As Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1789: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” When Magic: The Gathering came around 204 years later, this famous quote was extended to include “… and White Weenie.” Such was the ubiquity of aggressive white decks in the early years of the game. Today, decks like these are much rarer, which is a bit of a mini-tragedy for Magic as a whole. There are still those who cling to the old ways, however, like Imiak, who went 5-0 in yesterday’s MTG Online Legacy League running Mono-White Death and Taxes.
While it’s a classic concept, Imiak isn’t afraid to put their own spin on the strategy here. This new take on Death and Taxes adds many of white’s most efficient threats from recent years. It also includes a unique Squadron Hawk package, which is pretty much the last thing you’d expect to see in a format like Legacy. This deck may not take over the format any time soon, but it’s the kind of nostalgic throwback you love to see in competitive Magic.
Mono-White Death And Taxes In Legacy
Imiak’s list is remarkable in a number of ways, but let’s talk about the Hawk in the room first. Squadron Hawk isn’t a total stranger to competitive Magic. It was the centrepiece of Modern Caw-Blade lists in the past, and it still appears in Caw-Gates decks in Pauper to this day. It’s never really done much in Legacy, however, which is what makes its inclusion here so bold.
Initially Hawk’s inclusion here makes little sense. There’s no Equipment here to suit it up with, so why run a mediocre creature that gums up your hand? The answer is that Hawk serves as excellent fodder for the deck’s many ‘exile from hand as cost’ cards. Both Solitude and Force of Virtue can be cast for free by exiling a Hawk from your hand, which is a great deal when you have three to work with. You can also pitch it to Chrome Mox, in order to ramp yourself into the mid-game.
While you do have to play a two-mana 1/1 Flier to set all these free plays up, it’s worth it for the tempo you can recover when you do. These Hawk lines let the deck interact for free and set up an anthem effect, which plays nicely into its overall plan of all-out aggression.
With creatures like Ocelot Pride and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, Imiak’s Death and Taxes is still classic White Weenie at heart. You get your threats on board early, then use Enduring Innocence and Hawk to pull ahead in terms of card advantage. Even in a format like Legacy, sometimes a simple beatdown strategy is enough to get you there.
A Return To Form
Of course, the creature plan is only half the story when it comes to Imiak’s Legacy Mono-White Death and Taxes. The other half is the ‘Taxes’ part, which this list delivers in spades. A big part of this archetype has always been cards that make your opponent’s spells more expensive, and there are some great ones here.
OG Thalia is the gold standard, and it’s just as effective here as it always is. Imiak only runs 14 noncreature spells, so chances are good that the opponent will suffer a lot more because of it. It’s also a pretty reasonable attacker thanks to First Strike.
Chancellor of the Annex is much more obscure, but it’s arguably even better in some games. If you land it in your opening hand, you can tax your opponent’s first spell by one for no mana at all. Legacy is an incredibly fast format much of the time, so this will often be backbreaking.
On top of these cards, Imiak also runs some more indirect mana tax options. Esper Sentinel gives you card draw if your opponent won’t pay, which will make it play similarly to Thalia a lot of the time. Throw in Voice of Victory to keep your opponent honest, and this is a deck that very much forces your opponent to play the game your way.
The two halves of this deck come together nicely. One of the most impressive aspects is just how well Force of Virtue works here. Buffing all your cheap creatures is obviously excellent, but it also makes opponents pay more for Esper Sentinel and lets Voice of Victory swing for six. There are tons of little synergies like this in the list, ultimately creating a deck that’s more than the sum of its parts.
The Right Fit Right Now?
While it’s undeniably a very cool list, Imiak’s Mono-White Death and Taxes may not be the best fit for current Legacy. The top decks in the format right now all have their own ways of taking it on effectively.
Mono-Red Stompy is probably the worst of the lot. Despite being a Mono-White deck, Death and Taxes only runs four Plains and no Fetchlands. This makes it particularly susceptible to Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the deck runs Fury as a removal spell on a creature. This lets them mop up your Thalias and Esper Sentinels without paying the one-mana noncreature tax.
Dimir Reanimator is similarly rough. The problem is that the deck can go totally over the top of what you’re doing. Reanimator doesn’t mind waiting an extra turn when they’re bringing out an Atraxa that will totally put the game out of reach. It also tends to run Orcish Bowmasters, which is terrifying for Death and Taxes to deal with.
Delver, thankfully, should be a solid matchup. This is a deck that relies heavily on noncreature spells, so an early Thalia can totally mess them up. They also run a ton of countermagic, so Voice of Victory comes in clutch. Death & Taxes decks generally excel against decks that want to one-for-one opponents since it generates so much natural card advantage. This is traditionally a good matchup for Death and Taxes, and it should remain so with Imiak’s version.
With only one strong matchup among the top three decks right now, the odds are very much against Death and Taxes for now. This is definitely a list to watch if we see any metagame shifts in the near future, mind you.
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