White Recursion

[slynk]

I'm designing a white recursion deck, but I need some advice on what to cut. Right now I'm 9 cards over. Here's the list:

Acceleration:
Expedition Map
Journeyer's Kite
Mind's Eye
Pilgrim's Eye
Solemn Simulacrum
Wayfarer's Bauble
Well of Lost Dreams

Main Spells:
Admonition Angel
Ajani Goldmane
Akroma, Angel of Wrath
Altar's Light
Artisan of Kozilek
Blazing Archon
Breath of Life
Children of Korlis
Day of Judgement
Duplicant
Elixir of Immortality
False Defeat
Felidar Sovereign
Final Judgement
Iona, Shield of Emeria
It That Betrays
Journey to Nowhere
Kami of False Hope
Karmic Guide
Leonin Relic-Warder
Lightning Greaves
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
Loyalty Retainers
Magus of the Disk
Magus of the Moat
Magus of the Tabernacle
Marshal's Anthem
Mimic Vat
Nim Deathmantle
Nullstone Gargoyle
Oblivion Ring
Oblivion Stone
Order of Whiteclay
Pathrazer of Ulamog
Planar Cleansing
Prison Term
Resurrection
Return to Dust
Reveillark
Revoke Existence
Reya Dawnbringer
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
Scarecrone
Serra Ascendant
Spirit of the Hearth
Steam Catapult
Steel Hellkite
Student of Warfare
Sun Titan
Sunblast Angel
Sundering Titan
Transcendent Master
True Believer
True Conviction
Vengeful Archon
Victory's Herald
Voidstone Gargoyle
Wall of Reverance
Windborn Muse
World Queller
Wrath of God
Yosei, the Morning Star

Land:
Emeria, the Sky Ruin
Fountain of Cho
Terrain Generator
Vesuva
37 Plains

Cutting 9 cards is going to be rough, as I'm thinking I may just need to cut the beat sticks that don't combo with anything else. The problem is the beat sticks themselves combo with the recursion aspect of the deck (referring to Akroma, the Eldrazi's, Transcendent Master, Student, Serra Ascendant, etc.) Let me know your thoughts.

[John Galli]

Well, let me get my beef out of the way first-

1.) I'd focus on getting the cards for existing EDH decks rather than proxy up new ones. It's a little unfair to those of us working with our subpar decks or ordering the actual copies, But I've beat this point into the ground so this is my last utterance of it. And I used to use a few proxies back in the day, so I can't be too much of a hypocrite about it.

2.) The deck seems to need more focus on a strategy, I see the reanimation but I also see an odd lifegain theme that doesn't have the supporting cast of characters it needs. There's also a big disregard for other strategies, such as opponent's graveyard recursions, creatures, etc. And there doesn't seem to be a way to get cards into your yard, one of the most important factors of reanimation. Lastly, why build a white reanimation deck when black has better reanimation spells? Is it because of the boss-like fliers? Black has some of this too. If it's to gain access to better white cards, then that's an ok reason.

3.) Far too little acceleration and card draw. This deck needs top, crystal ball, land tax, tithe, darksteel ingot, and possibly a few others (scuttlemutt might be nice to get around protection issues). Other cards not in this category but worth adding is Stonecloaker, Luminarch Ascension, Ghostly Prison, cycling white lands, Marytr of Sands, Sol Ring

Here's cards I either don't like here or don't get-

Wayfarer's Bauble - Expedition Map is pretty much just better than this, and this is just not playable.

Well of Lost Dreams - I guess if you have enough lifegain, I don't really like this card as it's so situational and you have to have mana up. There are however situations where it can be abused.

Altar's Light - I feel like there's better or that this is just not enough. The removal element is nice but otherwise I'd rather run a creature like Soltari Visionary.

Artisan of Kozilek - The lesser eldrazi are just really too expensive to cast and you don't get the bonus when reanimating him.

Children of Korlis - pretty worthless

Final Judgment - Sure, gets your guys too tho, kind of wondering why there's not more wraths in here since you're reanimating your own dudes.

It That Betrays - Same argument as Artisan

Journey to Nowhere - One-time removal where your opponent can get back their card with a simple enchantment destruction spell is generally terrible in EDH. Swords to plowshares, path to exile, archon of justice, etc, are all a bit better. There's other cards out there too.

Kami of False Hope - worthless

Leonin Relic-Warder - Is there a combo you have with this or something?

Magus of the Tabernacle - pretty awful unless you combo with it

Nullstone Gargoyle - way too expensive, way too situational

Oblivion Ring - same argument as journey to nowhere, although a little added value since it's nonland permanent.

Pathrazer of Ulamog - same argument as artisan, although annihilator 3 and his ability are nice. If you have a way to bin him to the yard then I say yes.

Revoke Existence - I like the card, but it's not great in EDH since there is better and it's a sorcery.

Scarecrone - I don't see many artifacts to recur.

Steam Catapult- overpriced, situational

Transcendent Master - levelers are a tough sell in EDH because of the time and mana investment versus the plethora of removal among your opponents. This guy takes a while, and there's better like Student of Warfare.

Victory's Herald - almost all of your creatures fly already, especially your heavy hitters, so this is redundant. The lifelink is nice, but again you have a lot of this already as well.

I would look back over the strategy and theme part. Also, the guide to EDH that Travis posted is pretty much right on the money if you need ideas on structuring it.

[Travis Lannoye]

My favorite: cutting cards! ;D
- Wayfarer's Bauble seems pretty bad compared to all the other mana rocks out there. Specifically, I'd rather have Everflowing Chalice, Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Kor Cartographer (actually a pretty good card in this format), Knight of the White Orchid, and even Endless Horizons.
- Despite being a planeswalker, Ajani Goldmane is actually pretty terrible in this format. His +1 sucks, his -1 is only good if you have several other creatures in play, and his ultimate is just a vanilla beater that is easily removed or bounced. I wouldn't run him outside of a serious token deck.
- Admonition Angel: I don't really like removal spells that don't completely remove the threats. Even as a 6/6 flyer, A-Angel is still a little too fragile to rely on, especially when you cannot guarantee more than one landfall trigger per turn.
- Altar's Light: The RFG effect is nice, but it's still just a 1-for-1, so I'd rather have something with a little more card advantage, unless there are a plethora of Blightsteel Colossuses.
- Blazing Archon: VERY expensive, needs to be protected, doesn't actually remove the problem (like a Wrath does).
- Children of Korlis: Life-gain should always be a side-benefit in this format. For example, the life-gain from Brion Stoutarm is an added bonus when flinging a dude, but it's not the main reason why I do it. Same goes for Sword of Light and Shadow, or Fracturing Gust, or even Basilisk Collar.
- Day of Judgment: In white, there are probably a dozen better sweepers than this one, and you only really need about 4-8 sweepers.
- Elixir of Immortality: The more I think about it, the more I think that nothing about this card is good for you. 5 life is not very much, and the shuffle effect will get rid of all your recursion targets. The only reason to play this is for a response to grave-yard hate, and if you can't reliably dig this up (like with a Trinket Mage or something), it's probably no good.
- Felidar Sovereign: I don't see a huge life-gain theme here, and even if I did, no way this survives to your next upkeep.
- Final Judgment: If you are trying to resurrect your creatures, then RFG-ing them is a bad idea.
- It That Betrays: One thing white is NOT good at is making other people sacrifice things. If you had access to black, this card would be good, but in mono-white it's probably just a beater.
- Journey to Nowhere: ICK. This card is completely unplayable in this format because it's sorcery-speed, only targets creatures, only gets one creature, and doesn't permanently get rid of the target.
- Kami of False Hope: Boooooo, fog-effects blow unless they're easy to re-use like Spike Weaver (a.k.a. they don't need help from other cards to be re-used).
- Leonin Relic-Warder: See Journey to Nowhere, except that it's even easier to kill a measly 2/2 than a measly enchantment.
- Loyal Retainers: I have a personal beef with playing (and proxying) this card for one reason: it is extremely unlikely that you'll ever purchase a real copy for $150 or whatever it's worth. Despite their insane abilities, I don't play with Primeval Titan or Jace, the Mind Sculptor in any of my decks because it's highly unlikely that I'll ever actually go out and purchase real copies. (I feel that this discussion warrants another thread, hopefully this one doesn't get hijacked).
- Nullstone Gargoyle: An irritating card that is going to hinder everyone's ability to play their game.
- Oblivion Ring: Same as Journey to Nowhere.
- Order of Whiteclay: Its value is entirely based on how many targets you have for it, the value of recurring those targets, and how easy it is to tap/untap it (you can't use the ability until after you tap it). That's three tricky conditions that you have to have in order to make this card work, and I don't think it's worth all that hassle.
- Pathrazer of Ulamog: Dumb. Doesn't fit with anything you're trying to do. Darksteel/Blightsteel Colossus is just as good, if not better, at vanilla beatings, and vanilla beatings aren't even that good in this format.
- Scarecrone: Like Order of Whiteclay, this needs to have several targets that are worth reanimating, and it's probably not worth the hassle of doing so.
- Steam Catapult: In a deck with access to a plethora of sweepers, you probably don't need targeted removal that has to meet a condition and lose its summoning sickness.
- Victory's Herald: Another card with too many conditions. You need to protect it until it can attack, make sure you have other attackers to benefit from it, AND make sure that attacking with those extra guys is the best play (like if someone were to flash in a Cloudthresher or something crazy like that). All in all, I'd rather not deal with the conditions.
- Wall of Reverence: Life-gain...meh. Walls...meh.
- Wrath of God: Like DoJ, there are too many better sweepers.

For reference, I'd go with the following white sweepers (the * = already in the list):
- All Is Dust
- Austere Command
- Magus of the Disk*
- Martial Coup
- Nevinyrral's Disk
- Oblivion Stone*
- Phyrexian Rebirth*
- Planar Cleansing*
- Sunblast Angel*

Normally, Final Judgment and Hallowed Burial would make this list, but in this case, you want to recur creatures, and these two don't allow that.

Also, who is your general? That might help in making more decisions.

Hope that was helpful.

[Travis Lannoye]

Feb 17, 2011 11:19:35 GMT -5 John Galli said:

I'd focus on getting the cards for existing EDH decks rather than proxy up new ones. It's a little unfair to those of us working with our subpar decks or ordering the actual copies, But I've beat this point into the ground so this is my last utterance of it. And I used to use a few proxies back in the day, so I can't be too much of a hypocrite about it.

2.) The deck seems to need more focus on a strategy, I see the reanimation but I also see an odd lifegain theme that doesn't have the supporting cast of characters it needs. There's also a big disregard for other strategies, such as opponent's graveyard recursions, creatures, etc. And there doesn't seem to be a way to get cards into your yard, one of the most important factors of reanimation. Lastly, why build a white reanimation deck when black has better reanimation spells? Is it because of the boss-like fliers? Black has some of this too. If it's to gain access to better white cards, then that's an ok reason.

Dear God, did we actually agree on something about this format??? IT'S A TRAP!

I'd say that black and white both have things to offer in terms of recursion. Black's recursion is usually cheaper, but it also usually comes with other drawbacks (losing life or Mannequin counters), or it doesn't put the card right back into play.

Feb 17, 2011 11:19:35 GMT -5 John Galli said:

3.) Far too little acceleration and card draw. This deck needs top, crystal ball, land tax, tithe, darksteel ingot, and possibly a few others (scuttlemutt might be nice to get around protection issues). Other cards not in this category but worth adding is Stonecloaker, Luminarch Ascension, Ghostly Prison, cycling white lands, Marytr of Sands, Sol Ring

I agree that Top, Crystal Ball, Land Tax, and Tithe are all excellent (make sure you Tithe for Mistveil Plains first so you can do it again), but in this case I don't think Darksteel Ingot or Scuttlemutt are good. Mass-LD is not very popular in this format, and I'd rather have the cheaper colorless mana rocks, since mono-colored decks never need to fix. Everflowing Chalice, Grim Monolith, Worn Powerstone, Gauntlet of Power, and Thran Dynamo are probably all better IN THIS CASE.

If you want a colorless creature, get a Wurmcoil Engine or a Steel Hellkite (I've got plenty of extra copies of the former). You might also look into various kinds of Masticore...might be nice to bin some guys and then recur them.

[John Galli]

ha, yeah we both pretty much said the same thing on the cuttable cards too, and the ones that you touched on that I didn't I felt the same about but just didn't want to tear apart any more of Ryan's deck even though they didn't make much sense.

Panzer of Ulamog isn't great, but it's not the same here as the two colossuses because it doesn't shuffle your graveyard back into your library. Still, there's much better choices.

agreed on the artifact accel, I just wasn't thinking about some of those other options you mentioned. I'd rather have the cheaper 2-drop colorless rocks for sure in this deck. Speaking of mana accel, Gauntlets of Power might be OK in this.

Admonition Angel does have the drawbacks of O-Ring and Journey, but I've seen it be absolutely abused / punish people in EDH, so if you have tools to support it the card can be hot. I too am very wary of the drawback, but it's not a non-playable.

I'll just echo my thoughts and the ones you quoted in that this deck needs more direction and a General.

Also don't forget about Miraculous Recovery for recursion.

[Travis Lannoye]

Half the fun of this format is in the fact that you always have new things to try (like the Fierce Empath package that I just put into my Teneb deck). If you ever get to a point where you stop making even the smallest changes to your deck, you should probably stop playing the deck for awhile. You don't necessarily have to cut all of the cards that were mentioned right away, just start looking for better stuff and slowly weed out the sub-par stuff.

Gauntlet of Power is an auto-play in any mono-colored deck.

@admonition Angel: The fact that it's pretty big and recurrable makes it borderline OK. If there was a way to ensure more land-fall triggers, it would be even better, but that's pretty hard to do outside of green. I guess I'll say "keep it until you find something better".

[John Galli]

Eternal Dragon would also be a good card for you

[Travis Lannoye]

Feb 17, 2011 15:50:58 GMT -5 John Galli said:

Eternal Dragon would also be a good card for you

Ho damn, can't forget that one. Yeah, he's excellent in any mono-white or heavy-white list.

In general though, just remember that every EDH deck is a constant work-in-progress. Most of the time, your first iteration of a deck will not be perfect. Hopefully, you'll find one or two cards that you want to add/remove each time you play with it, and you'll keep working on it until it's close to optimal.

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