I decided not to build edgar because i dont really feel like playing aggro and i have a bunch of kitchen table vampire decks i can play. And decided instead to go for an angel themed deck my other favorite tribe. Since im not much for straight aggro and my angel deck for kitchen table is deemed to good by my friends i play casual with.
At pre release I was talking about the commander night with people and it seems there ok with mld and dont have huge problems with hating people out. So im not to worried about my strategy in that respect.
For mono white Id probably do a type of mono white control deck. Curving hate bears into hate Angels. backed up by wraths and some MLD. Also an equipment package because even budget there's some decently priced equip tutors and equipment for card draw ,ramp, protection and even an everything wrath in WorldSlayer.
I'm still picking he commander and I'm wondering if mono whites actually that bad. It gets the most wraths, and has some recursion engines, and good hate bear type creatures. As for card draw mentor of the meek, bygone bishop and equipment can provide card advantage. Im also almost tempted to put smuggler's copter in this category even though its filtering just because its good. artifacts plus whites ramp creatures which can trigger mentor or bygone bishop. Should be able to handle ramp as well.
And the other key is to get creative with your strategy as well. While the Avacyn / Mass-LD angle seems like a winner, I'm telling you now that you will experience a quite real hate-storm at the majority of tables. If you're okay with that, go forth and conquer! If not, try to find a more subtle angle for your deck overall.
No, i don't think any mono colour deck is 'bad'. There are some strategies that some EDH players find not fun to play against, and that makes some colours less effective than others at that point (if you play against people who complain about counterspells, then blue's not going to be very good, etc.)
Being in mono-white allows you to really delve deep into some uncommonly used cards. I've a teshar, ancestor's apostle combo that can combo off and draw the deck, often with protection. It's not expected in mono-white, but on some level, there are some really powerful interactions that are possible!
didnt know about terrain generator though emeria is also one of my main reasons to go mono white.
Im aiming for a hatebears death and taxes strategy that curves into hate creatures that aren't bears later. modifying the strategy for more staying power.
Also mono white reanimator with bruna sounds fun to me and the reanimation cards can pull double duty as recursion for any important creatures.
Avacyn MLD isn't like the main strategy its just a win con for avacyn. mainly like avacyn cause the arts amazing and indestructible is nice. I consider my copy the crown jewel of my collection.
I also like nahiri mainly because she recurs any important equipment and the obvious synergy with skullclamp.
if people are playing fetches thalia heretic cathar
would be a funny anti meta commander as well.
Given the commanders you mentioned, if you are thinking of going into MLD tactics I would say that Kaalia is the way to go. The advantage with Kaalia is that she gets into play quickly allowing you to seal people off with the MLD. The other two are a lot more situational and Avacyn takes a lot of time to set up making a board wipe / MLD following her up kind of predictable.
I like Bruna and think she does angel tribal decently I think she is better if you aren't going to be playing with or against MLD and competitive combo decks. Ultimately I don't think that mono white is a great option if you plan to play against opponents who are going all out in commander. Kaalia probably has a better chance if that is the kind of environment you are expecting but I also think it might be worth your time to go in and watch a game sometime to get a better feel before jumping to any conclusions.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
maybe i will go in and watch a game probably a good idea.
From talking to people at the store it seems that its not really Cedh where everyone's playing tier fast combo and stax decks but people will play powerful cards and commanders. i was told I shouldn't worry about being hated out just for having a general like kaalia or for land destruction.
Im not set on land destruction in the deck its just a mechanic i personally enjoy. i guess part of enjoying controlling cards but hating blue.
thx. totally forgot teshar was thing. it seems like teshar could be good as the commander for a death and taxes style deck shes sun titan for hatebears and looking at your deck tech and edhrec there's a decent amount of cards that incidentally trigger her. teshar definitely seems like a fun option
Mirror Entity is the endgame that makes all the tokens into actual threats.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin is also really strong end-game which you can reach sooner with Myriad Landscape, Sun Titan, and the various cards which tutor plains into play. Thespian's Stage can surprise into a plains and then surprise into another Emeria.
Weathered Wayfarer is a powerhouse in any opening hand, though you might want to run Karoo if you're monocolor to enable it. Mistveil Plains allows you to keep recycling cycling lands through the Wayfarer too (as well as equipment you want to tutor for after they are destroyed).
My first commander deck was a nearly monowhite Tajic shell splashing for Sunforger, so I'm quite confident that monowhite has the tools to function.
Tithe is a tad less exciting when you're not fixing your mana but Land Tax is perfect for setting up Emeria.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin is also really strong end-game which you can reach sooner with Myriad Landscape, Sun Titan, and the various cards which tutor plains into play. Thespian's Stage can surprise into a plains and then surprise into another Emeria.
Building your entire end game around the ability to lose to Wasteland seems very poor planning to me. Turning off your ability to run non-basics without a plains type for one EBT land is also, similarly poor.
Building your entire end game around the ability to lose to Wasteland seems very poor planning to me. Turning off your ability to run non-basics without a plains type for one EBT land is also, similarly poor.
You're not giving up non-basics. It's more that cards like Burnished Hart, Myriad Landscape, Solemn Simulacrum, Knight of the White Orchid, Tithe, and Armillary Sphere find you / ramp you multiple plains from the deck. Sun Titan can return fetchlands or some of the cards above to reuse to push out plains very quickly and can also recur the Emeria easily and, as I mentioned, you have Thespian's Stage to duplicate it while also able to act as a plains once you get close. My Tajic Shell, while admittedly very white-heavy only runs 10 basic plains, Mistveil Plains, a shockland, and four fetches and has plenty of space for utility lands. Emeria is simply an easy inclusion that has high potential upside and rewards you for ramping which you want to and were always going to do anyway.
I also never said it had to be your entire game plan, but it does have the power to take over a game once active, especially when you copy it. The beauty of it is that the cards that support it are your mana base and it basically requires no space from the business end of your deck. I definitely advocate Mirror Entity for putting the ramp to good use as well regardless of whether or not Emeria gets active soon enough as it bridges that theme and any token-producing subtheme used to fuel Skullclamp. And as ever, everything can be recurred with Sun Titan.
At the end of the day, I'm very satisfied with how the general shell has performed in my local meta game, so wanted to share that here. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Mono-white will likely not be taking too many competitive tables, outside of something like Sram cheerios, or something; but that's because Competitive is a whole different beast.
That said, for regular EDH, mono white can absolutely be a blast. White has some weaknesses, but it's not hard to shore those up, and White has a huge host of strengths to play off of in order to make some one-sided options. White has a strong set of removals, from excellent single-target Creature, Artifact and Enchantment removal, and mass removal of Creatures, Artifacts, and Enchantments as well. White also has mass land removal, but many groups may frown upon that. White also has a strong set of protection spells to contribute to fighting on the stack, and even some (very) limited counter magic. White also has excellent access to Equipment tutoring, which can shore up some weaknesses quite handily. White also has absolutely insane recursion potential as well, of almost any permanent type. Playing Mono-White also has some hilarious anti-multicolor tech, such as Ravnica at War, and Renounce the Guilds, which can be quite valuable plays.
Your main issues will be ramp and card draw, but both of these are easily overcome. My heliod deck will often times outramp even some green players, though this speaks more to my dedication to ramp. Obviously green players who dedicate to ramp will far outpace you, but White (and any color, thanks to colorless options) can generally hold its own.
Burnished Hart goes well with Gift of Immortality, and also gets reclaimed by Sun Titan. Solemn is a solid add as well. From there, a few mana rocks should set you up well.
Card Draw:
Card draw will often be limited to Artifact and Colorless sources, but there are a few good white options, such as Mentor of the Meek and Bygone Bishop. Dawn of Hope is a new one I'm trying out, and Inheritance, while mana-hungry, can be potent.
From there, I've generally liked Endbringer as a useful utility creature for card draw and other stuff, while Mind's Eye and other generic artifacts can also do their thing. If you're really confidant about your mana base, you can also run the Kozilek pair.
Recursion:
Where to even Begin? Sun Titan slots in well with most of the cheap sides of the ramp/draw packages, especially since he can bring back lands. I like to pair him with Mirrorpool, since you get to immediately bring it back. He also works well with Emeria, the sky ruin, as many others have said. Emeria Shepherd is all sorts of crazy bonkers, if you hold onto it well. I've also liked Marshall's Anthem as a way to recover post-wipe. Angel of Serenity has also been recommended to me, and despite being high cost has served as a powerful multi-utility card. Multiple cards exist to recover artifacts, creatures, and enchantments, in single or in mass. I personally am a fan of Salvage Scout, since mono color decks run a lot of artifacts, and he is quickly returned by Sun Titan, or Sword of Light and Shadow (which is fetched by the equipment package...). Restoration Specialist is a new potential addition as well. Certain powerful spells, like Rally the Ancestors can provide a potent surprise as well, especially as you return some of your other recursion pieces to bring stuff back permanently, and use a sac outlet to not lose yours, or use blink effects/Teferi's protection in response to the delayed trigger... etc.
In the lands section, I like to add Buried Ruin, and even sometimes Haunted Fengraf. Don't forget Mistveil Plains as an option, especially if it feeds back into a tutor loop.
In short, White has a lot of recursion options that feed into each other and protect each other piece, while also having the capability to tutor/fetch multiple pieces of it.
You're not giving up non-basics. It's more that cards like Burnished Hart, Myriad Landscape, Solemn Simulacrum, Knight of the White Orchid, Tithe, and Armillary Sphere find you / ramp you multiple plains from the deck. Sun Titan can return fetchlands or some of the cards above to reuse to push out plains very quickly and can also recur the Emeria easily and, as I mentioned, you have Thespian's Stage to duplicate it while also able to act as a plains once you get close. My Tajic Shell, while admittedly very white-heavy only runs 10 basic plains, Mistveil Plains, a shockland, and four fetches and has plenty of space for utility lands. Emeria is simply an easy inclusion that has high potential upside and rewards you for ramping which you want to and were always going to do anyway.
I also never said it had to be your entire game plan, but it does have the power to take over a game once active, especially when you copy it.
Every land you play that isn't a plains puts your Emeria off by a turn, just like every land that isn't a mountain puts off Valakut by a turn. And, then when it IS online, people know it's happening, and they will Wasteland you to stop that. If they don't, they 1) don't believe in ever touching lands as though they are sacred, or 2) have a non-existent level of threat assessment. Both of which are problems existing not at the game level but at the player level. And I'm not going to ever, ever rely on my opponent having some imaginary aversion to hitting lands just to justify my terrible EBT single colour land as an End Game.
Every land you play that isn't a plains puts your Emeria off by a turn.
This is why the cards I listed bypass the need to rely on playing a single land per turn. Burnished Hart and Sun Titan will quickly accumulate the needed plains count over a couple turns. If your local meta is playing Wasteland that frequently then yes, it does sound like it would be unreliable for you. My local metagame is light on that and I therefore am going to capitalize on it. A single wasteland is easy to bypass though and I have done so in the past with Thespian's Stage / Sun Titan / Mistveil Plains into Expedition Map.
Ramping in general should should still be worth it regardless whether or not you have Emeria and regardless of whether or not they have Wasteland.
As a general aside, I place a huge priority on Sun Titan in all of my white decks and trying to maximize the number of triggers I get from that specific card and the number of cards in my deck that can recur/flicker Sun Titan and/or be recurred by Sun Titan. It just makes accessing the cards I want/need significantly easier at any point during the game regardless of the order I drew them or if some of them ended up in my graveyard.
Pulsemage Advocate is another big one that's worth mentioning here, though it loses a lot of its potency without the options available in other colors. Mitigating the cost is nontrivial but the power is there. It's hard for me to evaluate in monowhite though. There might not be enough low-hanging synergy for it to do its best work here. Anger, Buried Alive, and Fatestitcher and potent recursion targets like Bane of Progress aren't present, as an example.
It's not clear to me what kind of monowhite shell could make the best use of it, but my guess would have to be something like Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle which could at least get it back when it happened to be most relevant and use the ability to chain into recursion from the historic trigger. Maybe something like Pulsemage Advocate into Karmic Guide into Angel of Condemnation off a historic trigger after a board wipe, flickering the Karmic Guide on upkeep instead of paying echo.
Your meta being light on mana denial effects shouldn't be a justification to suggest such a fragile land to a poster whom is genuinely asking about the validity of a singular colour archetype. That sounds like a metagame vulnerability that could and should be exploited such that players learn just how powerful lands are, moreso when there's no checks and balances for them. Have you considered rolling these players with Git Gud Frog or Lord Windgrace? That'd be a pretty good start, and not even a cEDH deck.
Emeria is a payoff. Singular. Not one that should be sold as the basis for going mono-W of all things. Rather, a better suggestion would be advising based on the multitudes of virtual CA that can be generated (via self-bounces [Skyfisher], land count manipulation [thawing glaciers, karoo]) to help the archetype keep up with the rest of the field. Which, yes, there is a lot of virtual CA to utilize, although it is a lot of work and focus to do that and it still can and will feel like a waste when someone blows over the top of you with a massive draw spell, repetitive tutours, or huge reanimation spell. I.e. it's sweet when you set up thawing glaciers + rings of brighthearth to get you closer to an online emeria, the sky ruin but you feel almost worthless getting your +1 land when someone drops sphinx's revelation for x = 5.
Monowhite's options for utility beyond that allowed by the color is... just inefficient and suboptimal. Acceleration is generally not much of a problem, but card advantage is.
You can try to generate that virtual card advantage but it's not beating anything even compared to monored.
I've heavily outdrawn monowhite decks with Experimental Frenzy and Stolen Strategy these days.
Mono-white can break parity card and/or mana wise in a variety of ways but unfortunately its commanders are too trash to make it right to play generally.
You can build a pretty good token deck, a decent enchantment deck, a decent artifact deck, etc. But they're all worse than other colors because 1) the other colors offer something, 2) the other colors have commanders that are better.
Generally speaking it's true of all mono colors that they are worse than dual color pairs because of lack of a diversity of powerful cards. This is not true of 2 colors vs. 3, where playing 2 colors allows for a more consistent manabase and more utility lands, and the ability to play more demanding colored mana costs more consistently, etc.
It's true that a mono color manabase offers some advantages vs. 2, specifically with cards like Nykthos or Cabal Coffers and more utility lands, but this generally pales in comparison to the lack of card pool. Compare the power advantages of having access to green enchantresses and power cards (eternal witness, genesis wave, etc.) for an enchantress deck and it's easy to see this.
So all things considered the primary reason to play mono color is the commander. And mono white commanders are trash. They're simply awful in comparison to every other color.
The other four colors all have commanders who are literally competitive. Teferi, Arcum, JVP, Baral, Sidisi, Godo, Yisan, etc. White's best competitive commander is probably Teshar I guess? I honestly don't even know. they're all such miserable garbage.
Then if you move down the tiers to just 'very powerful' all four colors have those too (at least green, red and blue, not sure about black). White has a few decent ones too but literally nothing like Azusa or Talrand or Krenko.
I wouldn't say "bad". You're essentially hurt in several ways: White has
1) the fewest instants of any color
2) the least card draw of any color
3) the least ramp of any color
The first one can't be helped too much (other than Vedalken Orrery), but there are artifacts for both the other issues. In fact, arguably white or green is the best color for Skullclamp, white because of all the 1/1s, green because of all the mana dorks.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
It's true that white suffers because most other colors get more raw card draw. Better ramp is hogwash because most mono colored decks other than green have to use artifacts to cover that. White is no less than them. In fact, in terms of land fetch, it's best behind green. Just not in land ramp ( as in, putting more lands on the battlefield than your 1 per turn).
White has lots of card advantage, but it typically comes in the form of removal or token generation. If you're using your 1 card to blow up 10 opponents cards, then you've got card advantage.
For a more casual meta (not CEDH), white is very fair and can keep control of a game for a very long time simply by playing a few wraths and 2 for 1 removal (there are several options). A few fat fliers that are hard to deal with can finish it out, any of those that you mentioned being excellent candidates.
Play to the color's strengths, and you can do fine. White is about synergy and fairness, not especially broken win conditions. If you want a fun commander that is pretty effective, try an odric, lunarch marshal build. Keyword soup is fun if they all get it. Especially bonkers can be archangel of thune and odric, lunarch marshal.
If you want a fair build, go with hatebears. White has a lot and now everyone plays the fair game. Especially effective in a meta full of card drawing, tutoring fools! If you believe that white isn't fair, just play balance effects. You'll be quite amazed at how one of these can put the ball back in your court.
If you want card advantage out the wazoo, play anthems and some token makers. That can win games, too. It's not card draw, but then again white has a lot of equipment tutors and skull clamp has already been mentioned.
White makes an excellent reanimator color, not just limited to creatures. By reanimator, I mean putting permanents from your graveyard to the battlefield.
The number one reason white doesn't win games is a lack of dumb, splashy wincons. No expropriate nonsense. No craterhoof shenanigans. No necropotence malarkey. No cards it can play that just instantly win the game without strategy or forethought.
It plays fair, and fair doesn't win games in this format.
I find Nahiri with proper equipment and tutors is very hard to deal with. Even a lowly token equipped with Swords of the right color would make it very difficult for opponents to remove, and Nahiri herself made removal of creature/equipment less rewarding by producing/retrieving both.
White traditionally has problems with draw and ramp. Maybe solid finisher cards too, although there's a ton of beaters about.
That being said, it's not that bad. It's fun to build, because it's a challenge, and it's fun to pilot because it's a challenge, but you're not pushing sh*t uphill, it's not that laborious. Winning games comes down less to resolving Tooth and Nail or Expropriate, and more comes down to clever plays and pragmatism, and that's part of what makes mono white so much fun to play.
My bruna build is 90% of the time the most ramped deck at the table FWIW, and I rarely struggle for draw. It's hard to kill too - the deck just keeps coming back, it's just that winning comes down to making solid plays and masterful table talk.
At pre release I was talking about the commander night with people and it seems there ok with mld and dont have huge problems with hating people out. So im not to worried about my strategy in that respect.
The main commanders im considering for the deck are Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Bruna, the Fading light, Kaalia of the Vast, and possibly nahiri, the lithomancer.
For mono white Id probably do a type of mono white control deck. Curving hate bears into hate Angels. backed up by wraths and some MLD. Also an equipment package because even budget there's some decently priced equip tutors and equipment for card draw ,ramp, protection and even an everything wrath in WorldSlayer.
I'm still picking he commander and I'm wondering if mono whites actually that bad. It gets the most wraths, and has some recursion engines, and good hate bear type creatures. As for card draw mentor of the meek, bygone bishop and equipment can provide card advantage. Im also almost tempted to put smuggler's copter in this category even though its filtering just because its good. artifacts plus whites ramp creatures which can trigger mentor or bygone bishop. Should be able to handle ramp as well.
I found the first key is to get creative. Without a ton of card advantage, artifacts become critical to help keep up. But there are some white cards that help:
Arcane Encyclopedia
Seer's Sundial
Mind's Eye
Endless Horizons
Weathered Wayfarer
are all good options. And don't forget the lands:
Emeria, The Sky Ruin
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Terrain Generator
Thawing Glaciers
all do good work.
And the other key is to get creative with your strategy as well. While the Avacyn / Mass-LD angle seems like a winner, I'm telling you now that you will experience a quite real hate-storm at the majority of tables. If you're okay with that, go forth and conquer! If not, try to find a more subtle angle for your deck overall.
Being in mono-white allows you to really delve deep into some uncommonly used cards. I've a teshar, ancestor's apostle combo that can combo off and draw the deck, often with protection. It's not expected in mono-white, but on some level, there are some really powerful interactions that are possible!
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Im aiming for a hatebears death and taxes strategy that curves into hate creatures that aren't bears later. modifying the strategy for more staying power.
Also mono white reanimator with bruna sounds fun to me and the reanimation cards can pull double duty as recursion for any important creatures.
Avacyn MLD isn't like the main strategy its just a win con for avacyn. mainly like avacyn cause the arts amazing and indestructible is nice. I consider my copy the crown jewel of my collection.
I also like nahiri mainly because she recurs any important equipment and the obvious synergy with skullclamp.
if people are playing fetches thalia heretic cathar
would be a funny anti meta commander as well.
There are two versions, a straight up combo version, and a good stuff value deck.
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/790445
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
I like Bruna and think she does angel tribal decently I think she is better if you aren't going to be playing with or against MLD and competitive combo decks. Ultimately I don't think that mono white is a great option if you plan to play against opponents who are going all out in commander. Kaalia probably has a better chance if that is the kind of environment you are expecting but I also think it might be worth your time to go in and watch a game sometime to get a better feel before jumping to any conclusions.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
From talking to people at the store it seems that its not really Cedh where everyone's playing tier fast combo and stax decks but people will play powerful cards and commanders. i was told I shouldn't worry about being hated out just for having a general like kaalia or for land destruction.
Im not set on land destruction in the deck its just a mechanic i personally enjoy. i guess part of enjoying controlling cards but hating blue.
Steelshaper's Gift
Open the Armory
Stoneforge Mystic
Enlightened Tutor
Mirror Entity is the endgame that makes all the tokens into actual threats.
Emeria, the Sky Ruin is also really strong end-game which you can reach sooner with Myriad Landscape, Sun Titan, and the various cards which tutor plains into play. Thespian's Stage can surprise into a plains and then surprise into another Emeria.
Weathered Wayfarer is a powerhouse in any opening hand, though you might want to run Karoo if you're monocolor to enable it. Mistveil Plains allows you to keep recycling cycling lands through the Wayfarer too (as well as equipment you want to tutor for after they are destroyed).
My first commander deck was a nearly monowhite Tajic shell splashing for Sunforger, so I'm quite confident that monowhite has the tools to function.
Tithe is a tad less exciting when you're not fixing your mana but Land Tax is perfect for setting up Emeria.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
Building your entire end game around the ability to lose to Wasteland seems very poor planning to me. Turning off your ability to run non-basics without a plains type for one EBT land is also, similarly poor.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Ramp and land search:Thran Dynamo, Land Tax, Thaumatic Compass, Tithe, Weathered Wayfarer, Burnished Hart, Knight of the White Orchid, Solemn Simulacrum, Sword of the Animist
Draw: Endless Atlas, Mask of Memory, The Immortal Sun, Sword of Fire and Ice, Sensei's Divining Top, Scroll Rack,
draw if you gain life: Well of Lost Dreams, Dawn of Hope
draw if you go tribal: Vanquisher's Banner, Herald's Horn.
I play them all in my Lyra deck and I always make many mana, also with Nykthos, and often have a good number of cards in my hand.
WUBDakkon, a Tribute
BChainer, the demonlord!
RWAurelia
WBKarlov of the Ghost Council
I also never said it had to be your entire game plan, but it does have the power to take over a game once active, especially when you copy it. The beauty of it is that the cards that support it are your mana base and it basically requires no space from the business end of your deck. I definitely advocate Mirror Entity for putting the ramp to good use as well regardless of whether or not Emeria gets active soon enough as it bridges that theme and any token-producing subtheme used to fuel Skullclamp. And as ever, everything can be recurred with Sun Titan.
At the end of the day, I'm very satisfied with how the general shell has performed in my local meta game, so wanted to share that here. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
That said, for regular EDH, mono white can absolutely be a blast. White has some weaknesses, but it's not hard to shore those up, and White has a huge host of strengths to play off of in order to make some one-sided options. White has a strong set of removals, from excellent single-target Creature, Artifact and Enchantment removal, and mass removal of Creatures, Artifacts, and Enchantments as well. White also has mass land removal, but many groups may frown upon that. White also has a strong set of protection spells to contribute to fighting on the stack, and even some (very) limited counter magic. White also has excellent access to Equipment tutoring, which can shore up some weaknesses quite handily. White also has absolutely insane recursion potential as well, of almost any permanent type. Playing Mono-White also has some hilarious anti-multicolor tech, such as Ravnica at War, and Renounce the Guilds, which can be quite valuable plays.
Your main issues will be ramp and card draw, but both of these are easily overcome. My heliod deck will often times outramp even some green players, though this speaks more to my dedication to ramp. Obviously green players who dedicate to ramp will far outpace you, but White (and any color, thanks to colorless options) can generally hold its own.
Equipment: White can use cards like Stoneforge Mystic and Relic Seeker to grab Sword of the Animist and Skullclamp to offset some of the Ramp/Draw issues. If mystic is outside your pricepoint, or depending on your commitment to equipment, Several other options exist. Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Feast and Famine can also shore up the draw/ramp in a pinch as well.
Ramp:
For ramp, some white-specific options also include: Boreas Charger, Knight of the White Orchid and Kor Cartographer, which play well with Blink Effects, or with Resurection effects. You also have Legion's Landing, which at worst can be a sort of White rampant growth.
Some of my favored colorless options of ramp include Rings of Brighthearth with fetchlands, as fetches also pair well with Sun Titan and Crucible of Worlds. Thawing Glaciers also pairs well with Rings, and also with Deserted Temple, though be careful there as Deserted Temple and Rings can go infinite with a land that produces enough mana, such as Nykthos or Serra's Sanctum.
Burnished Hart goes well with Gift of Immortality, and also gets reclaimed by Sun Titan. Solemn is a solid add as well. From there, a few mana rocks should set you up well.
Card Draw:
Card draw will often be limited to Artifact and Colorless sources, but there are a few good white options, such as Mentor of the Meek and Bygone Bishop. Dawn of Hope is a new one I'm trying out, and Inheritance, while mana-hungry, can be potent.
From there, I've generally liked Endbringer as a useful utility creature for card draw and other stuff, while Mind's Eye and other generic artifacts can also do their thing. If you're really confidant about your mana base, you can also run the Kozilek pair.
Recursion:
Where to even Begin? Sun Titan slots in well with most of the cheap sides of the ramp/draw packages, especially since he can bring back lands. I like to pair him with Mirrorpool, since you get to immediately bring it back. He also works well with Emeria, the sky ruin, as many others have said. Emeria Shepherd is all sorts of crazy bonkers, if you hold onto it well. I've also liked Marshall's Anthem as a way to recover post-wipe. Angel of Serenity has also been recommended to me, and despite being high cost has served as a powerful multi-utility card. Multiple cards exist to recover artifacts, creatures, and enchantments, in single or in mass. I personally am a fan of Salvage Scout, since mono color decks run a lot of artifacts, and he is quickly returned by Sun Titan, or Sword of Light and Shadow (which is fetched by the equipment package...). Restoration Specialist is a new potential addition as well. Certain powerful spells, like Rally the Ancestors can provide a potent surprise as well, especially as you return some of your other recursion pieces to bring stuff back permanently, and use a sac outlet to not lose yours, or use blink effects/Teferi's protection in response to the delayed trigger... etc.
In the lands section, I like to add Buried Ruin, and even sometimes Haunted Fengraf. Don't forget Mistveil Plains as an option, especially if it feeds back into a tutor loop.
In short, White has a lot of recursion options that feed into each other and protect each other piece, while also having the capability to tutor/fetch multiple pieces of it.
Removal:
White has plenty, so I'm just going to list my favorites:
Single Creature: Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile. Dispatch, Crib Swap, Declaration in stone.
Single Artifact/Enchantment: Return to Dust, Banishing Stroke
Attack Deterence: Wing Shards, Dispense Justice, Settle the Wreckage
Mass: Rout, Tragic Arrogance, Hour of Revelation, Hallowed Burial, Akroma's Venceance, Austere Command, Descend upon the Sinful
Mass Enchantment/Artifact: (of those not included above) Patrician's Scorn.
Colorless: All is Dust, Oblivion Stone, Ugin. (stone can be recured, Other two, you likely have more artifacts/colorless than most).
Grave Hate: Hallowed Moonlight, Rest in Peace, Containtment Priest, Scavenger Grounds, Angel of Serenity, Stone Cloaker.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
Every land you play that isn't a plains puts your Emeria off by a turn, just like every land that isn't a mountain puts off Valakut by a turn. And, then when it IS online, people know it's happening, and they will Wasteland you to stop that. If they don't, they 1) don't believe in ever touching lands as though they are sacred, or 2) have a non-existent level of threat assessment. Both of which are problems existing not at the game level but at the player level. And I'm not going to ever, ever rely on my opponent having some imaginary aversion to hitting lands just to justify my terrible EBT single colour land as an End Game.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Ramping in general should should still be worth it regardless whether or not you have Emeria and regardless of whether or not they have Wasteland.
As a general aside, I place a huge priority on Sun Titan in all of my white decks and trying to maximize the number of triggers I get from that specific card and the number of cards in my deck that can recur/flicker Sun Titan and/or be recurred by Sun Titan. It just makes accessing the cards I want/need significantly easier at any point during the game regardless of the order I drew them or if some of them ended up in my graveyard.
Pulsemage Advocate is another big one that's worth mentioning here, though it loses a lot of its potency without the options available in other colors. Mitigating the cost is nontrivial but the power is there. It's hard for me to evaluate in monowhite though. There might not be enough low-hanging synergy for it to do its best work here. Anger, Buried Alive, and Fatestitcher and potent recursion targets like Bane of Progress aren't present, as an example.
It's not clear to me what kind of monowhite shell could make the best use of it, but my guess would have to be something like Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle which could at least get it back when it happened to be most relevant and use the ability to chain into recursion from the historic trigger. Maybe something like Pulsemage Advocate into Karmic Guide into Angel of Condemnation off a historic trigger after a board wipe, flickering the Karmic Guide on upkeep instead of paying echo.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
Emeria is a payoff. Singular. Not one that should be sold as the basis for going mono-W of all things. Rather, a better suggestion would be advising based on the multitudes of virtual CA that can be generated (via self-bounces [Skyfisher], land count manipulation [thawing glaciers, karoo]) to help the archetype keep up with the rest of the field. Which, yes, there is a lot of virtual CA to utilize, although it is a lot of work and focus to do that and it still can and will feel like a waste when someone blows over the top of you with a massive draw spell, repetitive tutours, or huge reanimation spell. I.e. it's sweet when you set up thawing glaciers + rings of brighthearth to get you closer to an online emeria, the sky ruin but you feel almost worthless getting your +1 land when someone drops sphinx's revelation for x = 5.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
You can try to generate that virtual card advantage but it's not beating anything even compared to monored.
I've heavily outdrawn monowhite decks with Experimental Frenzy and Stolen Strategy these days.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
You can build a pretty good token deck, a decent enchantment deck, a decent artifact deck, etc. But they're all worse than other colors because 1) the other colors offer something, 2) the other colors have commanders that are better.
Generally speaking it's true of all mono colors that they are worse than dual color pairs because of lack of a diversity of powerful cards. This is not true of 2 colors vs. 3, where playing 2 colors allows for a more consistent manabase and more utility lands, and the ability to play more demanding colored mana costs more consistently, etc.
It's true that a mono color manabase offers some advantages vs. 2, specifically with cards like Nykthos or Cabal Coffers and more utility lands, but this generally pales in comparison to the lack of card pool. Compare the power advantages of having access to green enchantresses and power cards (eternal witness, genesis wave, etc.) for an enchantress deck and it's easy to see this.
So all things considered the primary reason to play mono color is the commander. And mono white commanders are trash. They're simply awful in comparison to every other color.
The other four colors all have commanders who are literally competitive. Teferi, Arcum, JVP, Baral, Sidisi, Godo, Yisan, etc. White's best competitive commander is probably Teshar I guess? I honestly don't even know. they're all such miserable garbage.
Then if you move down the tiers to just 'very powerful' all four colors have those too (at least green, red and blue, not sure about black). White has a few decent ones too but literally nothing like Azusa or Talrand or Krenko.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
1) the fewest instants of any color
2) the least card draw of any color
3) the least ramp of any color
The first one can't be helped too much (other than Vedalken Orrery), but there are artifacts for both the other issues. In fact, arguably white or green is the best color for Skullclamp, white because of all the 1/1s, green because of all the mana dorks.
On phasing:
White has lots of card advantage, but it typically comes in the form of removal or token generation. If you're using your 1 card to blow up 10 opponents cards, then you've got card advantage.
For a more casual meta (not CEDH), white is very fair and can keep control of a game for a very long time simply by playing a few wraths and 2 for 1 removal (there are several options). A few fat fliers that are hard to deal with can finish it out, any of those that you mentioned being excellent candidates.
Play to the color's strengths, and you can do fine. White is about synergy and fairness, not especially broken win conditions. If you want a fun commander that is pretty effective, try an odric, lunarch marshal build. Keyword soup is fun if they all get it. Especially bonkers can be archangel of thune and odric, lunarch marshal.
If you want a fair build, go with hatebears. White has a lot and now everyone plays the fair game. Especially effective in a meta full of card drawing, tutoring fools! If you believe that white isn't fair, just play balance effects. You'll be quite amazed at how one of these can put the ball back in your court.
If you want card advantage out the wazoo, play anthems and some token makers. That can win games, too. It's not card draw, but then again white has a lot of equipment tutors and skull clamp has already been mentioned.
White makes an excellent reanimator color, not just limited to creatures. By reanimator, I mean putting permanents from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
It plays fair, and fair doesn't win games in this format.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
That being said, it's not that bad. It's fun to build, because it's a challenge, and it's fun to pilot because it's a challenge, but you're not pushing sh*t uphill, it's not that laborious. Winning games comes down less to resolving Tooth and Nail or Expropriate, and more comes down to clever plays and pragmatism, and that's part of what makes mono white so much fun to play.
My bruna build is 90% of the time the most ramped deck at the table FWIW, and I rarely struggle for draw. It's hard to kill too - the deck just keeps coming back, it's just that winning comes down to making solid plays and masterful table talk.