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Meet Luminarch Aspirant:
What? You've already met? My bad. It's been a minute for me, anyway; so, I thought maybe it might be worth reviewing a few things about this 2-drop.
First, it was widely - and I mean really widely - played for a long stretch in Standard. At the time I was pretty active on Magic: The Gathering Arena, so I mostly knew Luminarch Aspirant as the Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki of White Weenie in the summer of 2021. It was fast to get down, started to accumulate materiel immediately, and could spread value around in a way that demanded immediate interaction. Assuming you did, the value could end up in multiple places so the other player would often still get value. But if you didn't have it? The battlefield would often be decorated with multiple prohibitively large Hopeful Initiates (that were all, all getting bigger); or worse, maybe a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben that was effectively immune to Red removal.
I feel like I personally played mostly against Luminarch Aspirant in Mono-White decks, and was mostly annoyed when I didn't beat them all the time. If you look back at the MichaelJ oeuvre of that era ("The Little Lies We Tell Ourselves" is my favorite) I was obsessed with Black-centered Snow Control decks long on The Meathook Massacre and Blood on the Snow... but somehow Aspirant and friends were able to keep Our Hero honest even given that archetype.
But that wasn't the only spot! The weird thing was how good Luminarch Aspirant could be in 
midrange decks, and a wide variety of 
decks. I was always puzzled at the perceived distinctions between aggro, midrange, and control when they had so many cards in common: But consistently Luminarch Aspirants.
While you'll not likely hear me talk about the White Weenie of that particular age as a "good" thing, all good things really must come to their ends; and Luminarch Aspirant - and the challenges it put on Standard deck design (in particular the availability of removal) - had to as well. Rotation.
Hold up.
Have we met?
Aside: A Vorthos Look at Spellbook Vendor
"Let me tell you a secret," Mark told me. "We often make the same card."
"I know. Obviously. Everybody knows about Grizzly Bears and Balduvian Bears..."
"No, no, no. We can make the same card using different mechanics in order to make them look appropriate for different blocks."
"What do you mean?"
"Let's say I want to have an 'Afflict' effect in a cycling set..."
"Oh spit. You cycle a Death Pulse."
Spellbook Vendor isn't quite the cycling alt on Death Pulse, but I think it's meant to be a storybook fairytale take on Luminarch Aspirant. Luminarch Aspirant makes +1/+1 counters; Spellbook Vendor makes +1/+1 tokens. The tokens are a little better, but they're also limited. They don't stack as well with a Hopeful Initiate; and they don't stack on a single creature at all.
Oh, the extra mana cost isn't firing up any White Weenie loins, either; but I think Spellbook Vendor makes up for it a little by starting out as a 2/2. I always forget it has Vigilance because I'm generally terrified to attack with it ever, though.
I know that Spellbook Vendor is supposed to be hawking bootleg xerox copies of the Monster Book of Monsters or mayhap Muggle Studies but I really love the idea that it is dubbing all these Clerics and Scouts and Rogues as Sorcerers. In my imagination it's more like Dumbledore, graduating under-trained students ("for just one mana!") as child-soldiers into The Red Zone (and probably certain doom) if in service to some greater good.
End aside.
Don't tell anyone but I've mostly been playing this White Weenie deck that CovertGoBlue posted recently. I'd say the reason was that I was kind of tired of playing Mono-Red but you wouldn't believe me, so I won't bother.
Anyway, the thing that attracted me to the deck was the presence of four copies of Adeline, Resplendent Cathar. Coming initially from the Mono-Red side this season, I kind of don't know how anyone beats Adeline with current lists. The 4 toughness is just this persistent stop sign alongside Vigilance. Unlike with Spellbook Vendor, I'm happy to swing with Adeline. First of all, I probably just made a body, and half the time Adeline has 5+ toughness coming in anyway.
Let's look at a list:
Mono-White Aggro | WOE Standard | jpstache, 4th Place
- Creatures (30)
- 1 Intrepid Adversary
- 1 Skrelv, Defector Mite
- 2 Anointed Peacekeeper
- 2 Extraction Specialist
- 4 Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
- 4 Coppercoat Vanguard
- 4 Hopeful Initiate
- 4 Recruitment Officer
- 4 Spellbook Vendor
- 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- Enchantments (6)
- 2 Virtue of Loyalty
- 4 Ossification
- Lands (24)
- 18 Plains
- 2 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
- 4 Mishra's Foundry
This build played by jpstache made the finals of a recent Standard Challenge. It's quite close to the CovertGoBlue, deck I've been playing. Built for best-of-three, jpstache is running a little more land, at the expense of the full complement of Intrepid Adversaries, and shaving some Skrelv, Defector Mite action.
Recruitment Officer: I am going to try this classic beater upgrade at the one, in honor of two different Savannah Lions decks making Top 8 of this year's Premodern European Championships. I think it's actually a pretty good inclusion because for all its potential incentives, White Weenie as currently conceived doesn't have a lot of staying power. CGB played Luminarch Lunarch Veteran // Luminous Phantom in this slot, but I'm not sure how much that's honoring the Player of the Year and how much it is just trolling Red Deck mages.
Hopeful Initiate: Recruitment Officer also gives the deck an immediate catalyst for Hopeful Initiate. The crimson Warlock might be at an all-time nadir in this deck (I for one have yet to destroy a single artifact or enchantment with it this season)... But it's still pretty good. In the past we had in particular Luminarch Aspirant providing a clear buff path for Hopeful Initiate (or better yet, someone next to Hopeful Initiate for double buffs)... The Sorcerer Role thing is welcome, but clearly has a lower ceiling. Among other things, you kind of have to keep playing creatures in order to distribute more and more buffs, which was not true of the original.
Extraction Specialist and Anointed Peacekeeper: I'm not sure how I feel about this 2-2 split; but it will probably tell you something that I had to wildcard all four of them. I've never liked to play against Peacekeeper; but I think that a lot of the decks I played against were heavy on the Death and Taxes front; whereas this deck is only kind of dipping a single toe in those waters.
In my experience so far Adeline is great but the rest of the curve toppers are only okay. It's nice to be able to re-buy Thalia on turn three after the opponent just used resources to get rid of it; but now it's back! On the other hand that's just kind of a two-for-one, which is increasingly less game over as any game progresses. This is especially true when you end up getting back a card like Hopeful Initiate that isn't generating a lot of value if it can't attack immediately.
Ossification: At the same time I quite like this card in the deck; but it's a little weird in specifically jpstache's version. If you're going to go with Lunarch Veteran // Luminous Phantom as the 1-drop, then Ossification makes more sense. But if you're going to play four copies of Recruitment Officer, isn't Brutal Cathar // Moonrage Brute a little someone who should be back on the squad, or at least up for consideration? Maybe Brutal Cathar // Moonrage Brute is not the best main deck option versus Ossification, but if you're digging through your deck for Soldiers already, I think this might be a miss for sideboarded games, in particular in the mirror.
There are two types of decks (so far) that I have found challenging with Spellbook Vendor White Weenie. One of them - and this might seem odd - is the mirror. The problem is that you're playing essentially a symmetrical game, except the opponent might just play Knight-Errant of Eos. All of a sudden they have this huge body (or relatively huge, given the mirror matchup) that also just drew two cards. Unless you can find a way to bust through, the opposing mirror player is likely to overwhelm you with physical materiel... Eventually.
Even setting aside the fact that the opponent might have Hopeful Initiates that get regrettably online against your Ossifications, they just aren't great responses heads up. The card that beats you is a 4/4 Divination; Ossification is kind of like casting a Duress the turn after the opponent has already drawn two extra cards. It's like what's the point?
Brutal Cathar // Moonrage Brute - especially the way that jpstache could potentially find some - seems like an appropriate way to try to solve this particular riddle.
The other deck that I've struggled against so far is Ramp. This is kind of weird because beatdown decks have been Ramp's traditional foils over time; but I think that the current setup in Standard just has Ramp in a good spot heads up. First of all, its most important accelerator - Topiary Stomper - is not affected by Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Secondly, a 4/4 is pretty good at keeping a 1/4 off the Ramp player's back. The solution for White Weenie is largely to just play more guys, because how it gets more power is by committing the cardboard of Coppercoat Vanguard and the additional mana of Spellbook Vendor every turn... And that is just trouble if the opponent is packing a set of Sunfalls (assuming they have the mana to cast a quasi-six). But here's where the specifics bite White Weenie in the bum again: If the opponent can guarantee their next land drop, without interacting with Thalia, but simultaneously gaining three extra life? Now that's bad times for 'book Vendor.
To a small degree this is a metagame deck. Mono-Red is one of the most popular decks in Standard right now, around second place on Magic Online (or at Worlds); and widely considered the most popular on Magic: The Gathering Arena. Adeline just dominates Goddric in the current Standard, and it ain't close.
The one card I haven't tested yet - it's a two-of in jpstache's version here, but CGB didn't play it - is Virtue of Loyalty. That card was a surprise hit of the World Championships, and seems like a reasonable inclusion in regular old White Weenie. The front-side Adventure is actually "not that bad". The 2/2 comes out at instant speed, meaning you might be able to steal a naked Monastery Swiftspear or Hopeful Initiate on the way down... And later on, the five mana version is probably making up for a lot of missing Intrepid Adversary action.
I'll let you know if I like it better!
LOVE
MIKE
