The Void

After a little testing, I decided to remove Tourach, Dread Cantor. This deck just wasn't using that card to its full potential. 

I thought about Kitesail Freebooter but apparently that princess is in another castle. Besides, I only really thought about Freebooter after finding out I didn't own any copies of Opposition Agent. Which is weird, I really thought I had some.

I'm not opposed to getting some but I'm trying to solve a problem in the now. Enter: Oona's Prowler. 

My thinking here is that if my opponents want to throw away cards to avoid taking damage, that's their problem. But a 3 power flier is nothing to sneeze at, and while I'm taxing their other resources they will have to make the choice of either hording what's in their hand in hopes they can play it in time to save themselves, or getting rid of things and hopefully drawing into something.

In the meanwhile, I can keep up the pressure with Timeless Dragons. 

I may still pick up Opposition Agent. There's no point in pretending that Oona's Prowler is a strictly superior card, because most of the time you'd want an Opposition Agent. For now and for this budget, however, I think I like where the deck is at. 

3 Spelltithe Enforcer
3 Windborn Muse
3 Elite Spellbinder
3 Anointed Peacekeeper
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Timeless Dragon
3 Oona's Prowler

4 Phyrexian Arena

4 Pile On

8 Swamp
10 Plains
4 Silent Clearing

4 Duress
3 Damn

Stall Out

So I started with removing these cards:

4 Shrieking Grotesque
3 Disenchant (SB material)
Mind Shatter
3 Silent Specter

Adding in

3 Duress
3 Elite Spellbinder
3 Anointed Peacekeeper
3 Thalia, 
2 Pile On

And this leaves me with two slots to fill that I'm not sure about right now. 

A test with the deck has suggested that the Chancellor of the Annex isn't very helpful. With no other function in the deck but to put a turn one tax on, I feel like something else will be more useful. I'm going to start with two more copies of Pile On, and then see where that takes me.

It was about this time that I noticed I had a different problem: Spelltithe Enforcer and Pillory of the Sleepless create a nonbo. Why not just sac the creature that's causing you to lose life? 

So I needed another removal spell and I think I found it in Damn. 

Let's see what happens. 

Black Silence/White Noise

I don't remember where the title for this deck came from, exactly. It was a song, and Fuz suggested it-a search reveals a Black Silence White Noise album, and a song from Dark Tranquility: White Noise Black Silence. I suppose either is possible!

The notion, at the time, was to create a taxing White deck with Black disruption. The disruption of an early game would allow for late game effects to take over. Effects like Pillory of the Sleepless would whittle down the life total while Windburn Muse would keep my opponent at bay and provide me with an attacker that's difficult to block.

But this is using some old tech, and White's taxation cards have changed. Let's see what I started with.

4 Shrieking Grotesque
4 Spelltithe Enforcer
3 Windborn Muse
3 Silent Specter
2 Noble Templar
2 Twisted Abomination
4 Chancellor of the Annex

4 Phyrexian Arena
4 Pillory of the Sleepless

3 Disenchant

8 Swamp
10 Plains
4 Silent Clearing

1 Mind Shatter
1 Pulling Teeth
3 Persecute

There are some obvious shifts that need to be made here. Mind Shatter is so clearly a filler card, and Disenchant effects really belong in the sideboard. In addition, White has better taxation effects, and while I have a place in my heart for Persecute, that card is really a card for the Commander format. Games generally move too quickly in 60 card matchups for Persecute to do what I hope it does, namely ravage the opponent's hand. 

Then, there's cleaning up that manabase a little: Noble Templar and Twisted Abomination are from a simpler time. So let's get to work.