“Before they sunk their fangs on me.”
Art:Star Charter
by Valera Lutfullina
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Mono-White has always struggled with card draw and card selection so having a card like Star Charter that is extremely easy to trigger and allows us to filter through our deck is a true slam dunk for the deck. This is a deck focused on keeping our life total high to trigger our commander as well as cards like Celestial Unicorn
to have a strong board and keep on swinging; this is more of a midrange deck focusing on building up a strong board and using cards like Silverflame Ritual
to buff up and finish off opponents, we are quite strong against other creature decks because we almost always have a pretty healthy life total allowing us to take some hits with ease. This deck is super fun and very interesting. I haven’t seen any other examples of this deck online, and I’m a little surprised because this deck helps to address one of mono-whites’ biggest weaknesses. This one is just a ton of classic fun; without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Star Charter Lifegain!
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Why Star Charter?
Star Charter is a huge part of our deck; they offer both card filtering and card selection, which are some of mono-whites’ weaknesses; on top of that, they are a strong attacker and evasive since they have flying. Star Charter is a great commander, but the deck can run independently without them; we don’t need them, but they certainly help. Star Charter is a great card for the deck and one that I cast as soon as we possibly can, we have a lot of other high-value targets so I don’t typically use a ton of our protection on them.
Gameplan:
The gameplan for this deck is pretty simple and focuses on gaining life and building up a huge board so we can buff them up with cards like Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin!
and Silverflame Ritual so we can close out the game, luckily we are able to keep our life total quite high through a bunch of sources within our deck so we are pretty strong against a lot of creature-based strategies.
For a starting hand, I typically like to look for some early-game a little bit of utility and removal, as well as a couple of lands. We do have some high-cost cards within the deck, so we can occasionally draw a bad hand, but we typically don’t need to mulligan that aggressively.
Deck Matchups:
Since this is Pauper EDH, there are an absolute ton of things that can tip a game in your favor or out of it. While an archetype may seem favorable, there are absolutely good and bad commanders for our deck to go up against; I have included both these, which were all played among my testing groups using various decks, and I have included the sample size for clarity purposes. This is just meant to be a guide after testing a bunch of games with this deck!
The information below is notes about specific decks that were featured in our testing pods and how we fared against them. Naturally, Pauper EDH is a multiplayer game, so these are just a summary of my notes against different commanders and strategies. When we test these decks we try to test to its strengths and weaknesses to give a full spectrum of what the deck has to offer. Various commanders and archetypes/strategies are used to get the most accurate information.
Commanders, we have a good matchup against:
Hearth Elemental // Stoke Genius Record against Hearth Elemental 3-0
Hearth Elemental is a very strong matchup for us. We are able to gain a ton of life before they fully start to get going, and because of this, we are able to fight through a lot of their attacks and burn with ease. This deck can be very fast and explosive, but with our high life total and decently evasive creatures, we are able to be very strong against this deck.
Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea
Record against Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea 4-1
This is a great matchup for us; we can typically overwhelm them with our life and our early-game offense; this deck does have quite a few sources of unblockable, so as long as we can kill their commander and keep them off the board, we should be all set. The tough part of this matchup is that they can make their commander unblockable and easily one-shot us, as long as we can keep them off the board this is a pretty strong matchup for us.
Wingmantle Chaplain
Record against Wingmantle Chaplain 3-0
Wingmantle Chaplain is a deck full of defenders. While they do produce a ton of birds, we are just often better than them in combat; mono-white vs mono-white is a very weird matchup, but overall, it is pretty favorable for us, from our buffs to our life gain Wingmantle Chaplain struggles to kill us.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Mistmeadow Witch
Record against Mistmeadow Witch 0-3
This is a very tough matchup; when we have a buffed-up creature, they can easily bounce it, and they have a ton of different ways to re-ETB their creatures and get a ton of extra value; combine that with a minor control package, and we can struggle against this deck a lot.
Fynn, the Fangbearer
Record against Fynn, the Fangbearer 0-4
Fynn is such a strong deck and really just destroys ours; not only can they kill us extremely quickly, but if we have to block, they can decimate our creatures with the -1/-1 counters. This deck outclasses us and is an extremely tough matchup.
Inkfathom Witch
Record against Inkfathom Witch 0-3
We just simply are not fast enough to beat this deck; once they amass a board and activate their commander, they just hit us hard, and even with an inflated life total, they can dish out a crazy amount of damage. We are well-positioned if we can remove their commander but they usually are packing quite a few counterspells.
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! I also highlighted some of my favorite cards in the deck!
Creatures:
One of the best bases for the deck is the early-game creatures that help us gain a ton of life, like Soul Warden
, Soul's Attendant
, and Lunarch Veteran // Luminous Phantom
which are all amazing ways to gain life and trigger our commander once we have them out. In addition to our early-life gain, we have some other strong early-game cards like Healer's Hawk
and Sacred Cat
, which are great aggressive cards that can help get the party started. Since we gain a ton of life, we have some strong payoffs like Celestial Unicorn, which can get shockingly huge and be one of the best attackers for the deck. Once we get our life up and have a decent board we can start dropping some of our very strong late-game creatures like Crusader of Odric
and Squad Captain
, which can get very big and allows us to put a ton of additional pressure on our opponents and destroy their life total very quickly.
Instants:
Since there are a ton of Voltron decks within the format, we have to be packing Awe Strike
, which is a great way to absorb a one-shot from an opponent and change it into straight-up life again. We have other great defensive cards like Stave Off
and Loran's Escape
, which are both great ways to keep our commander and any of the other strong creatures we bring out. We are pretty defensive at instant speed, but we have some strong combat tricks as well, which can help us end the game like Borrowed Grace
and Unbounded Potential
, which are strong buffs for our creatures.
Sorceries:
There is a ton of removal floating around the format, so being able to recur some of the best creatures we have is very strong, which is the reason we are running Recommission
and Return Triumphant
which are both extremely strong ways to recur some of our cheaper creatures and something I love to use on some of our early life-gain enablers. Beyond that, we have some strong buffs for our entire board, like Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin!, and Silverflame Ritual, which are all awesome ways to buff up our board.
Artifacts:
Mono-white has always struggled with card draw, so being able to have access to cards like Potion of Healing
, which gives us some additional card draw and triggers our commander, which is an absolute slam-dunk for only two mana. We also have Spare Supplies
, which is an additional and cheap source of extra card draw, which can be great if we have a low-cost hand and can dump it on the field very quickly. Last but certainly not least, we have Greatsword of Tyr
, which is one of the best equipment in the format, in my opinion, and is such a strong card for an extremely low mana investment.
Enchantments:
Ajani's Mantra
and Answered Prayers
are both very cheap and efficient ways to trigger our commander and give us a great amount of card selection. Answered Prayers especially is strong additionally because we are able to make it a 3/3 creature with ease and can swing consistently every turn which over just a few turns we can put a lot of pressure on our opponents. We are very heavy on enchantment-based removal and it’s pretty much the only removal we have since we are in mono-white, being able to take out opponents creatures with cards like Oblivion Ring
and Journey to Nowhere
as well as being able to take out commanders and other pesky creatures with cards like Planar Disruption
and Reprobation
.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We gain a ton of life so we are well-positioned against aggressive and creature-based strategies.
- We have a decent amount of buffs and anthems effect which helps us to maximize our damage and put pressure on our opponents.
- Our commander provides a ton of card selection for the deck.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We can struggle against control decks that counter a lot of our big finisher spells.
- We don’t have a ton of card draw since we are in mono-white.
- We are weak against heavy removal decks and decks that have board wipes like Evincar's Justice
.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support! This deck has been a ton of fun to play and one I have been enjoying an absolute ton; who doesn’t love being able to gain a ton of life and still swing hard at your opponents? If you have any suggestions for commanders, please let us know!