I have been following Samuel Black's Abzan Token deck since he first played it at Protour Amonkhet. He hasn't released his most recent list that he played at Omaha so i had to make my own. i am enjoying it a lot but i am finding that i am struggling to stabilize and win games. i played at my local last night and all my matches went to time. the deck does an amazing job at staying alive, but i just couldn't seem to get the things i need to get the engine going and push for the win.
Annointer Priest doesn't seem great either, I'd probably go with Doomed Dissenter instead
(no need to pay to get the token and the lifegain isn't crucial imho).
As an additional sac'-out let Yahenni can be a good option (or Ayli which is slower but can gain some life).
Your enchantment count is too high. All those are good cards but if you play that many, you can't actually get started. Move Ulvenwald Mysteries to the sideboard perhaps. Yahenni, Undying Partisan is a good 2-of. Catacomb Sifter is a 4-of. Rite is not necessarily low-impact. You forget the combo of tapping a token for mana and saccing that same token to Hidden Stockpile to scry. Repeat a few times to get another stockpile or another Anointed Procession. That's when you start getting tons of tokens and can win.
Doomed Dissenter is 100% worse than the best creature in the deck, Annointer Priest. Priest is how the deck doesn't lose to aggressive decks, and eventually overwhelms their gameplan. Lifegain is 100% the game plan of this deck. That's why it doesn't need much removal at all because it can just outpace them.
He talks about the deck being largely synergy based and that the removal can be awkward if you try to include too much of it. Cast Out was where he was transitioning because it was removal when he needed or it replaced itself if not. Could start with that idea?
I'm personally going to try out his second list as a jumping off point, but with an Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim as a sac outlet instead of the main deck Cast Out.
Your enchantment count is too high. All those are good cards but if you play that many, you can't actually get started. Move Ulvenwald Mysteries to the sideboard perhaps. Yahenni, Undying Partisan is a good 2-of. Catacomb Sifter is a 4-of. Rite is not necessarily low-impact. You forget the combo of tapping a token for mana and saccing that same token to Hidden Stockpile to scry. Repeat a few times to get another stockpile or another Anointed Procession. That's when you start getting tons of tokens and can win.
Doomed Dissenter is 100% worse than the best creature in the deck, Annointer Priest. Priest is how the deck doesn't lose to aggressive decks, and eventually overwhelms their gameplan. Lifegain is 100% the game plan of this deck. That's why it doesn't need much removal at all because it can just outpace them.
I didn't think about the Rite interaction but it seems a bit too cute imho.
Annoiter (like Pious Evangel) is very good for prolonging the game but doesn't help close it out, that is why I'd swap it for Zulaport Cutthroat that gains life and can finish games with the life-drain. Doomed Dissenter blocks early and when you have Procession it produces multiple 2/2's to start going on the offensive if necessary.
If you manage to clog the board with tokens you should be fine against aggressive decks (unless they have trample/flying).
Removal helps us get there and set up the Stockpile + Procession engine.
Well okay you can try that. But everything you say is the opposite of what Sam Black was saying. Priest is better in Sam's deck because it can come back, and in multiples. It's never necessary to go on the offensive. But you can build something else with a different game plan and make it work.
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Current Awesome Deck: UWAll-In GiftsWU Consistent, Resiliant, and way overpowered, making multiple 4/4s per turn.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWUFree Stuff MidrangeUWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
He talks about the deck being largely synergy based and that the removal can be awkward if you try to include too much of it. Cast Out was where he was transitioning because it was removal when he needed or it replaced itself if not. Could start with that idea?
I'm personally going to try out his second list as a jumping off point, but with an Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim as a sac outlet instead of the main deck Cast Out.
thx for the GP list. i was really wondering about it. i did my best to reconstruct it based on the PT list and what i saw from the GP coverage.
"I thought of Dread Wanderer while trying to find sideboard cards that could help against U/R. My thinking was that I wanted something that wouldn't just get countered, and that's the one matchup where I actually do a lot of attacking with small creatures. If I have Hidden Stockpile, they can't exile my Dread Wanderer with Magma Spray (a card they might sideboard out against me anyway) and this is a persistent threat that provides more of a clock than my other cards. Also, because a lot of my spells are going to get countered, it can be hard to have extra resources to trigger revolt. I can often resolve Hidden Stockpile because it's so cheap, but a lot of the time I'm just sacrificing my one Servo to make another just to scry. In the late-game, I can sacrifice Dread Wanderer and return it to trigger revolt to build a larger battlefield.
I decided that there was enough utility to having a single Dread Wanderer to return in the late-game, which can also let me generate extra clues with Ulvenwald Mysteries that it made sense to play it as my ninth one-drop over Loam Dryad, knowing that it would particularly overperform against U/R.
In practice, I didn't get a lot of experience with it. Loam Dryad was a card I sideboarded out a lot because it's the least-important engine piece and a card that plays a lot worse in sideboarded games in general. I never know how much detail to go into on this topic, since it comes up so often and I feel like I touch on it regularly, but I also think it doesn't really get the attention it deserves; a low-impact card that needs to work with other cards to speed up your own gameplan is the exact card that decreases in value the most in sideboarding, when decks get more interactive and games slow down and each card has to pull more weight. In taking its place, I knew I'd be sideboarding Dread Wanderer out a lot, which is what happened, and I never played the match it was intended for, so I'm really not sure how good it is."
I don't want to post more of the article than that so that it's properly supported and what not. But I highly recommend it if you can manage the premium (I had a month card laying around) - he goes over some of the odd card choices and gives some pointers for how to pilot the deck because it can be counter intuitive (i.e. making sure you hit mana benchmarks to play your enchantments on time more than trying to curve out with creatures).
Has anyone tried using Carrier Thrall as copies 5-8x of Blisterpod ?
I'm going to use it over Doomed Dissenter as having more tokens that sac' themselves for mana seems better than 2/2 tokens and the original creature being a 2/1 rather than 1/1 is also better.
Annoiter (like Pious Evangel) is very good for prolonging the game but doesn't help close it out, that is why I'd swap it for Zulaport Cutthroat that gains life and can finish games with the life-drain. Doomed Dissenter blocks early and when you have Procession it produces multiple 2/2's to start going on the offensive if necessary.
If you manage to clog the board with tokens you should be fine against aggressive decks (unless they have trample/flying).
Removal helps us get there and set up the Stockpile + Procession engine.
(For context, I’m new(ish) to Amonkhet Standard, so please excuse any ignorance I might have about the format. Player of Magic for years, but totally new to this forum though.)
I have been playing Abzan token lists on MTG:O quite a bit for the past couple of days. I’ve tried decks with Zulaport Cutthroat and Annointer Priest.
He also seemed to need the support of a free sack outlet mainboard (Yahenni, Undying Partisan was my choice), or he needed a Cryptolith Rite out (so that each creature taps itself for mana that it uses to sacrifice itself to Hidden Stockpile). Zulaport was a monster on board in the mid-game, when I’m sacking tokens so often to scry, and was an okay deterrent for enemy attacks at the same time.
My Anointer Priest Experience: Annointer Priest acted as a nice blocker when really needed), but Embalm makes it nuts. Late in games, I sacked Annointer Priest to trigger revolt/scry effects, then Embalm'd it back (usually with 1 or more Anointed Procession in play).
Annointer Priest also helped a bit with flyers. Early Heart of Kiran and Aethersphere Harvester meant that either my engines had to outpace their damage with Annointer Priest triggers, or I that my engines just needed to buy me time until I found a removal spell. Glorybringer left me those two options as well, and with the added threat of its Exert ability able to hit two very powerful pieces, Annointer Priest and Catacomb Sifter. In the case of Priest, there is usually the option to Embalm though. Pre-boarding, flyers were still troublesome though. Whirler Virtuoso Thopters were near useless on offense against me, which was quite often. I had a number of games against Temur Energy where my board was threatening enough to discourage a ground attack and where I was triggering Annointer Priest faster than they could get in with Virtuoso thopters.
My only main complaint about Priest is it does stall the game, which can sometimes make timing out a possibility if you're having to stop and weigh your options often.
Quote from from="D90Dennis14 »"
Has anyone tried using [card »
Carrier Thrall[/card] as copies 5-8x of Blisterpod ?
I'm going to use it over Doomed Dissenter as having more tokens that sac' themselves for mana seems better than 2/2 tokens and the original creature being a 2/1 rather than 1/1 is also better.
That latest list looks super interesting. I have almost all of those cards, so I might do some testing with it in the near future. Reminds me of SaffronOlive’s W/B Aristocats deck, which I had a lot of fun and decent success with not long ago.
Definitely has room for improvement, but I like it so far.
Bontu the Glorified and Oketra the True have proved their worth I think. Bontu has pretty consistently been a great threat. He is almost always online, Menace deters greedy attacks at me, he’s a great blocker, and in grindy games, his sack ability does more than Hidden Stockpile. I've boarded him in many times against less established decks in MTG:O matches. Oketra can risk not being online occasionally, but her 1/1 Vigilance tokens can be a great dumping ground for spare mana, and Double Strike makes her a great blocker when online. Also doesn't get hit by Negate, which I anticipate in game 2 and 3, considering how low impact my creature spells appear and the 'must answer' nature of our spells.
I feel like Abzan Tokens should be running Winding Constrictor. It makes Nissa, VoZ INSANE!!
Most lists don't even run Nissa because GG is really awkward in a 3-color deck and without NissaWinding Constrictor is completely useless.
Even with Nissait isn't worth running in this deck as it is a card that needs building around (much more counters-synergies) to be any good.
All the last stand cards cost (number of lands you control) + (mana cost of the card). So on turn 5 when you have 4 lands and a procession, you can get 2 5/4s for the price of 4GG paid over two turns. Which is merely okay, not great.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Awesome Deck: UWAll-In GiftsWU Consistent, Resiliant, and way overpowered, making multiple 4/4s per turn.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWUFree Stuff MidrangeUWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
3 Blisterpod
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Annointer Priest
3 Zulaport Cutthroat
Spells(4):
2 Grasp of Darkness
1 Declaration in Stone
1 Anguished Unmaking
Planeswalkers(2):
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Enchantments(14):
3 Cryptolith Rite
4 Hidden Stockpile
4 Ulvenwald Mysteries
4 Anointed Procession
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Concealed Courtyard
1 Fortified Village
2 Shambling Vent
2 Scattered Groves
2 Westvale Abbey
4 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Grasp of Darkness
2 Declaration in Stone
3 Anguished Unmaking
3 Dusk // Dawn
3 Lost Legacy
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Have you ever considered playing abzan token with some other card?
I mean something like
Throne of the God-Pharaoh + Aethersphere Harvester
for tapping all your token for a big smash with throne
OR
a lot of token with discard + embalm
ie : Call the Bloodline + Honored Hydra or Angel of Sanctions woow 2 6/6 trample for 4ccm
or Noose Constrictor
please also consider those following card for improve or make a new deal with abzan token by giving 2 for 1 or 3 for 1
never // return
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet+ removal =>> +2 zombies - 1 threath
Catacombs sifter=>> 2 eldrazi token + scry + ramp
Nissa, voice of zendikar =>> 2 token every turn, and potential kill with +1/+1 token
Tireless tracker=>> card advantage with clue
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar=>> 2 free tokens 2/2 every turn woow!
Thraben Inspector =>> card advantage with clue
Sacred cat=>>for tempo LL against aggro
Liliana, Death's Majesty =>> 2 token zombies, and bring back creature
and of course Anointed Procession
Annointer Priest doesn't seem great either, I'd probably go with Doomed Dissenter instead
(no need to pay to get the token and the lifegain isn't crucial imho).
As an additional sac'-out let Yahenni can be a good option (or Ayli which is slower but can gain some life).
Catacomb Sifter and Sram's Expertise would be good additions to the deck.
Also Fatal Push for removal would be a good too
(mostly better/more efficient than Grasp/Declaration which can be the secondary options).
Also 25x lands seems too much, one land can probably be cut for another removal spell like Fatal Push.
I'd probably go with something like this:
4x Blisterpod
3x Thraben Inspector
4x Doomed Dissenter
4x Zulaport Cutthroat
4x Catacomb Sifter
1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
Spells (8)
4x Fatal Push
4x Sram's Expertise
Enchantments (8)
4x Hidden Stockpile
4x Anointed Procession
4x Blooming Marsh
4x Concealed Courtyard
4x Evolving Wilds
1x Forest
1x Hissing Quagmire
2x Plains
2x Scattered Groves
2x Shambling Vent
2x Swamp
2x Westvale Abbey
2x Declaration in Stone
1x Grasp of Darkness
2x Dusk // Dawn
2x Anguished Unmaking
1x Cast Out
4x Lay Bare the Heart
3x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Doomed Dissenter is 100% worse than the best creature in the deck, Annointer Priest. Priest is how the deck doesn't lose to aggressive decks, and eventually overwhelms their gameplan. Lifegain is 100% the game plan of this deck. That's why it doesn't need much removal at all because it can just outpace them.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
This was his list at the GP:
4 Blisterpod
4 Catacomb Sifter
1 Dread Wanderer
4 Thraben Inspector
1 Bontu the Glorified
1 Oketra the True
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Forest
3 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Fortified Village
2 Scattered Groves
2 Westvale Abbey
3 Cryptolith Rite
4 Hidden Stockpile
3 Ulvenwald Mysteries
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Dread Wanderer
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Gideon's Intervention
2 Anguished Unmaking
4 Fatal Push
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Dusk
this is his deck post changes (but not including today's Marvel ban):
4 Blisterpod
4 Catacomb Sifter
1 Dread Wanderer
4 Thraben Inspector
1 Oketra the True
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Forest
3 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Fortified Village
2 Scattered Groves
2 Westvale Abbey
1 Cast Out
3 Cryptolith Rite
4 Hidden Stockpile
3 Ulvenwald Mysteries
1 Anguished Unmaking
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Cast Out
2 Gideon's Intervention
4 Fatal Push
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Dusk
He talks about the deck being largely synergy based and that the removal can be awkward if you try to include too much of it. Cast Out was where he was transitioning because it was removal when he needed or it replaced itself if not. Could start with that idea?
I'm personally going to try out his second list as a jumping off point, but with an Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim as a sac outlet instead of the main deck Cast Out.
I didn't think about the Rite interaction but it seems a bit too cute imho.
Annoiter (like Pious Evangel) is very good for prolonging the game but doesn't help close it out, that is why I'd swap it for Zulaport Cutthroat that gains life and can finish games with the life-drain.
Doomed Dissenter blocks early and when you have Procession it produces multiple 2/2's to start going on the offensive if necessary.
If you manage to clog the board with tokens you should be fine against aggressive decks (unless they have trample/flying).
Removal helps us get there and set up the Stockpile + Procession engine.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
thx for the GP list. i was really wondering about it. i did my best to reconstruct it based on the PT list and what i saw from the GP coverage.
Did he mention what the one of Dread Wanderer is for? i am assuming its for shenanigans with Ulvenwald Mysteries.
"I thought of Dread Wanderer while trying to find sideboard cards that could help against U/R. My thinking was that I wanted something that wouldn't just get countered, and that's the one matchup where I actually do a lot of attacking with small creatures. If I have Hidden Stockpile, they can't exile my Dread Wanderer with Magma Spray (a card they might sideboard out against me anyway) and this is a persistent threat that provides more of a clock than my other cards. Also, because a lot of my spells are going to get countered, it can be hard to have extra resources to trigger revolt. I can often resolve Hidden Stockpile because it's so cheap, but a lot of the time I'm just sacrificing my one Servo to make another just to scry. In the late-game, I can sacrifice Dread Wanderer and return it to trigger revolt to build a larger battlefield.
I decided that there was enough utility to having a single Dread Wanderer to return in the late-game, which can also let me generate extra clues with Ulvenwald Mysteries that it made sense to play it as my ninth one-drop over Loam Dryad, knowing that it would particularly overperform against U/R.
In practice, I didn't get a lot of experience with it. Loam Dryad was a card I sideboarded out a lot because it's the least-important engine piece and a card that plays a lot worse in sideboarded games in general. I never know how much detail to go into on this topic, since it comes up so often and I feel like I touch on it regularly, but I also think it doesn't really get the attention it deserves; a low-impact card that needs to work with other cards to speed up your own gameplan is the exact card that decreases in value the most in sideboarding, when decks get more interactive and games slow down and each card has to pull more weight. In taking its place, I knew I'd be sideboarding Dread Wanderer out a lot, which is what happened, and I never played the match it was intended for, so I'm really not sure how good it is."
I don't want to post more of the article than that so that it's properly supported and what not. But I highly recommend it if you can manage the premium (I had a month card laying around) - he goes over some of the odd card choices and gives some pointers for how to pilot the deck because it can be counter intuitive (i.e. making sure you hit mana benchmarks to play your enchantments on time more than trying to curve out with creatures).
Has anyone tried using Carrier Thrall as copies 5-8x of Blisterpod ?
I'm going to use it over Doomed Dissenter as having more tokens that sac' themselves for mana seems better than 2/2 tokens and the original creature being a 2/1 rather than 1/1 is also better.
4x Blisterpod
3x Thraben Inspector
4x Carrier Thrall
4x Zulaport Cutthroat
4x Catacomb Sifter
1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
Spells (8)
4x Fatal Push
4x Sram's Expertise
Enchantments (8)
4x Hidden Stockpile
4x Anointed Procession
4x Blooming Marsh
4x Concealed Courtyard
4x Evolving Wilds
1x Forest
1x Hissing Quagmire
2x Plains
2x Canopy Vista
2x Shambling Vent
2x Swamp
2x Westvale Abbey
2x Declaration in Stone
1x Grasp of Darkness
2x Dusk // Dawn
3x Cast Out
4x Lay Bare the Heart
3x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
(For context, I’m new(ish) to Amonkhet Standard, so please excuse any ignorance I might have about the format. Player of Magic for years, but totally new to this forum though.)
I have been playing Abzan token lists on MTG:O quite a bit for the past couple of days. I’ve tried decks with Zulaport Cutthroat and Annointer Priest.
My Zulaport experiences:
Zulaport cutthroat had great potential as a closer for me, but his 1 toughness and blatantly strong ability made him a massive target for counter spells, Harnessed Lightning, Fatal Push, and Unlicensed Disintegration, which can all also hit Annointer Priest, but Liliana, the Last Hope, Magma Spray, and any Walking Ballistaon 1 or over wrecked Cutthroat.
He also seemed to need the support of a free sack outlet mainboard (Yahenni, Undying Partisan was my choice), or he needed a Cryptolith Rite out (so that each creature taps itself for mana that it uses to sacrifice itself to Hidden Stockpile). Zulaport was a monster on board in the mid-game, when I’m sacking tokens so often to scry, and was an okay deterrent for enemy attacks at the same time.
My Anointer Priest Experience:
Annointer Priest acted as a nice blocker when really needed), but Embalm makes it nuts. Late in games, I sacked Annointer Priest to trigger revolt/scry effects, then Embalm'd it back (usually with 1 or more Anointed Procession in play).
Annointer Priest also helped a bit with flyers. Early Heart of Kiran and Aethersphere Harvester meant that either my engines had to outpace their damage with Annointer Priest triggers, or I that my engines just needed to buy me time until I found a removal spell. Glorybringer left me those two options as well, and with the added threat of its Exert ability able to hit two very powerful pieces, Annointer Priest and Catacomb Sifter. In the case of Priest, there is usually the option to Embalm though. Pre-boarding, flyers were still troublesome though. Whirler Virtuoso Thopters were near useless on offense against me, which was quite often. I had a number of games against Temur Energy where my board was threatening enough to discourage a ground attack and where I was triggering Annointer Priest faster than they could get in with Virtuoso thopters.
My only main complaint about Priest is it does stall the game, which can sometimes make timing out a possibility if you're having to stop and weigh your options often.
That latest list looks super interesting. I have almost all of those cards, so I might do some testing with it in the near future. Reminds me of SaffronOlive’s W/B Aristocats deck, which I had a lot of fun and decent success with not long ago.
I don’t know how interesting this will be to you particularly, but this B/W tokens list 5-0’d a competitive league on the 15th. It runs 3 Annointer Priest and other than Westvale Abbey and 4 Hidden Stockpile, Vampiric Rites is the only other main-board sac outlet. I think it leans on life gain a bit and closes with planeswalkers and Ormendahl, Profane Prince??
And by the way, the pilot of that 5-0 B/W deck posted his updated Abzan list on Reddit recently, which is an Ulvenwald Mysteries + Annointer Priest build.
Lastly, for anyone still kind enough to read this far, here is my current list:
1 Oketra the True
2 Angel of Sanctions
4 Anointer Priest
4 Blisterpod
4 Catacomb Sifter
4 Thraben Inspector
Lands
1 Shambling Vent
1 Forest
3 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Fortified Village
2 Scattered Groves
2 Westvale Abbey
4 Anointed Procession
3 Cryptolith Rite
4 Hidden Stockpile
3 Ulvenwald Mysteries
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Fumigate
1 Dread Wanderer
4 Fatal Push
2 Anguished Unmaking
3 Dusk/Dawn
1 Declaration in Stone
3 Cast Out
1 Bontu the Glorified
Definitely has room for improvement, but I like it so far.
Bontu the Glorified and Oketra the True have proved their worth I think. Bontu has pretty consistently been a great threat. He is almost always online, Menace deters greedy attacks at me, he’s a great blocker, and in grindy games, his sack ability does more than Hidden Stockpile. I've boarded him in many times against less established decks in MTG:O matches. Oketra can risk not being online occasionally, but her 1/1 Vigilance tokens can be a great dumping ground for spare mana, and Double Strike makes her a great blocker when online. Also doesn't get hit by Negate, which I anticipate in game 2 and 3, considering how low impact my creature spells appear and the 'must answer' nature of our spells.
Most lists don't even run Nissa because GG is really awkward in a 3-color deck and without Nissa Winding Constrictor is completely useless.
Even with Nissa it isn't worth running in this deck as it is a card that needs building around (much more counters-synergies) to be any good.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG