He Arrives Precisely When He Means To

Commander / EDH Counterspell Flash Legendary Matters Mono-White

Voodoo_Gremlin

Pseudo-Spells (13)

• 1x Castle Ardenvale
• 1x Crawling Barrens
• 1x Demolition Field
• 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Karn, the Great Creator
• 1x Mistveil Plains
• 1x Monumental Henge
• 1x The Eternal Wanderer
• 1x Ugin, the Ineffable
• 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
• 1x Urza's Cave
• 1x War Room

SpellControl (9)

• 1x Aven Interrupter
• 1x Boromir, Warden of the Tower
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Hope of Ghirapur
• 1x Lapse of Certainty
• 1x Mangara, the Diplomat
• 1x Myrel, Shield of Argive
• 1x Reprieve
• 1x Vexing Bauble

MassRemoval (7)

• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Farewell
• 1x Split Up
• 1x Sunfall
• 1x Vanquish the Horde
• 1x Wrath of God

AlternateWinCon (1)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun

Search&Draw(!?) (10)

• 1x Archivist of Oghma
• 1x Arcum's Astrolabe
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x Lembas
• 1x Minas Tirith
• 1x Recruiter of the Guard
• 1x Search for Glory

Protection (9)

• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Baird, Steward of Argive
• 1x Blacksmith's Skill
• 1x Emeria's Call  ^Flip
• 1x Ephemerate
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Thalia, Heretic Cathar

TargtedRemoval (8)

• 1x Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Loran of the Third Path
• 1x Sigrid, God-Favored
• 1x Stone of Erech
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Winds of Abandon
• 1x Witch Enchanter  ^Flip

TheOneSpell (6)

• 1x Archon of Emeria
• 1x Deafening Silence
• 1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 1x Ethersworn Canonist
• 1x Phyrexian Censor
• 1x Rule of Law

Commander (1)

Ramp (9)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Deep Gnome Terramancer
• 1x Gift of Estates
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Pearl Medallion
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Throne of Eldraine

Lands (23)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x City of Traitors
• 1x Drifting Meadow
• 1x Kor Haven
• 17x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Sunken Citadel
• 1x Urza's Saga

Recursion (4)

• 1x Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1x Loran, Disciple of History
• 1x Samwise the Stouthearted
• 1x Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle

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Maybeboard

Other (8)

• 1x Alms Collector
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Beza, the Bounding Spring
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Liquimetal Coating
• 1x Restoration Angel
• 1x Salvation Swan
• 1x Shell of the Last Kappa

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For those of you looking to play a Gandalf the White with an infinite combo finish you've come to the wrong place. Those looking to get Gandalf the White to abuse the ETBs of artifacts and legendries with Blink and Flicker will be disappointed. This deck is focusing on Gandalf the White's middle chunk of text where we can cast legendary permanents and artifacts at instant speed.

Should You Play This Deck?

This deck is for you if you like:

Permanent based control

Playing draw go

Breaking the colour wheel

Playing weird brews

Mono-coloured decks

This deck is not for you if like:

Infinite combos

Playing spell based control

Ending the game soon

Traditional deck ideas

Our Commander/Game Plan

These cards have always fascinated me. 

Archon of Emeria

Deafening Silence

Eidolon of Rhetoric

Ethersworn Canonist

Phyrexian Censor

Rule of Law

How would a deck like with cards like these work?

How do we use them to our advantage?

How do we best use them against our opponents?

This deck was originally a Djeru Planeswalker. For those of didn't click the link this is not the kind of Planeswalker deck that puts all the possible Planeswalkers in and hope. What I discovered was there was only a select few Planeswalkers, that fit into our colour, that were actually good in EDH/Commander.

What I also discovered is the deck is at it's best when I limit the number of spells cast and used utility lands and Planeswalkers as pseudo-spells to get around the restrictions we put on the table and grind out value.

After looking around Gandalf the White seemed like the best Commander to do what I was looking to do. Since we're trying limit spells we need to plan ahead and play on other people's turns too. Our focus should be on artifacts and legendries. We'll want creatures with Flash, particularly hatebears. We'll also be looking at card advantage through pseudo-spells. After that we'll need a good base of resources before we try and lock the game down. Just because we can start off the game with a Deafening Silence doesn't mean we have to. Really we should be planning on emptying our hand (as best we can) before dropping Deafening Silence and/or it's ilk.

If you're looking at the deck list, of course this deck would likely be better with blue and add Arcane Laboratory and more counterspells but I'm looking for a deck building challenge and I'm not a fan of blue. I'd be more interested in going Boros and adding High Noon and some of the weird red counterspells. There just isn't a good Commander at present, in R/W that does anything close to what I want to do.

The One...Spell

We're trying to soft-lock our opponents by limiting the number of spells they play to one or two per turn. This'll Imprison a lot of combo decks, Storm decks, decks that chain a lot of mana rocks for early huge things, or decks that play many cheap draw spells which sculpt their hands. Which will help even things out for us as it doesn't matter how many cards a player draws if only one can be used. This also will favour Counterspell decks, we're playing the white ones. We'll also be limited to one. Luckily we'll have our Planeswalkers and activated abilities to act as spells.

Archon of Emeria - The Archon has a lot of good things going for that make it stealth great but, not quite in the overpowered category. First, everyone is limited to one spell per turn. Second, it punishes Commanders greedy mana bases by forcing opponents non-basics to come into play tapped. Even if it were cloned we're mono white and won't affect us much. Third, Flying is never a bad thing.

Deafening Silence - This is the least expensive card of this group to play. It's an enchantment so it's the most difficult permanent to remove. Going first or second we'll cut off fast mana development of players who like to link a bunch mana rocks to start. If someone wants to chain a bunch of creatures, it's less than ideal but we have wraths to clean those up.

Eidolon of Rhetoric - A walking Rule of Law makes for a decent defender. The fourth point of toughness makes it a little bit more difficult to deal with. Being an enchantment AND a creature opens them up to more removal (less than if it was an Artifact Creature).

Ethersworn Canonist - Probably the weakest of this group of cards because what she's limiting everyone will have plenty of, artifacts. It's not uncommon for folks to chain two or three mana rocks together or being colourless all together. Then they'll be able to cast one big thing every turn. We'll be trying to do the same thing. All we can hope is that we do it better than them.

Phyrexian Censor - Not going to lie there's a little of splash damage on this one. We're not playing a huge number Phyrexian creatures so protecting Planeswalkers may be an issue. On the flip side, Phyrexian tribal isn't terribly popular so equal punishment. However, the Preators in all their forms range from playable to busted and should always be on our minds. But with Censor on the battlefield haste is largely neutralized.

Rule of Law - The original card in this genre of cards is card:Arcane Labratory. This is just a colour-shifted version. Nothing fancy. What you see is what you get.

Spell Control

Boromir, Warden of the Tower -

Grand Abolisher -

Lapse of Certainty -Now that we're limiting the table to one spell per turn what are we going to do with unused mana? We can also do something unexpected...counter spells. In white we're pretty limited. It's almost better that the spell is put on top of the owner's library. It stops them from drawing a new card and advancing their game. If someone is playing a reanimation deck and the spell in question is a huge creature we might have cut off an Animate Dead or Reanimate for one turn at least. If it's a game ending card, like Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire, it'll really turn the table against that player because everyone else knows what's coming next.

Mangara, the Diplomat - A bit of a non-bo with our main game plan. That being said we're not always going to have our 'The One Spell" cards. Our opponents aren't always going to be playing us for the first time. They'll know what we're going to do and may want to get while the getting is good. He's not a hard one spell per turn, but he certainly discourages more than one spell be cast. He also discourages the number of attackers at us and our Walkers. Being a 2/4 Lifelink is pretty solid for {3}{W}.

Myrel, Shield of Argive -

Reprieve - The best tricks are the ones you don't see coming and nobody sees a white Counterspell coming. When we're limiting the table to one spell per turn what will our opponents do with all their unspent mana? It'll go largely unspent, activated abilities are a thing. Reprieve even gets around spells which can't be countered.

Vexing Bauble - This is not always the best card but in the games it has relevant text we'll be glad we have it. If nothing else it cycles for {1}.

Mass Removal

Austere Command - Flexible mass removal. We'll most commonly go for kill all the creatures modes. In an ideal situation we'll go with the mode that kills the most of our creatures and leaves some of ours untouched and then destroy all the artifacts or enchantments. Again whichever is to our advantage.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite -

Farewell - Austere Command gave us two of four choices. Farewell gives four options and we can take any or all of them. Oh, and destroy is so passé. Farewell is more than a name it's what happens after it resolves. Everything we choose will be exiled. Graveyards will almost always be chosen.

Sunfall -

Split Up - A common strategy before someone plans to wrath away the board is to attack with the team first to try and get a little value before the board resets. This card allows us to play into that common strategy. All our creatures will be tapped and be a, mostly, one-sided board wipe. Split Up also punishes a player over-extending an attack while leaving us mostly untouched. It's unlikely this will ever be a completely one-sided battlefield clearing but for {1}{W}{W} it does the job.

Vanquish the Horde - Same idea as Blasphemous Act. The larger the horde the less it costs. Day of Judgment that usually costs {1}{W}{W} or just {W}{W}. The cost reduction can also cover colourless taxes.

Wrath of God - The classic. Straightforward. Well costed. Printed a thousand times so it's cheap. No reason to not include.

Protection

Authority of the Consuls -

Baird, Steward of Argive -

Emeria's Call   -

Ephemerate - A word of caution with this card. The Rebound is a 'cast' of the card not a copy. If our 'The One Spell' cards are in play we may very limited in what we cast on our turn (Phyrexian Censor) or we may not be able to cast anything at all (Rule of Law) .

Galadriel's Dismissal -

Maze of Ith - On a side note, when building a mana base lands that don't produce mana don't count as lands.

Teferi's Protection -

Thalia, Heretic Cathar -

Recursion

Loran, Disciple of History - One of white's biggest weaknesses is the inability to draw cards. In a perfect world we'd want to be playing a single spell on every player's turn. We don't live in a perfect world so what we're hoping for is one spell on our turn and one spell on all of theirs. To reload our hands.

We're not specifically protecting our graveyard and the 'yard is a very contested zone. There's no guarantee this won't be more than Hill Giant. When the grave isn't contested we can punish our opponents.

Emeria, the Sky Ruin -

Samwise the Stouthearted

Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle

Pseudo-Spells

We have a One Spell lock piece in play. We've played all the spells we're going to this turn what can we do?

Going to the attack phase:

What will we do before or after the combat step:

Elspeth, Sun's Champion - Once upon a time, this card dominated standard. In commander she's not quite at that level but, she does well at token making, three in a go, and said tokens can handle her middle ability as well. Commander players like their creatures big and that's what Elspeth does best. Sadly, Gandalf the White will get caught in her Citywide Bust down tick. However, if we're using it we're likely about to lose Gandalf.

The Eternal Wanderer - Providing protection for herself in her static text and her and making Samurai body guards with her 0 ability. We'll likely be starting with her -4 leaving everyone with just one creature. Her +1 let'sus get greedy with our ETBs.

Karn, the Great Creator - He's here for his static text plain-and-simple. With Gandalf the White in play he can be flashed in to counter the activation of an artifact. Or maybe brought in at the beginning of an opponent's turn to turn off their mana rocks. His -2 is currently unusable in EDH/Commander. His +1 is pretty narrow for us. We may use it diplomatically creating a blocker for an ally or turn an artifact into a creature to make it vulnerable to a board wipe or targeted removal.

Ugin, the Ineffable - Just slightly edging out Karn Liberated. If we're going to talk about Planeswalkers with final abilities we'll never use that's Karn Liberated. Ugin's static text will be far FAR more useful. The first ability we're likely going to use is the -3 to deal with the biggest threat. After that we'll "manifest" with his +1. Every time one of these creatures leaves the battlefield we draw a card.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - Big ole Eugene. Unless we're exceedingly lucky when the Spirit Dragon hits the table we'll use his -X to clear out all the trouble permanents. Hopefully, leaving us with something. After that it's a race to the ultimate using his +2 to control the board or remove small problems. Hitting the ultimate usually means the game is over. There's a very narrow interaction with Ugin and Approach of the Second Sun. Play Ugin and +2, next turn cast Approach of the Second Sun then +2 Ugin. Then we hold our breath and when our turn comes around we use the ultimate on our Spirit Dragon drawing us the Approach. With seven free permanents AND Approach of the Second Sun in hand the game is well and truly over. Unlikely? Hell yeah. Hell of a story? HELL...F*&KING...YEAH.

What Can We do Inside the Combat Step?

Minas Tirith -

What Will We Do On Our Opponent's Turns?

When Gandalf the White is in play we can play out our Legendary and Artifact spells when we want, always planning something big or something key for the End Step before our turn.

There are also lands we can activate to further our game plan or we can just sink our mana into:

Lands

MDFCs

Emeria, Shattered Skyclave  /Emeria's Call  

Witch-Blessed Meadow  /Witch Enchanter  

These have already been noted in their appropriate sections. They're reappearing so it's clearer how many lands we have.

A Real Wishboard

This is an intellectual experiment. I'm not actually using this in my group of friends. If sideboards or wishboards were allowed in EDH/Commander (outside of Rule 0) Karn, the Great Creator would have to be banned. My play group allows me to play with learn/lesson package of cards in another deck limited by a 15 card sideboard (and it isn't particularly good). So what the heck.

Notable Exclusions

Oswald Fiddlebender - We're not invested heavily enough on the artifact side to have to build up a chain or ladder into something big and busted

Curse of Exhaustion because, it only hits one player and costs more than all the others.

Smothering Tithe - Once we have our only one enchantments in play the {2} isn't a tax or even an annoyance it's just a small issue and we won't really need the treasures either.

Mana Tithe - Unless it's in our opening hand it becomes a dead card real quick.

Call the Gatewatch - On it's surface it seems like a slam dunk for the deck. White doesn't have many tutors and this is on theme. Seems perfect. I would counter that there's a better option AND we're playing it, Search for Glory.

Deploy the Gatewatch - Using this card in this deck is being a slave to theme. Compare it to Collected Company. For that to consistently hit two creatures requires the deck to run at least 23 creatures. To get similar results we'd need to play 40ish Planeswalkers. Does that sound good?

Enter the Dungeon Cards - We do want spell like effects, but we also want to play on other people's turns. All of the good 'Enter the Dungeon' cards are based around attacking or are at sorcery speed.

Card Graveyard

Sunstone - After the third or fourth time we got printings of snow-covered lands they became much less of a flex. That doesn't mean they're not useful or can't be important, like this card I fished out of an Ice Age binder. Once we're set up and rolling we don't need to be constantly playing lands. They're fodder and we can use them as Holy Day. Going into the rulings and even though this came out in a set with banding, when activated, it will protect our Planeswalkers from combat damage.

Date added	1 month
Last updated	1 week
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 43 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 7 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.17
Tokens	Angel Warrior 4/4 W, Construct 0/0 C, Elephant 3-3 G, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Human 1/1 W, Incubator, Phyrexian 0/0 C, Plot, Samurai 2/2 W w/ Double strike, Soldier, Soldier 1/1 W, Spirit 2/2 C, The Ring, The Ring Tempts You