White Rebel Motorcycle Club

Commander / EDH michaelvlevine

SCORE: 90 | 23 COMMENTS | 33809 VIEWS | IN 48 FOLDERS

Crazy changes! —Sept. 27, 2017

So I've been testing a lot, and I'm about to make some crazy changes.

+1 Scavenger Grounds

+1 Stonecloaker

+1 Shefet Dunes

+1 Blind Obedience

+1 Lightbringer

+1 Paradise Mantle

+1 Mox Opal

-1 Test of Endurance

-1 Academy Rector

-1 Humility

-1 Kor Haven

-1 Lightning Greaves

-2 Snow-Covered Plains

First, the big change: I'm dropping Test of Endurance. I almost never win with it, as it takes a whole turn on board. In my testing without it, I've almost never wished I could grab it or had it in my hand - it's only really been something I've wanted to topdeck if I have infinite life but no way to win. That being said, I'd always rather Enlightened Tutor for Aetherflux Reservoir, which left me with 7 mana to grab it with Idyllic Tutor, or an elaborate set-up to grab it with Academy Rector. That leads to the second change - without Test, Rector is lackluster. The only big plays Rector allowed for were Test, Rest in Peace, or Humility, but the deck really only has two sacrifice outlets for it. I often found it in play with no way to get rid of it. With it dropped, I rethought Humility. Humility is really only great when I'm behind. It was an emergency break. Without Rector to press the break, Humility seems questionable.

What did I add in place of these? Well, I went back to Blind Obedience. With the rise of BloodPod decks, it's much better. To make up for the loss of Humility, which often was an answer to Commanders, I added Lightbringer. Tutorable removal for some of the most problematic Commanders, like Kess, Dissident Mage, Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, Zur the Enchanter, The Gitrog Monster, Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder, Tymna the Weaver, Razaketh, the Foulblooded, and Tasigur, the Golden Fang, is really strong. It's also reusable with Linn's second ability, which is quite helpful when the game drags out.

I also added Paradise Mantle. I don't know how good it will be, but it hasn't been bad so far. Making hatebears into dorks is good, and it converts infinite colorless mana into colored mana with Umbral Mantle. It's also tutorable, which means if I'm really mana screwed, I can grab it with any three of the Equipment tutors.

Next, grave hate. While it's great against decks like The Gitrog Monster and Kess, Dissident Mage, it's also just great overall because so many decks use some form of recursion. I'm adding two new grave hate pieces, Stonecloaker and Scavenging Grounds. Cloaker is already great in this deck, as it's tutorable with Recruiter of the Guard and lets us reuse our ETB tutors and save our hatebears. Scavenging Grounds is low opportunity cost and can be tutored for with Weathered Wayfarer and Expedition Map. It can also be fed Shefet Dunes, which is a fine replacement for a Plains in EDH. I removed Kor Haven for Scavenging Grounds, as I never seemed to need it. For Stonecloaker, I removed Lightning Greeves. While it was great for protecting Lin, could sometimes allow for earlier activations of a few creatures, and added infinite life as a combo piece, I found most of the time I wanted it to effect the board. Stonecloaker does that better, and can still act as protection.

Stonecloaker also adds an additional win condition, in which with infinite white mana and either Blind Obedience or Aetherflux Reservoir, I can cast it infinite times and win.

Finally, I added Mox Opal. It's almost always on. It's much better than a Plains.