The Great White Death

by KnightoftheHokeyPokey on 25 September 2014

Main Deck (60 cards)

Sideboard (15 cards)

Creatures (5)

Instants (7)


Enchantments (3)

Submit a list of cards below to bulk import them all into your sideboard. Post one card per line using a format like "4x Birds of Paradise" or "1 Blaze", you can even enter just the card name by itself like "Wrath of God" for single cards.


Deck Description

If you thought lifegain was not scary without mythic rares like Felidar Sovereign, Serra Ascendant, Ajani Pridecaller, and Archangel of Thune to back it up, or asked "How on earth does lifegain prosper without serra ascendant and ajani's pridemate?", or never saw a pair of 4 drops rival the abilities of planeswalkers, then sit down and be schooled.

This deck is also completely complaint with aristocrat rules.

The link to the challenge deck is posted below.

http://www.mtgvault.com/jessie/decks/aristocrat-format-challenge/

Besides that, here's some neat trivia about the title. The deck honors it's namesake, which is a revised - era deck that was designed to outlast pretty much any deck it was stacked up against by gaining ridiculous amounts of life. Times have changed, and the sheer amount of life needed to smother one's opponents has greatly increased (exalted Aurelia shenanigans , for example), but the core concept remains the same. Plus, serra avatar is just so much cooler than personal incarnation.

Aside from that, Ajani Goldmane's lore references that this white fur was taken as a ominous sign by his leonin brethren. He was literally, "white as death".

Special thanks to Invoiced Earth for suggesting Hero of Iroas, Oreskos Sun Guide, Lone Missionary, and Ephara's Radiance.

How to Play

This deck is intended as a hard counter to damage dealing decks, especially burn, aggro, and infect. If this deck goes up against control decks, it will flounder and die. Just keep that in mind.

Gain as much freaking life as possible to stall your opponent into oblivion. To this end, cards include rest for the weary, rhox faithmender, and martyr of sands. The latter can gain a whopping 18 or 21 life turn 2 (depending on whether you went first or second). With both rhox faithmender and maytr of sands out, you can do patently ridiculous things.

Continuous lifegain effects help you maintain your impressive life total. Such effects include ghost-lit redeemer, knight of meadowgrain, rhox faithmender (seriously, he's so good he combos with all lifegain), Ajani's first ability, hopeful eidolon, and Oreskos Sun Guide. This repeated lifegain goes on to trigger effects that care more about the number of times you gain life, rather than your life total. Cue angelic accord. This card will create a massive army of tokens in no time, and with stuff like felidar umbra around ....

Oh, Oreskos Sun Guide is just a vanilla, common, 2/2 body to throw in the way of attacks and buff up with your enchantments or instants when necessary. It also combos very well with Ephara's Radiance.

You also have a handful of incredibly sneaky tactics up your sleeve. The most basic of these is triggering lifegain during your opponent's turn when angelic accord is out, so the token gets into the fight much faster and you can trigger angelic accord TWICE before your upkeep.

Other than that ... Awe Strike is plain cruel to infect decks. Simply prevent their entire kill shot ... if you are playing against burn, turn to healing salve instead. Swift Justice makes a mockery of high power but low toughness creeps that players ignorantly send to face your "puny" glory seeker.

Felidar Umbra is an amazing enchantment that has many useful properties. It bounces from creature to creature, it basically grants Ajani's token the ability; "When this creature deals combat damage, double your life total. Then, make this creature's power and toughness equal to your life total. Finally, felidar umbra can keep your rhox faithmender alive when your opponent realizes what it is and starts pelting it with spells (that 5 toughness is hard to get around, though). Gotta love a "get out of jail free card".

Ajani's second ability makes all the angel tokens that his first ability made (by triggering angelic accord) into ... buffed serra angels. 5/5 flying vigilance awesomeness.

Sitting in your sideboard lies one of the most diabolical lifegain cards ever printed (after martyr of sands, then rhox faithmender), if you are talking about the sheer volume of health it can gain. Congregate. If you find yourself playing multiplayer ... don't blame me if this card gets banned by a house rule. =). Especially if you bring serra avatar along and pop a felidar umbra on it, partly to keep it alive and partly to reach over 100 life without Ajani, Mentor of heros.

Finally, glyph of life is meant to make a defender deck sorely regret choosing to chump-block sera avatar ... or anyone with lifelink for that matter, since it stacks with the life one gains from the lifelink ability.

Oh! And if you want to leave aristocrat format behind ... run this deck with a full play set of Hero of Iroas. As Invoiced Earth pointed out, he speeds up the deck considerably (Angelic Accord on turn 3? Hell yes.). He also can become quite the beefy blocker. If he is in the deck ... consider switching out Ephara's Radiance with Divine Favor, and possibly bringing prison term along. Trust me, it is badass.

Deck Tags

  • Aristocrat
  • Challenge
  • Mono White
  • Life Gain

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

4
Likes

This deck has been viewed 1,890 times.

Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

390000

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Legal in Legacy

Deck discussion for The Great White Death

You know, with Rhox in play, Rest for the Weary gives you like 16 life, for 2 freaking mana!
Redeemer and Channel is new to me, interesting.
Why is Glory Seeker in the deck...and how come he has no special abilities?
Angelic Accord will be an army breeder in this deck, very much so.
Awe Strike is very tricky and powerful. Good stuff.
I hope Martyr doesn't become a wasted card late game, since you will be low on cards: however, play her on the first turn, and use her on the second, and gain what, like 18 life?! Or something like that. Crazy.
Totem armor, have not played with it much, but it very much seems like a "get out of jail free" card.

Overall, nice stuff!

1
Posted 25 September 2014 at 04:36

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Maytr gains 21 life the second turn if you go second and only play a land after her ability resolves. Yes, it's ridiculous. Yes, it's downright broken with a serra ascendant or two in hand.

Glory seeker is here because she is a needed a common, vanilla creature to tank all the upgrades when no one else is around.

With 3 cards in hand, the Martyr still gains 9 life for 2 mana late game, which can handily trigger angelic accord your opponent's turn. Even better, when paired with Rhox Faithmender ... she can potentially gain 24 or 30 life turn 5 or 6. That is hands down nuts.

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Posted 25 September 2014 at 04:43

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Then yeah, Glory Seeker is a safe, vanilla, backup/plan.
21 life 18 life...close enough! :)

Yep, keep a few cards in your hand, until you get Rhox, and Martyr could be very nice.

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Posted 25 September 2014 at 04:48

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Or simply watch your opponent's jaw drop when your life total DOUBLES turn 2 ... and she/he notices the awe strikes you're holding.

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Posted 25 September 2014 at 04:55

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Indeed, they will not attack you full power, that is for sure. It will slow them down, drastically. :)

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Posted 25 September 2014 at 05:00

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Lol ... awe strike shuts down infect HARD. In fact, it shuts down ramp pretty well.

And there is always swift justice, for when my puny glory seeker with divine favor has to take out a gaea's revenge. And gain life, to boot.

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Posted 25 September 2014 at 05:04

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What the heck? WHY ARE THE PLAINS ILLEGAL IN LEGACY?! I even chose m15 plains. What's going on?

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Posted 25 September 2014 at 20:36

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Nope. Khans.
And Khans is not legal, yet.

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Posted 26 September 2014 at 00:44

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Thanks for the info.

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Posted 27 September 2014 at 01:31

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Nice deck +1 from me. I like the ridiculous life gain. You might want to use Hero of Iroas instead of Glory Seeker, they are the same in every way except Hero of Iroas has heroic and reduces the colorless cost of aura spells, which includes the bestow cost for your eidolon as well. It might speed up the deck slightly and still have the blocker who can easily get big enough to swing with. Or have you thought about using Ephara's Radiance on Oreskos Sun Guide so can gain 5-10 life every turn depending on if Rhox Faithmender is out.

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Posted 12 December 2014 at 02:42

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Thanks for your wonderful suggestions. Changes incoming.

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Posted 03 July 2015 at 20:18

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Woefully, Hero of Iroas is a rare ... and I need Rhox Faithmender and Ajani. Still, he is a really great suggestion. I will sideboard him for non-aristocrat players.

Oreskos Sun Guide is awesome here, as is Ephara's Radiance. I will replace Glory Seeker and Divine Favor with them, respectively.

Again, thank you for your help kind sir. You have my everlasting gratitude. :)

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Posted 03 July 2015 at 20:29

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Where is lone missionary? :)
This is a neat deck and you introduced me to a lot of new life gain cards. +1

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Posted 03 January 2015 at 14:15

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Happy to be of assistance my god sir.

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Posted 03 July 2015 at 19:38

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I think I will stick with Oreskos Sun Guide. It's not as strong, but continuous.

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Posted 03 July 2015 at 20:31

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Replaced felidar umbra with elixir of immortality to keep this modern and build on the whole outlasting theme.

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Posted 18 August 2018 at 02:16

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