The Year of Brew

Week 16: Oak Didn't Ask, But I Obliged Anyway

Julian Leal

26 Apr 2021 - 5 min read

It’s our final customized deck and also the final installment of the Arc of the Power of Friendship! Let us shed a single tear and go out with a bang (literally)! It’s Oak’s turn, and he gave me the following criteria:

Mono-White

Destructive

Resilient

Let’s see what tricks we can pull to excite the one and only Oak!

Deck 16: Mono-White

In traditional style, Oak gave me the most vague asks of all my fellow Hexdrinkers. “Destructive”? “Resilient”? Uh… sure. Well, the benefit to this was we had a wide swath of possibilities and paths we could take. The most defining characteristic at first, was the mono-white color identity. This immediately cut down our options to a nice list of options, though mono-white is notorious in EDH for being… the weakest.

Next, I tried to hone in on “destructive,” since Oak is our resident red mage and if there’s one thing he loves, it’s going boom boom and throwing lightning around. Luckily, this cut out a significant chunk of white commanders, mostly those that cared about tokens (I’ve been doing a lot of token decks, let’s mix it up). After flirting very heavily with Celestial Kirin and the idea of selectively nuking permanents (including lands, lol), I settled on the king of the jungle: Mageta the Lion .

Mageta is underwhelming at first. He’s not a relevant creature type, he’s five mana, which is starting to get expensive for a mono-white deck, and he’s very understatted by today’s standards. But what he lacks in conventional raw power, he makes up for in his ability to be Highlander. There can only be one, and for the low, low (sarcasm) price of four mana, tapping, and discarding two cards, that one is going to be Mageta.

Nothing is more destructive than a literal and reusable Wrath of God on a stick. But, this scorched earth comes at a steep mana and card advantage price. How do we negate discarding two whole cards in a color where every card matters? Screw the Color Pie and take back one of white’s original auxiliary mechanics - Resurrection .

With all the wrathing and discarding that we’ll be engaging in, the best way maximize is by cheating our creatures back into play with bangers like, Breath of Life , Angelic Renewal , Karmic Guide , and many more. Resiliency baby, that’s our third criteria! Naturally we’re stocked outselves with all manner of absurd creatures like Avacyn, Angel of Hope , Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite , and personal Oakley favorite, Archon of Coronation .

Throw in all the good draw we can get, some good ol’ interaction, and absolute synergistic powerhouses Land Tax and Bag of Holding and we’ve got a deck that’s ready to rumble. This deck does run a lot of “good cards,” i.e. most of the staple ramp and artifacts. Once again, just mono-white things. But I think it’s the idea behind it and the gameplay that makes this deck stand out as unique. That and Mageta being a total boss.

I hope Oak likes this deck, but I hope y’all like it even more. Go forth and lay waste, for there can only be one!