Gaining life has been my favorite playstyle ever since I took my first steps into the Multiverse of MtG. As a result, I’ve been experimenting with Mono-White for 15 years, and this list is the (for now) final product of that process.
In this deck, gaining life serves three precious purposes for an aggro strategy. First, it lets you afford to take a few extra hits without losing, focusing on filling your board fast rather than stopping the opponent. Second, it gives you a pool of life to spend on fetch and horizon lands, useful respectively for improving draws and making use of excess mana. Third and most importantly, it allows you to endlessly pump your win conditions.
The deck’s backbone consists of two creature groups: Soul Sisters and Pridemates. The Soul Sisters (Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant and Guide of Souls) are the main source of life gain. The Pridemates (Voice of the Blessed and Essence Channeler) are the win conditions. They usually grow surprisingly fast and become particularly threatening thanks to their ability to gain flying and vigilance.
The support section is quite substantial. Haliya, Guided by Light provides card draw and increases available resources, but to work she needs cards that gain life. For that reason, despite her similar ability to the Soul Sisters, she’s more of a payoff than an enabler. Ocelot Pride multiplies life gain and energy through its tokens. These tokens are crucial for blocking without losing functional creatures, especially when the win conditions are missing. When the Pridemates don’t show up, the offensive potential of the Guide of Souls + Ocelot Pride combo shines even brighter, as it can both generate creatures and buff plus give flying to chosen targets. Starfield Shepherd is a valuable tutor that helps maintain balance in the deck. It increases the chances of seeing the best Soul Sister, Guide of Souls, fetches Ocelot Pride when win conditions are missing or Kami of False Hope to extend the game by a turn. It can also help hit land drops and make use of excess mana by casting it from exile if the game goes long. Spectacular Spider-Man protects against board wipes or even targeting spells or abilities, especially if a second copy is in hand. Together with casting Haliya from exile (and excluding the non-essential exile cast of Starfield Shepherd), it’s the most mana-intensive play, since it’s usually not worth deploying Spider-Man without leaving one land untapped.
Path to Exile is the chosen removal. It pairs well with Spider-Man, as both require leaving one land untapped. It’s preferred over Solitude because it doesn’t require exiling a potentially valuable card for the strategy, and because this deck doesn’t necessarily want five lands in play (let alone six if one has to remain untapped for Spider-Man).
The chosen amount of fetch lands (Windswept Heath and Flooded Strand) helps thin the deck without compromising mana consistency in the early turns. The horizon lands (Horizon Canopy), besides turning excess lands into useful cards, are a reliable way to lose life each turn—a key factor for Essence Channeler (which also benefits, though to a lesser extent, from the fetch lands). The mana base is completed by Plains, along with Eiganjo Castle and Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire, which are basically upgraded Plains. The land count follows Frank Karsten’s formula from tcgplayer.com. Note that for the average mana value calculation (1.605), Starfield Shepherd and Spider-Man are counted as having mana values of 2 and 3 respectively. Haliya is treated as a “cheap draw spell,” since she can be played for 1 with warp.
Soul Sisters has existed since the dawn of Modern, but only in recent years has it started receiving truly interesting and competitive support, finally turning it into a complete deck. It’s an archetype whose strength lies in explosiveness but compensates for the fragility typical of aggro decks with constantly increasing life totals.
