Much Abrew: Mono-White Emeria (Modern)
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. This week, we have a blast from the past updated with some powerful new cards: Mono-White Emeria! If you've been following the YouTube channel for a while, you might remember Mono-White Emeria being one of my favorite budget decks way back in 2016, but the slow, grindy value plan fell off the Modern map as the format got faster and the breakout of decks like Hollow One and Dredge meant more graveyard hate in the format. Well, in a world where Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is all the rage and Modern is somewhat fair (in a very unfair Modern sort of way), it might be time for Mono-White Emeria to rise again, thanks to some powerful new additions from the past couple of years, including Charming Prince, Ranger-Captain of Eos, and especially Skyclave Apparition. Are Sun Titan and Emeria, the Sky Ruin back on the menu? Can the deck compete in the 2021 edition of Modern? Let's get to the video and find out; then, we'll talk more about the deck!
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Much Abrew: Mono-White Emeria
Discussion
- Record-wise, we finished our league 2-3 with Mono-White Emeria, which is slightly disappointing. That said, if you actually look at our matches, every single one was super close (in fact, every match went to three games). We easily could have won (or lost) any of our matches. I wouldn't read a whole lot into a one-league sample size, especially considering that a lot of our matches came down to a single draw or two determining the winner.
- As far as the deck itself, it feels a lot like the old builds of Mono-White Emeria but with a handful of major upgrades. The primary plan basically is to stall out in the early game with creatures that draw us a card when they enter the battlefield in one way or another (Thraben Inspector, Wall of Omens, and Ranger-Captain of Eos), to make sure we keep hitting our land drops to build toward our Emeria, the Sky Ruin late-game reanimator plan. We can then use Charming Prince and Flickerwisp to blink our enters-the-battlefield creatures for even more grindy value. Eventually, we win by either getting Emeria, the Sky Ruin online or sticking a Sun Titan.
- Speaking of Sun Titan, it's a solid standalone creature, but it's even better in Mono-White Emeria thanks to our flicker creatures. Rather than just getting back a thing from our graveyard, a single Sun Titan often rebuilds our entire board since we can reanimate Charming Prince or Flickerwisp to flicker Sun Titan and get another reanimation trigger on our end step. If we have two Charming Princes and / or Flickerwisp in our graveyard, we can get back the second one, flicker Sun Titan again, and reanimate something else on our opponent's end step. This also allows us to chump block semi-infinitely with Charming Prince or Flickerwisp since we can always get them back with Sun Titan and start the loop over again.
- While we still have many of the same Mono-White Emeria staples from back in the day, the new additions to the deck are especially exciting. Charming Prince is basically just an upgraded Flickerwisp in our deck because we don't really care all that much about chipping in for random damage in the air (once we get to the late game, we can overwhelm our opponent with Emeria and Sun Titan), while it being a mana cheaper and working like a Lone Missionary against aggro both are major upsides. Ranger-Captain of Eos gives us some hate for unfair decks with its Silence-esque sacrifice trigger and also tutors up Thraben Inspector for even more card draw. But the real all-star of the new additions is Skyclave Apparition. Skyclave Apparition quickly has proven to be one of the best removal spells in Modern, and it's better in Mono-White Emeria than in most decks because after playing it to exile something, we can flicker it with Flickerwisp or Charming Prince to do it again and eventually reanimate it with Sun Titan or Emeria, the Sky Ruin, making it so a single Skyclave Apparition often answers two or three of our opponent's best permanents over the course of a few turns.
- At first, I was skeptical of Luminous Broodmoth in the deck since it is too expensive to reanimate with Sun Titan, but it quickly proved its worth with our sacrifice creatures. Against Belcher, Luminous Broodmoth with Ranger-Captain of Eos allowed us to pick up the win by keeping our opponent from casting non-creature spells for several turns.
- Speaking of our sacrifice creatures, both Ranger-Captain of Eos and Kami of False Hope (which we can find with Ranger) give us pseudo-locks with Emeria, the Sky Ruin in the late game. Against creature decks, we can reanimate Kami of False Hope every turn for infinite Fogs. Against control or combo, we can keep getting back Ranger-Captain of Eos to sacrifice on our opponent's upkeep in order to Silence non-creature spells every turn.
- The one card in the deck that I really don't understand completely is Shining Shoal. While it is interesting as a Mana Tithe–style "gotcha" card, I'm not sure what specific matchups or cards it is targeting. I'm leaning toward cutting it the next time I play the deck, although let me know if you have some ideas about what it is good against, and perhaps I'll change my mind.
- So, should you play Mono-White Emeria in Modern? The answer is a solid maybe. I wouldn't read too much into our 2-3 record because our matches really could have gone either way. I'd really like to jam some more games with the deck before forming a solid opinion. Either way, the deck does have some major upsides. For one, it's just over $200, which isn't technically Budget Magic price range but is super cheap for a Modern deck. Plus, if you have Mono-White or Blue-White Emeria from a few years ago, this build offers some solid upgrade ideas while showing off some of the powerful new cards from the archetype printed in the past couple of years. How good is Mono-White Emeria in the current meta? It's good enough to compete with most decks, that's for sure, but it's also a deck that seems to run on really tight margins, where a single topdeck or misplay can swing the match. So if you decide to pick it up, make sure to get in some practice!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
