MTG Salvation

A couple of my buddies and I have all been talking about Monowhite after we have each tried 2-4 mono white decks. The consensus is that it just isn't all that interactive and fun. Runs out of card advantage too quickly, doesn't interact in interesting ways. Etc. We have tried:

Brigid
Jareth
Elesh
Lin Sivvi
8.5
Akroma
Avacyn
Atalya
Celestial Kirin
Kemba
Konda
Mageta

All of them are boring, uninteractive decks. And we are no deck-making slouches either. The only one that was really kind of fun was Lin Sivvi and she was brutal, but still spent most of her time just reusing the same threats over and over and they got exiled or something. It had energy but still wasn't a whole lot of fun for anyone at the table, for either the pilot or the other players.

What are YOUR experiences with Mono white, and what generals say "build around me in creative ways"?

I ran a sort of helping people and rules thing with Atalya, using a bunch of prevention effects, restarts, rules, and other such things to protect people or restart the board.

Thing is, the deck got REALLY boring. There's only so much wiggle room when you play mono-white. Also, you have no way to defend yourself. No counterspells or effective ways of dealing with planeswalkers. The lack of card draw is also a factor, white usually tutors for equipments. Also hand destruction REALLY kills mono white. Other colors might get back by topdecking some draw or recursion spell (Praetors Counsel or Recurring Insight), but white has nothing.

I just find it to be rather limiting.

Isamaru, Hound of Konda is a brutally fast Voltron commander since he only takes 1 mana to cast. White Mikaeus early game can pump all of your people, and late game, with a doubler, can easily get big enough to kill people in a couple of hits. Odric rules the combat step, and Darien, King of Kjeldor makes for a different style of pillowfort, where Ancient Tomb gives 2 tokens every time you use it along with the great mana output it has, and white does have some of the best tools to play around with tokens.

Quote from KissMyAssassin

Isamaru, Hound of Konda is a brutally fast Voltron commander since he only takes 1 mana to cast. White Mikaeus early game can pump all of your people, and late game, with a doubler, can easily get big enough to kill people in a couple of hits. Odric rules the combat step, and Darien, King of Kjeldor makes for a different style of pillowfort, where Ancient Tomb gives 2 tokens every time you use it along with the great mana output it has, and white does have some of the best tools to play around with tokens.

But mono white has the hardest time coming back from a wrath, ironically.

Quote from Lone Revenant

But mono white has the hardest time coming back from a wrath, ironically.

I like White's enchantment suite. It also has the best recursion for it too: Replenish.
It's got a few recursion engines to throw into a sac engine, like Reveillark and Karmic Guide, and Sun Titan+Fiend Hunter+a sac engine gives you infinite effects from the sac engine.

I guess so. There's also stuff like Second Sunrise and Faith's Reward

Darien, King of Kjeldor, my friend build this back when it was his only white general, and has expanded it into quite a beast. It has some interesting interactions with Jade Monolith for weird politics, and his soldier theme makes him quite hard to hit. Not to mention a few infinite combo's thrown in for fun.

It can be fun, but I will admit it will not be the best deck around.

Quote from Lone Revenant

I guess so. There's also stuff like Second Sunrise and Faith's Reward

Second Sunrise you only use if you don't mind opponent's stuff coming back too.

As for enchantments, it's got Opalescence, Parallax Wave, Martyr's Bond, Ghostly Prison, Lightmine Field, Sphere of Safety, Karmic Justice, Planar Collapse, Suppression Field, Aura of Silence, and that's just off the top of my head.

As for card draw, it's more dependent upon artifacts. Skullclamp and Mind's Eye work wonders, Mentor of the Meek is a must in any deck with tokens or weenies, and there's the Scroll Rack+Land Tax synergy too.

Renounce the Guilds has been good to me in mono white.

Quote from Naethyn

Renounce the Guilds has been good to me in mono white.

Renounce seems a little flat to me, then again it DOES target some problem cards. Mirrari's wake, Nicol Bolas (planeswalker), among others.

Commander Eesha and Eight-and-a-Half-Tails come to mind as generals who can try avoid being boring.

Good white commanders (in my opinion):

Akroma, Angel of Wrath for face-beating.
Celestial Kirin could prove to have some interesting interactions with a properly built deck.
Crovax, Ascendant Hero gives you a really good anthem.
Darien, King of Kjeldor is probably one of the best to build around, as there are a lot of self-damaging effects you can include.
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails tends to be one of the most selected mono-white commanders.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite if you really want to piss people off.
Hokori, Dust Drinker is probably your best bet for a mono-white stax general.
Kataki, War's Wage has an interesting interaction with Mycosynth Lattice, but needs a LOT of mana ramp to function.
Kemba, Kha Regent is incredibly powerful, I made a Kemba deck when I played online, and in a 1v1 match it took down a VERY powerful Kaalia deck.
Mikaeus, the Lunarch can do a lot leading white weenies.
Odric, Master Tactician can do even more for white weenies.
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant is a very effective general.
Sensei Golden-Tail lets you hand out Bushido like it's candy, and multiple instances of bushido will stack.

I'm VERY partial to Elesh Norn, but's that's because of my love for Phyrexia.

I enjoyed playing 8.5 quite a bit and it's interactive enough that most games felt fairly different. I think my biggest complaint would be that it, and mono-white for that matter, felt somewhat limited in maximum possible power. That said, I can only think of a couple mono-colored commanders (primarily Azami) that I think can that really hit that competitive potential.

Real men use Soraya the Falconer as their mono white commander.

Quote from Grem Zealot

Good white commanders (in my opinion):

Akroma, Angel of Wrath for face-beating.
Celestial Kirin could prove to have some interesting interactions with a properly built deck.
Crovax, Ascendant Hero gives you a really good anthem.
Darien, King of Kjeldor is probably one of the best to build around, as there are a lot of self-damaging effects you can include.
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails tends to be one of the most selected mono-white commanders.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite if you really want to piss people off.
Hokori, Dust Drinker is probably your best bet for a mono-white stax general.
Kataki, War's Wage has an interesting interaction with Mycosynth Lattice, but needs a LOT of mana ramp to function.
Kemba, Kha Regent is incredibly powerful, I made a Kemba deck when I played online, and in a 1v1 match it took down a VERY powerful Kaalia deck.
Mikaeus, the Lunarch can do a lot leading white weenies.
Odric, Master Tactician can do even more for white weenies.
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant is a very effective general.
Sensei Golden-Tail lets you hand out Bushido like it's candy, and multiple instances of bushido will stack.

You forgot Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. She's also an excellent Stax/Tax general too.

Quote from KissMyAssassin

You forgot Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. She's also an excellent Stax/Tax general too.

Thalia is a bit weak for a commander in all honesty. Her effect will slow people down, but not that much, she's VERY vulneralbe (I mean, Staff on Nin kills her), and she isn't nearly powerful enough to get in there by herself.

She doesn't even make a good voltron general, because her cost increase affects your own stuff.

I've been playing EDH for a while now, and my mono-white deck is now my go-to deck for most games. I love it. The Thread is here if you want to take a look at it, I'm working on primer-ing it if the primer committee gods smile upon me. (That thread is far from finished, for the record, but the basics are there)

While it is true that White suffers from a sever lack of card draw, card advantage is something that can be done without a drop of just plain old draw. I find that the best sources for CA in white are it's amazing recursion, the best in MTG (Sun Titan, Reveillark, Karmic Guide, Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Marshal's Anthem) and it's removal which almost always is at least a 2 for 1, if not better.

The problem that I had when originally building white was that while I had an explosive start, I really didn't know where to go from there. That's where that list above came from. It comes out incredibly fast and then attempts to lock up the board with an Orb or an Armageddon to put everyone on an equal footing with the weenies. It's been working out really well, I'd suggest taking a look

Quote from Igzex

Real men use Soraya the Falconer as their mono white commander.

Preach it!

Banding is an exceptionally powerful ability, but a lot of the creatures with it aren't very good. Solution: grant banding to creatures that don't normally have it! (Bonus points: a lot of opponents don't understand how it works.)

There are some pretty good birds to run, too. My Soraya deck became Bird/Soldier tribal because of Aven Brigadier and because so many of the birds I already wanted were Bird Soldier creatures; Soldier is also a very well-supported tribe.

I love me some Darien, but as far as interactivity goes, it's pretty low on that scale. It weathers wrath effects like nobody's business, which is good for a token deck. In the end though, winning comes down to making a whole lot of tokens while you hope you don't get alpha striked or lose to general damage. I think it's fun, but I like playing aggro decks in EDH.

Quote from Feverous

I've been playing EDH for a while now, and my mono-white deck is now my go-to deck for most games. I love it. The Thread is here if you want to take a look at it, I'm working on primer-ing it if the primer committee gods smile upon me. (That thread is far from finished, for the record, but the basics are there)

While it is true that White suffers from a sever lack of card draw, card advantage is something that can be done without a drop of just plain old draw. I find that the best sources for CA in white are it's amazing recursion, the best in MTG (Sun Titan, Reveillark, Karmic Guide, Emeria, the Sky Ruin, Marshal's Anthem) and it's removal which almost always is at least a 2 for 1, if not better.

The problem that I had when originally building white was that while I had an explosive start, I really didn't know where to go from there. That's where that list above came from. It comes out incredibly fast and then attempts to lock up the board with an Orb or an Armageddon to put everyone on an equal footing with the weenies. It's been working out really well, I'd suggest taking a look

Locking people up with an Orb or Geddon is totally fine, and I have done that plenty of times with other decks but it is the exact opposite of interesting and interactive. Honestly, and I mean no offense, but that decklist looks around horribly linear, and completely noninteractive. The antithesis of what I am looking for. But that also comes from my own personal preference which disdains voltron as too linear, and lockdown as too boring.

I would suggest giving my Eight-and-a-Half-Tails deck a look (Link in Signature). Out of all of my decks, this one is probably the most fun. It maximizes 8 1/2's ability to its full potential and combines control, protection and aggro into a complete mono-white package.

Quote from Grem Zealot

Thalia is a bit weak for a commander in all honesty. Her effect will slow people down, but not that much, she's VERY vulneralbe (I mean, Staff on Nin kills her), and she isn't nearly powerful enough to get in there by herself.

She doesn't even make a good voltron general, because her cost increase affects your own stuff.

You're thinking too linearly. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben has three main strengths as a Commander.

1) She cheaply and efficiently keeps small guys from attacking you, helping you to pillowfort.

2) Her ability prevents some infinite combos from happening, which monowhite otherwise has trouble dealing with.

3) He is excellent Skullclamp fodder in a color that can easily tutor for and protect it, and really wants the card draw.

The third one is the most important, and I've never heard anyone mention it before. White has no problem getting Skullclamp on the table or keeping it there, so once you have it, she's "draw 2 for 3," then "draw 2 for 4," which are both good deals. So, she's basically worth 4 easy cards, and then after that, she can still draw you a few if you're willing to pay for it. She's no Prime Speaker Zegana, but she's still better than many people give her credit for.

Anyway, I wrote a guide for playing mono white. Check the link in my signature. It's only a little bit outdated.

I played against an Odric, Master Tactician soldier heavy deck that was both interesting and competitive. He used a lot of "army in a can" type cards to make sure he had plenty of dudes to work with even after a wrath, and then the requisite anthem effects to make those dudes hit harder. Combined with Odric's ability to manipulate combat it was a challenge to play against.

I have played Lin Sivvi for about a year and a half now. What I have found about playing her is that she is somewhat predictable in and of herself. The rebels are still good at defending you and buying time but beyond that its easy to tell when you are over expanding the rebels themselves. I usually win via a big white token spawn that isnt rebel based then push out a Mirror Entity for lethal.

Its a little different but its harder to see coming. Rebels are great at keeping people off of you and buying time. So that's what I tend to sort of focus on with them.