Table of Contents
cEDH is the highest level of Commander you can play at. Decks are optimized to their maximum potential, filled with tutors, interactions, and ways to win as early as turn one. There are a lot of viable color pairings in Commander (including Mono-colored decks). White is one of cEDH’s weakest colors (if not the weakest). So, a Mono White deck can be an uphill battle, but that’s also a part of the challenge. With Preston, the Vanisher, this task becomes very achievable.
Why Preston?
Mono White is not a good color for cEDH. It is the weakest and has the lowest number of powerful staples, especially when compared to colors like Black and Blue. Part of the interest in building a Mono White commander for cEDH is the challenge of it. Also, the uniqueness of it. Since White is much less prevalent than other colors, you get to play a lot of cards you don’t see too often.
As for options, there are a few different ones for cEDH. Oswald Fiddlebender is the most popular choice for artifact-based Stax builds. Cloud, Midgar Mercenary has seen experimentation, and Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice can sometimes steal games with aggressive starts.
So, why play Preston, the Vanisher? The deck can play a ton of different Stax pieces, slowing the game down to a crawl. The deck is a Blink deck, so once you cast a permanent, you don’t have to worry about being affected by your Stax pieces. Once your permanents are on the battlefield, you won’t have to struggle against your own Stax effects. With Preston’s effect, you can double up on a lot of your effects. This makes it easier to draw through your deck to get to your win conditions, Stax pieces, and interaction quickly.
The Stax Suite
Preston is a hybrid Blink and Stax deck, with emphasis on the latter half. While White isn’t great at a lot in cEDH, it is the best at one thing: stalling everyone out. Aven Mindcensor shuts down all tutoring, as the odds of a card being at the top of someone’s deck are incredibly low. Using Drannith Magistrate can shut down entire strategies and combo lines, making it a must-answer card for many decks. Since you don’t have many “real” counterspells, cards like Grand Abolisher and Voice of Victory ensure that your opponents will have a hard time interacting with anything you’re doing so you can combo freely.
A popular effect for White Stax pieces are ones that restrict players from playing more than one spell a turn. Phyrexian creatures are incredibly rare, so Phyrexian Censor is a menace, locking everyone into one spell and forcing creatures to enter tapped. Almost none of your creatures care about entering tapped, so this isn’t much of a downside for you (and protects you from creature-based infinite combo lines). Archon of Emeria is very good at slowing the game down. While everyone is locked into just one spell, only your opponents are forced to have their nonbasic lands enter tapped. In cEDH, most decks don’t run more than a few basics, some only running one in their entire deck. Likewise, Rule of Law restricts everyone to one spell per turn, and Blind Obedience forces opponents’ creatures and artifacts to enter tapped.
Draw Power
One of the benefits of playing Preston, the Vanisher is how much draw power the deck has while being locked into Mono White. It does play The One Ring as you would expect, as it’s one of the easiest ways to draw cards while giving a turn of protection. Then, your primary blink targets are cards that draw when they enter, such as Wall of Omens and Spirited Companion. With Preston on the battlefield, you get two draws for the price of one (assuming they were blinked in instead of just cast). If you have the city’s blessing with Ocelot Pride on the battlefield, you get an extra copy of all these tokens (so long as you gained life that turn) to get yourself even more draw. The lifelink clause is easy to achieve thanks to Heliod, Sun-Crowned.
Blink Effects
To make the deck function properly, you need cards that blink your creatures. This is how you kickstart a lot of your combos, and is a part of either your value engine or game-enders. Teleportation Circle and Conjurer's Closet provide long-term value, often blinking your cards that draw a card when they enter. The best blink cards are the ones that return them to the battlefield immediately instead of at the end of the turn. Examples of this include Ephemerate, Cloudshift, and Flicker of Fate. In a pinch, you can use these blink spells as pseudo-counterspells, blinking a creature you need that is targeted with removal so the removal fizzles. Parting Gust can be used as a straight-up removal spell if you gift a Fish token to an opponent, or can just be a basic blink spell.
Preston Combos
Combos are how you win the game in most cEDH matches. Preston is no exception. You stall everyone out until you draw into your combos. Luckily, all combos don’t need more than one spell to be cast, so your Stax pieces on the battlefield won’t hurt you.
Felidar Guardian Loops
Felidar Guardian is going to be your best friend. It goes infinite one of two ways, with Preston, the Vanisher and any blink spell like Ephemerate, or with Restoration Angel.
The idea is to blink Felidar Guardian and loop it, either with Restoration Angel or with the token copy of it created from Preston, the Vanisher‘s effect. If you’re looping it with Preston, then you get one free blink for any permanent. The token copy of Felidar Guardian blinks the original permanent, while the original blinks whatever you want. This can be a card like Wall of Omens for infinite card draw, or a mana-producing permanent you can use right away like Arcane Signet for infinite mana. You can even blink lands if you want. This creates an infinite number of Felidar Guardian tokens. With these, you can use Preston, the Vanisher‘s activated ability to exile all nonland permanents. The Preston, the Vanisher version of the loop can be done at instant speed, so you can get it going before your upkeep to win through combat through infinite create tokens and an exiled battlefield for all opponents. Alternatively, you can win the game by sacrificing them to Altar of Dementia or Blasting Station as you make the tokens.
While the Felidar Guardian and Restoration Angel version of the loop without Preston can’t wipe the battlefield or make infinite tokens, you do get infinite enter the battlefield triggers. With these, you can win the game with Altar of the Brood to mill everyone out.
Walking Balista + Heliod
The other game-ending combo available in the deck utilizes Walking Ballista and Heliod, Sun-Crowned. The Walking Heliod combo is very easy to accomplish. All you have to do is give Walking Ballista lifelink and then keep activating its effect to deal damage to any target. Since it has lifelink, this gives you life, which then in turn puts a +1/+1 counter thanks to Heliod, Sun-Crowned‘s triggered ability.
This combo is much easier to put together, and since Heliod, Sun-Crowned has indestructible. So, only Walking Ballista will ever be in danger of removal (most of the time). With how easy it is to dig through your deck, it’s easy to assemble this combo together. It’s also hard to interact with through all the Stax pieces you should have on the battlefield at this point.
Abdel Loops
Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward acts as our backup combo enabler if Preston isn’t around. Its loops only require a creature that blinks a creature when it enters such as Restoration Angel or Felidar Guardian and any blink spell. Simply cast Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward and exile your creature chosen for the combo. Then blink Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward through any means. After that, both Abdel Adrian and your creature enter the battlefield at the same time. Stack the triggers for Abdel happens first, then the creature trigger blinks Abdel again. This creates an infinite number of 1/1 creature tokens. If you have both Restoration Angel and Felidar Guardian on the battlefield, you want to exile both of them with Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward. You can use Felidar Guardian‘s trigger when it returns to blink any mana-producing permanent to make infinite mana. You can also blink a Spirited Companion for infinite card draw from this combo, too.
Flow of the Deck
A Preston deck is not a deck that is winning quickly. And, to be perfectly honest, will likely be an uphill battle. While you can draw a ton of cards in Mono White with Preston, the Vanisher at the helm, it’s hard to compete with the likes of Rhystic Study. However, you can shut down certain decks, counterspells, and strategies thanks to cards like Vexing Bauble and Grafdigger's Cage. There are a lot of Stax pieces in the deck, and while they do technically affect everyone, it won’t affect you very much like it’ll affect your opponents. That’s where the strength of the deck comes in.
You want to get your Stax pieces on the battlefield quickly before your opponents can start setting up. Cards like Deafening Silence and Rule of Law can bring the game to a crawl, which is exactly what you want to do with Preston. Make it as hard to cast spells as possible while you stall until you draw your game-ending combo pieces. The only tutor you have is Enlightened Tutor (which can tutor out for you win conditions), so you’re locked into hoping you draw well to find your key cards.
Despite being in Mono White, you do actually have some degree of counter magic. Mana Tithe is a traditional counterspell that can punish any greedy mana play. As a tempo play, you can utilize Reprieve to bounce a cast spell back to the hand before it resolves. Aven Interrupter can force a spell to be plotted while also taxing any spell being cast from the graveyard, which can really punish Underworld Breach lines. You can even blink it with a spell to exile and plot another card as a reusable counterspell.
Win Conditions
To win the game, you’re often looping blink effects for constant enter the battlefield triggers. This can make an infinite number of tokens, and can win the game when you can attack with them.
To win the game more immediately, you’ll be taking advantage of a handful of artifacts. Altar of the Brood works with all of your looped blinked effects to mill everyone out of the game, regardless of if you’re making infinite tokens or not. For infinite tokens, Altar of Dementia sacrifices all your tokens to mill everyone out of the game. Likewise, you can use Blasting Station during your creation of infinite tokens, using its ability when on a token when it enters, and untapping it once the blink finishes resolving.
Alternatively, if you can’t get your looping blinks going, you can fall back on the ol’ reliable of Walking Ballista and Heliod, Sun-Crowned. This combo is separate from all your blink and Stax effects, but is a useful panic button if anything else gets interrupted (or if you happen to draw this combo first).
If any of your combo pieces get destroyed, you have ways to recur them. Sevinne's Reclamation and Reveillark can bring back cards like Felidar Guardian or a Stax piece like Archon of Emeria. This helps your deck fight back from removal, or bring an annoying Stax piece back to make your opponents struggle to advance their gamestates.
Decklist
Preston, the Vanisher is not a common commander in the cEDH meta (nor is Mono White in general). However, it has the tools to hold its own, and can make plays. Preston decks are all about waiting for your opportunity to strike and making it harder for your opponents to do much.
Commander
Creatures (30)
Instants (18)
Artifacts (17)
Enchantments (7)
Lands (26)
100 Cards
$4907.96
In Conclusion
Playing a Preston deck in cEDH will be an uphill battle against other, more consistent decks with better staples. However, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s a different style of control with win conditions that many will not likely be prepared for. Preston doesn’t play the same as many decks, allowing for a unique, strong deck in the cEDH landscape.
