Five With Flores

A short post Bill Stark did on the Mono-White Control deck he played last weekend (unsung credit goes locally to Reece Perry for believing, kschreve for Mistveil Plains, and everyone for reading and contributing):

MartyrProc List

Related stuff:

michaelj saves the day! (Top 8 Magic)
PTQ Seattle 1-10-09 (TheStarkingtonPost.com)
Embracing Certainty (ye olde Five With Flores)
Mono-White Control in Extended (also right here, baby!)
Show, Don’t Tell (doesn’t actually have to do with anything, but still awesome)

Have a good day everybody.

LOVE
MIKE

Osyp suggested a similar idea (but no deck list) on our mailing list. You know that I am like a feather and anyone suggesting I play this… I probaly will float in that direction if it is mentioned.

The deck list:

3 Chalice of the Void

4 Akroma’s Vengeance
2 Crovax, Ascendent Hero
4 Decree of Justice
4 Eternal Dragon
4 Mana Tithe
4 Martyr of Sands
4 Proclamation of Rebirth
4 Wrath of God

22 Snow-covered Plains
4 Temple of the False God

sideboard:
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Unmake
4 Condemn
1 Crovax, Ascendent Hero
3 Kataki, War’s Wage
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

I played about five matches with this deck last night but my computer crashed so I lost the notes. So I am going completely on memory for the first night.

For the first night I played on Boseiju, Who Shelters All in the main. It was kind of awful. In fact I played it as my first land against Zoo and Red decks and I think it cost me the Zoo Game One. So I moved it to nowhere (I always had the second Boseiju in the sideboard). Anyway, I crushed Swans with two awful draws and I don’t see how you can reasonably lose to Faeries or Wizards on MTGO; I don’t see how those decks can beat you in a tournament unless you don’t draw anything the whole match.

Swans
I get the worst mana flood ever. Crush him.

I get a medium horrible mana screw. Crush him.

The Swans matchup was pretty simple. I drew sixteen straight lands in Game One, and somehow won. Basically I took a couple of hits from his Swans and then played Chalice of the Void for two, to counter his Chain of Plasma. I blew up his guy.

Wait, wait wait… He goes for it, Repeals my Chalice and plays the combo with all his mana… I have the Mana Tithe. Of course I re-play the Chalice and finally draw Eternal Dragon. Blood Moon of course did nothing.

Game Two was the opposite… I wasn’t completely screwed but I was discarding for a while. Just so happened to have a key Mana Tithe, etc.

Affinity
I actually got run over by the super fast draw in Game One. Game Two I got Akroma’s Vengeance, and Game Three I got Kataki. Affinity is a non-issue for this deck.

Zoo
As above, I was quite punished by the main deck Boseiju. I replaced it with a Plains… The deck actually needs 26 lands, and skimpint to 25 hurt.

Game Two I kept a hand with three Eternal Dragons and Condemnm but only one Plains. It took six turns to find the second one. Some nice stalling with the Martyr helped a lot. This was actually pretty close… He didn’t play Teeg (at least against me).

Going down 0-2 to Zoo is annoying if he doesn’t present Teeg… Just a case of my hiccuping against Zoo and the fact that you don’t want to do that. The sideboard is chock full of cards that are actually cheap enough to point at Teeg.

Gifts Rock
Nope, this deck can’t beat Gifts Rock. Death Cloud and Life From the Loam destroyed me. I had a Chalice on two in play in I think Game Two but he just killed me with Kitchen Finks.

Today…

All-in Red
A surprisingly easy matchhp. Especially in sideboarded games, I had every Unmake a girl could ever want.

Lightning Bolt Deck
This one was also super easy.

My hot play was to Martyr for four, not five, not revealing my tricky card. The opponent tapped out to point Flames of the Blood Hand… My last card was Mana Tithe

Weird Elf Deck
I conceded match after he showed me a fourth Thoughts of Ruin. I actually screwed up on the first Thoughts of Ruin.

Fae
He timed out. I was the beatdown eerly, then got him eventually to three life. I suggested he concede but he kept playing.

There seems to be very little Fae / Wizards can do against this deck, at least in Game One. White has more card advantage, which is inexorable as it is inexhaustable.

The main advantages of this deck are that it is solid against Red and Fae. It cannot however beat The Rock, ever.

Just some thoghts. Happy New Year!

LOVE
MIKE

PS Is it worthwhile to splash Red? Lightning Helix is already White for the Martyr… Firespout might be good against Zoo and playable against Elves. Thoughts?