself with Knight of the White Orchid.
EDIT: Additional food for thought would be running four of these Flagstones of Trokair. These cards activate there own legendary clause which lets you draw two mana from your deck which is fantastic because it thins your deck out so you get better card draw.
W White Weenie
Honor of the Pure paired with Mentor of the Meek is definitely something I overlooked, and needs remedied. Maybe I'll switch it out with Squadron Hawk for an extra flier, and they would also help thin my deck as well as push more creatures onto the field.
Flagstones of Trokair is a more than welcome addition to my deck. I'll more than likely throw in a playset of them.
Arrest can be good, but also 3CC. So even though you are giving a mana edge to your opponent you can blow down anything they put out with 1CC. If you only pay 1CC instead of 3CC you can then put down your Knight of the White Orchid the same turn you blew down your opponents creature and get a mana of your own for your large creatures.
But if you completely are dead set against it, you would be better off using Journey to Nowhere over Arrest hands down.
But, something to take note on, the top white removal spells in the game in terms of effectiveness and cost are;
1: Path to Exile Fantastic. Since your running Knight of the White Orchid this card works great for you.
2: Swords to Plowshares Fantastic and tied with #1 IMO.
3: Condemn Budget card, but cheap and effective.
4: Journey to Nowhere Way better then the below cards aside from Oblivion Ring
5: Oblivion Ring This card removes anything else in the game non-land related, so you SHOULD run 2-4 of these just incase.
6: Arrest The body is still on the field to pump things such as Crusader of Odric
7: Pacifism Never use this card ever.
That may be opinionated but it is the opinion of a lot of players out there, possibly not so much Condemn but for 1CC it is really solid.
If you take a look at my own Knight deck in my signature, you will see I run Path to Exile for the same reason as I give you, I run Knight of the White Orchid. You have to figure this, yes you give them mana, but you are also giving yourself mana.
W White Weenie
WBGJunk TokensGBW
Multiplayer:
WWWLuminarch StonebladeWWW
BBBMono-Black ControlBBB
GRGKessig PredatorsGRG
If he is playing in multiplayer then he needs to run Day of Judgment/Terminus and something like Knight of the Holy Nimbus for card advantage, or the same mass removal and Brave the Elements would be another good choice.
I tend to not like Wrath of God because I cannot use my Knight of the Holy Nimbus. Just personal preference though really.
W White Weenie
I still think the deck could be fine-tuned. If you're going the soul sisters/lifegain route, you might as well go all in with it. I'd remove some of the extraneous stuff that doesn't really fit into that gameplan, like Orim's Chant, Honor of the Pure, Mentor of the Meek, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, for other things that do. Also get rid of the 3 Arrests for some kind of board sweepers, and you only need 2 really, if multiplayer is your thing.
Bump Serra Ascendant up to 4, and add in 4 Soul's Attendant. Other ideas - Ranger of Eos to get your sisters out, Martyr of Sands for some quick lifegain, Felidar Sovereign and/or Test of Endurance as an alternate win-con to beating down with huge Pridemates.
WBGJunk TokensGBW
Multiplayer:
WWWLuminarch StonebladeWWW
BBBMono-Black ControlBBB
GRGKessig PredatorsGRG
Wrath of God and friends will hurt your deck more than it will hurt others usually. WW runs spot removal over board sweepers because we aren't trying to control the entire board, we just need spot removal to take down key things that would otherwise lose us the game. WW is not a control deck. We aren't trying to kill every creature that ever existed, just kill the things that are too big for our creatures to handle. We run dudes with first strike and pump exactly for that reason. Don't try and control things in an aggro deck, we will end up killing more of our own guys and slowing yourself down too much.
Another thing: skullclamp vs. Mentor of the meek.
As good as skullclamp is, a lot of our guys have more than 1 toughness, so skullclamp won't even be that reliable. Mentor of the meek gives us another warm body to fight with. As for the point that he doesn't work with honor of the pure, that not entirely true. Sure, they can cause anti-synergy, but you have to realize that you won't have an honor and a mentor out at the same time every game. In fact, out of the hundreds of games I've played, only a handful of times have I ever run into this problem.
Arrest vs. Path to Exile
There is a reason why swords to plowshares and path to exile are the most overused removal in every format they are legal in, and arrest is never used. Mana cost, and instant speed. Arrest can't even go online until turn 3, and when it does, it means you lost tempo because you couldn't play any threats that turn. That's bad news in an aggro deck.
And you mentioned something about being hesitant against cards with drawbacks. The only good players in magic are the ones who are able to see a card for its true worth, even if its covered in bad abilities. Look at necropotence. That card alone won tournaments, for a few years in a row. Look at how many drawbacks that card has. People shunned the card when it first came out, calling it the worst card in ice age. And now its considered one of the best draw spells in magic, even giving good 'ol ancestral recall a run for its money. Moral of the story, don't shun a card just because it has a negative ability. The cards with drawbacks often times prove to be the best ones in magic.
Onto the actual deck:
So far, you look like you are basically running a soul sisters deck, which is all about lifegain. Embrace it. Serra Ascendant is one of the best dudes in the deck, please for the love of all that is magic run 4 of them. Also, soul warden has a little sister, called soul's attendant, that is basically copies 5-8. Another thing you are missing, Martyr of Sands, allows you to start the game with over 30 life on turn 2, which makes serra's ascendant bonkers.
Also, you have some cards that really have no place here besides the fact that they look good. Orim's chant is a waste of a card slot here, as you have no isochron sceptre or other stuff to go along with it. Those spots could be better used with something that fits with the deck more. And as much as I hate to say it, Elesh Norn really isn't all that wonderful here. It's too expensive for most WW lists, by the time you are actually able to play it the game will already be decided.
That's about all the criticism I have for one day.