Creature (34)
Land (22)
Sideboard
Sorcery (2)
Enchantment (3)
They've done it! They've finally done it! With the release of Core 2019, Wizards has finally printed enough good, cheap White 1-drops into Standard to make White Weenies maybe a thing, and on a budget, too! So if you've ever wanted to play a few Plains, drop your hand onto the board, and swing for lethal... well, this deck actually has a lot more to it than that but hopefully that will only make it even more fun!
Before we start in on our massive creature suite (34 main, 8 sideboard), note that a lot of my choices here are broad meta calls so be sure to tailor your own list to play well against your local meta. Also, this deck has a lot of really tricky decisions at all points in the game, much moreso than your typical Aggro deck. Many of our creatures have activated abilities which you need to track, and there's a constant push-pull with how to spend our mana each turn. My point is, it can take a while to learn how to play this deck optimally and you'll probably make a lot of mistakes along the way. Embrace it!
Without further ado, I give you...
Conscripts
White Weenies is an old archetype, but it isn't always possible to play it in Standard. You need a bunch of good one-drops to make it function, and fortunately we have a ton of them right now. 19 in this deck alone, to be precise. That's right: a third of the deck is 1-drops. You're pretty much always guaranteed a Turn-1 play.
Let's start with the beaters: Skymarcher Aspirant, Sacred Cat, and Leonin Vanguard. These guys help us get in damage early and often, and they each have their reasons for being in the deck. Skymarcher Aspirant is just a 2/1 early but it transitions into our reach later on, helping get in those last few points of damage once the ground has clogged up. Sacred Cat is only 1-power but being able to come back from the graveyard really contributes to our resilience. And finally, Leonin Vanguard dramatically overperforms every time I play it. Triggering its beginning-of-combat buff is trivially easy for us so it's basically a 2/2 for W that gains us life every turn, making it easy to race.
Support Staff
We also few a few utility 1-drops: Dauntless Bodyguard and Fan Bearer. Dauntless Bodyguard helps us protect our other creatures in a pinch, but as another 2/1, it's pretty decent even on Turn 1. Plus, the ability to sacrifice it at any time can come in handy in edge cases even when it isn't protecting someone else. 1/2 isn't exactly where we want to be with our creatures, but Fan Bearer's activated ability more than makes up for its low power. It's chip damage when we need it and it's a bit of control when we need that instead. I'm only running 3 Fan Bearers, though, since we can't usually afford to tap more than one or two things down in a turn.
Lieutenants
We're running 11 two-drop creatures and they are doozies.
We don't focus too much on gaining life so Ajani's Pridemate won't always be the biggest kitty-cat in the zoo, but we have just enough incidental lifegain that Pridemate can still lead to some truly explosive early turns. Our best draws involve Leonin Vanguard and Sacred Cat growing a few Pridemates at hyperspeed into game-ending threats, helping us steal wins we have no business winning otherwise. And if it's just a 2/2 for 1W, that isn't so bad, either. Not ideal, obviously, but ok.
It's fantastic in Vampire Tribal decks and it's fantastic here: Adanto Vanguard proves yet again that a little life goes a long way. Our incidental lifegain comes to the rescue here as well, letting us toss a ton of activations into our Vanguards to keep them swinging with a crazy 3 power a turn.
Our last two-drop is the mighty Cavalry Drillmaster, fresh from the training grounds of Core 2019 Booster Drafts. This guy's ETB trigger helps us make attacks that otherwise would've been untenable and it leaves behind a very serviceable 2/1 body. We're only running 3 of these since it's pretty bad when cast onto an empty board.
(Note: There is a chance that Silverbeak Griffin is a better choice than Ajani's Pridemate, offering greater consistency and more reach in exchange for less-explosive starts, but it's been sold out online so I haven't had a chance to test it yet.)
Generals
For our cherished 3-drop slot, we have a choice: Benalish Marshal or Mentor of the Meek. We don't have enough lands to support both and they don't synergize well at all so only one of these guys can be in the deck at a time, and ultimately I decided to go with Marshal for the main-deck and Mentor for the sideboard.
Mentor of the Meek is much more powerful than Marshal, ironically enough. In exchange for a bit of tempo, we get a completely insane amount of card draw, way more than almost any of our opponents will have. With a Mentor active for a few turns, we can generate so much card advantage that we stop caring about board wipes, and Serra-forbid we get two Mentors going! This card single-handedly allows us to play through flood, an uncommon virtue for an aggro deck, and attacking as a 2/2 isn't that bad, either.
However, Benalish Marshal has two big points in its favor. First, it saves our guys from Goblin Chainwirler and Walking Ballista and we need to be ready to fight against both those cards early and often. And second, Marshal lets us jank out quick wins in Game 1 before our opponent knows what they're dealing with, pumping our team to lethal numbers as early as turns 4 or 5. Then we can bring in Mentor from the sideboard if it looks like we're going to need to go a bit grindier.
Strategy
We have exactly one non-creature spell in the deck: Cast Out. I know, a 4-drop in a 22-land aggro deck? But after playtesting this deck a bunch and constantly boarding Cast Out in, I've come to the conclusion that it should really just be in the main deck even if you're going to Cycle it about half the time. At least some interaction is just too important these days and whether you need to lock away a random 2/3 that's holding back your team or get rid of a pesky Glorybringer before it has a chance to shoot down your Benalish Marshal, Cast Out has you covered. It's just so versatile, and Cycling for W mean the opportunity cost for running it is quite low.
Battlefield
The lands are dead simple: 4 Shefet Dunes and 18 Plains for a total land count of 22. No need to get too fancy here.
With so many 1-drops, we can't afford any colorless lands or taplands and Shefet Dune is a low-cost way to slip a bit more reach into the deck. Getting to 5 mana isn't always going to happen but the downside to running it is pretty low so the highs are well worth the mild lows. Plus our lifegain helps pay for the occasional pings.
Backup Plans
The sideboard is tuned very specifically to deal with threats that pose particular problems for our plan. We're not trying to counter every strategy here; most of the time, we're just going to try to outrace anything we don't have a particular option for.
I've already mentioned Mentor of the Meek but to reiterate, anytime you can board this in is a good time. Turning all your creatures into cantrips is a heck of a drug. This has to come in for Benalish Marshal since Marshal pumps your creatures even as they enter the battlefield, preventing Mentor's ability from triggering.
Knight of Grace is our other sideboard creature. A 2/2 First Strike for 1W isn't quite good enough to make the main deck but Black-based decks pose a bit of a problem for us with their efficient removal, so Knight of Grace is our trump card against them.
Next, we have Compulsory Rest. This isn't a great removal spell and in fact it might be a pretty bad removal spell, but when Cast Out isn't enough on its own, Compulsory Rest can come in to give us a cheap way to lock down problematic creatures. You might ask why I didn't go with Seal Away here and the answer is simple: we're often the aggressor and we need to be able to take defenders out of the equation even if they're on permanent untapped duty. Nothing else in the format will do that for us for only 2 mana.
Sorcerous Spyglass is quickly become a format staple but it's particularly important for us in fighting against Walking Ballista. That card is just the worst and anything we can do to keep it under control is crucial. Spyglass also hits on Planeswalkers, which can pose a problem if our opponent stabilizes the ground, and the flip lands, which we otherwise can't do anything about.
Finally, we have the last thing you might expect to be in an aggro deck: a sweeper! Two copies of Dusk // Dawn finish off the deck. If our opponent is running a bunch of monsters, we can board out Benalish Marshal and then Dusk our opponent's things, leaving our board completely untouched. Then later on, we can Dawn back basically our entire graveyard into our hand. Good times.
Conclusion
And that about takes us to the end of the deck! Thank you for reading so far. I'm sure we could use some more polishing so I'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions you might have. In the meantime, I wish you great opening hands, quick wins, and opponents gracious in defeat. Now go our there and make Cat Jesus proud!
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| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 5 years |
| Last updated | 5 years |
| Legality | This deck is not Standard legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 4 - 8 Rares 28 - 4 Uncommons 10 - 3 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 1.82 |
| Tokens | City's Blessing, Sacred Cat 1/1 W |
| Folders | maybe decks, Budget, Standard Decks, Great ideas, MOMMY I WANT IT!, Interesting Standard Decks, Decks, Concept, New Standard, Budget |
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