(Spirited Companion | Art by Ilse Gort)

At Dawn, Look to the East!

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Glint Hawk is the only one mana 2/2 flier that can untap your Mana Vault for you?)

Gandalf has five different versions of himself in the various releases for The Lord of the Rings, and I've seen hype about just about every single one of them except one:

Don't get me wrong, I totally see why Gandalf, White Rider is flying under the radar. There's already two Storm Gandalfs in Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf, Westward Voyager, there's a Panharmonicon version already in mono-white that also lets you cast artifacts at flash speed, and there's a replacement for Teferi, Time Raveler that you can also cast at flash speed in Gandalf, Friend of the Shire. Next to all of those, Gandalf, White Rider looks like what it is: A legend from a starter deck that was never intended to compete in competitive formats.

Well, I've got bad news for you, Wizards. Because Gandalf, White Rider is the best white weenie commander that's ever been printed.

From the OG Savannah Lions in Alpha to the creature type that defined an entire standard to the point that the two meta decks were literally named "Rebels" and "Counter-Rebels", white weenie has been a solid deck strategy since the beginning of Magic. The idea is simple: You throw down a ton of small creatures, and then if you're feeling feisty, you pump them up. In some versions this is done with Glorious Anthem effects, in others the creatures themselves come with pump attached, and in others you lay down a big Aura like Empyrial Armor on your most evasive Knight.

The only problem with this strategy? It dies to board wipes. Laying down your entire hand feels great, but if your opponent has a single Mutilate they can just win the game. This is precisely what made Rebels so good, however. It wasn't just Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero that could search up Rebels, it was essentially every single Rebel. This meant that you could keep your hand in reserve after laying down your Ramosian Sergeant, instead using its ability to find your Defiant Falcon, which could in turn find your Lin Sivvi or your Ramosian Captain. If this sounds slow, that's because it was. Rebels could absolutely play white weenie and put down a bunch of cheap creatures, and against the right matchup that didn't have board wipes, it did exactly that. But if your build threatened to wipe the board, they would play slower, summoning only one or two creatures and searching the rest out of the deck.

So, in other words, if you were going to make a white weenie deck that doesn't fall into the normal category of "dies to board wipes", how would you do it?

Gandalf, White Rider is a natural Glorious Anthem. As long as you feed him new casts of small creatures, he's always going to keep your team huge. If we're not planning on playing out our entire hand, we need to find creatures that let you cast other creatures repeatedly. There are a few buckets I came up with, but none of them are particularly impressive:

Top 10 White Weenies That Draw Cards

1. Esper Sentinel
2. Sram, Senior Edificer
3. Archivist of Oghma
4. Wall of Omens
5. Puresteel Paladin
6. Spirited Companion
7. Kor Spiritdancer
8. Flumph
9. Thraben Inspector
10. Zenith Chronicler

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely some creatures here that we'll want to be playing, from both the category of "every white deck that can afford to plays these cards without exception forever and always" to the less-obvious but more-what-we-were-actually-looking-for examples of Spirited Companion and Thraben Inspector. That is pretty much the end of the list, however. The rest are either Walls, which kind of defeats the point, or are way more into Auras and Equipment than we're looking to be.

So next, I looked at creatures that let you cast them from the graveyard. I expected this to be a little deeper than it is, probably because I've played enough aristocrats to be spoiled by Gravecrawler. Well, it turns out, Gravecrawler is kind of unique, and doesn't have any kind of analogue in white.

Top 10 White Weenies That Can Cast Themselves From the Graveyard

1. Lunarch Veteran
2. Twinblade Geist
3. Chaplain of Alms
4. Drogskol Infantry
5. Beloved Beggar
6. ...

It turns out the design space of white creatures casting themselves from the graveyard is rather unexplored. There's more that return themselves, of course, but that wouldn't trigger Gandalf, White Rider. No, if you're looking to do that, you're looking at Disturb, and Disturb only.

So what does that leave? If you can't cast creatures to draw into more creatures, or cast creatures twice from both your hand and graveyard, how can you repeatedly trigger Gandalf while ensuring that you aren't overextending?

Top 10 White Weenies That Bounce Stuff to Your Hand

It turns out, there's another mechanic in white that's been around for a while that allows you to cast creatures repeatedly: Rescue. From the original broken version that has a combo list ten miles long to the newest version I've had to relearn how to spell three times in just this one sentence, rescue has been in white's color pie for a long time now. The idea is a simple one: It allows you to return a creature that's about to die to your hand so that you can recast it later. In other words, if the inevitable board wipe comes, you can return some of your creatures to your hand to allow you to play them again later.

Or, if we had a commander that triggers on any spell cast, then maybe we could just be doing that... all the time?

Criteria: Creatures within the white color identity that cost less than three mana, do not have defender, and can return any permanent, artifact, or creature to your hand from any location. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

10. Leonin Squire

(830 Inclusions, 0% of 1,185,636 Decks)

Riddle me this: Why do folks love Urza's Saga, but aren't so crazy about Leonin Squire? Okay, that's not quite fair, returning stuff from the graveyard isn't anywhere near the same as searching it out of your deck directly onto the battlefield. Still, I do feel like there's not nearly enough hype around this Cat Soldier. Well, no more! Our Gandalf, White Rider deck isn't going to care about how big creatures are to start with (for the most part), and as a result we're going to be playing every possibly aggressive Ornithopter that's ever been printed. In fact, we're going to be so in love with Cheerios that we're going to go all out:

There's no question that if you come out of the gate with a Sol Ring or a Mana Crypt, the table is going to be gunning for you. That heat often comes in the form of just removing the offending mana rock, however, in which case it's great to have a means to bring it back. Even better, however, would be playing something that Leonin Squire can get back without the aid of your opponent, and it turns out there's a few of those. The best is undoubtedly Lotus Petal, the "fixed" Lotus that still manages to make the top ten of best Commander-legal ramp cards ever printed. There is also the Baubles, however, of both Mishra and Urza varieties. They're a bit difficult to keep track of, what with the "draw a card at the beginning of the next upkeep" trigger, but drawing a card is drawing a card!

All these options, alongside many more Moxes, Lotuses, various other 'free' mana rocks, 'free' creatures, artifact lands, and all of that doesn't even count the stuff that costs one mana! My point is, if you're at all in the avenue of cheap artifacts, you should be playing this card. 830 inclusions is ludicrous!

9. Glint Hawk

(1,214 Inclusions, 0% of 1,185,636 Decks)

Similarly, if you're trying to go fast in artifacts, Glint Hawk should be on your radar. I know it sounds like a drawback, and it was definitely designed as such, but the first time you tap a Mox Amber to cast Glint Hawk to return the Mox Amber to play it again and still have the exact same amount of mana open, it will change your life. That goes double if you've got a Gandalf, White Rider in play, and that little maneuver just gave all of your creatures +3/+0 and a look at the top three cards of your library.

8. Aviary Mechanic

(1,768 Inclusions, 0% of 1,185,636 Decks)

While we'll be happy to play Leonin Squire and Glint Hawk, they aren't exactly what we were thinking of when creating this list. For that, we instead are going to look at Aviary Mechanic, the worst of the various Rescue options out there. That's not exactly a 100% statement, as there is a corner case where Aviary Mechanic is actually better than the best of the rescue cards, but we'll get to that later. For now, let's be clear: There are options further down this list that do this same thing at flash speed, do this and also fly, and most importantly, do this except allow you to return themselves. In other words, while we'll be happy to throw Aviary Mechanic into Gandalf, White Rider, as we're just that hungry for rescue effects, there will be a lot of decks where other options make it and this little Dwarf Artificer ends up on the cutting room floor.

7. Rescuer Chwinga

(2,378 Inclusions, 0% of 866,073 Decks)

Speaking of doing what Aviary Mechanic does but at flash speed, it's Rescuer Chwinga! It's hard to overstate how much using these rescue effects at instant speed to save crucial pieces can be useful, while at the same time there's still the more straightforward option available to just cast it down, return a free artifact, and then recast the free artifact to double up our Gandalf triggers. In short, Rescuer Chwinga is the entire idea of this deck in one card.

6. Salvage Scout

(2,617 Inclusions, 0% of 1,185,636 Decks)

Leonin Squire may do it all at once, but you're still going to run into times where it will sit in your hand doing nothing, because you haven't got a cheap artifact in the graveyard. Not so with Salvage Scout! You can be free to play it down on turn one, swing in with it until it meets a combat trick or an alpha strike, and then sacrifice it at instant speed to get any artifact back to your hand. Not a bad deal, and a lot more flexible. Overall, however, I still prefer the free enter-the-battlefield effect that can be abused repeatedly over the higher flexibility of Salvage Scout that both requires its sacrifice and for you to keep a mana open at all times.

5. Shepherd of the Flock

(3,692 Inclusions, 0% of 1,185,636 Decks)

As Rescue itself details, there are also a ton of spell versions of this effect. Shepherd of the Flock exemplifies those simple spells, while also being stapled to a 3/1 for two that we can add to our army of weenies after we use it for three cast triggers! This card is obviously a slam dunk with Gandalf, White Rider in every way, so instead of overstating that, let's take a look at other spell versions of this effect we might be interested in:

Top 10 Cheap, Mono-White Spells That Return Permanents to Your Hand

1. Argivian Find
2. Shepherd of the Flock
3. Light the Way
4. Scapegoat
5. You're Ambushed on the Road
6. Mine Excavation
7. Ritual of Restoration
8. Alley Evasion
9. Remove Enchantments
10. Plow Through Reito

In similar fashion to the creatures, this ends up also not being quite as deep a well as first expected. Still, the top of this list has some winners we'll definitely want to consider. Argivian Find will get Petals, Baubles, and fallen Ornithopters back to our hand, along with getting us a second round out of Urza's Saga. Light the Way will let us block in addition to constantly swinging in for huge damage, not to mention making something permanently bigger while also proccing a temporary Gandalf trigger. Finally, Scapegoat won't just save one crucial card, but instead will get rid of a token or a 1/1 to return our entire team to our hand to set up the big alpha strike after we get Gandalf back down. That's just... everything this deck wants to do!

4. Kor Skyfisher

(4,115 Inclusions, 0% of 1,185,636 Decks)

Back in the land of sorcery speed, Kor Skyfisher looks at first glance like just a flying version of Aviary Mechanic, but it's actually missing a single word that makes all the difference: "Another". It may still lack the ability to truly rescue anything, given that it will operate at sorcery speed, but it makes up for this by being able to repeatedly cast and bounce itself, triggering Gandalf, White Rider repeatedly as it does so. The fact that it flies also allows it be useful if it comes down early, returning a Mox or the like to your hand, and giving you an evasive flier for Gandalf to pump. Don't get me wrong, flash would be nice here, but overall, this is still one of the best versions of this effect out there.

3. Restoration Specialist

(5,597 Inclusions, 0% of 1,185,636 Decks)

Salvage Scout may be one mana cheaper than Restoration Specialist, but that's where its pros end in the comparison. Being able to grab back both an enchantment and an artifact at once brings you into straight card advantage territory, and you're able to do so at instant speed by holding up a single mana. Sure, it's three mana, so it's not actually that much more ground-breaking than a Divination, but returning things is not exactly a one-to-one with drawing cards, as you get a choice. Those choices are limited by what you have in the graveyard, but in the case of a well-stocked yard, you can select the things that are going to be the biggest problems. There is also the extremely likely scenario of having something in your graveyard that the table worked hard to remove, which can be absolutely crushing. In short, Restoration Specialist is a great way to put down a cheap creature that can have a big effect later in the game.

2. Whitemane Lion

(16997 Inclusions, 1% of 1,185,636 Decks)

Speaking of having a great effect in the late game, Whitemane Lion can pull the same trick of repeatedly bouncing itself to farm triggers that Kor Skyfisher can, only it can do so at instant speed! It's not all upside, however, as Skyfisher (and every other rescue card on this list) can return any permanent, whereas Whitemane Lion can only return creatures. Still, there is no doubt that this is the ultimate when it comes to repeatedly getting cast triggers all within a single card, especially if you can manage to reduce some costs!

The obvious way to get Whitemane Lion down to a single mana is with the card you were probably gonna end up playing in mono-white anyhow: Pearl Medallion. Less guaranteed in a decklist but way better in this particular case, however, is Oketra's Monument. It's pricier than you'd like at three mana, but flooding the board with Warriors is good enough in the average build, much less one where every creature cast gets you both a Warrior and your entire team +1/+0. The one not on anyone's list that I think should be, however, is Helm of Awakening. Players are scared of this card, and I don't think that they should be. In your average Storm deck, Helm of Awakening is an absolute game-winner, allowing you to cast spell after spell without running out of gas. In the average EDH deck, however, I'm not as sold on it being catastrophic. It will absolutely speed your opponents up by a turn, but they'll probably still just be using it as a normal mana rock for the most part, as opposed to getting the several uses per turn that you will be.

Finally, there is also the means of getting Whitemane Lion to full free: Defiler of Faith. The only problem? At five mana, there's just no room for Defiler in a white weenie deck that's looking to be as low to the ground as we are. In the world where we're trying to operate off two lands and a couple zero-cost rocks, a five mana creature would just sit in our hand mocking us about its "ramp" designation. Not a good look.

1. Myr Retriever

(68,386 Inclusions, 3% of 2,624,509 Decks)

Upon seeing the list I expected to end with Whitemane Lion instead end with Myr Retriever, I considered changing my criteria some. In the end, however, I do think that like every artifact deck out there, a Gandalf, White Rider deck looking to stay low to the ground has a use for the Retriever as well. Much like Salvage Scout and Restoration Specialist, it's a cheap creature that can come down and get pumped up by Gandalf early, then leaving a hard decision for your opponents when you swing in with it and they have to choose between taking significant chunks of damage or letting you return an artifact to your hand for yet another cast trigger. Even better, when you do inevitably get board wiped, you get a consolation prize! Myr Retriever is a staple in artifact decks for a reason, and while it wouldn't have been at the top of my radar when I first started building this deck, it turns out, it's good enough for an artifact-heavy white weenie build as well!

Honorable Mentions

To give you guys some of my thought process as I processed Gandalf, White Rider, it quickly went from "mid-power aggro" to "cEDH?" Well, after some testing, I can put the cEDH thought to rest, tempting though it was. Maybe with a few more tutors to get the ridiculous pieces in place, or a bit more card draw to keep you a consistent threat while also maintaining interaction in your hand, or a bit more Stax that will actually stop a table from winning that won't stop you from winning as well. Not being at the top of the pile doesn't mean that this rather innocuous looking commander can't still be really, really mean, however. Don't get me wrong, there is probably a mid-power aggro brew of Gandalf out there. It might even end up being the most popular build of him. There is also a "threaten to kill the entire table by turn four" glass cannon build out there that I couldn't help but make a reality, however:

People probably thought I was being a bit ridiculous talking about Mana Vaults, Jeweled Lotuses, and Moxes in the same breath as a starter deck commander, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that this thing slaps. In testing, it was extremely common for me to have Gandalf down by turn two with a field of comrades helping out, and to be swinging for 20-30 damage on turn three with cards still left in hand to finish the table off the next turn. Even bad hands look magnificent in the presence of an Oketra's Monument or a Whitemane Lion, never mind what happens if you're lucky enough to start off with a free rock, a Serra Ascendant, and a Glint Hawk. Suffice it to say, plopping this down at a high-powered table may get you some odd looks until about turn two, but I can more or less guarantee by that point you will have been reclassified as "the threat" at the table.

Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

What Do You Think?

There's no question that aggro has been an unloved strategy in Commander for a long, long time. With three opponents at 40 life apiece, maybe it's not a mystery as to why, but surely it can't be all that bad, can it?

And finally, have you tried white weenie in Commander? Did it work? Were you even aware of Gandalf, White Rider, much less building him?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the hordes and hordes of white folding tables at pretty much anywhere.

DougY

Doug has been an avid Magic player since Fallen Empires, when his older brother traded him some epic blue Homarids for all of his Islands. As for Commander, he's been playing since 2010, when he started off by making a two-player oriented G/R Land Destruction deck. Nailed it. In his spare time when he's not playing Magic, writing about Magic or doing his day job, he runs a YouTube channel or two, keeps up a College Football Computer Poll, and is attempting to gif every scene of the Star Wars prequels.