Card/Deck White Aggro

James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
I'm currently looking at making some big changes to my cube. You've all finally convinced me to break singleton and try out the recursive black aggro/zombie shenanigans archetype. That's all pretty well documented, so it shouldn't be too hard. But I also want to make the white "make cheap guys and attack" decks have some more success. (Not necessarily mono-white)

I'm thinking of doubling or trippling up on Fencing Aces, Accorder Paladins and cutting some of the more generic white two drops. To go with Accorder Paladin, I'd like some more cheap token makers. I'll add Mogg War Marshal for a start. How about Raise the Alarm? At CMC 3 I already run Lingering Souls and Spectral Procession, which are fantastic. Should I try Midnight Haunting? Anything else?

To work more with Fencing Ace (which works really nicely with Accorder Paladin), I'm thinking of doubling or trippling up on Bonesplitter and Adventuring Gear (which needs some heavy testing in my cube. At the moment I only run 5 fetchlands, because that's what I own. I intend to proxy the other 5 (the onslaught ones), but I'll do so with a heavy heart. I hate proxies). I've already brought up Fencing Ace, but that was kind of a while ago. Any thoughts on making him good?

I'd like to make a custom card which is a color-shift of Rancor into white. It would be so at home there. Trample doesn't feel too white, though. Do you think I should pick another keyword? What should it be? Leave it the same? Don't do it at all?
 
anotak

anotak

about rancor: trample is inherently an aggressive mechanic but the two evergreen white ones (lifelink/first strike) can be used very effectively defensively and would probably be used against the aggro decks

i would do it like this maybe, with boros hybrid:
Totally Not Rancor W/R
enchantment -- aura
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+0 and has first strike.
Enchanted creature attacks each turn if able.
When ~ is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return ~ to its owner's hand.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
anotak: said card has already been printed (and mentioned in James's OP!)

since White aggro just murders everyone in my Cube every time (with everything from a single splash to 2-3 other colors), i'm not sure why it reportedly sucks in most other Cubes (to the point of the awkward rebel errata, even). list for reference is at http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/114 and half the decks i post in the 3-0 thread have a stoned Wescoe / Death and Taxes flavor.

my main suggestion is to not double up on 2's but on 1's, if you like constructed mtg you know this is quite important. champion of the parish is your best beater. other than that looking at your list (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArD0L8O5X_TkdGEwUXN3UlQ1VDdvRWMxS3hTM3ZFVXc#gid=0 right? the one on the second page of cube lists?) seems OK, i might smite control a little bit before exalting aggro
 
Lucre

Lucre

Ask yourself what is getting in the way of these poor white aggressive decks. How would you like the games to progress?

I see a couple areas to think about here:
+ WW tends to be widely understood to be sorta lame and boring. Maybe people are falling into it after a half assed draft.
+ Are there problems in the drafting process that are neutering your WW decks? Procession / equipment taken too high by other decks? Not enough access to an effect? Not feeling like they can safely take the cool cards because of fixing or high spots on the curve?
+ What sort of board situations occur frequently that seem like real challenges to WW decks? Which decks are beating them? How can we make those decks harder to draft.
+ How do we make the more powerful WW cards in the spectrum more relevance? What adjustments can we make to other decks to make Accorder paladin more sustainable or having a Relic Warder in hand a bigger deal? How can we create more oppertunities to maximizes the cards you already want to play within your own deck? I remember the first time someone played a Goblin bombardment against me after I thought I stablized vs WW I was thrilled to scoop them up. Just think of all the extra use you'll get out of your cloudgoats and your blade splicers. You could just make them more like combo or tribal decks like our admins seem to like.
+ Armageddon is always there if you need something to lean on, so is Aether Vial if you think you've found a way for WW decks to replenish their hands.

I'm powered cubing tonight and I sorta told myself I'd try to force tempo, but now I think I wana jam WW and see if I can make it work. I wonder if it can be disruptive enough. Might have to be like WW/g or WW/duress.
 
anotak

anotak

CML said:
anotak: said card has already been printed (and mentioned in James's OP!)
Click to expand...
Unless I'm missing something, I don't see a pre-existing white rancor anywhere in his original post or on oracle? He was talking about color shifting it but considering that trample isn't a white ability.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
I cut Forked Bolt and Arc Trail recently to make it less easy to hose early beaters. Should I maybe also get rid of Arc Lightning too? I cackle gleefully when I cast these cards and get easy 2 or 3-for-1's every time, but then I realised this is not really a good thing. After drafting some kind of weenie deck and having everything killed so easily, people have probably been put off drafting aggro in my cube. All the cards I've been talking about have 1 toughness, I have to change things to make that less of a weakness.

Champignon of the Parish goes great with the Ace and the Paladin. I should obtain a couple of those.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
So I think you need anthems with Raise, we should resuscitate the Anthem thread since GOOD GOD is angel of jubilation a house against Melira Pod yadda yadda. If your Cubers and Cubettes are down with paying triple-White for another four-drop I have something fun for you.

Gather the Townsfolk is all kinds of fun with Xathrid Necromancer and fateful hour, probably try it. I might try it myself!
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
I'm down with Angel of Jubilation and Xathrid Necromancer. I wish battle cry was +1/+1, but I guess that would be too good. I've had Pianna in the cube for ages, I think this whole topic is a subconscious effort on my part to make someone finally draft her. She's even a human! Ding!

EDIT: anybody else seeing "x" before "Xathrid"? cool bug.
 
Lucre

Lucre

So surpringly the deck I described here earlier did pretty alright in a semi powered environment!
Your cards are sorta not worth much when compared to the exciting control and midrange value plays. (Not only is a 4/4 a tough proposition for a deck made of 2/1s but 4 life is a good number of attacks, same can be said for things like skeletal vampire, tamiyo and sweepers) but you've also just got very few ways to influence internal consistency, or cards that you can pitch easily to put you in a position where you can start playing magic again when your draws feel bad.

Having people all trying to cut each other off from the UU spells really helped >:)
Anyway, last night totally solidified my love for goblin bombardment. Runners up are perrenial favourites skull clamp and blade spicer.

The deck feels like it needs a way to get access to more cards (ranger? Hero? Lark wasn't cutting it) and serious disruption. Quisali pridemage, disenchant, geddon and wasteland were good to me this. Round but not everyone is playing against grim monoliths and signets and not everyone wants to give people access to two geddons. So I remain stumped.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
James Stevenson said:
I could cut Hero of Bladehold for Angel of Jubilation. That's a card that's been played enough, could be time to go. I'm never particularly happy to see it hitting the table, it's a bit too good. Maybe.
Click to expand...


I cut Hero over here, because it's almost always an instant-win if it isn't removed on the spot. Using Chapin's Baneslayer vs Mulldrifter terminology, I feel like it's even more of a Baneslayer than the queen angel herself.

Funny that you mention Gather the Townsfolk, as I'm experimenting with it myself after adding the third Champion. Human tribal will be a thing, dammit!
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Baneslayer doesn't leave behind a mess of tokens after a single attack, I don't think she's too good in most power levels. Hero seems reasonable too but yeah she hits hard.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
explosives is strong but fair, bsz is really intensive if you want to kill anything of any size so i think it's fine.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Zenith was actually.. kinda underwhelming here. Mostly just acted as an expensive Infest that you might randomly redraw. So one day I just made the logical swap and threw Infest back in.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Gloomdrifter turned out to be unplayable in my Cube despite looking amazing. I don't have much of an idea why because stuff like Pyroclasm is usually great. Massacre Wurm is a hit, though
 
Lucre

Lucre

Speakinging of gloom drifter, I was just talking to Eric about what a pipe dream threshold seems to be.
Maybe I need to replace preordains and brain storms with careful study, thought scour and strategic planning?

My plans for the weenie deck in my weird PEZ cube involve lots of token generating to take advantage of delver type spells matter decks and swarm strategies with green. It also just gives you a bit of a leg up in very aggressive formats where people are playing a lot of 1 toughness creatures of coming out of the gates in a big way and you might need to be splitting your resources. The other aspect of WW is that I wanted them to be able to beat up the other bears. Cathar puts a real hurt on other aggressive decks. I'm realizing walls are a much bigger element of control in PEZ than they are in rares cubes. I'm really not sure how to make it work so far. So I'm expecting kinda the opposite problem.

I decided to go with 2x Accorder Paladin to make the tokens more relevant. Maybe that will help. As always, I can only imagine Goblin Bombardment being a total monster. That thing looks like a jitte when you don't have proper midranged and control decks.


I wonder if there is room for good enchantments.

@ James, somethings that've never occurred to me so far, have you considered: A) Doubling up on Stoneforge and either Bonesplitter or Wargear? B) Make an effort to make WW less of a double white proposition. You could make it more possible to make dual coloured aggro decks. Maybe extra tidehallow scullers or something might help. I could get behind a 2nd Dark Confidant. Are there aggressive green spells or red ones that work well in slower attacking decks?
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
I don't run Stoneforge any more, actually. Since I cut the swords and Batterskull it doesn't do all that much any more. I'll think about what you said though. Wargear is such a good card, I wouldn't mind doubling on that at all. That's something that efficiently puts my X/1's above 1 toughness, which I think might be important.
I've been cutting down on double colored 2-drops as much as possible, in all the colors. That's partly why I'm excited to run more Fencing Aces and Accorder Paladins.

EDIT: pretty excited to try out Goblin Bombardment too. Every's nerding out about it here, I'm surprised it didn't show up on the cube scene before all this recursive aggro shenanigans. (We need a new word for shenanigans. It's such a good word, but it needs a synonym.)
 
CML

CML

Contributor
chicanery etc. there's like 50 words for this

yeahhhhh threshold. i dunno how to achieve it consistently even with 8 cantrips.
 
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