In the last two installments of this pauper deck series, I covered a blue mill deck and a red burn deck, each with a secondary aggro combat strategy. The white deck is up next, and it's all about going wide with combat damage from many creatures as the sole win condition.
This uses a tribal/kindred philosophy on top of the classic white weenie archetype: cheap, weak creatures get support from other card effects to punch above their weight class. What the red deck does secondarily with goblin tokens, this white deck does with soldiers in spades.
Most of the creature cards here have the Soldier subtype, making this a tribal/typal/kindred deck built around the idea of assembling a phalanx of troops to march into enemy territory for conquest. For the record, I think the political correctness paranoia around the word "tribal" is silly, and I continue to use the old term. Maybe I'm now old and out of touch with modern norms. Maybe the PC crowd is looking for pointless excuses to be offended on the behalf of others who were never even being targeted in the first place. You decide!
Suntail Hawk isn't a soldier, but flying is an excellent evasion ability, so this is a solid card that can still benefit from some of the support spells I'll cover later.
Kinsbaile Skirmisher is the first soldier, and it boosts a creatures already in play with a temporary +1/+1 on the turn it hits the field. If I played a Suntail Hawk on turn 1, and then this card on turn 2, that hawk can attack as a 2/2 that turn and virtually guarantee damaging an opponent by 10% of their life total.
Veteran Swordsmith is the ideal turn 3 play, boosting all other soldiers (including Kinsbale Skirmisher above) with a permanent +1 to their attack power as long as he is in play. This is one of the key pieces to the long-term plan for building an army that is more than the sum of its parts.
Sergeant-At-Arms is part of this deck because of its kicker ability which brings more bodies onto the field if an extra 3 mana can be paid, so this is more of a late-game card than its base mana cost implies.
Squad Captain (pictured) is also more of a late-game card, because it gets better based on the cards already in play. "The more, the merrier" is the motto of this deck in general, but especially for her. She also has the keyword vigilance, meaning she can attack while remaining untapped, and thus able to defend against my opponent's retaliatory strikes.
The last of our infantry is an oddball, Gempalm Avenger. While he can boost the ranks, he's here more for his cycling ability to boost the ranks another way: The card says, "When you cycle this card, Soldier creatures get +1/+1 and gain first strike until end of turn." In other words, it's effectively a secret instant spell I can use to enhance my army by making them hit harder and hit first in combat. It also draws a card as a bonus!
I decided not to include Sorcery and Enchantment cards in this deck. This deck is all about combat, and everyone knows no plan survives first contact with the enemy, so instant-speed responses allow me to adapt to battlefield conditions.
Fortify can be used to boost either offense or defense across the board, making it a versatile option whether I am on the attack or declaring blockers against my opponent.
Sanctified Charge boosts attack and defense statistics across the board (+2/+1) while granting first strike to all white creatures I control, which by sheer coincidence are all this deck has.
Glorious Charge is far cheaper to cast, but only adds +1/+1 to everyone for the turn. Still, this can be enough of a surprise if an opponent is caught off-guard since instants can be cast in response to blocking before damage is dealt. When used on the attack, this can mean blocked creatures survive the damage, defeat blockers which were expected to survive combat, or even to turn an otherwise-survivable unblocked attack into lethal damage. Defensively, I may be able to weather an assault that threatened to destroy my army.
One of the issues uncovered in playtesting was the lack of card draw in this deck, so I added the Gempalm Avenger mentioned previously along with a playset of Pressure Point, because tapping a creature which could otherwise block my attack also adds a lot of value.
You're Confronted by Robbers was a fun addition to this deck from the Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate set. It offers the option to tap up to three target creatures (my opponent's, obviously, to create an opening for an attack) or create three 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens to bolster my army. Having multiple options, especially in the late game when four-mana spells can be cast, is always good.
Last but not least, Raise the Alarm also boosts my army with extra soldier tokens for essentially the same converted mana cost and general effect as Krenko's Command does with goblin tokens in the red deck. It's not flashy, but it works well with the deck theme.
This deck wants to play a longer game, building its army and fending off threats until it is ready for a decisive charge to victory, but it also has ways to add chip damage if necessary. This is the calm and collected contrast to red aggro, choosing the time to fight and ensuring the conditions for victory like a true student of Sun Tzu.
OK, that was pretentious. This is a post about a card game, after all. Being absurdly serious is part of the fun, though, as long as we don't lose focus on reality along the way.
This deck has 22 basic lands, using Plains as its source of white mana to cast these spells. It has less card draw than red, but should offer a more consistent long-term game plan thanks to its more resilient defensive options and the splash of card draw I've added since the first version was tested.
If you want to start playing Magic, this kind of inexpensive but cohesive deck is probably a better introduction than the official starter decks, which tend to need work because the goal is to sell you more booster packs after you've already bought a deck. This specific deck also the cheapest of these pauper decks I've built, with every single card listed at or near the minimum price common-rarity cards have online.
Of course, this is only one possible way to build this kind of deck, and there's no real reason to limit yourself to a single color. Imagine combining this with the red deck covered last time using its card draw and bonus damage from Firebrand Archer in conjunction with all the soldier shenanigans here, just for one example. My goal is to introduce people to the game and different deck archetypes, but you're free to play your way. Speaking of which, wait until you see what I've cooked up in black and green. Which will I cover next? You'll have to wait and see...
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