All hail the King!
This was my very first EDH deck built from scratch. At first it was very bad and full of super janky cards that were part of the list with the only purpose of exploiting the self-damage ability of Darien.
Luckily, with time, my understanding of the format (and of the game in general) has improved and the vast majority of cards have been replaced with more solid choices. But don't worry, the core of the deck is still there!
Before we start, just be aware that the deck is not competitive (of course) but can hold its own at a multiplayer semi-competitive table by playing under the radar and waiting for its opportunity to strike. Also, some card choices are still very suboptimal, but its usually no big deal unless you draw them all in the same game.
First of all, we have a 6 cmc general sitting in the command zone with an ability that can quickly spiral out of control and kill the entire board. These two facts combined make so that our main plan should NOT be to rely on Darien, since mono white is not able to ramp into him nor to protect him consistently. In an ideal game we don't even try to cast him. However, there are two particular scenarios in which his help will be needed:
1) we find ourselves in a long grindy game and all other options have been shut down. At that point, Darien can come in and take the win with very little help,
2) we want to buy time to set up the real threat, possibly eating a removal that otherwise would hit the key piece we are holding in hand. Bonus points if the green ramp player across the table decides to leave us alone and go after someone else.
So, what's our game plan? It's pretty easy, actually. None pays too much attention to 5 soldier tokens, until they are suddenly all 6/6 swinging for lethal. Then someone panic sweep the board. Then we just make other tokens and do it again. I find that permanent repeatable token producers are too weak, slow and mana intensive, the exceptions being hero of bladehold, Elspeth and Darien himself. I prefer one-shot effects able to produce a solid amount, like conqueror's pledge, increasing devotion and decree of justice. Secure the wastes would be a solid option but I don't include it due to being too out of flavour :(.
Then, we need the 1/1s to become big. I discovered that classic anthem effect are not enough to make an army capable of killing multiple opponents. To have a significant impact you need several of them on the field, but devoting so many card slots to reliably have them is just not justifiable. Instead, we try to take opponents by surprise and kill them out of nowhere by putting down a well timed coat of arms, mirror entity, cathars crusade or leonin sun standard. Jazal is another option but loses the surprise effect.
We run intensive removal to stop troublesome permanents (propaganda effects completlely shut us down) or to sweep the field when someone does something so degenerate that even an army cannot solve the problem. A good time to strike is usually just after one of these situations, when opponents are trying to rebuild. Many of our board wipes are one sideded (hour of reckoning, martial coup, elspeth) exactly for this reason.
Being mono white, card draw is tough. Apart from the obvious mentor of the meek (he is a soldier!), we run slate of ancestry (unfortunately this is a win more card that does not help when we are behind) and skullclamp.
A skullclamp online in this deck is just broken. Therefore, we actually have more than one: steelshaper's gift is just a second clamp and relic seeker (a soldier!) may as well be renamed clamp seeker. Honestly, I could easily see the slate cut for another clamp tutor such as enlightened tutor or open the armory, which currrently are not included due to being in other decks. Just to give an idea: with Darien and skullclamp on the field, any painland reads "tap, draw 2 cards", basically a library of alexandria (!) on steroids.
The only other equipment we run is konda's banner, which is there just so that gift and seeker are not completely dead cards in case of we already having the clamp, plus its a decent anthem effect.
We have a couple of soul sisters to abuse darien ability or to just have something to do in the early game and gain some random life from opponents. At first I did run every soul sister effect, but I slowly removed most of them when moving away from the general-centric strategy. I kept the ones eatable by the mighty clamp :)
Then, a card worth mentioning is ashnod altar, which is simply disgusting in any token deck, so much that I include it with no esitation even if heavily out of flavour. Its natural brother, phyrexian altar, is not here due to its price, but could be easily included cutting any of the junk.
Finally, the mana base is quite unique. We run every painland available in mono white for the obvious sinergy with Darien. Tarnished citadel and ancient tomb are pretty amazing in this regard. They are so strong that weathered wayfarer is in the deck only to search for them. Then, we run snow plains for 3 reasons:
1) flavour
2) extraplanar lens, only mana doubler that I keep. Gauntlet of power and Caged sun are nice and have a cute anthem effect but they are honestly too costly and get blown up right away while you are tapped out after playing them. The lens cost less and can be exploited right after if dropped in the late game.
3) Coldsnap. This card is as much suboptimal as you can get, being a completly dead card if Darien is not online. However, when all the stars are aligned, it generates a crazy amount of tokens (be careful not to die tho) without mana investment and, most importantly, is the symbol of the deck, being named after the expansion where we met Darien and snow lands. Its the only general-centric junk that I did not (and will not) cut.
The rest of the deck is classic artifact ramp (mana vault is a painland!), cute creatures, sol ring because sol ring and sun titan because sun titan.
P.S. I don't run Elesh Norn due to price and flavour, but apart from that she would be pretty amazing of course.
