Adapting U/W monument to the Pioneer days. Still looking for suggestions and tech, of course.
"Hey idiot, why do you think this deck is any good?"
- Only one maindeck creature dies to Goblin Chainwhirler ETB
- Highly redundant pile of garbage laughs at targeted discard and spot removal, great potential to bring most of our deck back from the yard anyways.
- Incredibly grindy, with deceptively solid card filtering
- We barely care about Teferi bouncing our ETB effect dorks or shutting down our ~2 instant speed plays
- We can crack clues whenever, meaning Narset, Parter of Veils doesn't dunk on us very hard
- We can board stall like nobody's business, make a ton of chump blockers, and gain quite a bit of life, so burn and aggro are not unwinnable.
Card Justifications:
Not-Lands
Oketra's Monument: Bread and Butter, the 3 mana saltshaker. Resolving this card and having it stick for a turn or two was basically game in standard. Catmom's house cheapens our midrange stuff, adds value to our early-game stuff, and is hard/impossible for many decks to remove game 1.
Thraben Inspector: The glue of the deck. A wonderful turn one play, it was often very worth it in standard to just crack a clue turn 2 and dig towards Oketra's Monument and/or mana to keep curving out. Also a perfectly valid Charming Prince target.
Charming Prince: The... more glue of the deck. He does a lot at a time (uncertain meta) where operating on multiple axes is great. Maindeck lifegain is also a reasonable hedged bet, and the ability to bounce a value creature is nice, but he really shines turn 2, helping you set up a turn 3 Oketra's Monument.
Selfless Spirit: Our tiny, easily-murdered squad needs protection, and this spooky lad provides it for two (potentially even ONE!) mana. Pretty much never play this guy turn 2. At the least wait on a Bygone Bishop or a Hanweir Militia Captain
on the board to give him something to protect. Don't let him die in vain.
Restoration Specialist: This is a fine lady right here. Can technically attack, can get back our Oketra's Monument, can be bought back with Dusk / Dawn. Probably fine as a 1-of, maybe in the side.
Bygone Bishop: A 3 mana card advantage engine that does not stop. Thraben Inspector is a good, grindy card, and this cool guy tacks the best part of that card onto almost all of our other cards. Not the most impactful, but honestly if he gives you even one clue and eats a burn spell he's done reasonable work, especially if he came down for 2 mana.
Thalia, Heretic Cathar: Three mana Thalia is a great tempo play against so many decks (not a lot of basics running around), and we are unlikely to miss the ever-disappointing Hanweir Militia Captain
duo we dropped for her.
Deputy of Detention: I still don't really like this card, I think it opens us up to sad-times blowout parties when the opponent can wrath and start to rebuild already up one card on us. Especially if that card is a planeswalker, like say a Teferi 3 who'd ticked down and now gets to activate again for free. Trying one main, may go up or down.
Reflector Mage: Bouncy Boi was banned in standard (read: died for Gideon's sins) and seems very reasonable at providing us tempo and making life annoying for opponents. Fantastic Charming Prince target and all around strong, fair card.
Spell Queller: This card does it all. Flash, Flying, cheaper with Monument, protects Monument and our dudes. Nice Supreme Verdict, idiot.
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar: Given the ban of Field of the Dead, I anticipate we'll see more control decks kicking around. Gideon helps against those, as well as the midrange decks Field was potentially keeping down.
Angel of Invention: Our creatures are cool, but garbage, and we have difficulty coming back after a wrath. Seems... good. Dodges Push and Decay, and will grow our team whether she comes alone as a 3/4 or with two friends as a 2/3.
Archangel Avacyn
: She attaccs and proteccs. At the top of our curve, we want something that is strong in and of itself, but can also provide synergy with a pile of rando bodies. ... except when she flips and murders them all. Be careful of playing her out there against decks with a lot of spot removal, they push one Thraben Inspector and Avacyn does the rest of their job for them. Great at no-selling board wipes, though.
God-Eternal Oketra: Zombie Catmom herself. This card is awesome, especially if we get to "ramp" it out with Monument. She is incredibly hard to kill, comes back pretty quickly when she does die, and closes out the game very quickly if you untap with her in play. I suspect we want one in the 75.
Dusk / Dawn: This card is savage. Hits nothing in your deck outside of Archangel Avacyn
, God-Eternal Oketra and a big Henweir Militia Captain. Ormendahl, Profane Prince does not care about this, but your other bombs do, so... you know. Don't cast this card when it's bad for you, but you probably already know that. ... and that's just the front side. Getting most of your deck back into your hand allows you to aggressively trade and chump in the early game, and reset strong ETBs to close things out.
Lands
Westvale Abbey
: Even having left standard, my dude Ormendahl is still a gigantic flying beatstick looking to get uncomfortably familiar with your opponent's face. He also doesn't care about our wrath. Absolute worst case scenario, you can take the questionable line of paying 5 mana and a life for a 1/1.
Castle Ardenvale: In over the Field of Ruins, which don't do much for us. We also really want our colored mana. Being able to randomly "flash in" a blocker is gas, and being able to hold up Queller or Avacyn and do something with the mana if we don't end up wanting them is great. Speaking of Avacyn, there is no gassier feeling in this world than making a 1/1 to block and die, flipping Avacyn, and nuking 3 Nissa'd lands off the table. Felt goodman.
Glacial Fortress, Hallowed Fountain, Plains: Yep, you're a U/W deck. I don't want to run Irrigated Farmland because tapped lands seem like garbage here. Maybe a one of, not sure. Port Town is probably a perfectly reasonable card too.
Sideboard
Disclaimer: Yeah, all of this is questionable, the format is like a week old and sideboards have always been my weakest aspect of the game.
Deafening Silence: Almost all of our spells are creatures, and Phoenix/the heroic/prowess decks can get pretty scary. Also reasonable against Boggles I think.
Declaration in Stone: Ideally I think I want access to between 2-3 of this effect in our 75. Doesn't hit PWs, which are really problems. I still would like to find room for one or two more.
Fragmentize: Hits almost all of the artifacts/enchants I think we're worried about. I would probably not bring this in against the likes of looter scooter. I feel like this is more for things we can't ignore/race, like Aetherworks Marvel and Wilderness Reclamation.
Grafdigger's Cage: I think we might want graveyard hate, but I'm not sure which/how much. This doesn't do anything against Souflayer or Lazav, the Multifarious, so it may need to switch to Tormod's Crypt. (I know, my meta goes hard).
Sorcerous Spyglass: Catch-most artifact, we may want more of this in exchange for other things. Time and meta shifts will tell. I'm up to two, it is relevant a lot of the time.
Spirit of the Labyrinth: Seems sweet against the Narset, Parter of Veils combo, but also reasonable against control. Especially non-black, which will have a harder time dealing with it cleanly. Honestly, this is probably going away in favor of another Dec in stone or Dusk/Dawn.
Leyline of Sanctity: Reasonable miser's copy against burn. Turn 0 against a Thoughtseize deck is magical Christmas land, but a magical Christmas land I would like to visit some day.
Teferi, Time Raveler: I hate this card, but control is a bad matchup for us. He's awesome with Spell Queller, and helps against control (we need the help, if it's still there in any of your metas).
Detention Sphere: Give those misbehaving Okos and Fires of Inventions detention.
Maybeboard Alright now we're straying deep into madness.
Field of Ruin: There's always degeneracy lurking somewhere out there, and nothing has more potential for degeneracy than the generally-untouchable lands. I'm waffling on a singleton Island to fetch with these bad boys, but I could see some feelbads coming about thanks to that so I'm not sure. We are a two color deck with a relatively light blue splash, but we do want our blue mana online relatively quick, so there's a tension there when adding a ton of colorless lands. FoR may or may not be worth it in the end/depending on meta.
Nyx-Fleece Ram: Might just be cute, but they always say to respect aggro and burn early in a format.
Archangel of Tithes: Whew, the spice. 3 white symbols isn't the easiest, but boy would it be nice against some decks.
Angel of Sanctions: Gets turbo- Fryed, but dodges Roast at least? It was good in the standard version of the deck, but I could easily be convinced to drop it here.
Council of the Absolute: Adorable.
Anointer Priest: Cute, with how many tokens Oketra's Monument and Angel of Invention and God-Eternal Oketra can make, but you stick one of those for a few turns and you're likely winning anyways. Charming Prince is more versatile.
Hanweir Militia Captain
: This card is cool, and can get really big/steal games, but... well, going an entire opponent's turn with four creatures on the board is no small task, and feels low-key win more. If anything he's kind of a removal check, but turning him on isn't very easy or convenient. In over Aviary Mechanic on the merit of not costing us tempo, and as removal bait; I don't see him flipping very often, except for maybe in the late game when you grind them out of resources and bring everything back at once with a Dusk / Dawn.
Fairgrounds Warden/Deputy of Detention: I appreciate these cards. Can come down early/mid game and get rid of something, then get bounced for value/come back with Dusk/Dawn and snag something bigger/something else.
Legion Conquistador: It's no Squadron Hawk but... uh, well, it's no Squadron Hawk.
Sacred Cat: Pretty Kitty can potentially stall the board pretty well and gain us some life, as well as give us something to do after a board wipe/with extra mana. Not the best at anything in particular, but may be versatile and worthwhile enough to warrant discussion.
Aviary Mechanic: Grizzly Bears probably aren't where you want to be in this format, but these guys combo well with themselves and some of our other ETB effects to grind significant value. Cute, but it doesn't make much sense to use these outside of combo; you're a tempo deck, and ideally turn 3 is spent casting an Oketra's Monument and prepping a turn-4 value train. Bouncing your guys just doesn't help that unless you're already comboing.
