Midrange White Weenie

White weenie has been one of the long standing tier one agro decks in the cube and has many incarnations of build. This is a middle of the road mid range build that aims to use the highest quality and power cards available at the cost of reducing the synergies. Other versions might chose to focus on equipment or on Crusade effects and token generation where as this has a pinch of the best of both. Mana denial versions exist as do much more explosive almost affinity builds. White weenie has always been happy to splash a second colour which tends to now be black for Vindicate, Dark Confidant and Lingering Souls. If one puts all these variations under the umbrella of white weenie then it is probably the second most diverse and variable archetype in the cube after the rock which for a purely agro deck is pretty impressive.


The key thing to do when building a white weenie deck is to restrict yourself on the non creature cards as much as possible. It is all too easy to fill up on fantastic spells like Armageddon and Path to Exile and powerful supplement cards in the form of equipments leaving yourself very threat light. This can lead to lots of hands where you fail to gain much early tempo or draws that lose to a removal spell which is usually death.

I have been trying to isolate why it is that white weenie is so strong a deck and I think the answer is that it is a very rounded and highly efficient deck. White has some of the best removal which is able to hit most things, the only exception being planeswalkers but great ones of its own, evasive monsters with pump effects and good tempo make these less problematic anyway. White has some very powerful one and two drop monsters in good quantity, some ways to keep up card advantage and some decent synergies. It is not a deck like goblins, elves or affinity where the synergy is extreme and allows for the game to snowball out of control. White weenie trades this extreme synergy for consistency and high individual card power levels which means it is far more robust to disruption and bad draws. Diversity of threats is also something white weenie has a great deal of as well as many single cards which are excellent against certain archetypes.



25 Spells

Mox Diamond

Path to Exile

Sword to Plowshares

Land Tax

Mother of Runes

Champion of the Parish

Student of Warfare

Elite Vanguard

Isamru, Hound of Konda

Gideon's Lawkeeper

Honour the Pure

Loyal Cathar

Knight of the Meadowgrain

Kor Skyfisher

Stoneforge Mystic

Knight of the White Orchid

Thalia, Guardian of Threben

Sword of Fire and Ice

Ajani, Caller of the Pride

Fiend Hunter

Mentor of the Meek

Elspeth, Knight Errant

Restoration Angel

Ranger of Eos

Mikeaus the Lunarch

15 Lands

Blinkmoth Nexus

14 Plains

Above is the list I made which I quite liked as a very middle of the road build. In hindsight the Fiend Hunter was really poor and should probably have been a one mana equipment instead. Blinkmoth was a risk that paid off well in much the same vein as Loyal Cathar, both included to help against wrath effects. Many of my cards have a high ratio of white to colourless requirement which makes any colourless land in an already daring mana base a big risk. I played Knight of the Meadowgrain over a selection of human alternatives as I felt it was exactly the kind of thing you want to follow up with the new Ajani. I only had one card that benefited from other humans and so it was not a big deal. Ajani was pretty good but didn't come out enough to get much feel for the card. Mikeaus however performed the best I have seen him so far, even without Ajani backing him up and look forward to that pairing in the futur. Both are slow but both give you lots of options.


Much as flying seems to be just getting further and further ahead as the best thing to have on a dork the Restoration Angel is not at its best in this build. I would be tempted to change it for an Armageddon but if I am also losing the Fiend Hunter it might be too few bodies left main deck. The Angel is just not as impactive as a Hero of Bladehold  which is the sort of thing you want to be ending your curve with. Angel is much better just above the middle of your mana curve in more control style decks. Another consideration would be to put in a Keldjoran Outpost instead of the Geddon or an equipment although it is also a slow card.

The ideal way for most white weenie decks to play out is to open with one and two drop dorks and then follow them up with either cheap removal, equipment, crusades, walkers or more guys if they are clogging the board. White weenie makes it easy to extend as much as you need while still applying pressure. Typically it will get half the job done with the early pressure and then grind out a win slowly from the midgame as things stabilize. Your incremental advantage cards like Mikeaus and the walkers allow you to stall in a game without just dying to anything with more of a late game plan to win while your annoying utility and evasion critters help you to sneak through bits of damage.

White weenie is not the most thrilling deck to play but it still demands a high degree of competency to play and is pleasingly versatile and powerful to make up for its unexciting characteristics. I will post some good examples of the various polarisations of the deck as I see them and will leave it at that for now.