Under the Radar - Apothecary White
September 9, 2024 by
Ben Macready 
(Ravnica: Clue Edition | Art by Justine Cruz)
The clock has just struck midnight. A body has been discovered hastily concealed beneath the dining room table and the musty scent of cigarette smoke hangs in the air. It's time to gather all of the suspects together in the foyer for this edition of Under The Radar. In this series, we look at underplayed commanders with less than 500 decks to their name.
We investigate the strategies they encourage and examine the average decklist that EDHREC generates for them. Tonight we will analyze Apothecary White. So put down your Candlesticks, your Lead Pipes, and your Wrenches, and let's start investigating this commander.
The Usual Suspects
Apothecary White was released in Ravnica: Clue Edition, a supplemental Whodunnit themed spin off product that accompanied the set Murders at Karlov Manor. Apothecary White is a member of a curious six card cycle depicting Ravnican counterparts to the characters from Clue (the Brit in me just recoiled at writing "Clue" rather than "Cluedo"). The other cards in this cycle also make pretty interesting commanders. They include...
Commander Mustard: a Boros soldier typal commander. With 1,130 decks to his name, Commander Mustard is the only character for this cycle who would be ineligible to be the subject of an Under the Radar article.
He's simply too popular. Commander Mustard grants all of his controller's soldiers a suite of powerful keyword abilities, and the ability to deal damage to opposing players as they attack. It's easy to see why this is the most popular card from the cycle.
Emissary Green: A monogreen commander that makes the table vote every time he attacks. Players can either vote for "profit" or "security". For every player who votes for profit Emissary Green's controller creates a Treasure token, and for every vote of "security" Emissary Green's controller creates a Treasure token.
This card seems pretty fun, and it's honestly a shame that only 137 decks have been built around him. Remember that as the controller of Emissary Green, you would also get to cast a vote. Perhaps there just currently aren't enough payoffs for voting in monogreen to make Emissary Green exciting.
Senator Peacock: This azure advisor turns all of her controller's artifacts into Clues. Whenever Senator Peacock's controller sacrifices a Clue, she makes one of their creatures unblockable until the end of the turn.
Once again, it's unfortunate that only 119 decks have been built around Senator Peacock since there's so much potential here for wacky shenanigans. Fill the board with giant threats like Hullbreaker Horror, and then sacrifice cheap little artifacts like Ichor Wellspring through Peacock's effect in order to make them unblockable. What's not to love?
Mastermind Plum: While in Under the Radar I don't want to discourage people from building around any commander, Mastermind Plum doesn't seem terribly exciting. It seems that lots of the community aren't very excited about Plum either, as this monoblack Wizard currently only has 95 decks to his name.
Mastermind Plum is a 2/2 for . Whenever he attacks, he exiles a card from a graveyard (creating a Treasure token if he exiles an artifact). If Plum's controller sacrifices any amount of Treasure to pay the cost for a spell while he is in play then they can draw a card and lose one life.
This seems like a perfectly functional graveyard hate card, but a bit of a bland commander. I'm willing to have my mind changed though, maybe there's something about this commander that I'm not seeing. If you've found a fun way of making Mastermind Plum broken, I would be delighted to hear about it in the comments.
Headliner Scarlett: The least popular commander from the cycle, with only 61 decks to her name. When Headliner Scarlett enters play, she prevents one player from blocking for a turn.
She also exiles the top card from her controller's library every upkeep and allows them to play it. This card would be absolutely busted if she had either blue or white in her color identity. These colors would enable Headliner Scarlet to flicker in and out of play using effects like Essence Flux andEphemerate.
This would repeat her very powerful ETB effect, and make it so you would never need to care about your opponents blocking you ever again. For better or worse, this is not the case, and while Headliner Scarlett makes a very powerful support card for other commanders (particularly commanders like Prosper, Tome-Bound and Commander Liara Portyrwho can take advantage of Headliner Scarlett's exile effect) she's not that great in the command zone herself.
Brewing This Apothecary
But that's enough about the other Clue(do) characters, let's talk about Apothecary White herself. For Apothecary White is a 3/4 Human Cleric with vigilance. Whenever you attack while Apothecary White is in play, you create one Food token per different player that you're attacking.
She can also be tapped down for , along with any number of Food tokens you control to generate that many 1/1 Human creature tokens.
It's pretty clear then that Apothecary White is a mono-white go-wide commander. You'll use her abilities first to fill the board with Food tokens, and then to fill it with Human tokens right afterwards. This card also opens up some potentially interesting subthemes that you can explore.
Since the Food tokens that Apothecary White generates are artifacts, you can build the deck to care about amassing lots and lots of cheap artifacts, throwing in cards like Thousand Moons Smithy, Bronze Guardian or Arcbound Ravager.
Additionally, since both Apothecary White, and the tokens she generates are humans you can build a Human deck around her with cards like Coppercoat Vanguard, Thalia's Lieutenant and, if you've got the spare cash, Greymond, Avacyn's Stalwart. All of this is just scratching the surface of the plethora of different brews this Apothecary can concoct. Now let's take a look at her average deck list...
White's Average Deck
As of 08/31/2024 there are 241 Apothecary White decks recorded on EDHREC. The EDHREC average deck feature combs over these 241 different lists, and produces a typical Apothecary White deck that looks like this...
Apothecary White - Average Deck
View on Archidekt
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View this decklist on Archidekt
This list seems to match up with our expectations for the commander. We've got a deck that wants to flood the board with tokens using both Apothecary White's effect but also cards like Lossarnach Captain, and Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation.
We also have effects that buff this army of tokens, once they're in play, like Requisition Raid and Inspiring Leader. There are definitely some Human cards here, but the potential artifact theme we discussed above isn't really present. This list can be easily modified to put in some more artifact synergies though, if that is something you want to explore.
Being an apothecary must pay well because, at $576, this is the most expensive deck we've discussed in this series so far (Breeches, the Blastmaker occupies a very distant second place at $287).
Fortunately, there are some very clear cuts to make that can bring the price right down. To reel them off in no particular order, the expensive cards to remove from this list are...
Anointed Procession, Ocelot Pride, Mondrak, Glory Dominus Nuka-Cola Vending Machine, Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation, Esper Sentinel, Akroma's Will, Cathars' Crusade, Smothering Tithe,Teferi's Protection, Caretaker's Talent, Emeria, the Sky Ruin.
And those are all just the cards that cost $10+, there are also several cards in the $5 region (like Halo Fountain andSkullclamp)that you can remove from the list if you want to cut back on costs.
With all of that behind us, it's time to start examining the deck list itself.
5 Cards To Keep
Currently in 63% of decks.
This deck wants to go-wide with a bunch of Human tokens, and few cards can achieve that objective quite so easily as Adeline, Resplendent Cathar. For an investment of only 3 mana, Adeline, Resplendent Cathar generates a tapped and attacking 1/1 Human token, for each opponent, every time you attack during your combat.
As well as helping you go-wide, Adeline is also a pretty credible threat in her own right, as a creature with 4 toughness and power equal to the number of creatures that you have in play. Considering the number of extra creatures that Adeline is capable of generating single-handidly, her power can get out of hand very quickly. There's a reason why Adeline gets called resplendent.
Currently in 66% of decks
Just how Apothecary White managed to smuggle the Horn of Gondor over to Ravnica is a question for another day. What's beyond question though is that this card works #wonderfully in Human decks. The Horn of Gondor makes a 1/1 Human Soldier token when it enters play, and then it can be tapped down for to create a number of additional Human Soldier tokens equal to the number of Humans that you control.
This effect is infamously powerful on Krenko, Mob Boss, and it remains just as strong here. The number of Humans you'll generate through this will grow exponentially and quickly spiral out of control unless someone brings you in line with a board wipe.
Currently in 83% of decks
While in the first article of this series, we discussed how Rosie Cotton of South Lane didn't fit in with the average Aragorn, Company Leaderdeck, her effect synergizes perfectly with Apothecary White's. Rosie Cotton of South Lane cares a lot about tokens, placing a +1/+1 counter on one of your creatures whenever one enters play.
Fortunately for Rosie, Apothecary White also cares about tokens, generating both Food and Human tokens en masse. Rosie Cotton provides some much-needed strength in this deck, helping your army of 1/1s bulk up a bit, so that they can punch through blockers rather than merely relying on numbers alone.
Currently in 6% of decks.
Caretaker's Talent may be brand new, but it is sure to be a staple in token decks from now on. Caretaker's Talent is a class card, an enchantment that can be leveled up, by spending mana, to gradually unlock multiple different effects.
At level 1, Caretaker's Talent lets you draw a card the first time a token enters play under your control on any turn. This is a card draw effect in mono-white which is always great to see.
At level two this card duplicates a token you control, an effect that's not as powerful here as it could be in other decks that care about bigger tokens, but maybe you'll luck out and have the 10/10 Eldrazi token created byIdol of Oblivion in play.
The real strength of this card though comes from its level 3 ability which grants all of your tokens +2/+2. Turning all of your Human tokens from 1/1s into 3/3s is a massive deal. It becomes all the more massive if you can also get Inspiring Leader into play to turn them into 5/5s.
Currently in 44% of decks.
White's very own counterpart to Craterhoof Behemoth. Moonshaker Cavalry grants all of your creatures +X/+X and flying when it enters play, where X is equal to the number of creatures you control.
In games of Commander in 2024 you want any card that you play that costs 8 mana to do something drastic, and Moonshaker Cavalry definitely achieves that. Playing this card onto a sufficiently developed board will end the game in a single stroke.
5 Cards To Cut
Currently in 40% of decks.
Lifegain by itself means very little in a game of Magic. You need payoff cards like Aetherflux Reservoir, Archangel of Thune or Heliod, Sun-Crowned to make gaining life matter. Soul's Attendant doesn't synergize with any of the other cards in the deck.
While all of the Food generation in this deck does provide you with lots of other ways of gaining life, there aren't really any cards that reward you for having gaining a lot of life. You can modify this list so that it cares more about lifegain, but as it stands that's currently not the case. Ultimately this is a go-wide token deck, and not a lifegain deck, so Soul's Attendant shouldn't bother attending.
Currently in 17% of decks.
Spending 5 mana to generate a food token every turn is horribly inefficient, that's the same cost as you're paying for Cathars' Crusade one of the best board buffing spells in the game.
While you could theoretically use Transmutation Font to generate Blood and Clue tokens instead, in order to utilize its second effect to tutor up an artifact, this is also a bit of a waste of time. Transmutation Font is the most expensive artifact in the deck so there's nothing worth fetching with it beyond Sol Ring.
Ultimately this card has the same problem as Soul's Attendant in that it just doesn't really fit in with what this list wants to do. Put your Transmutation Font in your Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy deck, not this one.
Currently in 63% of decks.
Apothecary White's ability to tap Food down to make 1/1 Human tokens incentivizes you to fill your deck with lots of Food-producing cards. Astrid Peth, Nuka-Cola Vending Machine and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit are all great Food token generators.
Witch's Oven, in contrast, is a little bit inefficient even if its effect is repeatable. Turning the Human tokens generated by Apothecary White back into food is back into food is more than a little bit counterproductive. It's more important for your board to be full of creatures than it is for it to be full of Food.
Currently in 61% or decks.
Late to Dinner does suit the murder mystery vibe of Apothecary White perfectly, but that alone can't guarantee it a slot in the 99. This deck is about flooding the board with lots of small creatures, rather than playing giant threats.
As such, there are only a few creatures in the deck that will leave you mana positive when you revive them using Late to Dinner. This card isn't bad by any means, it's simply not the best use of a slot in a deck like this.
Currently in 42% of decks.
Hobbit's Sting perfectly synergizes with this deck's intended strategy, as a removal spell that scales the more creatures and food tokens that you have in play. Nevertheless, it's not needed here at all. White has the single best suite of single-target removal spells in the game.
You don't need a 2 mana value spell that can conditionally destroy a creature when you are already running Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Stroke of Midnight and Generous Gift.
5 Cards To Add
Currently in 23% of decks.
Over the course of any game with this deck, you will inevitably be building up a pretty massive board. You'll need some methods of keeping all of your creatures protected in case one of your opponents decides to blast the field with a Wrath of God, a Blasphemous Act or a Damnation.
This is where Unbreakable Formation comes in. While the deck already has a few mass protection spells like Akroma's Will, Flawless Maneuver and Teferi's Protection those 3 cards range in price from roughly $10 to roughly $40.
Unbreakable Formation, in contrast, can be picked up for about 50 cents. Even though it's cheap, Unbreakable Formation still keeps everything just as safe as Flawless Maneuver does.
Currently in 32% of decks.
If you need to get a bunch of human tokens into play incredibly quickly, there are few better options than Call the Coppercoats. For Call the Coppercoats produces a number of 1/1 white Human Soldier tokens equal to the number of creatures controlled by target opponent.
You can then target more opponents by feeding an additional into the spell for every extra target. At any given time there will almost certainly be at least one opponent with at least 3 creatures in play, making it easy for you to get your mana's worth with this card.
If you get very lucky, and there's someone else at the table running a go-wide deck, then you can generate an absolutely massive amount of tokens for one mana less than the cost of playing Apothecary White herself.
Currently in 34% of decks.
When you're attacking with a bunch of small creatures the last thing you want is them all getting blocked and destroyed. Even if you have a few anthem effects like Intangible Virtue and Flowering of the White Tree buffing all of your creatures up, they still probably aren't going to be very big.
If only there was some way to guarantee that they could all glide unblocked past your opponents' creatures. Enter Odric, Master Tactician. Odric allows his controller to determine how your opponents' creatures block when he attacks alongside at least three other creatures, and in this deck that's a condition that is not difficult to fulfill at all.
Not only can Odric make it so that all of your creatures are effectively unblockable, he also allows you to put valuable utility creatures belonging to other players into harm's way. No one will be able to keep a Grand Abolisher or an Esper Sentinel around as long as you have Odric in play.
Currently in 4% of decks.
Intrepid Adversary is a great anthem effect that can be brought out at basically any point in the game. This card can come down as a 4/2 that gives everything +1/+1, a 5/3 that gives everything +2/+2, a 6/4 that gives everything +3/+3 or something even more busted if you pour in more mana.
The only mode of this card that isn't appealing is playing it at base rate as a 3/1, but even that can sometimes be useful in desperate circumstances.
The final reason that this card works particularly well in this deck is because it's a Human, so it benefits from any kindred synergy cards that you throw in.
Currently in 12% of decks.
Just like Call the Coppercoats, Increasing Devotion is another way of generating a huge wave of humans to run your opponents over with.
This card can be cast from your hand to generate 5 1/1 Human tokens for and then again from the graveyard to make 10 1/1 Human tokens for .
Compared to Call the Coppercoats this card has a higher floor but a lower ceiling. You'll always be getting a pretty decent deal with Increasing Devotion and the fact that a single card can be used to make 15 tokens isn't anything to scoff at.
While you'll never get the sort of absolute blowouts that Call the Coppercoats can provide where you make a whole army of tokens for just 3 mana, Increasing Devotion will never end up just being a dead card that sits in your hand.
Conclusion
There are no shortage of mono-white go-wide commanders out there. From Myrel, Shield of Argive, to Elesh Norn, to Brimaz, King of Oreskos. All of these commanders have nuances and differences that make them interesting to play. Apothecary White has lots of traits that make her unique and exciting to build around.
You can play into her Food generation, her human support, or even into the lifegain strategies that she subtly encourages. Building around any one of these different aspects will result in a radically different deck than if you had focussed on one of the others.
Like all of the commanders we talk about here in Under the Radar Apothecary White has a huge amount of untapped potential that the Magic community hasn't yet begun to fully explore.
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Ben Macready
Ben is a freelance writer from the UK. He's has been playing Magic since he was 8 years old, back when he thought Enormous Baloth was the best card in the game. You can find more Magic content from him on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2iSANUGoKzdK6XgLyB1qLw
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