My first deck that's grown and evolved over the years from a Selesnya starter box to one I'll gladly bring out against anyone blind because it has a fighting chance against just about any archetype depending on how well you can pilot. It's still one of my favorite decks to play too. (Note: no sideboard because I exclusively play kitchen table magic. It's SO hard to build a good midrange deck without using a sideboard because you need to be able to beat everything without diluting your deck too much with answers, which means you need as many options as possible in the mainboard.)
Even though the deck's trimmed out most of its populate cards for a more aggressive and reliable approach of efficient tokens, it's still built around swarming an opponent with large tokens and being almost impossible to kill off.
Populate:
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice --- The beloved guild leader. Repeatable populate and repeatable lifegain makes her a monster in both tempo and value-based games. A must-kill with 5 toughness that also draws attention from your "actual" threats. Up until relatively recently, I had no flying tokens so my only option was to kill them before they killed me and the lifegain from Trostani was absolutely vital to win the race. She and Elvish Mystic are the two most difficult cards to cast on curve and my manabase is built with them both in mind. Three copies because of the mana cost, casting difficulties, and being a legendary. Tip: Trostani is the epitome of a value card. However, that means that if you're the beatdown, playing her can be the wrong choice if it means you're giving up another tempo play, like Advent of the Wurm. Sometimes the right choice is to sacrifice value and just run them over while you're ahead.
Wayfaring Temple --- An actual threat. This deck doesn't go incredibly wide, but if you're stuck in a board stall, this card will win you the game. And if it ever triggers a populate effect, the game is basically almost over. The dream curve is T1 Elvish Mystic, T2 Wayfaring Temple, T3 either Advent of the Wurm or normal cast Starnheim Unleashed and get a populate trigger. There's almost no way to come back from a turn 3 10/10 trample over two bodies if you're trying to answer while going second. Temple also synergizes incredibly well with the trample provided through Selesnya Charm or Garruk's Uprising, forcing your opponent to wipe their board trying to deny you or surprising them with a free token from your attack with the Charm.
Sundering Growth --- One of my big pet cards for the deck. Two G/W mana to destroy any artifact or enchantment can just win you the game sometimes with the right target. Throw on a free instant speed 8/8 Vigilance or X/X Token for a surprise blocker and the mana efficiency is absolutely insane. The only downside is running into decks that don't run any artifacts or enchantments, which is why there's only 3 copies. However, even looking over some pioneer mono-red aggro decks, they make use of at least one set of an enchantment creature, so I feel fine with this in my 60.
Tokens:
Voice of Resurgence --- The best token in the deck, even if it slides a tiny bit under the radar at first. If you don't have a specific role you need from a token (like Flying or Vigilance) you're going to get the most stats by building an army of these things. Midrange generally struggles against control but keeping a few of these on the battlefield really shifts things in your favor because it locks them out of counters and they also can't really afford to let it die either. Even as just 2 free damage every turn, they're a great source of pressure.
Grove of the Guardian ---Another pet card and the second best token in the deck. Even though it's "technically" 8 mana if you count the two tapped creatures as a convoke, getting an 8/8 on turn 5 or 6 on average (depending on ramp) is a good deal and populating makes it even more absurd. It's hard to lose if you can throw one of these at your opponent every turn. Being a land is also amazing (even if this deck doesn't use colorless mana well) because it will use pretty much all of its available mana every turn so being able to dump these down to help out is very useful.
Advent of the Wurm --- Populatable 4 mana 5/5 Trample at instant speed? This card is insane. Surprise wurm blockers that counterattack the next turn have won me the game more times than I can count. Rule of thumb: never play this during your main phase unless you absolutely have to. My favorite phrase is "At the end of your turn..."
Starnheim Unleashed --- A relatively new card that was exactly what this deck needed: a midrange flying token. A 4 mana 4/4 Flying Vigilance makes Serra Angel cry a bit inside, even ignoring the foretell effect. I frequently foretell this for 3 or 4 angels and drawing 3 cards from Garruk's Uprising and gaining 12 life from Trostani, Selesnya's Voice is a massive power play. One of these cards will stall flyers long enough for you to overwhelm them with value and a second will make sure you have some board wipe protection. Tip: don't forget you can cast this card normally too. Foretell is great, but it's more important to have a populate target and sometimes you need the tempo.
Selesnya Charm --- This card's a token maker in the same way Trostani, Selesnya's Voice is an attacker. Technically you can use them that way, but there's usually a better option. See below for a better breakdown.
Utility:
Selesnya Charm --- Midrange is all about flexibility and this is flexibility, the card. I have used every one of these nodes to great effect in different situations and I'm never upset to have one of these sitting in my hand. In general, this card synergies the strongest with Wayfaring Temple because it's basically always used to push through free populate triggers. It triggers Temple's populate with +2/+2 and trample, it removes a massive blocker later when you have Garruk's Uprising out already and triggers Temple's populate, or pumps all the Temples at once/gives a token to populate with the 2/2 knight token. In general, the exile effect is the most useful and the Knight is the least, but flexibility is key to winning with a Midrange deck.
Garruk's Uprising --- This card is mediocre on curve, and generally poor tempo, but absolutely insane value. Trample on everything is great, especially with Wayfaring Temple, but the real boost is the card draw. You're going to trigger that 1-3 times every turn because basically every creature in the deck is big enough. Pair that with populate or a foretold Starnheim Unleashed and you can refill your hand every turn. Only three copies because you can only reasonably play two max. The last time I playtested against my Monowhite Multiplayer deck, I had two out at the same time, and while that gave me great card filtering, I lost my ability to use Starnheim Unleashed and would have decked out in the next 3ish turns if I didn't swing with 3 25/25 wayfaring temples and squeeze in a Selesnya Charm to exile a 10/10 blocker. Probably stick with one at a time unless you desperately need to beat down a combo deck or something where they have you on a clock and you need the best plays you can possibly make each turn and value doesn't matter.
Elvish Mystic --- Llanowar Elves but I like the art better. Way back when Pioneer came out and I turned this deck from a Modern one to a Pioneer one, I used to run a playset of Arbor Elf to produce both G and W. Since I had to cut it, I figured I didn't need a ramp creature to replace it. I was very wrong. Ramp wins games. Most cards in this deck are already very efficient for the turn they're played. Getting a turn 3 5/5 Trample is game-breaking. This card beats aggro decks by getting you bigger creatures and a turn 3 Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, beats midrange decks by giving you that tiny bit of extra tempo, and beats control and combo decks by giving you extra value through being able to afford populate every turn and more angels with Starnheim Unleashed. It even counts as a creature for the scaling creatures. Everything the deck does is made better by adding a playset of ramping elves.
Land:
I don't have as much to break down here except my mana ratio is as perfect as I can make it right now. Shoutout to the math master Frank Karsten's article How Many Colored Mana Sources Do You Need to Consistently Cast Your Spells?, where it shows to cast a T1 Elvish Mystic you need about 14 untapped green sources and to cast a T4 Trostani, Selesnya's Voice you need about 17 green and white sources. With Pioneer's limited manabase, this is as perfect as I can make it, with the Grove of the Guardians not actually being counted as a land. There's some hands you'll just need to mulligan away, but that's just a price that needs to be paid.
One brief meta overview of the deck: the deck is basically a pyramid, with the foundation being token makers, the next layer being token copiers, and the next layer being cards that work well once you have both of those online. That's why there's so many token cards, because each higher layer needs the layer below to work at all. It's the same reason I cut cards like Bow of Nylea. As much as I love it, it only really came online once I already had 1) Tokens, 2) Populate effects, and 3) Trample. If you can't get the full chain, it's not worth using. And also it's why I can't find room for things like Anointed Procession; it's really good, but what can afford to come out when everything else is filling multiple roles at once?
