If you were playing tokens in legacy (not a good idea) you would be splashing blue. You think the combo match-up in Modern is bad? Try playing Legacy where combo decks are three times better and was only previously held in check by Miracles. You need the blue color for Force of Will but you get a lot of cantrips and card filtering that this deck can greatly benefit from.
Actually tokens as a strategy is not bad in Legacy because your opponent has very little ways to deal with it outside Engineered Explosives and Toxic Deluge. You can also stop Delver of Secrets which is basically one of the best creatures in Legacy.
Runed Halo is actually worth main decking in Legacy to stop things like Griselbrand and True-Name Nemesis. Maybe Council of Judgment is better overall though.
I would argue Raise the Alarm is better than Bitterblossom in Legacy. Not only is it instant speed so you can have better synergy with Brainstorm but also, Bitterblossom is just a bit too slow. Just casting a single Lingering Souls and Spectral Procession is all you need because spot removals are not as prevalent in Legcy.
Stoneforge mystic and Deathrite Shaman are definitely things to consider. But note that Abrupt Decay just isn't great after the Top ban so you shouldn't be that heavily invested in green at all. Stoneforge mystic synergizes well with tokens because tokens carry equipment super well. But that's 7 slots you have to dedicate so it's not an automatic card slot.
Thanks for the input. I know next to nothing on the legacy meta. Blue did seem like the color to go if I was to splash a third color.
This may not be the right thread for this question, but I was looking into possible upgrade for this very deck to make it legacy.
Coming from the guy whose signature still has a complaint about Mishra's Bauble costing $40, this is just TOO FUNNY!
Crack-House and Wasteland are bargains compared to their pre-reprint prices, but four Scrubland, three Savannah, and two Bayou will set you back several hundred dollars - probably close to $1,000 if you get nice copies.
You don't need four or even three of any dual-land; two is plenty, but you are still looking to invest $500-$600 easily just on lands.
Yours truly thought it would be a good idea to upgrade to Legacy Jund, after all, I had the expensive stuff, right? Wrong! $600+ just for lands and I still haven't played a damn game of Legacy! It's a good thing I didn't spring for that $300+ side-board card, Chains of Mephistopheles.
Yeah, I probably should explain that very ironic demand. You see, my local store want to start legacy tournament, but to help players cope with the insane costs of legacy, he lets people have twelve proxies in their deck. So I just figured that would be a good time to give the format a try. Most money cards I would proxy for sure. Otherwise I wouldn't even consider. Some prices are just insane. I mean the scrublands are 90$ each and they're the cheapest dual land... and if I where to splash blue, the costs become horrible. not to mention lots of cards goes over the 200$... Yeah if I were to really go into legacy... probably not gonna happen. It's insane how much a single piece of paper can be worth
Yeah, I probably should explain that very ironic demand. You see, my local store want to start legacy tournament, but to help players cope with the insane costs of legacy, he lets people have twelve proxies in their deck. So I just figured that would be a good time to give the format a try. Most money cards I would proxy for sure. Otherwise I wouldn't even consider. Some prices are just insane. I mean the scrublands are 90$ each and they're the cheapest dual land... and if I where to splash blue, the costs become horrible. not to mention lots of cards goes over the 200$... Yeah if I were to really go into legacy... probably not gonna happen. It's insane how much a single piece of paper can be worth
EDIT: Just some grammatical fixes
As someone who also plays in a weekly proxy Legacy event, have you checked out Delver? My main reason for raising it is, as others have said, Tokens is not a deck in Legacy, while Grixis Delver is Tier 1 and U/R is quite good too. If you have 12 proxies available you can go:
U/R: 4 FoW, 4 Volcanic Island, 4 Scalding Tarn
Grixis: 4 FoW, 3 Volcanic Island, 2 Underground Sea, 1 Tropical Island, 2 Wasteland
Everything else for Izzet outside of Khans Fetches, which you should already have, is less than $5. Grixis is the same except for the last two ~$20 Wastelands and a TNN if you want it. If you're trying to play competitive proxy Legacy I strongly urge you to go Delver.
Anyways, I was wondering about people's opinions on how best to speed up the deck's clock. I run a 3/2 Bitterblossom/RtA split and am thinking more and more that I should max out RtA because there are so many matchups in my meta (Tron, Ad Nauseum, Taking Turns, Elves, Eldrazi, Valakut, hell I even played against a Starfield of Nyx prison deck) where I'm racing as fast as possible to kill my opponent before they inevitably take over the game. Is there anything else I can do to put down more pressure early, or is Tokens doomed to be a slow deck no matter what?
While Legacy is fun, this is not the place to discuss it. If you would like to talk about Legacy, you can do so here. For the sake of this thread being in the Modern subforum, let's keep discussion on Modern.
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"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln
Anyways, I was wondering about people's opinions on how best to speed up the deck's clock. I run a 3/2 Bitterblossom/RtA split and am thinking more and more that I should max out RtA because there are so many matchups in my meta (Tron, Ad Nauseum, Taking Turns, Elves, Eldrazi, Valakut, hell I even played against a Starfield of Nyx prison deck) where I'm racing as fast as possible to kill my opponent before they inevitably take over the game. Is there anything else I can do to put down more pressure early, or is Tokens doomed to be a slow deck no matter what?
I'm also curious about this. I've recently gone to a more control build with no more RtA, extra hand disruption, 1 Liliana of the Veil, and 3 BB and I'm not sure if it's gonna be better in the long run or not. I have yet to test it at my local FNM yet though because stuff keeps popping up. Fast combo decks, or just most fast decks in general seem to be our weakness. Is it worth having more speed in the deck, if not just for these kind of matchups? I really do like the more control style, but is it weaker in the current meta?
While Legacy is fun, this is not the place to discuss it. If you would like to talk about Legacy, you can do so here. For the sake of this thread being in the Modern subforum, let's keep discussion on Modern.
Yeah, sorry. My bad. Won't happen again, thanks for the directions. Keeping it modern.
With that being said, I want to praise Stony Silence a bit. I've seen it been bashed and, to be honest, I agree with most argument thrown against it. For example, we don't need help against affinity. We run enough spot removal already to make this match-up pretty favorable, and it doesn't make us win against tron, even if it does slow them down a little. Also, it does nothing to Ensnaring Bridge. That's a big downside I agree with the most.
However, it actually works very good against lantern control and slows down Ad Nauseum quite a bit. Lantern Basically only have Ensnaring Bridge and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas once Silence resolve. As for Ad Nauseum, preventing them from using Lotus bloom and Pentad Prism is huge. They still have their Simian spirit guide, but that still set them back to turn 4 at worst, instead of them winning on turn 3 at instant speed. It's also very good against Engineered explosives (and to a lesser extend Ratchet bomb) which both are sided against us. It also stops Oblivion stone, which Tron runs often in multiple, and sometime as its only board wipe.
And while we don't need help beating Affinity, a little extra insurance doesn't hurt
All I'm saying is I tried a month with no Stony silence in my sideboard and I kind of missed them. Perhaps it's because of my relatively small meta, but I think Stony silence is worth considering.
P.S.: I don't know how many of you run into Tireless tracker during you modern games, but I'm presonally starting to see him being played more and more. He's usually getting spot-removed on sight, but just wanna point out that the clue tokens he produce have activated abilities that Stony silence can jam. You know? for those extremely rare case where you have a silence and no removal in hand? dunno, it happened to me and I just thougth it was a funny thing to realize.
Anyways, I was wondering about people's opinions on how best to speed up the deck's clock. I run a 3/2 Bitterblossom/RtA split and am thinking more and more that I should max out RtA because there are so many matchups in my meta (Tron, Ad Nauseum, Taking Turns, Elves, Eldrazi, Valakut, hell I even played against a Starfield of Nyx prison deck) where I'm racing as fast as possible to kill my opponent before they inevitably take over the game. Is there anything else I can do to put down more pressure early, or is Tokens doomed to be a slow deck no matter what?
I'm also curious about this. I've recently gone to a more control build with no more RtA, extra hand disruption, 1 Liliana of the Veil, and 3 BB and I'm not sure if it's gonna be better in the long run or not. I have yet to test it at my local FNM yet though because stuff keeps popping up. Fast combo decks, or just most fast decks in general seem to be our weakness. Is it worth having more speed in the deck, if not just for these kind of matchups? I really do like the more control style, but is it weaker in the current meta?
The more I play the deck, to more I agree that we either go quick with Raise the Alarm, or go for a slow painful kill with Bitterblossom. I'm a big fan of pulling big value out of my token generator, so I tend to prefer the slower build, but both can pull results. It all depends on the meta, which I don't think I'm the best to say anything on.
I recently went from 6 to 8 discard effect, running four copy of both Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, and I'm in love with this change so far. Also, Lili as no right to be as good as she is. So I think I'm going for a slower build and am just gonna try siding against faster decks or hope my spot-removal do the job.
In a more aggressive build, I'd give extra copies of Zealous Persecution or Honor of the pure a fair try. Both speed-up the clock by quite a bit, and elves gets wrecked by Zealous. Eldrazi also don't like that you can trade only two tokens for their creatures in combat, and Pithing needle is pretty great against both eldrazi and Ad nauseum. I'm sill searching for a really good way to deal with Valakut/Tiant-shift type deck, up to now I think Runed Halo naming the valakut land and Leyline of sanctity are our best bets.
Also... Starfield of nyx prison? How does that work?
Last night I run into a pretty bad FNM. 1-3 and lost to Tron, Burn (again), and Merfolk.
These losses made me realize that maybe my 2/2 BB/RtA split is probably not bthe best thing for my meta. I going to be trying a 3/1 favouring RtA. There are not many control or grindy decks. Anything else I should consider BB for? It feels kind of bad reducing them to 1, should I just cut them all?
I happen to be a big fan of this card! Runed halo as been and still is my favorite sideboard card. To the point where I was and still am considering running one main. Here you go:
PROS:
-Non targeting removal, meaning you can deal with hexproof/Protection creature. Notable exemples are: Every single creature bogle runs, Reality smasher, Stormbreath Dragon.
-Punish your opponent for playing multiple copies. Your opponent has two Tarmogoyf? Two-for-one baby!
-It's not limited to creatures! You can prevent some key cards form going off on you. Notable exemple: Valakut, the molten Pinnacle, Shaman of the Pack, Lightning Storm and the ones you've already mentioned. Naming mountain against Skred red is also pretty funny. It also stops Mindslaver. I could go on, but I won't. But I could!
CONS:
-Abrupt decay exist and so does enchantment hate - and that's gonna be sided against us because of Bitterblossom and Intangible virtue. This is probably the only thing Blessed alliance has on Runed Halo.
-You can't name a token, because a token is not a card.
-it's 2 white mana, which is a little restrictive and slow, especially compared to our other options/removal. It's not a problem 98% of the time, but it may miss an on curve play sometimes.
I side-in Halo mostly when I'm against aggro and need some extra removal, but it's also pretty damn useful when you opponent has a lot of player-targeting shenanigans. Storm, Grixis, Stompy, Aggro Burn, Skred red, Death shadow, Eldrazi (Very good there), and most things aggro. 100% auto-include against Boggle, Titan-shift and Infect.
Primer says it's good when going into an unknown meta, I can tell you it work as well in a known meta
Also... Starfield of nyx prison? How does that work?
Lots of Ghostly Prisons/Sphere of Safety, some random Amonkhet blue enchantment that counters the first spell your opponent plays + Eidolon of Rhetoric for a soft lock, the enchantment Dryad for card draw, Starfield of Nyx to bring everything back and create pressure, and Sigil of the Empty throne to make a bunch of angel tokens to win with. Super slow and terrible against at least 50% of the field, but of course it's a perfect matchup against a deck that wants to cast Turn 2 Bitterblossom and swing with tons of small creatures. I played it in the last round of Swiss at a small GPT after getting dumpstered on all afternoon, so I was probably the guy's only win. I conceded after losing a ~45 minute game one where I used Sorin's -6 twice...
Interesting. Dusk//Dawn does seem like a great upgrade from Wrath of God. But I'm really skeptical that Anointed Procession is anything other than a waste of 4 mana, especially at 3 copies.
so i finally had spare budgets after winning some money from standard, and can finally afford those runed halos and surgicals. are there some things to change? expect my meta to be junds abzans, affinity, burn, some cocos variants, blue based controls, eldrazi, some combo, spirits, so it's fairly open.
control decks*
+2 surgical +2 duress +2 collective brutality
eldrazi*
coco*
spirits coco*
can you guys help me find the correct in-and-out for matchups with *? and also those that isn't marked as well if possible.
what cards do you guys think is slow vs combo? thanks for the help as always, love this deck and still gonna be using this deck for i dont know how long hahaha.
I really want to focus the deck in disrupt and race. That seems to be the way to obtain better results. Before, I tried to give the deck a bit more of a reactive aspect with cards like anguished unmaking. The way the deck run yesterday was excellent (list in the signature).
I personally dont like running duresses in the SB. It feels too similar to thoughtseize to be there. I am quite against having SB cards whose roles are already present in the main. Just opinion here. In my deck, I run the 2 duresses along with the thoughtseizes and IoK main. There is always something to disrupt.
You want to run 3 stony silences I think. They need to hit board turn 2.
Disenchant feels better than sundering growth most of the times. Specially against blood moon. the extra token is attractive, but it wont usually win us the match.
About the matchups, eldrazi needs runed halos and likely stony silences. Also needles. Coco some gy hate and more disruption.
I really want to focus the deck in disrupt and race. That seems to be the way to obtain better results. Before, I tried to give the deck a bit more of a reactive aspect with cards like anguished unmaking. The way the deck run yesterday was excellent (list in the signature).
Why the two duress? Also I think brutality is just not good enough to maindeck, as it is only good against burn/zoo strategies. I think specteral procession is too good not to slam 4 of into the deck. Fast clock, great draw late.
I really want to focus the deck in disrupt and race. That seems to be the way to obtain better results. Before, I tried to give the deck a bit more of a reactive aspect with cards like anguished unmaking. The way the deck run yesterday was excellent (list in the signature).
Why the two duress? Also I think brutality is just not good enough to maindeck, as it is only good against burn/zoo strategies. I think specteral procession is too good not to slam 4 of into the deck. Fast clock, great draw late.
i suspect op's meta is around burn strategies, slower control decks like tron.
I personally dont like running duresses in the SB. It feels too similar to thoughtseize to be there. I am quite against having SB cards whose roles are already present in the main. Just opinion here. In my deck, I run the 2 duresses along with the thoughtseizes and IoK main. There is always something to disrupt.
You want to run 3 stony silences I think. They need to hit board turn 2.
Disenchant feels better than sundering growth most of the times. Specially against blood moon. the extra token is attractive, but it wont usually win us the match.
About the matchups, eldrazi needs runed halos and likely stony silences. Also needles. Coco some gy hate and more disruption.
i dont really like those extra disruptions on main because i have spots for other things. duress i like it on side when i need extra disruptions like combos and such. tried 3 stony before, dont like it that much as eldrazi on my meta is close to none. what i expect is the bant version of eldrazi. but extra knowledge wont hurt. my problem is on siding out some of the cards on some matchups, siding in is one of the easy problems to solve, siding out is another world by itself.
I 100% agree with you. Siding out was (an is) hard to nail for me. What I do now is to try to keep all(most) of my token generators. You can go up in removal, disruption or something else, but our tokens are our wincon, so in case of doubt keep them in.
Also, it is clear that the sb depends heavily on the meta. However, if you know you want stony silence in your sb, I repeat that the right number is 3, IMO. It is not a matter of how often will you use them, but more about how soon should they hit the ground. But, again, I see your point and 2 i perfectly legit (I was running 2 couple weeks ago myself). Otherwise, maybe you could remove them and add more pithing needles or damping matrix (also great against bant eldrazi) or plain removal like disenchant.
I really want to focus the deck in disrupt and race. That seems to be the way to obtain better results. Before, I tried to give the deck a bit more of a reactive aspect with cards like anguished unmaking. The way the deck run yesterday was excellent (list in the signature).
Why the two duress? Also I think brutality is just not good enough to maindeck, as it is only good against burn/zoo strategies. I think specteral procession is too good not to slam 4 of into the deck. Fast clock, great draw late.
i suspect op's meta is around burn strategies, slower control decks like tron.
The two duress give me more disruption in the early game (where our deck struggles a bit) and are great in my meta, where many combo, tron, and some burn deck are the main characters. Even against something like goblins could mean 5 more lifes by getting rid of a goblin grenade. Always useful.
Brutality is great maindeck. It is relevant in every matchup. I know is not the most optimised card but combined with a vaule discard (lingering souls or a thoughtseize against burn) is just too good. I almost only board it out against eldrazi decks.
about spectral procession, I agree the card is great. But I am running three colorless sources and I feel that 3 is the correct number to run. Also, I included timely reinforcements main because this way I still have 4 cards that could potentially generate 3 creatures turn three to activate my windbrisk heights.
Last night I run into a pretty bad FNM. 1-3 and lost to Tron, Burn (again), and Merfolk.
These losses made me realize that maybe my 2/2 BB/RtA split is probably not bthe best thing for my meta. I going to be trying a 3/1 favouring RtA. There are not many control or grindy decks. Anything else I should consider BB for? It feels kind of bad reducing them to 1, should I just cut them all?
I'm actually running 3/1 split. I still run the Aurioks, even with only one bitterblossom, because the lifegain (with much less life loss) is useful, and it chump blocks Grixis decks all day. I definately think RtA is the faster producer, and it's nice to have instant speed blockers. But don't cut BB entirely - if we can get it to resolve, it's the best way to swing a grindier control matchup. Especially if Intangible is on the field. I currently think 3/1 is the best split. I've been debating dropping an Auriok for a second Blossom and running 3/2, but in the current meta, I doubt that's a good idea.
Last night I run into a pretty bad FNM. 1-3 and lost to Tron, Burn (again), and Merfolk.
These losses made me realize that maybe my 2/2 BB/RtA split is probably not bthe best thing for my meta. I going to be trying a 3/1 favouring RtA. There are not many control or grindy decks. Anything else I should consider BB for? It feels kind of bad reducing them to 1, should I just cut them all?
I'm actually running 3/1 split. I still run the Aurioks, even with only one bitterblossom, because the lifegain (with much less life loss) is useful, and it chump blocks Grixis decks all day. I definately think RtA is the faster producer, and it's nice to have instant speed blockers. But don't cut BB entirely - if we can get it to resolve, it's the best way to swing a grindier control matchup. Especially if Intangible is on the field. I currently think 3/1 is the best split. I've been debating dropping an Auriok for a second Blossom and running 3/2, but in the current meta, I doubt that's a good idea.
What I have found to work is a 3/2 split. I dont run the champions, though.
Yeah, I probably should explain that very ironic demand. You see, my local store want to start legacy tournament, but to help players cope with the insane costs of legacy, he lets people have twelve proxies in their deck. So I just figured that would be a good time to give the format a try. Most money cards I would proxy for sure. Otherwise I wouldn't even consider. Some prices are just insane. I mean the scrublands are 90$ each and they're the cheapest dual land... and if I where to splash blue, the costs become horrible. not to mention lots of cards goes over the 200$... Yeah if I were to really go into legacy... probably not gonna happen. It's insane how much a single piece of paper can be worth
EDIT: Just some grammatical fixes
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
As someone who also plays in a weekly proxy Legacy event, have you checked out Delver? My main reason for raising it is, as others have said, Tokens is not a deck in Legacy, while Grixis Delver is Tier 1 and U/R is quite good too. If you have 12 proxies available you can go:
U/R: 4 FoW, 4 Volcanic Island, 4 Scalding Tarn
Grixis: 4 FoW, 3 Volcanic Island, 2 Underground Sea, 1 Tropical Island, 2 Wasteland
Everything else for Izzet outside of Khans Fetches, which you should already have, is less than $5. Grixis is the same except for the last two ~$20 Wastelands and a TNN if you want it. If you're trying to play competitive proxy Legacy I strongly urge you to go Delver.
Anyways, I was wondering about people's opinions on how best to speed up the deck's clock. I run a 3/2 Bitterblossom/RtA split and am thinking more and more that I should max out RtA because there are so many matchups in my meta (Tron, Ad Nauseum, Taking Turns, Elves, Eldrazi, Valakut, hell I even played against a Starfield of Nyx prison deck) where I'm racing as fast as possible to kill my opponent before they inevitably take over the game. Is there anything else I can do to put down more pressure early, or is Tokens doomed to be a slow deck no matter what?
I'm also curious about this. I've recently gone to a more control build with no more RtA, extra hand disruption, 1 Liliana of the Veil, and 3 BB and I'm not sure if it's gonna be better in the long run or not. I have yet to test it at my local FNM yet though because stuff keeps popping up. Fast combo decks, or just most fast decks in general seem to be our weakness. Is it worth having more speed in the deck, if not just for these kind of matchups? I really do like the more control style, but is it weaker in the current meta?
With that being said, I want to praise Stony Silence a bit. I've seen it been bashed and, to be honest, I agree with most argument thrown against it. For example, we don't need help against affinity. We run enough spot removal already to make this match-up pretty favorable, and it doesn't make us win against tron, even if it does slow them down a little. Also, it does nothing to Ensnaring Bridge. That's a big downside I agree with the most.
However, it actually works very good against lantern control and slows down Ad Nauseum quite a bit. Lantern Basically only have Ensnaring Bridge and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas once Silence resolve. As for Ad Nauseum, preventing them from using Lotus bloom and Pentad Prism is huge. They still have their Simian spirit guide, but that still set them back to turn 4 at worst, instead of them winning on turn 3 at instant speed. It's also very good against Engineered explosives (and to a lesser extend Ratchet bomb) which both are sided against us. It also stops Oblivion stone, which Tron runs often in multiple, and sometime as its only board wipe.
And while we don't need help beating Affinity, a little extra insurance doesn't hurt
All I'm saying is I tried a month with no Stony silence in my sideboard and I kind of missed them. Perhaps it's because of my relatively small meta, but I think Stony silence is worth considering.
P.S.: I don't know how many of you run into Tireless tracker during you modern games, but I'm presonally starting to see him being played more and more. He's usually getting spot-removed on sight, but just wanna point out that the clue tokens he produce have activated abilities that Stony silence can jam. You know? for those extremely rare case where you have a silence and no removal in hand? dunno, it happened to me and I just thougth it was a funny thing to realize.
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
I recently went from 6 to 8 discard effect, running four copy of both Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, and I'm in love with this change so far. Also, Lili as no right to be as good as she is. So I think I'm going for a slower build and am just gonna try siding against faster decks or hope my spot-removal do the job.
In a more aggressive build, I'd give extra copies of Zealous Persecution or Honor of the pure a fair try. Both speed-up the clock by quite a bit, and elves gets wrecked by Zealous. Eldrazi also don't like that you can trade only two tokens for their creatures in combat, and Pithing needle is pretty great against both eldrazi and Ad nauseum. I'm sill searching for a really good way to deal with Valakut/Tiant-shift type deck, up to now I think Runed Halo naming the valakut land and Leyline of sanctity are our best bets.
Also... Starfield of nyx prison? How does that work?
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
These losses made me realize that maybe my 2/2 BB/RtA split is probably not bthe best thing for my meta. I going to be trying a 3/1 favouring RtA. There are not many control or grindy decks. Anything else I should consider BB for? It feels kind of bad reducing them to 1, should I just cut them all?
BW BW Tokens
RG Dredgeplendid Reclamation
RW Boros Burn
GB Elves
RB Dark Goblins
WU Azorius' Relic
PROS:
-Non targeting removal, meaning you can deal with hexproof/Protection creature. Notable exemples are: Every single creature bogle runs, Reality smasher, Stormbreath Dragon.
-Punish your opponent for playing multiple copies. Your opponent has two Tarmogoyf? Two-for-one baby!
-It's not limited to creatures! You can prevent some key cards form going off on you. Notable exemple: Valakut, the molten Pinnacle, Shaman of the Pack, Lightning Storm and the ones you've already mentioned. Naming mountain against Skred red is also pretty funny. It also stops Mindslaver. I could go on, but I won't. But I could!
CONS:
-Abrupt decay exist and so does enchantment hate - and that's gonna be sided against us because of Bitterblossom and Intangible virtue. This is probably the only thing Blessed alliance has on Runed Halo.
-You can't name a token, because a token is not a card.
-it's 2 white mana, which is a little restrictive and slow, especially compared to our other options/removal. It's not a problem 98% of the time, but it may miss an on curve play sometimes.
I side-in Halo mostly when I'm against aggro and need some extra removal, but it's also pretty damn useful when you opponent has a lot of player-targeting shenanigans. Storm, Grixis, Stompy, Aggro Burn, Skred red, Death shadow, Eldrazi (Very good there), and most things aggro. 100% auto-include against Boggle, Titan-shift and Infect.
Primer says it's good when going into an unknown meta, I can tell you it work as well in a known meta
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
Lots of Ghostly Prisons/Sphere of Safety, some random Amonkhet blue enchantment that counters the first spell your opponent plays + Eidolon of Rhetoric for a soft lock, the enchantment Dryad for card draw, Starfield of Nyx to bring everything back and create pressure, and Sigil of the Empty throne to make a bunch of angel tokens to win with. Super slow and terrible against at least 50% of the field, but of course it's a perfect matchup against a deck that wants to cast Turn 2 Bitterblossom and swing with tons of small creatures. I played it in the last round of Swiss at a small GPT after getting dumpstered on all afternoon, so I was probably the guy's only win. I conceded after losing a ~45 minute game one where I used Sorin's -6 twice...
Interesting. Dusk//Dawn does seem like a great upgrade from Wrath of God. But I'm really skeptical that Anointed Procession is anything other than a waste of 4 mana, especially at 3 copies.
4 spectral procession
4 lingering souls
3 bitterblossom
1 raise the alarm
creature
2 auriok champion
planeswalker
1 gideon, ally of zendikar
3 sorin, solemn visitor
disruptions
4 inquisition of kozilek
3 thoughtseize
removals
4 path to exile
3 fatal push
4 intangible virtue
1 zealous persecution
lands
4 marsh flats
2 windswept heath
2 arid mesa
1 fetid heath
2 shambling vent
1 vault of the archangel
3 godless shrine
4 concealed courtyard
1 swamp
3 plains
2 surgical extraction
2 runed halo
2 duress
2 rest in peace
2 stony silence
2 collective brutality
1 pithing needle
1 timely reinforcement
1 sundering growth
so i finally had spare budgets after winning some money from standard, and can finally afford those runed halos and surgicals. are there some things to change? expect my meta to be junds abzans, affinity, burn, some cocos variants, blue based controls, eldrazi, some combo, spirits, so it's fairly open.
sides for matchups
burn
-2 thoughtseize -3 bitterblossom
+2 duress +2 brutalities +1 timely reinforcement
BGx Midrange
-2 thoughtseize -1 iok
+2 rip +1 pithing needle
combo (adnauseam)
-2 PTE -3 fatal push -2 auriok -1 gideon -1 spectral -1 sorin
+2 surgical +2 runed halo +2 duress +2 collective +2 stony silence
affinity
-3 thoughtseize -1 gideon -1 sorin -1 auriok
+2 stony +2 runed halo +1 pithing +1 sundering
control decks*
+2 surgical +2 duress +2 collective brutality
eldrazi*
coco*
spirits coco*
can you guys help me find the correct in-and-out for matchups with *? and also those that isn't marked as well if possible.
what cards do you guys think is slow vs combo? thanks for the help as always, love this deck and still gonna be using this deck for i dont know how long hahaha.
Stony silence was absurd against eldrazi tron, as I am running 3 SB now. It has to hit the board T2.
Also, I made changes in the main, and now the 5 flex slots that I use are:
2 Duress
1 collective brutality
1 timely reinforcements
1 extra Raise the alarm
I really want to focus the deck in disrupt and race. That seems to be the way to obtain better results. Before, I tried to give the deck a bit more of a reactive aspect with cards like anguished unmaking. The way the deck run yesterday was excellent (list in the signature).
BW BW Tokens
RG Dredgeplendid Reclamation
RW Boros Burn
GB Elves
RB Dark Goblins
WU Azorius' Relic
You want to run 3 stony silences I think. They need to hit board turn 2.
Disenchant feels better than sundering growth most of the times. Specially against blood moon. the extra token is attractive, but it wont usually win us the match.
About the matchups, eldrazi needs runed halos and likely stony silences. Also needles. Coco some gy hate and more disruption.
BW BW Tokens
RG Dredgeplendid Reclamation
RW Boros Burn
GB Elves
RB Dark Goblins
WU Azorius' Relic
Why the two duress? Also I think brutality is just not good enough to maindeck, as it is only good against burn/zoo strategies. I think specteral procession is too good not to slam 4 of into the deck. Fast clock, great draw late.
i suspect op's meta is around burn strategies, slower control decks like tron.
Also, it is clear that the sb depends heavily on the meta. However, if you know you want stony silence in your sb, I repeat that the right number is 3, IMO. It is not a matter of how often will you use them, but more about how soon should they hit the ground. But, again, I see your point and 2 i perfectly legit (I was running 2 couple weeks ago myself). Otherwise, maybe you could remove them and add more pithing needles or damping matrix (also great against bant eldrazi) or plain removal like disenchant.
BW BW Tokens
RG Dredgeplendid Reclamation
RW Boros Burn
GB Elves
RB Dark Goblins
WU Azorius' Relic
The two duress give me more disruption in the early game (where our deck struggles a bit) and are great in my meta, where many combo, tron, and some burn deck are the main characters. Even against something like goblins could mean 5 more lifes by getting rid of a goblin grenade. Always useful.
Brutality is great maindeck. It is relevant in every matchup. I know is not the most optimised card but combined with a vaule discard (lingering souls or a thoughtseize against burn) is just too good. I almost only board it out against eldrazi decks.
about spectral procession, I agree the card is great. But I am running three colorless sources and I feel that 3 is the correct number to run. Also, I included timely reinforcements main because this way I still have 4 cards that could potentially generate 3 creatures turn three to activate my windbrisk heights.
BW BW Tokens
RG Dredgeplendid Reclamation
RW Boros Burn
GB Elves
RB Dark Goblins
WU Azorius' Relic
BWTokensBW
RWBurnRW
UFaeriesU
What I have found to work is a 3/2 split. I dont run the champions, though.
BW BW Tokens
RG Dredgeplendid Reclamation
RW Boros Burn
GB Elves
RB Dark Goblins
WU Azorius' Relic