No matter how doomed an MTG format may seem to be, there is always room for innovation. This may not be true at the absolute top level of competition, but most MTG players have room to build their own, unique contraption and take down players before they know what’s really going on.
Yesterday, at the time of writing, a Mono-White midrange deck managed to put up a top eight finish in a Pioneer challenge event on Magic Online. Considering that this was a 68-player event with strong competition, this is no easy feat. This isn’t even the first iteration of the deck that’s had a strong Pioneer performance.
Mono White Midrange
- Mana Value: 2WW
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Card Type: Planeswalker
- MTG Sets: Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
- Card Text: Flash, As long as The Wandering Emperor entered the battlefield this turn, you may activate her loyalty abilities any time you could cast an instant. (+1): Put a +1/+1 counter on up to one target creature. It gains first strike until end of turn. (-1): Create a 2/2 white Samaurai creature token with vigilance. (-2): Exile target tapped creature. You gain 2 life.
In a strange twist, a mono-white Midrange strategy seems perfectly viable in the Pioneer format. This deck certainly has good and bad matchups, but considering the current state of the Pioneer metagame, this makes a lot of sense as a metagame call.
First and foremost, this Mono-White Midrange deck seems to have a fantastic Rakdos Vampires matchup. Lots of card draw elements like Caretaker’s Talent let you pull ahead in the matchup, and Vein Ripper does very little to harm your progress. Sunfall and Elspeth, Sun’s Champion can get rid of the Vampire without breaking a sweat. Wedding Announcement and Carrot Cake create plenty of fodder to sacrifice to Vein Ripper’s Ward effect. Meanwhile, The Wandering Emperor, Season of the Burrow, Get Lost, and March of Otherworldly Light can take care of Vein Ripper in a pinch. Between all these answers, you should always be able to do something about Vein Ripper before it gets out of control.
The insane amount of removal should be able to repetitively break up the creatures needed for Amalia combo to win the game. Having tools on hand to constantly keep Amalia and Wildgrowth Walker off the board should be trivial. Sunfall can deal with the rest.
Mono-White Midrange, despite being a slower strategy, can outgrind other slower opponents. Standard all-star Fountainport makes an appearance here as it can turn your tokens into cards. Otherwise, six pieces of land destruction can keep your opponent on their toes, especially in five-colored matchups where basic lands may be far and few between.
Swingy Matchup Spread
Mono-White Midrange seems equipped to crush some matchups while getting crushed by others. Despite all of the land destruction and two Damping Sphere in the sideboard, Mono-White Midrange likely has an atrocious Lotus Field Combo matchup. That deck is an inevitability machine, and there isn’t a fast enough clock here for a good pilot to fall behind.
Niv-to-Light can also be problematic. Both decks want to try and do similar things, but Niv-to-Light can go over this deck. If the land destruction isn’t a problem, Mono-White may have an issue keeping up. For the record, Niv-to-Light is the deck that knocked Mono-White out of the top eight.
Izzet Phoenix seems like an interesting matchup. It’s difficult to know how this plays out, but Mono-White does get Rest in Piece and Hallowed Moonlight postboard, which can do some heavy lifting. Notably, Hallowed Moonlight also stops Vein Ripper from entering play and can mess with Chord of Calling, Collected Company, and Return to the Ranks.
This deck feels like it targets the two most popular decks in the format, and has strong matchups with decks trying to play an attrition war, or has a primarily creature-based gameplan. On the other hand, strategies that can go over Mono-White, or win the game quickly without creatures, may be tough for this deck to handle.
Should You Play Mono-White?
I would hold off trying this deck unless you really want to play Pioneer this weekend, and you don’t need to buy these cards. The banlist on Monday will impact your good matchups, likely taking them out of the metagame. That will likely make the position of this strategy much worse.
Magic players from all corners of the community are waiting for next week’s ban announcement with fervor. Many competitive formats really need a touch-up.
Until then, innovating in formats with problematic balance elements is incredibly impressive. It’s a good reminder that any strategy could be primed to take down an event, as long as you’ve done your research.
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