I've been contemplating the idea of brewing up a new set of mono-colored EDH decks based around the idea of making each deck an archetype that it's specific color isn't particularly known for. I think this could be a fun deckbuilding exercise that imposes a natural power-limit on each deck and forces me to look at cards that I generally wouldn't include in decks.
So far, I've been thinking along the lines of the following:
W: combo U: aggro B: ramp? (I don't think this is actually far enough from black's place in the color pie, as it's pretty good at producing lots of mana) R: control G: voltron (as opposed to mega-ramp or go-wide stompy strategies)
Obviously, I could use a little more direction on this, and would love your thoughts as to what each color is capable of, but doesn't fall in their stereotypical part of the color pie.
Black: Artifact based perhaps.. black barely ever interacts with artifacts. That is the weird thing about black it sort of does everything.... for a cost.
I mean green control is a bit off meta as well I kind of feel like there are a bunch of really powerful mono green voltron commanders (based around lands).
Plenty of good blue aggro decks as well but perhaps it is the hardest thing for blue to do.
I think the best want to think about this is "what would be harder to make work" this or this.
I think this will be a bit harder than expected. There are some colors that do everything pretty well if the deck is built right. For example, Mono-white is capable of control, combo, and aggro to fairly competitive levels. White has a lot of combos: Sac Outlet + Sun Titan + Fiend Hunter/Angelic Renewal; Sac outlet + Karmic Guide + Reveillark; and every artifact based combo. White also has the best removal for any color, making it very adept at control. And then aggro is pretty typical for white, as is tokens. For these, I'm going to assume a lack of artifact base, so no metalworker or mana rock super ramp that artifact based decks are known for. Using artifacts, every color is capable of significant ramp.
- Group Hug? There's a few cards that help all players. There's Truce, another very similar card I can't remember, and Alliance of Arms to give everyone tokens. Bacon of Immortality, Battletide Alchemist and some other cards for politics. Even Tragic Arrogance can be used in a very group hug sort of way sometimes. Build kind of control-ish just to keep people alive.
- Tokens - Very few good token makers with seemingly no mass p/t boosts other than Bad moon. Things like Zulaport Cutthroat make token strategy fairly usable so long as you don't want to go wide and turn them sideways.
- Control - Next to no boardwipes, near no "destroy target creature" removal, random chance cards to act as enchantment removal. Another color that just isn't good for control. Then again, looking at Gaka's Norin the Wary deck and seeing that red is actually able to pull off control so long as it's resource denial based. Mono-red NEEDS Blood moon.
- Control - Green's near complete lack of creature removal makes this fairly obvious. Forcing you to build something akin to Polukranos, World Eater and Fight cards to remove creatures. No counterspells, minus a few colorless ones like Warping Wail, but a lot of artifact and enchantment removal with a half decent amount of "noncreature permanent" removal. Use cards like Viridian Revel for card draw.
Mono Blue ramp: I can't believe I forgot this. Now there is all these mana doubling in mono colours and Nyxthos which kind of still makes it easy. I have seen Thassa, God of the Sea Monsters, and of course there is Braids, conjurer adept which by passes the whole ramp thing.
Mono Black Tokens: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder *cough* I have seen it kind of far too often to really feel it is that unique. But these decks are really commander dependant.
Mono Green control: Yeva, Nature's Herald and Thrun, the last troll make good control cards. Green can actually draw cards efficiently but kind of have to rely on creatures to do the killing. Ambush vipering everyone.
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser red token/control/politic is fun to play with, especially in multiplayer where you could goad people and borrow cards from non-red players.
Mono Blue ramp: I can't believe I forgot this. Now there is all these mana doubling in mono colours and Nyxthos which kind of still makes it easy. I have seen Thassa, God of the Sea Monsters, and of course there is Braids, conjurer adept which by passes the whole ramp thing.
Mono Black Tokens: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder *cough* I have seen it kind of far too often to really feel it is that unique. But these decks are really commander dependant.
Mono Green control: Yeva, Nature's Herald and Thrun, the last troll make good control cards. Green can actually draw cards efficiently but kind of have to rely on creatures to do the killing. Ambush vipering everyone.
For Red control, I'd look at Diaochan, Artful Beauty. I've used her as a political deck commander before and she was really fun. Best part is that the opponent has to chose a creature to destroy. She'd be pretty easy to set up as a control commander. There's also Tahngarth, Talruum Hero, but I think Diaochan just works better.
For Green control, I've BEEN looking at Polukranos, World Eater for quite some time now. I've just been waiting for a couple of colorshifted stuff, kind of like how blue has been getting targeted creature destruction/exile since Timespiral block or Red's drastic gains in card draw.
- Group Hug? There's a few cards that help all players. There's Truce, another very similar card I can't remember, and Alliance of Arms to give everyone tokens. Bacon of Immortality, Battletide Alchemist and some other cards for politics. Even Tragic Arrogance can be used in a very group hug sort of way sometimes. Build kind of control-ish just to keep people alive.
White has been featured in a lot of politics decks. You have options like Ghostly Prison and Sphere of Safety to keep opponents off you.
- Tokens - Very few good token makers with seemingly no mass p/t boosts other than Bad moon. Things like Zulaport Cutthroat make token strategy fairly usable so long as you don't want to go wide and turn them sideways.
Hilariously, one of the most infamous token makers is black. You also have a few others, though they tend to make black creatures bigger or make certain black creature types (zombies, vampires, I guess in Lorwyn you'd also have elves, treefolk, and faeries) bigger.
- Control - Next to no boardwipes, near no "destroy target creature" removal, random chance cards to act as enchantment removal. Another color that just isn't good for control. Then again, looking at Gaka's Norin the Wary deck and seeing that red is actually able to pull off control so long as it's resource denial based. Mono-red NEEDS Blood moon.
I imagine red control would find ways to reuse land destruction. I think Feldon of the Third Path or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breakermight be able to pull it off by just repeatedly cloning creatures that destroy lands on ETB.
- Control - Green's near complete lack of creature removal makes this fairly obvious. Forcing you to build something akin to Polukranos, World Eater and Fight cards to remove creatures. No counterspells, minus a few colorless ones like Warping Wail, but a lot of artifact and enchantment removal with a half decent amount of "noncreature permanent" removal. Use cards like Viridian Revel for card draw.
I think it would probably have Mycosynth Lattice. That's already a very Staxy card, with interactions with Karn, Silver Golem, Nullmage Shepherd, Aura Shards, and Null Rod, just to name a few. (And of course Viridian Revel.) Here, you're using the same trick as Nullmage Shepherd and Aura Shards, just flat out destroying artifacts, where "artifacts" means "every permanent ever".
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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!
Teferi's can be played as a commander walker is an excellent mono blue ramp commander. He untaps 4 permanents for -1, so once you land him you make all the mana. Use island based ramp like high tide and caged sun, along with lands that naturally produce extra mana and rocks, with blues ability to tutor artifacts as a way to ensure rocks land quickly. Because turn 1 island Sol ring sky diamond, turn 2 ancient Tomb Teferi -1 untap everything and cast another 6 drop can happen.
Red can do control, it just relies on early resource denial into blow up the world cards like Apocalypse.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
- Group Hug? There's a few cards that help all players. There's Truce, another very similar card I can't remember, and Alliance of Arms to give everyone tokens. Bacon of Immortality, Battletide Alchemist and some other cards for politics. Even Tragic Arrogance can be used in a very group hug sort of way sometimes. Build kind of control-ish just to keep people alive.
White has been featured in a lot of politics decks. You have options like Ghostly Prison and Sphere of Safety to keep opponents off you.
It's kinda weird, since white also has a lot of Stax cards, even though Stax and Group Hug are opposites.
Actually, the card I was thinking of was Temporary Truce which actually does the exact same thing as Truce for slightly less at sorcery speed. Though, looking that up, I also found Rousing of Souls which is another card that does something similar (Draws everyone cards).
- Control - Green's near complete lack of creature removal makes this fairly obvious. Forcing you to build something akin to Polukranos, World Eater and Fight cards to remove creatures. No counterspells, minus a few colorless ones like Warping Wail, but a lot of artifact and enchantment removal with a half decent amount of "noncreature permanent" removal. Use cards like Viridian Revel for card draw.
I think it would probably have Mycosynth Lattice. That's already a very Staxy card, with interactions with Karn, Silver Golem, Nullmage Shepherd, Aura Shards, and Null Rod, just to name a few. (And of course Viridian Revel.) Here, you're using the same trick as Nullmage Shepherd and Aura Shards, just flat out destroying artifacts, where "artifacts" means "every permanent ever".
For these, I'm going to assume a lack of artifact base, so no metalworker or mana rock super ramp that artifact based decks are known for. Using artifacts, every color is capable of significant ramp.
Yeah, the second you start including artifacts into the discussion is when every color becomes significantly more capable at everything. Not arguing with you, but just stating that.
Also, people tend to target anyone that plays Mycosynth Lattice. No one ever plays that card "fairly". It's always blowing up lands or a combo enabler.
My problem is that I play Patron of the Moon and Teferi, Temporal Archmage commander decks, so to say blue should be ramp, to me just sounds like a typical blue deck. Same with Red as control, which is actually quite popular way of playing red. Plenty of black token strategies...
So in my opinion before we get ahead of ourselves, lets actually hone in on "opposites".
Let's list what archetypes and qualities you do find in colors:
Red - Direct Damage, Chaos, Artifact and land destruction.
Red/Green - Aggressive creatures.
Green - Mana acceleration, Mana fixing, Powerful creatures, "Pump" effects, Card advantage, Artifact and enchantment destruction.
Green/White - Tokens, Utility creatures.
White - Damage prevention and life gain, Weenie (Hate Bears), Mass Removal, Rules-setting and "Taxing", Artifact and enchantment destruction.
White/Blue - Control skewed toward artifact and enchantment spot removal
Blue - Permission, Card advantage, Mimicry, Bounce, Tapping and untapping permanents, Gain control, Trickery tactics.
Blue/Black - Control skewed toward creature spot removal.
Black - Creature Removal, Discard, Draining Life, Reanimation, Card advantage.
Black/Red - Aggressive damage and life loss.
So I'm just listing what you'd put in the opposites color pies and then removing the traits that that the colors do tend to share naturally. This way you are getting the most true opposite traits to what you expect in colors.
Red - Permission, Card advantage, Bounce, Tapping and untapping permanents, Rules-setting and "Taxing", Enchantment destruction.
Green - Permission, Mimicry, Bounce, Tapping and untapping permanents, Gain control, Trickery tactics, Creature Removal, Discard, Draining Life, Reanimation
White - Direct Damage, Chaos, Discard, Draining Life, Card advantage
Blue - Direct Damage, Chaos, Artifact and land destruction, Mana fixing, "Pump" effects, Artifact and enchantment destruction
Black - Mana fixing, Artifact and enchantment destruction, Damage prevention, Weenie (Hate Bears), Mass Removal (non-creatures), Rules-setting and "Taxing"
I think you want to find your archetypes within sharing some of these "opposites" of traits. We want to remove ourselves as far from the traits that you are used to in a colors, otherwise you just run the risk of being a deck that is actually played, like most of the suggestions have lead to in my opinion.
Yeah, allied/enemy doesn't say much. White and red both have very aggressive playstyles, for instance. Anyway, I'd say:
W: Fatties or storm (The storm element would be things like creatures with prowess or permanents with extort. White actually doesn't have a storm win condition other than, I guess Astral Steel?)
U: Aggro
B: Group hug
R: Reanimator
G: Artifacts matter (Yeah, I know, this uses artifacts, but still...)
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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!
You know, we should probably suggest things that are actually possible to accomplish in the color without solely relying on artifacts when making suggestions. If you're trying to build a deck that plays against type when it comes to its colors, you are going to avoid the colors obvious strengths, common archetypes, and even lesser played but established options, but you should also avoid silly ***** that just isn't possible without it being essentially mono brown with the color just providing window dressing. Mono blue ramp or mono red control aren't good suggestions because while they aren't the first choice archetypes for those colors, both have a ton of support in the format and popular powerful commanders associated with them. Silly nonsense like mono white mill are bad suggestions because the color adds nothing to the mono brown version, outside of potential combos like RiP Helm, which lets mono white get a mill win but doesn't care if no other card in the deck does anything for mill as a strategy.
Something like mono G artifacts matter might be fine, because there are actually a decent number of green cards that care about artifacts, so as long as you use them it creates a unique deck that really is outside of its slice of the color pie. Mono red reanimation would similarly rely heavily on artifacts for the reanimation part, but using red looting to dump fatties into the yard and Feldon to rez them makes it uniquely red. White is trick here because of all the things white doesn't do well. It's lack of mana acceleration and card draw makes it bad at numerous archetypes. It does have a lot of combos available, but going for combo wins in mono W is tough due to the lack of card selection and draw.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Well it looks like everybody has different ideas, and the original poster hasn't chirped in on what they actually want to do. So I think it will be a lot of individual choices on if people will ever want to do their ideas themselves.
I've been contemplating the idea of brewing up a new set of mono-colored EDH decks based around the idea of making each deck an archetype that it's specific color isn't particularly known for. I think this could be a fun deckbuilding exercise that imposes a natural power-limit on each deck and forces me to look at cards that I generally wouldn't include in decks.
So far, I've been thinking along the lines of the following:
W: combo
U: aggro
B: ramp? (I don't think this is actually far enough from black's place in the color pie, as it's pretty good at producing lots of mana)
R: control
G: voltron (as opposed to mega-ramp or go-wide stompy strategies)
Obviously, I could use a little more direction on this, and would love your thoughts as to what each color is capable of, but doesn't fall in their stereotypical part of the color pie.
Thanks!
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
I mean green control is a bit off meta as well I kind of feel like there are a bunch of really powerful mono green voltron commanders (based around lands).
Plenty of good blue aggro decks as well but perhaps it is the hardest thing for blue to do.
I think the best want to think about this is "what would be harder to make work" this or this.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
I do have a White pure combo deck with Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle - Mono-White Combo
How about a life gain deck for Red? There are quite a few control decks with Red already, especially when it comes to land denial.
How about a Black hug deck? LOL.
Green could be heavy creature removal control? Trying to think of furthest concepts from colors you're used to.
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
These are the best that I can think of.
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain
B Toshiro Umezawa
BG Pharika, God of Affliction - Necromancy and Politics
WWW The Church of Heliod
WBR Zurgo, Helmsmasher
RG Wort, the Raidmother
UBR Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
UG Vorel of the Hull Clade
Now my gears are whirling about what the best commander is for each of these archetypes.
Mono white group hug: There are some interesting Kamigawa cards here. Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo, Sensei Golden-Tail Or Yomiji, Who Bars the Way
Mono Blue ramp: I can't believe I forgot this. Now there is all these mana doubling in mono colours and Nyxthos which kind of still makes it easy. I have seen Thassa, God of the Sea Monsters, and of course there is Braids, conjurer adept which by passes the whole ramp thing.
Mono Black Tokens: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder *cough* I have seen it kind of far too often to really feel it is that unique. But these decks are really commander dependant.
Mono Red Control: The one I am most familiar with is actually Jaya ballard, Task Mage, Norin the way is its own (magical) thing.
Mono Green control: Yeva, Nature's Herald and Thrun, the last troll make good control cards. Green can actually draw cards efficiently but kind of have to rely on creatures to do the killing. Ambush vipering everyone.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
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
Maralen of the Mornsong. The deck is just Anvil of Bogardan, Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, Helm of Awakening, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea, Ensanguinate, Terrain Generator, and a bunch of swamps.
For White group hug, definitely either Sensei Golden-Tail or Avacyn, Guardian Angel.
I think Mono-Blue ramp needs Patron of the Moon.
For black tokens, I'd probably go with Drana, Liberator of Malakir, Ascendant Evincar, or Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder.
For Red control, I'd look at Diaochan, Artful Beauty. I've used her as a political deck commander before and she was really fun. Best part is that the opponent has to chose a creature to destroy. She'd be pretty easy to set up as a control commander. There's also Tahngarth, Talruum Hero, but I think Diaochan just works better.
For Green control, I've BEEN looking at Polukranos, World Eater for quite some time now. I've just been waiting for a couple of colorshifted stuff, kind of like how blue has been getting targeted creature destruction/exile since Timespiral block or Red's drastic gains in card draw.
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain
B Toshiro Umezawa
BG Pharika, God of Affliction - Necromancy and Politics
WWW The Church of Heliod
WBR Zurgo, Helmsmasher
RG Wort, the Raidmother
UBR Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
UG Vorel of the Hull Clade
Ah! i forgot about that avacyn
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
White has been featured in a lot of politics decks. You have options like Ghostly Prison and Sphere of Safety to keep opponents off you.
The card you were thinking of was Armistice.
It's kinda weird, since white also has a lot of Stax cards, even though Stax and Group Hug are opposites.
Well, blue does have the ability to make things cost less, the ability to untap permanents, and a few random mana dorks.
Hilariously, one of the most infamous token makers is black. You also have a few others, though they tend to make black creatures bigger or make certain black creature types (zombies, vampires, I guess in Lorwyn you'd also have elves, treefolk, and faeries) bigger.
I imagine red control would find ways to reuse land destruction. I think Feldon of the Third Path or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker might be able to pull it off by just repeatedly cloning creatures that destroy lands on ETB.
I think it would probably have Mycosynth Lattice. That's already a very Staxy card, with interactions with Karn, Silver Golem, Nullmage Shepherd, Aura Shards, and Null Rod, just to name a few. (And of course Viridian Revel.) Here, you're using the same trick as Nullmage Shepherd and Aura Shards, just flat out destroying artifacts, where "artifacts" means "every permanent ever".
On phasing:
Red can do control, it just relies on early resource denial into blow up the world cards like Apocalypse.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Actually, the card I was thinking of was Temporary Truce which actually does the exact same thing as Truce for slightly less at sorcery speed. Though, looking that up, I also found Rousing of Souls which is another card that does something similar (Draws everyone cards).
Yeah, the second you start including artifacts into the discussion is when every color becomes significantly more capable at everything. Not arguing with you, but just stating that.
Also, people tend to target anyone that plays Mycosynth Lattice. No one ever plays that card "fairly". It's always blowing up lands or a combo enabler.
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain
B Toshiro Umezawa
BG Pharika, God of Affliction - Necromancy and Politics
WWW The Church of Heliod
WBR Zurgo, Helmsmasher
RG Wort, the Raidmother
UBR Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
UG Vorel of the Hull Clade
So in my opinion before we get ahead of ourselves, lets actually hone in on "opposites".
Let's list what archetypes and qualities you do find in colors:
Red - Direct Damage, Chaos, Artifact and land destruction.
Red/Green - Aggressive creatures.
Green - Mana acceleration, Mana fixing, Powerful creatures, "Pump" effects, Card advantage, Artifact and enchantment destruction.
Green/White - Tokens, Utility creatures.
White - Damage prevention and life gain, Weenie (Hate Bears), Mass Removal, Rules-setting and "Taxing", Artifact and enchantment destruction.
White/Blue - Control skewed toward artifact and enchantment spot removal
Blue - Permission, Card advantage, Mimicry, Bounce, Tapping and untapping permanents, Gain control, Trickery tactics.
Blue/Black - Control skewed toward creature spot removal.
Black - Creature Removal, Discard, Draining Life, Reanimation, Card advantage.
Black/Red - Aggressive damage and life loss.
So I'm just listing what you'd put in the opposites color pies and then removing the traits that that the colors do tend to share naturally. This way you are getting the most true opposite traits to what you expect in colors.
Red - Permission, Card advantage, Bounce, Tapping and untapping permanents, Rules-setting and "Taxing", Enchantment destruction.
Green - Permission, Mimicry, Bounce, Tapping and untapping permanents, Gain control, Trickery tactics, Creature Removal, Discard, Draining Life, Reanimation
White - Direct Damage, Chaos, Discard, Draining Life, Card advantage
Blue - Direct Damage, Chaos, Artifact and land destruction, Mana fixing, "Pump" effects, Artifact and enchantment destruction
Black - Mana fixing, Artifact and enchantment destruction, Damage prevention, Weenie (Hate Bears), Mass Removal (non-creatures), Rules-setting and "Taxing"
I think you want to find your archetypes within sharing some of these "opposites" of traits. We want to remove ourselves as far from the traits that you are used to in a colors, otherwise you just run the risk of being a deck that is actually played, like most of the suggestions have lead to in my opinion.
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 have never seen a white combo deck.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
W: Fatties or storm (The storm element would be things like creatures with prowess or permanents with extort. White actually doesn't have a storm win condition other than, I guess Astral Steel?)
U: Aggro
B: Group hug
R: Reanimator
G: Artifacts matter (Yeah, I know, this uses artifacts, but still...)
On phasing:
B - Prison
R - Control
W - Reanimator
G - Stax
U - Ramp
Something like mono G artifacts matter might be fine, because there are actually a decent number of green cards that care about artifacts, so as long as you use them it creates a unique deck that really is outside of its slice of the color pie. Mono red reanimation would similarly rely heavily on artifacts for the reanimation part, but using red looting to dump fatties into the yard and Feldon to rez them makes it uniquely red. White is trick here because of all the things white doesn't do well. It's lack of mana acceleration and card draw makes it bad at numerous archetypes. It does have a lot of combos available, but going for combo wins in mono W is tough due to the lack of card selection and draw.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Anybody else going to try their own ideas?
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
Tatyova|Sisay|Zurgo|Breya|Chisei|Marchesa|Olivia|KaradorLegacy|4fun|4fun|Modern|Frontier|Standard