Aug 04, 2017 Mono-White Aggro in Standard. Craig Wescoe. 8/4/2017 11:02:00 AM. Tweet » Print « I played an aggressive mono-white deck designed to beat Ramunap Red decks at Pro Tour Hour of Devastation. I had some unfortunate pairings, only facing Red once all weekend, and ended 5-5 in Constructed. If I could replay the tournament, I would change a handful. Standard / Aggro MTG Decks. White Knights by Mafilux. Rakdos Removal - feedback wanted by princepeach. Izzet Wizards Prowess by Jgroover. RW Aggro by KeoneMakai. Azorius Aggro WAR by Barrett69. Red Burn by xile. Gruul midrange 2 by s e l i t h 6 9.
Dominaria standard is amazing and several of the mono or pseudo monocolor aggressive decks have drastically improved with the addition of Dominaria, its checklands, and its powerful 3 mana rare cycle. This post will go over Mono White Aggro, which I believe to be one of the strongest archetypes out of the gates in this standard format.
First things first, here are the decklists I've played on mtgo and match records:
Opponent | Result |
---|---|
MonoGreen | 2-1 |
GB Rites | 2-1 |
MonoGreen | 2-1 |
UW GPG | 2-1 |
UW Midrange | 0-2 |
Decklist V2 9-1 | [Twitch Vod] (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/253744888)
Opponent | Result |
---|---|
Monowhite Monument | 2-1 |
UW Sram | 2-0 |
BR Aggro | 2-0 |
Mono White Midrange | 0-2 |
Mono U Winds | 2-1 |
GR Gate | 2-1 |
Grixis Improvise? | 2-0 |
Mono Blue Gate | 2-0 |
Jeskai Vehicles | 2-0 |
Bant Approach | 2-1 |
This deck has 11 anthem effects between pride of the conquerors, benalish marshal, and shefet dunes. You have a very aggressive and powerful curve and the ability to slam the door on decks that cannot wipe your board. Opposing decks must contest both your aggressive starts and your ability to just generate a massive board and close the game. History of Benalia gives you the ability to develop and to pressure over multiple turns and through board wipes, and lets you swing for large numbers with a few creatures in order to play around things like settle the wreckage or opposing alpha strikes. The deck is very much a white weenies aggro deck, but the bodies and alpha strikes can very quickly get out of hand if the game goes longer. A small note on the desert choice: I found with scavenger grounds I was never able to realistically hold up 3 mana on their turn in this deck without ruining my board development. Fighting UW GPG was mostly about out-solitaring them, and UR gpg was beatable mostly by fragmentizes/thopter arrest and winning combat with better boards. I wanted a 5th desert to enable 2-turn shefet dunes kills, and grasping dunes helped with angel of invention, adorned pouncer, phoenix, and opposing white weenies. I could see going up to a second copy but I don't want to beat up the mana too bad when benalish marshal is involved (and is the best card in the deck).
The decks main weaknesses are opposing removal on benalish marshal (in particular ixilan's binding), UW GPG and its ability to race you right back with turn 4 GPG into angel, and cards like Lyra that are large and resilient to two turn alpha strikes.
The sideboard has a vehicle package to combat board wipes and fight through similar token archetypes, thopter arrests for phoenix/hazoret decks, lyra for matches where the flying and lifelink can be important, and Karn for UBx matchups where you need to grind through removal and Vraskas Contempt is not something the opponent is going to want. You can remove 1 drops, token makers, scroungers, or srams expertise as the matchup dictates - make sure your curve is still playable, and trimming a land when you trim expertise is fine.
The cards I consider core to this deck archetype are:
Shefet Dunes
Legion's Landing
Benalish Marshal
History of Benalia
Sram's Expertise
These cards form the base of the deck, in its resiliency and ability to quickly make opposing board irrelevant. I consider sram's expertise to be core despite many people skipping the card. It provides so many bodies for immediate board presence especially when combined with marshal, and allows you to keep curving out despite playing 8+ 3 drops.
The package I personally chose for this archetype is the aggressive package of toolcraft, scrapheap scrounger, servo exhibition, and pride of the conquerors. I also selected dauntless bodyguard to synergize with the aggro package and history of benalia, in addition to giving some resilience to removal, especially in protecting benalish marshal or toolcraft exemplar.
Other packages I have seen:
*A heavier knight package with knight of grace and fewer 1 drops, going up on the curve and including enchantment removal main and playing more like a midrange deck
*No srams expertise, playing adanto vanguard and skymarcher aspirant instead of toolcraft+scrounger
*A double strike package of adorned pouncer and oketra with kinjalis sunwing to make blocking these threats harder
I personally don't like these versions as much, because without the level of speed provided by the aggressive package, the archetype can suffer against white control/approach archetypes and the GPG decks that no longer have to worry about dying quite as fast. I do include them because I feel it is important to discussion to note other things being tried and their strengths and weaknesses.
Overall I believe monowhite aggro to be one of the best archetypes for the first few weekends and possibly beyond, as the deck is very powerful, having both aggressive curves capable of killing people on turn 4/5 and a long game capable of stalling and then alpha striking for very large quantities of damage. In my 9 competitive leagues on MTGO this deck has been hands down the most impressive deck I've played, and it also has the capability to mulligan well which is something I always look for in decks for long tournaments.
I do have 2 leagues in the vod linked above if people would like to watch gameplay (and I apologise for the small chunk in the middle that is muted). I do stream at https://twitch.tv/yoman5 if people want to see additional gameplay, and feel free to ask me any questions here. I will probably be doing additional writeups as I have time to test additional decks, but I can't promise anything specific.
-yoman5