We've left this series on the back burner for a little while there wasn't much paper Magic happening. Our hope is that paper Magic will soon be returning and we hope lots of players will be ready to dust off their decks and get to playing. We've also had some players express interest in trying out Modern so I really want to have a good spread of budget decks for players to build and tryout! Today we're looking at one of my favorite archetypes - Mono White Weenies / Lifegain!
This deck is sometimes referred as "Soul Sisters" because of the first two one drops you see - Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant. Both of these cards will gain us one life any time another creature enters the battlefield. That includes our opponent's creatures as well as our own! Marty of Sands allows us to pay a single mana and reveal however many white cards in our hand and we will gain three times the number of cards we revealed. If we reveal five cards, we will gain fifteen life! These cards will fuel our Ajani's Pridemate that gets a +1/+1 counter for every instance of life gain, so this card will grow huge in a hurry. Squadron Hawk keeps our hand filled to the brim with white cards for Marty of Sands and Ranger of Eos lets us go searching for two one mana creatures to put into our hand! The creature base is low to the ground but very powerful if left unchecked. But how can we make these creatures even better?
I've included two planeswalkers because, well, who doesn't love planeswalkers?! Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis is a very budget friendly planeswalker and she's going to keep our board filled with creatures or make two of them a bigger threat each turn. Even in a pinch, we can gain five life with her. The best part of this Elspeth is that she can escape from our graveyard by paying six mana and exiling five other cards from our graveyard. With so many cheap, effecient creatures, paying this escape cost should typically not be much of a problem. Ajani, Strength of the Pride is a perfect card for this deck. He gains us A TON of life, makes more copies of Ajani's Pridemate and can even be a one-sided board wipe. He is, in my opinion, the best card in the deck. Spectral Procession is another bear of a card in our deck, it's going to put three 1/1 spirits onto the battlefield for only three mana - THE VALUE! Honor of the Pure is another fantastic card in our deck buffing all of our creatures and turning our weenies into formidable threats! Path to Exile is just the best removal in modern, plain and simple. It will help keep the path clear for our creatures to keep attacking!
I'm totally a broken record with this, but I think going three copies of five different cards in your sideboard is one of the best ways to quickly improve at Magic. Sideboard is such a pivotal part of the game that often goes overlooked. For this deck, removal hits us hard so we're trying to sure up those areas. Mirran Crusader has double strike, but more important it has protection from black and red. Kor Firewalker is going to make any mono red player go nuts and it will continue to gain us life. Brave the Elements is a flexible card, although it doesn't protect our creatures from board wipes like Supreme Verdict or Shatter the Sky, it does protect them from cards like Anger of the Gods and it also helps the deck fight through a stalled board state. Oblivion Ring helps us with any pesky nonland permanent we can't seem to deal with and Tormod's Crypt will help keep graveyard shenanigans in check.
So there you have it folks, Mono White Lifegain checks in currently at a budget-saving $77.85! You better hurry up and build it before I do because this deck is super sweet! I hope you all have a great weekend!
Stay Super,
Tim