Who'd have thought that mono white would be such a pain to get together? I've been trying to get together a reasonable list for almost a year, with little in the way of success. I attempted multiple generals, often multiple different build styles (the record breaker is Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, with five different approaches all being stupidly soft to wrath), but nothing really worked.
After pouring out my woes on here resulted in multiple independent recommendations of Darien, King of Kjeldor, I revisited my clunky monstrosity of a list and smoothed it out a bit. Taking it out for a walk predictably ended in my cute soft lock getting wrathed out. Unlike other white lists, it wasn't gg for this deck though - I promptly soaked up a failed alpha strike and killed the whole board on the rebound. This is probably as good as white will get in this realm, so I'm gonna run with it.
The ideal scenario involves setting down the soul sisters to obtain a soft lock that nets you tokens whilst keeping your life total neutral (or even advancing it!). There's only so many soul sisters, so I run just about all the cards that let me find them to set them down. Thankfully one of the soul sisters is an enchantment, so all the enchantment tutors come online for that. They're also likely to eat removal, so there's a decent helping of protection to keep them online and recursion to help get them back. This also partially overlaps with the Sun Titan value realm. There's also a decent splash of options that make the soldiers bigger, or use them for things.
Obviously, this is soft to things. It's soft to a massive alpha strike one shotting you. It's soft to Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite locking you out of your quest. But this is probably as good as white will get when it isn't Hokori, Dust Drinker hurling around Mana Crypts and Mox Opals.
How often do you find yourself netting tokens with Darien? It seems like the only reliable method you have is with your painlands. Do you ever find yourself in games where you don't have any lands to ping yourself with? If you find yourself needing more sources of self-damage
I run a somewhat cutthroat Darien deck myself and run a similar mana base. Like you, I tend to avoid cards whose only purpose is to damage players (since they become pretty much useless when Darien is not around).However, I’ve found that Staff of Nin and Mana Vault are both awesome with Darien. Staff of Nin is expensive, but card draw is rare for white and the ability to get a free draw and ping anything for 1 damage (including yourself) for free for the rest of the game is definitely worth the 6 mana from my experience. And Mana vault is just amazing at helping you ramp into Darien faster whilst also making tokens for you.
Also, Sivvi's Valor is a nasty combat trick that no one will see coming. This card can easily swing the game in your favor.
All of those are fantastic suggestions. I wouldn't have thought of Staff of Nin, but it's going to go great in here. Plus, I somehow have one sitting around - double whammy!
Unsurprisingly, people become quite unwilling to punch into you when you have the soft lock in place. Path of Bravery is doing serious work - a blissfully unaware foe punches me with something big, I lose a bunch of life, and then promptly cast that thing in my turn and turn my dudes sideways, promptly healing back what I got hit for and quite often pumping the dudes. Hence the future of the list may lay more with things like Elspeth Tirel.
I can't seem to find your list anywhere, any chance of me taking a look at it? This is still early days for the deck, and I really like how promising it is - my mono white dry spell is probably over!
I passed over Path of Bravery when I initially saw it spoiled. I don’t have as much life gain in my build as you do and I think I would have a hard time getting the +40 life buff active. My deck is more token
focused and I think it would appreciate a pump affect that will always be active. I may consider it though hearing the success you’ve had with it, but it seems like a better fit in your deck.
I don’t have my deck posted on the forums but I’d be happy share it in the thread later tonight.
It's more token focused. The idea behind going that route is that the deck can function on it's own without Darien, but can still benefit greatly from having him in play. It also makes it easier to rebuild the army after board wipes. I try to stick with a strong soldier theme, so even though cards like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite would be beastly in the deck, I don't like the flavor/idea of my army being led by a phrexian, although I may reconsider. I try to keep the deck up to date even though I haven't played EDH in a while, so I don't have much feedback on some of the newer card choices like First Response.
Hope this helps! I'm happy to discuss card choices as I'm always looking for ways to improve the deck. If I can help others with their deck in the process all the better!
Ah, wonderful. Many thanks! I have absolutely no gripes with being off-flavour, so Elesh Norn is welcome in my 99. I may end up following you down this route, as in retooling my deck to be a bit more Darien-independent. I retooled the list in the OP quite a bit (10 card changes) to have a bit of a better flow, but the Darien reliance is still probably too darn high, especially for a commander with no innate protection.
If you are looking for a hero-type guy to lead your deck, I'd suggest Crovax, Ascendant Hero. He does help any opponents playing white, though, so he may not be up your alley.
OP: be sure to give Slate of Ancestry a go. It's difficult to explain just how good that card is in mono-w Darien. I would take out Citanul Flute for it.
Word, man. I run it in my Purphoros, God of the Forge and it's already pretty stupid there, it's gonna be even better here. I might take the flute out, but there's a good helping of massive value creatures with low CMC, it's been working quite well. Maybe both
Re hero type guy: I'd totes do Elesh Norn because of how freaking stupid the praetors are, but I think I'll keep this as Darien due to how freaking stupid Darien can be
I cut back on a lot of the gimmickry of the original list, drastically reducing the pressure on setting up the soft lock and recurring fallen lock pieces. This is good, as it never really worked - if I have a soul sister out, people unsurprisingly stop punching me unless they can muster lethal. It's a better trick to have them think they can punch me and contain me before I kill them on the backswing, only to get surprised by some good old anthem action or lifegain on my turn.
Anthem wise, Marshal's Anthem and Intangible Virtue get upgraded into Leonin Sun Standard and True Conviction. The latter isn't a "true anthem", but being the only source of double strike makes it a wonderfully multiplicative anthem solution. It also falls into the "regeneration shield" category by gaining you back the life lost to make soldiers happen, and then some. Noble Purpose stacks with True Conviction due to the triggertastic wording, and works similarly well with other anthem scenarios. Elspeth Tirel is phenomenal, crapping out bodies or setting up regeneration as needed, with a wrath on call too.
There's also some protection boosts (Lightning Greaves etc), as well as extra non-Darien soldier sources to hopefully put up a bit of a fight if needed (Conqueror's Pledge etc). Court Street Denizen should be fun tech - preemptively tap some fat down with painlands to avoid getting slugged, or use the torrential soldier downpour to just flat out tap someone out and swing in without worries. Alpha strikes are problematic, so Righteous Aura tries to fix it a bit. The Sun Titan Value Kit got slightly rejiggered as well, hopefully towards the realms of being more handy. There's also a splash more draw. The deck feels like it'll be more mana hungry, so land count upped and a bit more ramp tossed in.
Great changes. Righteous Aura seems like a nice card for the deck when Darien is not around since you have so much life gain.
Since you seem to have a pretty strong focus on life gain, maybe your deck would be able to make good use of Well of Lost Dreams? Conclave Phalanx can also help push the theme, but he's only really good if you already have an army out.
Great changes. Righteous Aura seems like a nice card for the deck when Darien is not around since you have so much life gain.
Since you seem to have a pretty strong focus on life gain, maybe your deck would be able to make good use of Well of Lost Dreams? Conclave Phalanx can also help push the theme, but he's only really good if you already have an army out.
I'm with this user in regards to the Well of Lost Dreams. It's been real sweet in my list when I have it up and running. But the only catch is you want every single soul sister effect in order to make it really worthwhile. You will probably want to add in Auriok Champion again in order to get the most possible out of the Well.
Thanks for the tips, again! I'll get a few more games in with this version of the deck and consider where to take it, as I feel it's still not quite where it wants to be.
I don't run quite as much life gain as you, and would probably have to dime the soul sisters again to make good use of Well of Lost Dreams. Things become quite hairy then, as nobody's going to punch you ever, so you need a soul sister plus a source of self-damage plus the well in a colour which is absolutely garbage at locating cards. If I manage to up my life gain a bit more without resorting to anything visibly suboptimal or painfully redundant, I may give it a shot - I really like the card.
Jade Monolith is probably my favorite protection for Darien. The downside is that in terms of protecting, it's a little weaker than other cards, but it will deter more attacking, or allow Darien/other creatures to walk on in during the attack phase (unless your opponent is cool with you getting more soldiers).
Jade Monolith is indeed lovely. I really want to give it a spin at some point, but I'm slightly worried that it'll be dead if Darien can't hang around on the board. Pain lands at least have the decency of tapping for mana when not making soldiers how has it been performing for you if Darien can't come out to play, or immediately eats something you can't lightning rod onto yourself?
I used to run Jade's Monolith but find that smart opponents will play around it. It will basically lock up combat entirely on the board until either the monolith or Darien is removed and it usually just makes you a huge target. I much prefer Sivvi's Valor in this role, in theory. In all honesty, I haven't played a game with it yet, but I like how it sounds on paper. The fact that you simply need to tap a creature to cast it makes it so appealing and I could see a wide use of cases for it even when we don't have Darien in play. Worst case scenario it's just another spell to protect one of our key creatures. Best case, you save one of your creatures and get a bunch of tokens out of nowhere
So just to add a little more discussion and gather some thoughts on this, I recently acquired a Scout's Warning in a trade and put it in my Darien deck. I haven't tried it out in practice but I really like the idea of flashing Darien in on an unblocked attacker. I suppose it depends on your creature build, but I can see this card having many other useful applications too. Surprise creatures/pump with Captain of the Watch, save a creature with Storm Riders or Kor Skyfisher, get a surprise fog with Knight-captain of Eos, flash in Mirror Entity before your turn begins and swing in with a huge alpha strike out of nowhere, etc
I'm definitely looking forward to trying this card out in my deck.
The monolith's been stellar so far. Once I charged some of my fat beefy creatures at a planeswalker a guy wanted to keep alive, so he chumped with goats. I promptly sponged the damage off the goats and onto myself, sealing my victory. Another time I sponged a Flame Wave off all my key players, once again generating a game-ending presence in the process. Outside of stupid scenarios like this, it's still a really, really solid thing to have on the board. Slipped in Sivvi's Valor to have the opportunity to pull one-off stunts in a similar manner, but Blood of the Martyr would be stretching it. Needed to make room, so took out Mobilization - the worst of the soldierriffic cards in the 99.
Rout is an update of Hour of Reckoning, which hasn't been performing quite as well as expected. Who'd have thought there'd be so many tokens in EDH? Rout's instant speed utility and base functionality only slightly worse than a Wrath of God makes it probably the strongest wrath in white's arsenal.
Slightly downgraded the size of the "kaboomboom" class finisher package. Jazal Goldmane packs a wallop, sure, but needs 9 mana to come out of nowhere and do his thing, or you're going to be phoning in your intentions and people will find a way to end you. Mirror Entity is a similarly fragile mana sink. Leonin Sun Standard has the decency of being an artifact, and as such a smidgen harder to remove, so it doesn't get the axe in spite of standing for similar values. Both of these slots have been "merged into" Eldrazi Monument, which combats the deck's inherent softness to both flyers and sweepers. There should be something to sac to it kicking around. If there seems like there won't be, don't dump it onto the board. Simple.
Got caught up in a multiplayer pod with another mono white deck on Cockatrice a few hours ago, the guy was piloting a Eight-and-a-half-Tails list. I forgot just how much value that little bugger brings to the table, I used to run him in my pillow fort lists a few months ago. Needed to make room, so assessed some of the weaker cards in the 99 and slid him in over Odric, Master Tactician. I tend to go so wide he doesn't really matter.
Whilst assessing how to slip in 8.5-tails, I pinpointed some of what may be the weaker elements of the list now. Court Street Denizen is cute, but not quite doing as much lifting as expected so far. Skullclamp is tremendous value, but is also a bit of a nonbo with all the anthems I'm running. Noble Purpose is the weakest of the regeneration shields, maybe because I'm yet to get it online in conjunction with an anthem. Prison Term is a pet card, and I can set it down with no worries and slide it onto whatever comes out later, but its enchantment'y nature in tandem with hitting only creatures make it the most limited of the removal suite.
I've been focusing a bit more on the black deck, playtesting it in search of any emergency last-minute tweaks as I assemble it on paper, so this list got a bit neglected. Apparently I made some tweaks at some point that I haven't put in the thread, and since I'm already a bit behind the times on some deck construction (need to decide what to cut from Tromokratis to re-introduce Propaganda), this at least keeps the WIP up to date.
Another one of those "cut down the gimmickry, stick to the game plan" wave of changes. Karmic Guide is only really awesome when paired with something like Reveillark for loops, no potential for that here. Eight-and-a-Half-Tails may be coming back at some point, but the few times I drew him just felt unfortunate and extremely mana intensive, more than the deck can easily support at this point. Court Street Denizen is tech, but it hasn't really fired off and using something more likely to fire off in its place is a good idea. Rebuff the Wicked is a fantastic surprise, but there's TONS of things that cause harm that aren't targeting spells, so it was a smidgen too narrow in the end. Banishing Light to cut down on the removal suite a little, having some answers is nice but this isn't really a control deck proper.
So, onwards to inclusions. If you look at the list, you'll see that most of them are anthems in one form or another. I wasn't quite anthem-dense enough, so I fixed that a bit. Honor of the Pure is about as basic as anthems get, and does work. Dictate of Heliod is pretty beefy, and the flash makes stuff hilarious. Archangel of Thune doesn't immediately anthem, but any of the numerous other life gain sources allow for quick value. And if quick value is not had, then the lifelink will do work by itself next turn. The other two cards are inclusions based on the recommendations from an old Darien thread someone dug up - Ajani Goldmane is an anthem dispenser - you have a fat wall of bodies that appear small, and then he comes down and makes them bigger. True, the "anthem" is gone if someone wrecks the bodies, but on the other hand the "anthem" persists if someone removes the permanent "doing the antheming", so to say. Also, for potential synergy, his + triggers Archangel of Thune. The other addition is the controversial white goodstuff card Luminarch Ascension. The old Darien thread claims this is fantastic - either people punch you and make soldiers for you, or they don't punch you and get flooded with angels. I'm yet to draw it and see for myself. It looks promising though.
Also, I'm totally going to replace Thran Dynamo with Hedron Archive once BFZ comes out. Extra draw potential for one less tap mana seems like a good trade-off.
After pouring out my woes on here resulted in multiple independent recommendations of Darien, King of Kjeldor, I revisited my clunky monstrosity of a list and smoothed it out a bit. Taking it out for a walk predictably ended in my cute soft lock getting wrathed out. Unlike other white lists, it wasn't gg for this deck though - I promptly soaked up a failed alpha strike and killed the whole board on the rebound. This is probably as good as white will get in this realm, so I'm gonna run with it.
1 Darien, King of Kjeldor
Regeneration Shield
1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Noble Purpose
1 Path of Bravery
1 Soul Warden
1 Soul's Attendant
1 Suture Priest
1 True Conviction
Library Dig/Draw
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Mentor of the Meek
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Skullclamp
1 Slate of Ancestry
1 Staff of Nin
Extra Bodies/Extra Size
1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Archangel of Thine
1 Captain of the Watch
1 Cathars' Crusade
1 Coat of Arms
1 Conqueror's Pledge
1 Dictate of Heliod
1 Eldrazi Monument
1 Evangel of Heliod
1 Field Marshal
1 Honor of the Pure
1 Knight-Captain of Eos
1 Leonin Sun Standard
1 Luminarch Ascension
1 Spear of Heliod
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Endless Horizons
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Land Tax
1 Mana Vault
1 Mind Stone
1 Pearl Medallion
1 Sol Ring
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Worn Powerstone
Obligatory Sun Titan Value Toolbox
1 Aura of Silence
1 Burnished Hart
1 Expedition Map
1 Kami of False Hope
1 Soul Snare
1 Sun Titan
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
Additional Wraths/Removal
1 Catapult Master
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Intrepid Hero
1 Martial Coup
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Path to Exile
1 Prison Term
1 Return to Dust
1 Rout
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Angelic Renewal
1 Jade Monolith
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mother of Runes
1 Righteous Aura
1 Sivvi's Valor
1 Swiftfoot Boots
Lands.dec
1 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Brass
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Grand Coliseum
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Nomad Stadium
26 Plains
1 Tarnished Citadel
1 Thespian's Stage
The ideal scenario involves setting down the soul sisters to obtain a soft lock that nets you tokens whilst keeping your life total neutral (or even advancing it!). There's only so many soul sisters, so I run just about all the cards that let me find them to set them down. Thankfully one of the soul sisters is an enchantment, so all the enchantment tutors come online for that. They're also likely to eat removal, so there's a decent helping of protection to keep them online and recursion to help get them back. This also partially overlaps with the Sun Titan value realm. There's also a decent splash of options that make the soldiers bigger, or use them for things.
Obviously, this is soft to things. It's soft to a massive alpha strike one shotting you. It's soft to Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite locking you out of your quest. But this is probably as good as white will get when it isn't Hokori, Dust Drinker hurling around Mana Crypts and Mox Opals.
1 Darien, King of Kjeldor
Soul Sisters
1 Angelic Chorus
1 Auriok Champion
1 Healer of the Pride
1 Soul Warden
1 Soul's Attendant
1 Suture Priest
Library Dig/Draw
1 Academy Rector
1 Citanul Flute
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Mentor of the Meek
1 Plea for Guidance
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Skullclamp
Just Soldier Things
1 Archetype of Courage
1 Captain of the Watch
1 Cathars' Crusade
1 Coat of Arms
1 Field Marshal
1 Intangible Virtue
1 Jazal Goldmane
1 Knight-Captain of Eos
1 Mirror Entity
1 Odric, Master Tactician
1 Path of Bravery
1 Spear of Heliod
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Endless Horizons
1 Land Tax
1 Mind Stone
1 Pearl Medallion
1 Sol Ring
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Worn Powerstone
Obligatory Sun Titan Value Toolbox
1 Aura of Silence
1 Burnished Hart
1 Children of Korlis
1 Expedition Map
1 Kami of False Hope
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Soul Snare
1 Sun Titan
Additional Wraths/Removal
1 Banishing Light
1 Catapult Master
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Hour of Reckoning
1 Intrepid Hero
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Martial Coup
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Path to Exile
1 Prison Term
1 Return to Dust
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Angelic Renewal
1 Devoted Caretaker
1 Karmic Guide
1 Marshal's Anthem
1 Mimic Vat
1 Miraculous Recovery
1 Mother of Runes
1 Rebuff the Wicked
1 Reveillark
1 Sigil of the New Dawn
Lands.dec
1 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Brass
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Grand Coliseum
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Nomad Stadium
25 Plains
1 Tarnished Citadel
1 Academy Rector
1 Angelic Chorus
1 Archetype of Courage
1 Auriok Champion
1 Children of Korlis
1 Citanul Flute
1 Devoted Caretaker
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Healer of the Pride
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Intangible Virtue
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Marshal's Anthem
1 Mimic Vat
1 Miraculous Recovery
1 Plea for Guidance
1 Reveillark
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Sigil of the New Dawn
1 Conqueror's Pledge
1 Court Street Denizen
1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Evangel of Heliod
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Leonin Sun Standard
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mana Vault
1 Mobilization
1 Noble Purpose
1 Righteous Aura
1 Slate of Ancestry
1 Staff of Nin
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Thespian's Stage
1 True Conviction
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Plains
1 Hour of Reckoning
1 Jazal Goldmane
1 Mirror Entity
1 Mobilization
1 Odric, Master Tactician
1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
1 Eldrazi Monument
1 Jade Monolith
1 Rout
1 Sivvi's Valor
1 Banishing Light
1 Court Street Denizen
1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
1 Karmic Guide
1 Rebuff the Wicked
1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Dictate of Heliod
1 Honor of the Pure
1 Luminarch Ascension
I run a somewhat cutthroat Darien deck myself and run a similar mana base. Like you, I tend to avoid cards whose only purpose is to damage players (since they become pretty much useless when Darien is not around).However, I’ve found that Staff of Nin and Mana Vault are both awesome with Darien. Staff of Nin is expensive, but card draw is rare for white and the ability to get a free draw and ping anything for 1 damage (including yourself) for free for the rest of the game is definitely worth the 6 mana from my experience. And Mana vault is just amazing at helping you ramp into Darien faster whilst also making tokens for you.
Also, Sivvi's Valor is a nasty combat trick that no one will see coming. This card can easily swing the game in your favor.
Unsurprisingly, people become quite unwilling to punch into you when you have the soft lock in place. Path of Bravery is doing serious work - a blissfully unaware foe punches me with something big, I lose a bunch of life, and then promptly cast that thing in my turn and turn my dudes sideways, promptly healing back what I got hit for and quite often pumping the dudes. Hence the future of the list may lay more with things like Elspeth Tirel.
I can't seem to find your list anywhere, any chance of me taking a look at it? This is still early days for the deck, and I really like how promising it is - my mono white dry spell is probably over!
focused and I think it would appreciate a pump affect that will always be active. I may consider it though hearing the success you’ve had with it, but it seems like a better fit in your deck.
I don’t have my deck posted on the forums but I’d be happy share it in the thread later tonight.
Decklist:
It's more token focused. The idea behind going that route is that the deck can function on it's own without Darien, but can still benefit greatly from having him in play. It also makes it easier to rebuild the army after board wipes. I try to stick with a strong soldier theme, so even though cards like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite would be beastly in the deck, I don't like the flavor/idea of my army being led by a phrexian, although I may reconsider. I try to keep the deck up to date even though I haven't played EDH in a while, so I don't have much feedback on some of the newer card choices like First Response.
Hope this helps! I'm happy to discuss card choices as I'm always looking for ways to improve the deck. If I can help others with their deck in the process all the better!
RGWMayael the AnimaRGW
UBRMarchesa, the Black RoseUBR
Modern Decks
RGWNaya BurnRGW
Re hero type guy: I'd totes do Elesh Norn because of how freaking stupid the praetors are, but I think I'll keep this as Darien due to how freaking stupid Darien can be
Blood of the Martyr
Jinxed Idol
Jinxed Choker
The jinxed cards are especially fun. Pass them around the table and watch no one give them back to you if you have Darien out.
1 Academy Rector
1 Angelic Chorus
1 Archetype of Courage
1 Auriok Champion
1 Children of Korlis
1 Citanul Flute
1 Devoted Caretaker
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Healer of the Pride
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Intangible Virtue
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Marshal's Anthem
1 Mimic Vat
1 Miraculous Recovery
1 Plea for Guidance
1 Reveillark
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Sigil of the New Dawn
1 Conqueror's Pledge
1 Court Street Denizen
1 Elspeth Tirel
1 Evangel of Heliod
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Leonin Sun Standard
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mana Vault
1 Mobilization
1 Noble Purpose
1 Righteous Aura
1 Slate of Ancestry
1 Staff of Nin
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Thespian's Stage
1 True Conviction
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Plains
I cut back on a lot of the gimmickry of the original list, drastically reducing the pressure on setting up the soft lock and recurring fallen lock pieces. This is good, as it never really worked - if I have a soul sister out, people unsurprisingly stop punching me unless they can muster lethal. It's a better trick to have them think they can punch me and contain me before I kill them on the backswing, only to get surprised by some good old anthem action or lifegain on my turn.
Anthem wise, Marshal's Anthem and Intangible Virtue get upgraded into Leonin Sun Standard and True Conviction. The latter isn't a "true anthem", but being the only source of double strike makes it a wonderfully multiplicative anthem solution. It also falls into the "regeneration shield" category by gaining you back the life lost to make soldiers happen, and then some. Noble Purpose stacks with True Conviction due to the triggertastic wording, and works similarly well with other anthem scenarios. Elspeth Tirel is phenomenal, crapping out bodies or setting up regeneration as needed, with a wrath on call too.
There's also some protection boosts (Lightning Greaves etc), as well as extra non-Darien soldier sources to hopefully put up a bit of a fight if needed (Conqueror's Pledge etc). Court Street Denizen should be fun tech - preemptively tap some fat down with painlands to avoid getting slugged, or use the torrential soldier downpour to just flat out tap someone out and swing in without worries. Alpha strikes are problematic, so Righteous Aura tries to fix it a bit. The Sun Titan Value Kit got slightly rejiggered as well, hopefully towards the realms of being more handy. There's also a splash more draw. The deck feels like it'll be more mana hungry, so land count upped and a bit more ramp tossed in.
I'll miss the Sigil of the New Dawn + Kami of the False Hope lock I set up one game, but it's probably for the best in the grand scheme of things.
Since you seem to have a pretty strong focus on life gain, maybe your deck would be able to make good use of Well of Lost Dreams?
Conclave Phalanx can also help push the theme, but he's only really good if you already have an army out.
I'm with this user in regards to the Well of Lost Dreams. It's been real sweet in my list when I have it up and running. But the only catch is you want every single soul sister effect in order to make it really worthwhile. You will probably want to add in Auriok Champion again in order to get the most possible out of the Well.
BGGRock
Modern
BRGJund
BBGRock
I don't run quite as much life gain as you, and would probably have to dime the soul sisters again to make good use of Well of Lost Dreams. Things become quite hairy then, as nobody's going to punch you ever, so you need a soul sister plus a source of self-damage plus the well in a colour which is absolutely garbage at locating cards. If I manage to up my life gain a bit more without resorting to anything visibly suboptimal or painfully redundant, I may give it a shot - I really like the card.
I'm definitely looking forward to trying this card out in my deck.
1 Hour of Reckoning
1 Jazal Goldmane
1 Mirror Entity
1 Mobilization
1 Odric, Master Tactician
1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
1 Eldrazi Monument
1 Jade Monolith
1 Rout
1 Sivvi's Valor
The monolith's been stellar so far. Once I charged some of my fat beefy creatures at a planeswalker a guy wanted to keep alive, so he chumped with goats. I promptly sponged the damage off the goats and onto myself, sealing my victory. Another time I sponged a Flame Wave off all my key players, once again generating a game-ending presence in the process. Outside of stupid scenarios like this, it's still a really, really solid thing to have on the board. Slipped in Sivvi's Valor to have the opportunity to pull one-off stunts in a similar manner, but Blood of the Martyr would be stretching it. Needed to make room, so took out Mobilization - the worst of the soldierriffic cards in the 99.
Rout is an update of Hour of Reckoning, which hasn't been performing quite as well as expected. Who'd have thought there'd be so many tokens in EDH? Rout's instant speed utility and base functionality only slightly worse than a Wrath of God makes it probably the strongest wrath in white's arsenal.
Slightly downgraded the size of the "kaboomboom" class finisher package. Jazal Goldmane packs a wallop, sure, but needs 9 mana to come out of nowhere and do his thing, or you're going to be phoning in your intentions and people will find a way to end you. Mirror Entity is a similarly fragile mana sink. Leonin Sun Standard has the decency of being an artifact, and as such a smidgen harder to remove, so it doesn't get the axe in spite of standing for similar values. Both of these slots have been "merged into" Eldrazi Monument, which combats the deck's inherent softness to both flyers and sweepers. There should be something to sac to it kicking around. If there seems like there won't be, don't dump it onto the board. Simple.
Got caught up in a multiplayer pod with another mono white deck on Cockatrice a few hours ago, the guy was piloting a Eight-and-a-half-Tails list. I forgot just how much value that little bugger brings to the table, I used to run him in my pillow fort lists a few months ago. Needed to make room, so assessed some of the weaker cards in the 99 and slid him in over Odric, Master Tactician. I tend to go so wide he doesn't really matter.
Whilst assessing how to slip in 8.5-tails, I pinpointed some of what may be the weaker elements of the list now. Court Street Denizen is cute, but not quite doing as much lifting as expected so far. Skullclamp is tremendous value, but is also a bit of a nonbo with all the anthems I'm running. Noble Purpose is the weakest of the regeneration shields, maybe because I'm yet to get it online in conjunction with an anthem. Prison Term is a pet card, and I can set it down with no worries and slide it onto whatever comes out later, but its enchantment'y nature in tandem with hitting only creatures make it the most limited of the removal suite.
1 Banishing Light
1 Court Street Denizen
1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
1 Karmic Guide
1 Rebuff the Wicked
1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Dictate of Heliod
1 Honor of the Pure
1 Luminarch Ascension
Another one of those "cut down the gimmickry, stick to the game plan" wave of changes. Karmic Guide is only really awesome when paired with something like Reveillark for loops, no potential for that here. Eight-and-a-Half-Tails may be coming back at some point, but the few times I drew him just felt unfortunate and extremely mana intensive, more than the deck can easily support at this point. Court Street Denizen is tech, but it hasn't really fired off and using something more likely to fire off in its place is a good idea. Rebuff the Wicked is a fantastic surprise, but there's TONS of things that cause harm that aren't targeting spells, so it was a smidgen too narrow in the end. Banishing Light to cut down on the removal suite a little, having some answers is nice but this isn't really a control deck proper.
So, onwards to inclusions. If you look at the list, you'll see that most of them are anthems in one form or another. I wasn't quite anthem-dense enough, so I fixed that a bit. Honor of the Pure is about as basic as anthems get, and does work. Dictate of Heliod is pretty beefy, and the flash makes stuff hilarious. Archangel of Thune doesn't immediately anthem, but any of the numerous other life gain sources allow for quick value. And if quick value is not had, then the lifelink will do work by itself next turn. The other two cards are inclusions based on the recommendations from an old Darien thread someone dug up - Ajani Goldmane is an anthem dispenser - you have a fat wall of bodies that appear small, and then he comes down and makes them bigger. True, the "anthem" is gone if someone wrecks the bodies, but on the other hand the "anthem" persists if someone removes the permanent "doing the antheming", so to say. Also, for potential synergy, his + triggers Archangel of Thune. The other addition is the controversial white goodstuff card Luminarch Ascension. The old Darien thread claims this is fantastic - either people punch you and make soldiers for you, or they don't punch you and get flooded with angels. I'm yet to draw it and see for myself. It looks promising though.
Also, I'm totally going to replace Thran Dynamo with Hedron Archive once BFZ comes out. Extra draw potential for one less tap mana seems like a good trade-off.