General How to make white aggro not suck.

Laz

Laz

Developer
The interesting thing about those cards is that none of them are truly aggressive cards; they are all pretty flexible in their use.

Feeling is strong, and also really flexible. Tap your dudes, trigger Prowess, swing; or, fog your guys for 2 turns. It is very good for sneaking in damage.
While this interaction doesn't feature in my main cube, Feeling is bonkers with Heroic, as you can swing, then in the declare attackers step, both tap their blocker and trigger heroic on your own creature.

Azorius Charm doesn't tend to show up in aggressive decks much. In theory you could probably buy some tempo with the 'put blocking creature on top of library' mode, but I am not convinced. I have seen the lifelink mode used once, and as it turns out, if you need to win a race, it is really really good at ensuring you do.

Ojutai's Command needs more testing. It isn't a true agressive card, and may have been a poor inclusion in the above list, but if you can afford to hold up mana for it, it certainly offers a lot of value.
 
D

DreamPaint

Jason Waddell said:
Is there a Planeswalker I should be running? Break down and just run Armageddon for a win-rate boost?

What do you like about white aggro, and how can we make it better and more fun to play?
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White-weenie is one of my favorite decks in cube, and good builds of the deck can beat anything. The deck is also quite fun to play in my experience. It's really satisfying working around problematic cards and coming out on top. Yes, beating a turn two Blood Knight is possible, in part because the deck is so resilient and can attack from multiple angles. I took a look at your list and noticed that many staples of the archetype are missing. These include:

Kytheon, Hero of Akros
Consul's Lieutenant
Precinct Captain
Knight of Glory
Mikaeus, the Lunarch
Mirran Crusader
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Hallowed Spirikeeper
Cloudgoat Ranger
Wingmate Roc
Parallax Wave
Council's Judgment
Figure of Destiny

Other helpful cards include:

Sigiled Paladin
Accorder Paladin
Stasis Snare
Banishing Light
Assorted non-Steppe Lynx 1 drops + Champion of the Parish

Speaking from extensive experience drafting the deck, I can say that Elspeth, Knight Errant and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar are helpful, but not essential, cards to the archetype. Feel free to not include them. By far the most critical components of the deck are

1. Parallax Wave
2. Dismember
3. Path to Exile
4. Swords to Plowshares

These typically need to be taken over all other picks, and in this order. Obviously adjust as needed according to the draft. You typically only need to remove 1-2 creatures per game, so having access to the premium removal is essential. Also, Armageddon and Ravages are NOT what you want to be doing with this deck. We have tried these cards repeatedly over the years and they are actively bad. Any proactive 4-drop is going to be better the vast majority of the time. When everybody is playing with impactful cards and a tight curve, Armageddon effects will cause you to lose more games then they win. At least, that's been our experience over the years. Land Tax is another card that will not help, so avoid that one as well.

OK, moving on to non-WW white aggro decks. The top tier ones include G/W, Zoo, and Mardu. Boros, U/W and B/W (aka "The Mistake" to us) are all sub-par and we personally avoid drafting those archetypes at all costs. G/W has a very powerful vs. Red matchup, even more so WW, which adds to its appeal. Zoo gives you access to amazing gold cards and grants you the reach from red plus a nice edge vs. white based aggro decks; Kird Ape and friends match up brilliantly against white's plethora of 2/1s. Mardu is a little trickier to pull off, but curving Silverblade Paladin into Falkenrath Aristocrat feels oh-so good.

If you want, I can post potential decklists for these archetypes. Can you explain what you feel isn't working with white aggro decks?
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

I'm pretty sure most players here would pretty much never run Brimaz, King of Oreskos (he's ridic strong), Knight of Glory (protection is unpopular here), Mirran Crusader (ditto), Accorder Paladin / Consul's Lieutenant (both generally viewed as hard to get much value out of/die-on-swing), and especially Elspeth, Knight-Errant (a card universally revered here as wayyy too powerful). Of the other suggestions, I've tried Precinct Captain for a long time and found him really lackluster, though I will second recommendations for 3-cmc white exile effects as being very helpful to aggressive decks.
 
Laz

Laz

Developer
I like Consul's Lieutenant in theory, I just haven't found a chance to test it yet, as finding a slot for a WW aggro card is a little difficult.

I am sure most of us can think of a number of powerful cards that we could run which would work well in aggressive white decks, but whether they improve the environment as a whole is far more questionable. The focus tends to be far more on how can we make white aggro more interesting and interactive, not how we can make it more powerful, though Jason's original post kind of went both ways.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Laz said:
I like Consul's Lieutenant in theory, I just haven't found a chance to test it yet, as finding a slot for a WW aggro card is a little difficult.
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I'm actually running it currently (I was merely listing off a few things I know have been discussed before), and my drafters really like it. First Strike is very nice and not trinket text at all, especially if you can give him some pants, and he really demands your opponent react to him, because letting him through once can be the beginning of the end. The Human typing is also super tasty, and the art isn't bad at all. I don't foresee cutting him, because anthems-on-a-stick are my JAMZ. Pair with a haste source and he's crazy cool. 8)
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
I know the 4 drop spot isn't where White necessarily needs help, but Archangel of Tithes is insane. If you cast it when then opponent is tapped out, you falter there whole aide of the board. And also get a 3 power flier that's outside of burn range. And if they want to attack or block any time soon, they hold up there development. It's brutal. Maybe not better then Sublime Archangel, but its pretty close.

Its a well known fact I love aura aggro, but if you aren't going deep on the theme only a couple are good enough to run. Griffin Guide and Angelic Destiny for their reliability are top tier. Empyrial Armor and Wordmail are options because sometimes you just cast them and win. That's about it. Hyena Umbra is ok, but it wouldn't play without beneficial triggers, its just too low impact.

3 mana Ajani is nuts in aggro. Cut whatever 4 mana white Ajani you run and play it if you want to boost aggro. He pumps your board just as much as the others when you have one creature (which is often what you want if you don't want to get blown out by a wrath) and the -3 represents insane amounts of damage.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Can we expand on that pants mini theme? Fabled Hero might be hamhanded. Double strikers in general? Mother of Runes and other protection spells seems great.
 
safra

safra

Jason Waddell said:
Mikaeus was always a turd turd turd over here. :(
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Dark Mike is a really sweet black six though, he's always on my shortlist. If you want a black six who isn't Gravy Train, less bomby than M. Wurm but more explosive than Sorin Markov.

also how do people feel about cards like Meddling Mage, Nevermore, Runed Halo and Denied!? Too conditional and dependent on outside knowledge? What about customs with the Alhammarret wording where you get to look at their hand first? I don't mind running Pithing Needle or Revoker, they're always useful, but the proactive name a card ones strike me as rough.

I've run Runed Halo and Meddling Mage in Constructed and been happy with them, they're clean answers to any sufficiently narrow strategy (which other card do you bring in against both Bogles and Storm?) that are still valid in fair matchups. But in Cube? I really don't know, I wonder what you all think about this.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

HOW HAVE I NEVER SEEN RUNED HALO BEFORE?!?!? That is literally SO cool. It's on-deck to find a way in during my Commander update. Thank you safra, you are a golden angel painted by Rebecca Guay

I've considered Nevermore before, and it's still on my list, but I haven't tried it yet.

Meddling Mage is also high on my list of trial includes, but I haven't tried it yet either.

Re: Mikaeus, the Lunarch: I have no idea how he is not the sweetest play ever in every cube. He's SO good. Way cooler than I expected. I loves it. I have him in FTV foil because FTV foils are my JAMZ
Re: Mikaeus, the Unhallowed: Total crap over here. Nobody ever ran him. Too slow for us. We don't even have any black 6s right now; I've been pushing lots of expensive multicolour cards as a compromise to the lower curve in monocoloured for red and black, and it's been awesome.
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
In a lot of Cubes the most common targets for Ranger are the Elite Vanguards of the world, which are mostly unimpressive at the stage of the game when you can cast a Ranger.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Florida Man said:


Maybe I just missed where someone else mentioned it, but why has no one brought up Ranger of Eos ?

-Its perfect for recovering from wrath effects.
-It tutors for Mikaeus, the Lunarch
-It is card advantage that helps WW stay afloat against value oriented decks.
-It can even grab utility creatures like Mother of Runes.
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Most commonly over here, Ranger of Eos has grabbed this combo:


Ranger is definitely the most interesting "army in a can" card. I'd imagine tutoring for late-game Hangarback Walker isn't bad, either.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I actually quite like Ranger of Eos for the spice that he can add to a typical white weenie deck, with the caveat that most of the best tutor targets aren't in white. Ranger goes in and out of my list continually - he's probably my #1 most rotated card - and while he won't win any awards for power level, both his inherent fun factor and the long game he gives you against control decks make him a welcome addition.

Some less embarrassing targets:

 
Chriskool

Chriskool

Endless One... Ivy Elementals are crying in a landfill somewhere.

Part of the correct solution to supporting aggro white has to be duplicate/triplicate of hate vanguards/bears/ogres that fight their cube's over-performing and/or ubiquitous strats (with fighting mana production being the most boring interpretation of this solution). The other two parts are card advantage (to avoid boring hellbent "do they have it" situations) and combat throughput (manipulate damage, pump up the dudes or slip them past evasion).

FWIW, Ranger of Eos was one of my top-performing cards in 100-Card Singleton (of which several 100 tournament matches form the basis of most of my cube game play and deck construction opinions).
 
F

Florida Man

Jason Waddell said:
Most commonly over here, Ranger of Eos has grabbed this combo:


Ranger is definitely the most interesting "army in a can" card. I'd imagine tutoring for late-game Hangarback Walker isn't bad, either.
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Exactly!

Someone above mentioned tutoring for Elite Vanguards but I don't think that is a fair assessment of the card. Hangerback is the perfect example. It can grab cards for Wx aggro that also scale into the late game, like Hangerback does. Like Student of Warfare or Scutemob.
 
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