MTG Salvation

Trostani, Selesnya's Voice was my first deck, and it was awful. It had no card draw, no ramp, and more token buffs than token creators. It barely ever did anything, and when it did it didn't do much. I have revisited my old friend to try and build a deck that isn't completely trash. I have added a decent number of the the things I mentioned above, but need help cutting the deck down to 100 cards. Before I show you the deck I want you to know that my playgroup is okay with banned cards. Without further ado, my decklist:


Tapped Out: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/trostani-tokens-3/?cat=custom&sort=

One way to go would be to remove the lifegain theme from the deck and take out Archangel of Thune, Fracturing Gust, Well of Lost Dreams, Serra Avatar, and True Conviction. As good as those cards can sometimes be, they really need more support to be better than the other stuff you are running.

I would also look at reducing some of your non-creature hate. You don't need to go with Slice in Twain, Krosan Grip, and Mystic Melting if you already have Aura Shards and Reclamation Sage (for which you have tutors to find). Maybe trim Krosan Grip and Mystic Melting.

I also think that Druid's Deliverance isn't good enough to run.

After that, I would just take a hard look at all the high casting cost stuff you have going on and figure out what you can live without. You have about 20 cards of CMC 6+ mana or have X in their cost, and I think you would be better off running additional ramp before having your curve go that high. To give you some perspective, my Rhys the Redeemed token deck runs 15 of those kinds of cards and that deck is super-greedy.

That's my $0.02. I hope that helps. Good luck with the deck!

Archangel of Thune triggers off of any creature entering the battlefield because of Trostani, and she has lifelink herself to produce counters. The fact that she gains life is icing, the buffing of my army is the cake.

In a similar vein of logic, Fracturing Gust is primarily there because of the removal (notably because blowing up all the mana rocks works really well because I don't run any) and the lifegain is extra.

Serra Avatar I can cut. I don't like that it is normally a big beat-stick with no evasion, but I do enjoy doubling my life with Trostani in play. It probably isn't worth it.

True Conviction can be cut. However, I am worried that I will not enough ways to buff all my dudes. Is 5 sources okay? And if not what is a good replacement? Eldrazi Monument?

Well of Lost Dreams seems really good with Trostani. Lifegain happens pretty regularly and this deck has historically hd major issues with drawing cards.

As far as removal goes, I kinda want to try Slice in Twain and Mystic Melting because they replace themselves, but I agree that there is too much artifact and enchantment removal. Reclamation Sage will probably be cut. I might cut one more and I think that Krosan Grip is better than the two I mentioned above, but I really want to keep both of them.

Druid's Deliverance can be cut.

There is amount of ramp in the deck, and my meta is rather slow so I think I will be fine, but if I do need more ramp, what would you suggest I add?

Thank you so much for all the help!

Quote from DiabeticFire »

There is amount of ramp in the deck, and my meta is rather slow so I think I will be fine, but if I do need more ramp, what would you suggest I add?

Your deck has only five 2-drops and three 1-drops, so you need some early turn plays. Sakura-Tribe Elder, Rampant Growth, Farseek, and/or Into the North would all be good ramp options (for Into the North, you obviously need some snow lands, Arctic Flats, and perhaps Mouth of Ronom). Three Visits is also a possibility, but its not a very easy card to find nor is it cheap ($50-ish).

As far as the advice to drop the life-gain theme, I get that you would want to keep it; it has synergy with your general and the cards can all have a big impact. But when you are staring at a deck trying to figure out what to cut to get down to 99 cards, sometimes its easier to just cut a whole set of cards that are slightly off-theme rather than trying to split hairs over cards that are on-theme.

What you really need to look at is the number of 6+ drops and X-spells you are running and find 10 cards there to cut. If you really don't want to cut them, think of them more as "on the bench"; you can then just keep them in a separate pile and rotate them in and out of the deck. It will keep the deck fresh, lets you play all the cards you want to play (albeit not at the same time), and it gives you more time to figure out what cards are better than others.

Okay, so I made a few cuts. First, Hornet Queen. She makes 4 tokens for 5 deathtouch fliers which is pretty good; however, I have a decent number of angel token generators so having flying blockers shouldn't be an issue and 1/1 deathtouch doesn't make the best attacker. At 7 cmc she got the cut.

Asceticism got cut because I don't think it does enough. Hexproof doesn't matter so much in a token strategy because the individual creatures don't matter so much. While looking over the list I counted only 5 creatures that I really want to make sure stick on the battlefield, so at 5 cmc it gets the cut.

Glare of Subdual. I might just not understand how to use this effectively, but all I can see it doing is stopping attacks from opponents, which I don't normally have a problem with anyway. At 4 cmc this gets cut.

Voice of Resurgence Just doesn't seem to be as strong as the cards in the deck. 2 cmc.

Wrath of God is a creature board wipe with no upside. I don't generally have problems with creatures, and board wipes tend to hurt me the most so I son't want one that lacks upside like Phyrexian Rebirth or Hour of Reckoning. 4 cmc.

And finally, Karametra, God of Harvests. I just don't have enough creatures to make her viable. 5 cmc.

P.S. I added a link to tapped out in the first post.

so uh just my 2 cents but i like Collective blessing that hits and with a broad enough board you either win stabilize or give yourself a leg up also cryptolith rite would be ridiculous in this deck