Searching Your Deck for Plains in Modern

White Weenie

Mike Flores

Test deck on 08-28-2011

Modern

Creatures (24)

• 4 Figure of Destiny
• 4 Ethersworn Canonist
• 4 Knight of the White Orchid
• 4 Ranger of Eos
• 4 Steppe Lynx
• 4 Student of Warfare

Lands (20)

• 8 Snow-Covered Plains
• 4 Flagstones of Trokair
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 4 Marsh Flats

Spells (16)

• 4 Aether Vial
• 4 Spectral Procession
• 4 Honor of the Pure
• 4 Brave the Elements

Sideboard

• 4 Mana Tithe
• 4 Burrenton Forge-Tender
• 3 Path to Exile
• 4 Timely Reinforcements

The deck plays out slightly differently than Paul’s deck did, originally.

The presence of Aether Vial gives you a very different line than was originally available. So instead of always playing out an aggressive one-mana
creature, you can slow play on Aether Vial and run a progressive game.

An example might be playing Aether Vial via Flagstones of Trokair on your first turn and choosing to pretend to be mana-screwed on your second turn.

The opponent makes a two-mana play (say, a Tarmogoyf or Sakura-Tribe Elder) and you play a Mana Tithe, demolishing him. Now you play a Steppe Lynx at
the end of his turn, and add a counter to your Aether Vial on your upkeep. Next you play Knight of the White Orchid (for free), getting a Plains and
powering up your Steppe Lynx; Steppe Lynx is now 2/3.

You tap your now-available mana for… whatever… before playing another Flagstones of Trokair out of your hand (Steppe Lynx is 4/5) and
search up two more Plains (Steppe Lynx is now 8/9). You crack for half your opponent’s life total with a first striker back on defense.

I didn’t realize that playing with white cards could be so exciting, but apparently there’s a reason this strategy did well last time around!

The first couple of games I played the deck I always left Aether Vial at one counter, but there are a couple of times you might want to break that
rule.

1.
You draw multiple Aether Vials
.

There are mostly one-mana creatures in this deck, but an acceptable strategy is to leave one Aether Vial on one mana, and to step up with the other
one.

2. You have a strategic reason to go to two counters, or you just have lots of two mana creatures in your hand.


The fancy Knight of the White Orchid play (above) would be an example of wanting to go to two counters, but another one is just a typical game against
Jund-type decks. There are lots of times where you can destroy your opponent by responding to a Bloodbraid Elf by tapping Aether Vial to play
Ethersworn Canonist.

3. You intend to go all the way to four counters.


I had this come up in a game against a Smallpox deck earlier today. Actually the matchup seemed atrocious for him. I played Aether Vial but didn’t have
any one mana dudes, and just sat back on Mana Tithe mana. My first play was Spectral Procession, which he elected to answer with Smallpox (not a great
position to be in, I think you can agree). As bad as things already were, one of my lands was Flagstones of Trokair. That said, I discarded an Arid
Mesa to the Smallpox and wasn’t really ever going to get to four lands, so I decided to just play my Ranger of Eos with Aether Vial, which ended up
fine.

One of the things I was worried about initially with this deck was being out-classed on the ground. When Paul won in Amsterdam, there was little to no
incentive to play Wild Nacatl, so the white creatures had a bit more breathing room. But so far, about two-thirds of my opponents have had
unambiguously better creatures that I have (Dark Confidant, Kitchen Finks, etc.) and it hasn’t really hindered the White Weenie deck’s ability to win.
The deck is deceptively card-advantageous with Ranger of Eos, Spectral Procession, and conditional countermagic, and can often put the opponent into a
precarious position on the attack. For instance, against Jund I had multiple occasions where I answered a pre-combat Maelstrom Pulse with Brave the
Elements, forcing the opponent to skip an attack. Then I could use Aether Vial to play Figure of Destiny at instant speed, and get some of his
proto-Level Up mana utilization out of the way on the opponent’s turn. Then on my turn, I could set up Honor of the Pure and make for an
unattractive attack step.

I was pretty surprised at how successful my initial forays with White Weenie were, but then again, my opponents played mostly active decks like Jund,
Red Deck Wins (which is probably your best possible matchup), and so forth.

One of the things PV often says about White Weenie came up as I tried to tune the deck: There isn’t really anything spectacular you can set up to
sideboard, or if there are powerful cards, they are very narrow. For instance, I considered playing Fracturing Gust against Affinity / Tempered Steel,
but then I realized that if I wasn’t going to play Windbrisk Heights, it probably wouldn’t be realistic.

Flagstones of Trokair (or to a greater extent, searching your deck for Plains) is a very interesting thing to do, and you can probably do better with
it than just powering up a Steppe Lynx.

Here is a deck that I brewed up from concepts discussed with AJ Sacher and Brian David-Marshall. AJ was interested in if I could work up a second
coming of the Aggro-Ideal deck, and Brian actually suggested part of the combo to me in another context. This is where I am so far:

Aggro-Sheoldred

Mike Flores

Test deck on 08-28-2011

Modern

Creatures (27)

• 2 Solemn Simulacrum
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Yosei, the Morning Star
• 1 Kitchen Finks
• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 4 Knight of the Reliquary
• 2 Baneslayer Angel
• 4 Lotus Cobra
• 4 Primeval Titan
• 1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

Lands (25)

• 3 Snow-Covered Plains
• 4 Snow-Covered Forest
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 2 Overgrown Tomb
• 4 Temple Garden
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 3 Arid Mesa
• 1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Tectonic Edge

Spells (8)

• 4 Summoning Trap
• 4 Birthing Pod

Sideboard

• 4 Plow Under
• 4 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Primal Command
• 3 Memoricide
• 2 Timely Reinforcements

This deck has two fathers: Aggro-Ideal and Zvi’s G/W Summoning Trap deck from last year’s Extended.

The Summoning Trap half should be relatively obvious to anyone paying attention. You play a dude, they Counterspell it, and you Trap into a Primeval
Titan or some other awesome sauce. It is entirely possible that Counterspells (on creatures) are not going to be a huge factor at Pro Tour:
Philadelphia, in which case more fatties or more board presence (or including Tarmogoyf, say) might be reasonable.

The Aggro-Ideal half is less obvious (especially as there is no Enduring Ideal). That half is replaced by Birthing Pod. Essentially you chain up to
Yosei, the Morning Star, and sacrifice Yosei to get Sheoldred, Whispering One. You now have a lock where Yosei goes away via Birthing Pod every turn
and Sheoldred re-buys Yosei to lock down the opponent’s permanents and turn.

There is a sideways route to Yosei lock if something happens to Sheoldred — Emeria, the Sky Ruin, a bunch of Plains, and Miren, the Moaning Well. I
would just caution you if you are going to go this route to be careful how much you screw around with Knight of the Reliquary, because there aren’t an
unlimited number of Plains in this deck, and you need most of them actually in play in order to execute Plan B.

I have been plenty successful in my limited game play with this version, as well; the deck has proved fast enough to beat both super-quick Affinity /
Tempered Steel decks and super-powerful Cloudpost-based decks (without having to draw the obviously busty sideboard cards).

This deck is a lot less a direct adaptation of an existing deck (i.e. quite a departure compared to, say, Paul’s White Weenie deck), so it probably
warrants a card rundown:

4 Birthing Pod

I think if you are going to play this kind of deck, you have to play the full four copies of Birthing Pod. Modern seems both from the defensive deck
speed of Controlling opponents and the offensive brutality of x/3 Zoo decks to be a fast format. You don’t have time to screw around; ergo, four copies
to maximize the likelihood of the nut draw of first-turn accelerator, second-turn Birthing Pod, etc.

2 Solemn Simulacrum

You could theoretically get away with one four-mana card — but I’m a bit afraid of either drawing it, and therefore interrupting your ability to chain
up to the fives, sixes, and so forth. Solemn Simulacrum seems like the best four because you already have Kitchen Finks for life, and Jens helps you
accelerate straight from four to sixes in a deck where you have nine big spells.

1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

The lock! The goal here is to get to Sheoldred with Yosei and Birthing Pod. Remember, you can cast Sheoldred with regular lands, Birds of
Paradise, and Lotus Cobra.

1 Kitchen Finks

Basically the ideal three for both an aggressive format and a Birthing Pod deck!

4 Knight of the Reliquary

An explosive good buddy to Lotus Cobra and the Mythic mana engine; also a fine attacker, if you’re into that kind of thing (I’m not).

4 Birds of Paradise

A first-turn play to set up your three-mana spells (Birthing Pod in particular) on turn 2.

4 Noble Hierarch

As with Birds of Paradise, above.

4 Lotus Cobra

The other half of the Mythic mana engine. You can theoretically use this two to chain up with Birthing Pod, though there is probably almost always
something better you could be doing with your life.

4 Primeval Titan

I elected to play four, as this is the best “generic” big hit a deck like this can play, in particular with…

4 Summoning Trap

This may or may not be the best choice for these four slots, depending on the blue component of the field. Obviously powerful with the many hits in
this deck, where even Knight of the Reliquary or Solemn Simulacrum could be profitable recipients.

2 Baneslayer Angel

I chose this as a two-of five-mana card because of its pedigree with Knight of the Reliquary in formats about this size. This could easily be one
Baneslayer Angel and one Acidic Slime, though I think the hard-hitting-ness of a 5/5 with roughly a hundred abilities for five mana is pretty
attractive.

1 Yosei, the Morning Star

Half of the lock; another version of this deck could reasonably just play four copies of Yosei. If you want to cut Summoning Traps, I can see playing
one Sun Titan alongside (but that is a hell of a lot of sixes).

The Mana Base:

I think you want a lot of Forests and Plains in order to maximize the synergies between the Ravnica Block and Zendikar Block duals. This means no
Sunpetal Groves and no Razorverge Thickets. You can get black or red mana for your sideboard cards (or Sheoldred) with any of the Zendikar Block
duals… A lot of the choices were made in order to accommodate Emeria, but that doesn’t mean they are 100% right. I could see some tuning. Even more I
wouldn’t mind going up to, say, twenty-seven lands with one Inkmoth Nexus and either another Arid Mesa or specialty land main (but honestly, what to
cut?).

The Sideboard:

No crazy plans or cheap thrills here. One thing that I have been happy with is the ability to use Phyrexian mana or the mana base itself to easily set
up Timely Reinforcements. That card is, of course, a house.

After several rounds of playtesting, I added Primal Command as a flexible way to gain life (like Timely Reinforcements) that could also help beat
opponents who were outside the range of conventional kills. If you plan to recycle your deck with Primal Command after you have set up a lock, make
sure that you either do so while all your parts are in place (i.e. you cast Primal Command and then sacrifice Yosei, the Morning Star [with
Sheoldred, Whispering One already in position]), or you may have a devil of a time reassembling it before the opponent recovers.

All that said, the details are way not finalized on this deck. Other options might be:

• One or more copies of Linvala, Keeper of Silence (maybe even all four copies) if decks based on Elves or other creature-based mana acceleration
are popular.

• One or more copies of Sun Titan, possibly out of the sideboard (in order to reassemble the combinations if they get broken up by Terastodon or
some less fancy removal suites).

• A single copy of Inkmoth Nexus (possibly out of the sideboard), which would allow you to win games where the opponent has gained essentially
infinite life; the caveat here is that if the opponent gains infinite life with some combination including Melira, Sylvok Outcast (i.e., via Melira,
Sylvok Outcast + Greater Gargadon + Kitchen Finks in G/R) Inkmoth Nexus isn’t going to help you (though it can in other settings). I have beaten the
Melira combination with good old Memoricide… You can deck them even if they go off, and if you take away one of the key combo pieces ahead of time,
you can usually end up beating them on the merits just by being bigger.

• Viridian Emissary (possibly out of the sideboard) as a “productive” speed bump to buy time against Zoo while setting up the expensive middle turns
of the deck.

• One Acidic Slime (possibly in place of Baneslayer Angel), which is more productive mid-game against decks like Cloudpost.

For those of you who haven’t played Birthing Pod strategies very much, you don’t have to go straight up the chain. For instance I had a game just now
where I opened on Noble Hierarch, then played Lotus Cobra into a fetch land (which immediately produced a Birthing Pod). My third turn saw another land
for Solemn Simulacrum, straight into Baneslayer Angel (with no life loss!) + additional value. So this is the third turn, and if they don’t get rid of
the Baneslayer Angel, they are basically already done; or they can get rid of the Birthing Pod (and probably still bite it to the 6/6 Baneslayer
Angel).

Like I said, the details aren’t perfect yet… but fun stuff!

LOVE

MIKE