Sprecrown Thallid is the obvious 2 drop for the deck that runs pretty slow. It buffs your things and turns your mild annoyance of spores into a threat.
Yavimaya Sapherd and Deathbloom thallid are the prime token makers. Two bodies for one card is the essence of token decks. Both are buffed by Sporecrown. Deathbloom has the added effect of being okay to sacrifice if needed and still have value while Yavmaya comes in with value.
Slimefoot, the Stowaway is really the first win condition of the deck. He does work and I've pinged people to death if he is not taken care of quickly. The lifegain is also significant especially against the aggro decks. He is also a mana sink later in the game to keep giving you tokens. But his legendary status means he only gets to have 3.
Thallid Soothsayer and Thallid omnivore each take a 2 of in the 4 drop slot. Neither are really impressive and I've thought of cutting one to make a 4 of of the other. But both work well when you are ahead and are not very good if you are behind. Some of the weaker cards in the deck and if we had a better 4 drop I'd probably play it. They both do manage to be useful. Omnivore is a good beat stick and sac outlet. It gobbles up blockers or makes a great blocker itself. The synergistic lifegain means sometimes you gain a ton of life which is alright. Soothsayer however has a more expensive sac outlet and helps us dig through the deck for our win conditions. Both are buffed by Sporecrown to be respectably large creatures in their own right. Neither die outright to fatal push unless revolt is active.
Tendershoot Dryad does work. Not counting kick cost it tops our curve at 5. As a 2/2 that isn't buffed by sporecrown it doesn't do much except exist. Gives us a saproling every turn and with ascend on board makes our saprolings minimum 3/3. If not answered it can end the game by itself. Verdant Force is a bad card but if you are doing a penny deck it has a bigger body and make tokens. But really without the ascend effect I just wouldn't even bother.
Fungal Plots might be the most important card in the deck. I had started with it as a 2 of since there is no benefit to having more than 1 on board but I would rather a dead card in hand than not draw it. Seriously its that important to the deck. I've even put thought into making it a 4 of but the deck simply doesn't have the room for it. It makes tokens with creatures in the graveyard and with as many sac outlets we have it is usually plentiful. And speaking of sac outlets its the best in the deck. NO MANA instant speed activation that lets us draw cards? Yes please. I'll shut up now but basically it does everything our deck needs and more.
Saproling Migration is one of the best token making spells in standard right now. 2 bodies for 2 mana is already great but now late game it can come down for a huge 4 for 6. With any other synergies on board this is huge. I've seen players hold onto it and try to cast it for 6 mana but my advice is to only fall back on the kicked version late game. The only real weakness is sorcery speed. Easy 4 of.
Spore Swarm isn't as versatile as migration but its instant speed makes it awesome. 3 bodies for 4 mana instant speed lets us do some crazy things. Flash in some blockers and sac them with fungal plots and draw cards. If we have a slimefoot on board then ping the opponent and gain life as well.
Fungal Infection is an alright card. I had 4 of in the original deck but its just too weak. It can take out some threats but misses most. It can be a combat trick but even then its kind of bad. Making a token and giving a temporary de-buff means its only a 2 of and usually the first to side out.
Vicious Offering is the primary removal in the deck. Push is in the sideboard and the only reason this is the main removal is because it provides us with a sac outlet and hits glory-bringer and everything push does. Seems win-win to me.
And thats the deck. Sideboard should be self explanatory. Its not a competitive run but can and will run over competitive decks if it gains traction. I'm still unhappy with the 4 drop slot the the 2/2 split between the sub-par thallids. I'm also considering dropping Fungal infection from the deck completely and mainboarding the 2 push.
Dishonorable Mention Award goes to Metallic Mimic. I've seen a few lists try to push this. My personal advice is ...just don't. Its clunky at best and useless at its worst. Its a lord for the lordless and we have a perfectly good 2 mana lord that buffs both our fungus and saporling tokens. When you play mimic you must choose either saporling or fungus. Saproling is an easy first choice but now your synergies suffer because your actual creatures are more susceptible to removal and it makes sacrificing our tokens for profit less appealing. If you choose fungus then you miss the main point of this being a token deck. I can't think of anything I would take out of the deck to put mimic in. Infestation is the weakest card and push has first dibs on that mainboard slot miles ahead of mimic.
I wasn't really a fan of the metallic mimics for a multitude of reasons. They aren't cheap first of all, and they are rotating out fairly soon. Vicious offering is great removal with the board states we are usually in. I have a couple Vraska's Contempts in my main board to get rid of walkers and top creature threats.
Not sure what Meta you have at your LGS or group of friends, but I luckily don't have more than 25% matchups with monored aggro. I was thinking I need to tweak my sideboard more for that and I think more Fungal plots and throwing in some Thallid Omnivores will give me more life regen and slightly more durable bodies to help me get stabilized and established. Path of discovery works to really put the pressure on too after the initial ugliness. Having Lords pushed up out of cheap removal range is great.
I really like having four of tendershoot dryads. I only had two for a couple weeks while I trying to get a play set. It just felt really bad losing one to a removal spell. With four it seems like I can punch through most peoples removal packages and steal a W. I especially like playing white when they try to seal away it, only to be brought out later either through Broken Bond<--- better naturalize or released out through Vraska Relic Seeker ability. Which brings me into another card I like. Vraska is a strong body for adding harassment and taking focus off the lords.
Other fun cards I like having in the deck is Journey to Eternity. If you can stick it on a Tendershoot it feels amazing, but you could even put it on anything else and get some decent value out of it. I would say 8 times out of 10 it pays off so its a winner in my book. Having a creature Blinked is the only time I usually have a sad face. The flip side has bailed me out hard in later games. Arguel's Blood Fast is another handy card especially when your racing a blue/white control/approach deck. I guess if you have the life gain engine going you can use it pretty aggressively too, but I need to tweak my deck more because that's usually not the case. I through in a Memorial to Folly and Unity just as extra bailouts and things to do when you end up with too much mana and nothing to do with it.
I've been a fairly big fan song of freyalise up until recent, against red it is a waste of time with bodies not having any staying power. I'm most certain that I'll go down to just two mainboard and side it out against aggro that gets me up to three fungal plots. I'll need to find a spot for the fourth. One of my fungal infections will probably be cut. Fungal plot sac feature stacks doesn't it? So if you had a couple on the board you'd gain 4 life and 2 cards per sac?
I may need to revisit deathbloom thallid. I cut them out of my build because I needed more versatility and more presence quickly when it was that or yavimaya on the chopping block.
I pulled a Viven Reid out of a core19 pack in prerelease so I'm throwing that into the deck. It seems like a solid card all around and I can't wait until the first game I get her emblem out.
I'm really hoping for a Thallid reprint this fall. A nice spore generating creature at the one drop that boosts with Sporecrown turn two would be a nice draw. Then maybe one rare or mythic creature at turn 3-4 to boost survival against chainwhirler or some kind of enchantment or artifact. I don't personally have any heroic interventions and that card is about to phase out so we need some kind of boost there.
This is the modified deck. Most of changes are actually due to lack of card availability at the time I assembled the deck and I've been kind of slow to change it.
Metallic Mimic only ever seems to be good if I have two or more in play. When it's just one, it dies far too readily to anything. I find the ETB requirement on creatures causes me to want to hold back on casting creatures to benefit from the +1/+1. I haven't taken them out this week because I'm not going to FNM tonight.
Skysovereign, Consul Flagship is on the chopping block. A 5 CMC is too expensive for ONE creature even with the special abilities. I'd generally would rather flood the field by paying kicker costs and use fog-like or removal spells to stave off my opponents flyers. With enough tokens, many of my opponents usually don't want to attack unless they know they can get me to zero life on the turn.
Deathbloom Thallid was great during pre-release. I never thought to consider it for this deck due to the 3 CMC cost. It won't survive Shock but it can survive Goblin Chainwhirler so I'll take a second look.
Divest can probably be better served with Lost Legacy, I forgot Legacy existed.
Duress does a really great job teasing out counterspells, burn and Sagas but I don't know if I want to keep it mainboarded. Saga removal is better served by Naturalize and my meta doesn't have too many counterspells or direct burn decks.
I don't know about Hashep Oasis anymore. Early on, I usually pay the life for Unbridled Growth to get the color fixing needed. Saved my bacon more than once. Mid to late game, I sacrifice Unbridled for a card but rarely trigger Oasis' +3/+3 due to it being sorcery speed.
Unbridled Growth combined with Llanowar Elves means I rarely feel like I have too few lands. I won't remove any lands but I do wonder if I should add 1 or 2 more. I need to do the math on that before I decide. By that same token, I really don't remember why I left out Blooming Marsh. Do I not have any in my collection? Did the LGS not have any in stock? I have no idea. I'll have to revisit it again now that I'm looking at both lists here.
I always forget that Heroic Intervention is basically a fog and forget to sideboard it in for Goblin Chainwhirler. I might move it to mainboard and just deal with it as a dead card sometimes. Honestly, I feel it would rarely ever be a dead card.
I don't get to trigger both Memorials but on the rare times I do, they're great. One lets me get a dead creature back and the other let's me dig deeper into my deck for an answer. I don't feel I should play more than 1 each though. I admit that Journey to Ertinity might be the better card, I just don't have one.
Last night was a terrible matchup for this deck. I think I just had bad luck on my hands. I removed Metallic Mimic and swapped it for Hungering Hydra and Soverign, Consul Flagship for Plummet. I forgot to adjust my mana base to compensate for the extra green cards but it proved irrelevant since I never drew these new cards in my first three matches.
I had an instinct that there were going to be decks trying to go wide or tall and I needed my deck to be flexible to deal with both. Turns out I was somewhat right. A number of players had tailored decks to specifically beat token generating decks like knights. Strangely I didn't see anyone play Chainwhirler. It was a small group due to GP being in town this weekend so I went 1-2 and placed 8th.
First match was against a W Angel deck. Flyers and Seal Away were the primary focus on a deck specifically tailored to bash down token decks. Awesome. What is there to say? Even after sideboarding, I couldn't draw my answers and my opponent had three 5/5, 4/5, and 4/3 angels with some combination of hexproof and lifelink. I only had one Vicious Offering as an answer. That was 0-2.
Second match was against a WG deck featuring Jadelight Ranger, Shanna, Sisay's Legacy, Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma and Hunt the Weak. The deck dumps about three or four cheap creatures, drops in Shanna, then proceeds to beat face. Jadelight helped to ensure he wouldn't miss any land drops. We went toe to toe to 14 life then he pulled ahead with Shanna. Round 2, I swapped in Duress, Divest and Vicious Offering but only pulled one Offering before he pulled out Shana and beat my face with her. 0-2
Third matchup was a hollow win. Opponent was special needs playing a knight/soldier deck he put together earlier that day. Round one he missed too many land drops. Multiple Vicious Offerings cleared a path for my Saproling hoard. Never found Hydra, Duress, Divest but drew all my Freyalise' WTH? Round 2 saw us mulligan down to five and we both had land troubles. We stalled at 4 lands, he's down to 3 life. Freyalise was ready to pop so I cast Spore crown Thalid. His turn, he misses his land drop and cycles two Djeru's Renunciations!!! I thought I was doing some blunders tonight but this was HUGE!! It's only FNM so I gently remind him of the blunder but he was super flustered and frustrated and refuses to take it back. With no other creatures to target, at the end of his turn I cast Fungal Infection on my Thalid. Freyalise pops and I get my two 3/3's. I swing for 6 and I was correct, he had Seal Away. A victory but a very hollow one. 2-0.
A snafu caused FNM to end after three rounds.
I played a fourth round against a pure G deck that was there. Another anti-Token deck :angry: We went toe to toe and I decided to aggressively stack my Freyalises to get the triggers sooner. Cast Hydra to 7/7 tapping all my resources except for two Saprolings that didn't have the dork ability. First Freyalise will pop next turn and I'm down to 8 life. She has two Steel Leaf Champions and a mana dork. She buffs one with Oakenform and attacks with both Champions. I block with Hydra thinking I can go to 3 then punch back with my hoarde once Freyalise pops. She smiles then plays Titanic Growth on the unblocked Champion. My biggest blunder of the night. Round 2. I never see Hydra again but won round 2 and 3 by creature counts and casting buffs alone. The deck finally executed flawlessly despite never seeing Duress or Divest the entire night!
I think Freyalise might stay. It seems to play better if I aggressively cast them and stack the Sagas even if I never utilize the dork capability fully.
I'm not sure yet if I should return the Flagship or return Plumet. I never saw Plumet the entire night!
I'm not quite show how to manage against decks optimized for token removal.
I think last FNM will be the last FNM I play this deck unless RtRtR has something spicey to add to the pool. I tweaked the deck again to bump up card draw, anti-flyer tech and mana production. I got agonizingly close in every match. In one game, I had the opponent down to 1 life but couldn't get past his creatures. A Sovereign's Bite would have won me the game. In a different game, I was color screwed and still managed to whittle my opponent down to <5 life on green alone. If I had pulled just one Swamp.
In a surprise twist, I even managed to survive Goblin Chainwhirler and pounded the opponent anyways while still losing to a Guttersnipe.
I'm not bored but I'm rather tired of being so darn close but rarely winning with this deck. Every one of my opponents said the same thing last FNM, "they were terrified," or, "or that was the closest match I had so far."
So I'm done with this for now. Maybe RtRtR might have something that'll make this reasonably viable. Maybe not.
Deck seems a load of fun and on good draws give some competitive decks a run for their money.
4 Sporecrown Thallid
4 Yavimaya Sapherd
4 Deathbloom Thallid
3 Slimefoot, the stowaway
2 Thallid Soothsayer
2 Thallid Omnivore
2 Tendershoot Dryad
Enchantment 3
3 Fungal Plots
4 Saproling Migration
4 Spore Swarm
2 Fungal Infection
4 Vicious Offering
Land 22
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Woodland Cemetery
6 Swamp
8 Forest
4 Naturalize
2 Golden Demise
3 Fatal Push
3 Pierce the sky
2 Shapers' sanctuary
1 Lost legacy
The Creatures.
Sprecrown Thallid is the obvious 2 drop for the deck that runs pretty slow. It buffs your things and turns your mild annoyance of spores into a threat.
Yavimaya Sapherd and Deathbloom thallid are the prime token makers. Two bodies for one card is the essence of token decks. Both are buffed by Sporecrown. Deathbloom has the added effect of being okay to sacrifice if needed and still have value while Yavmaya comes in with value.
Slimefoot, the Stowaway is really the first win condition of the deck. He does work and I've pinged people to death if he is not taken care of quickly. The lifegain is also significant especially against the aggro decks. He is also a mana sink later in the game to keep giving you tokens. But his legendary status means he only gets to have 3.
Thallid Soothsayer and Thallid omnivore each take a 2 of in the 4 drop slot. Neither are really impressive and I've thought of cutting one to make a 4 of of the other. But both work well when you are ahead and are not very good if you are behind. Some of the weaker cards in the deck and if we had a better 4 drop I'd probably play it. They both do manage to be useful. Omnivore is a good beat stick and sac outlet. It gobbles up blockers or makes a great blocker itself. The synergistic lifegain means sometimes you gain a ton of life which is alright. Soothsayer however has a more expensive sac outlet and helps us dig through the deck for our win conditions. Both are buffed by Sporecrown to be respectably large creatures in their own right. Neither die outright to fatal push unless revolt is active.
Tendershoot Dryad does work. Not counting kick cost it tops our curve at 5. As a 2/2 that isn't buffed by sporecrown it doesn't do much except exist. Gives us a saproling every turn and with ascend on board makes our saprolings minimum 3/3. If not answered it can end the game by itself. Verdant Force is a bad card but if you are doing a penny deck it has a bigger body and make tokens. But really without the ascend effect I just wouldn't even bother.
Fungal Plots might be the most important card in the deck. I had started with it as a 2 of since there is no benefit to having more than 1 on board but I would rather a dead card in hand than not draw it. Seriously its that important to the deck. I've even put thought into making it a 4 of but the deck simply doesn't have the room for it. It makes tokens with creatures in the graveyard and with as many sac outlets we have it is usually plentiful. And speaking of sac outlets its the best in the deck. NO MANA instant speed activation that lets us draw cards? Yes please. I'll shut up now but basically it does everything our deck needs and more.
Saproling Migration is one of the best token making spells in standard right now. 2 bodies for 2 mana is already great but now late game it can come down for a huge 4 for 6. With any other synergies on board this is huge. I've seen players hold onto it and try to cast it for 6 mana but my advice is to only fall back on the kicked version late game. The only real weakness is sorcery speed. Easy 4 of.
Spore Swarm isn't as versatile as migration but its instant speed makes it awesome. 3 bodies for 4 mana instant speed lets us do some crazy things. Flash in some blockers and sac them with fungal plots and draw cards. If we have a slimefoot on board then ping the opponent and gain life as well.
Fungal Infection is an alright card. I had 4 of in the original deck but its just too weak. It can take out some threats but misses most. It can be a combat trick but even then its kind of bad. Making a token and giving a temporary de-buff means its only a 2 of and usually the first to side out.
Vicious Offering is the primary removal in the deck. Push is in the sideboard and the only reason this is the main removal is because it provides us with a sac outlet and hits glory-bringer and everything push does. Seems win-win to me.
And thats the deck. Sideboard should be self explanatory. Its not a competitive run but can and will run over competitive decks if it gains traction. I'm still unhappy with the 4 drop slot the the 2/2 split between the sub-par thallids. I'm also considering dropping Fungal infection from the deck completely and mainboarding the 2 push.
Dishonorable Mention Award goes to Metallic Mimic. I've seen a few lists try to push this. My personal advice is ...just don't. Its clunky at best and useless at its worst. Its a lord for the lordless and we have a perfectly good 2 mana lord that buffs both our fungus and saporling tokens. When you play mimic you must choose either saporling or fungus. Saproling is an easy first choice but now your synergies suffer because your actual creatures are more susceptible to removal and it makes sacrificing our tokens for profit less appealing. If you choose fungus then you miss the main point of this being a token deck. I can't think of anything I would take out of the deck to put mimic in. Infestation is the weakest card and push has first dibs on that mainboard slot miles ahead of mimic.
Not sure what Meta you have at your LGS or group of friends, but I luckily don't have more than 25% matchups with monored aggro. I was thinking I need to tweak my sideboard more for that and I think more Fungal plots and throwing in some Thallid Omnivores will give me more life regen and slightly more durable bodies to help me get stabilized and established. Path of discovery works to really put the pressure on too after the initial ugliness. Having Lords pushed up out of cheap removal range is great.
I really like having four of tendershoot dryads. I only had two for a couple weeks while I trying to get a play set. It just felt really bad losing one to a removal spell. With four it seems like I can punch through most peoples removal packages and steal a W. I especially like playing white when they try to seal away it, only to be brought out later either through Broken Bond<--- better naturalize or released out through Vraska Relic Seeker ability. Which brings me into another card I like. Vraska is a strong body for adding harassment and taking focus off the lords.
Other fun cards I like having in the deck is Journey to Eternity. If you can stick it on a Tendershoot it feels amazing, but you could even put it on anything else and get some decent value out of it. I would say 8 times out of 10 it pays off so its a winner in my book. Having a creature Blinked is the only time I usually have a sad face. The flip side has bailed me out hard in later games. Arguel's Blood Fast is another handy card especially when your racing a blue/white control/approach deck. I guess if you have the life gain engine going you can use it pretty aggressively too, but I need to tweak my deck more because that's usually not the case. I through in a Memorial to Folly and Unity just as extra bailouts and things to do when you end up with too much mana and nothing to do with it.
I've been a fairly big fan song of freyalise up until recent, against red it is a waste of time with bodies not having any staying power. I'm most certain that I'll go down to just two mainboard and side it out against aggro that gets me up to three fungal plots. I'll need to find a spot for the fourth. One of my fungal infections will probably be cut. Fungal plot sac feature stacks doesn't it? So if you had a couple on the board you'd gain 4 life and 2 cards per sac?
I may need to revisit deathbloom thallid. I cut them out of my build because I needed more versatility and more presence quickly when it was that or yavimaya on the chopping block.
I pulled a Viven Reid out of a core19 pack in prerelease so I'm throwing that into the deck. It seems like a solid card all around and I can't wait until the first game I get her emblem out.
I'm really hoping for a Thallid reprint this fall. A nice spore generating creature at the one drop that boosts with Sporecrown turn two would be a nice draw. Then maybe one rare or mythic creature at turn 3-4 to boost survival against chainwhirler or some kind of enchantment or artifact. I don't personally have any heroic interventions and that card is about to phase out so we need some kind of boost there.
I play a variant of the Metallic Mimic variant. The original deck list is as follows:
4 Metallic Mimic
3 Slimefoot, the Stowaway
4 Sporecrown Thallid
3 Tendershoot Dryad
2 Thallid Omnivore
4 Yavimaya Sapherd
Spell 16
2 Fungal Infection
4 Saproling Migration
3 Song of Freyalise
4 Spore Swarm
3 Vicious Offering
4 Blooming Marsh
5 Forest
4 Hashep Oasis
1 Memorial to Folly
6 Swamp
4 Woodland Cemetery
3 Duress
2 Fungal Infection
2 Fungal Plots
2 Heroic Intervention
3 Naturalize
2 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
1 Vicious Offering
This is the modified deck. Most of changes are actually due to lack of card availability at the time I assembled the deck and I've been kind of slow to change it.
4 Sporecrown Thallid
2 Tendershoot Dryad
2 Llanowar Elves
4 Yavimaya Sapherd
3 Slimefoot, the Stowaway
1 Thallid Omnivore
4 Metallic Mimic
Spells 21
4 Saproling Migration
3 Song of Freyalise
3 Spore Swarm
2 Unbridled Growth
2 Divest
2 Duress
2 Fungal Infection
3 Vicious Offering
5 Forest
3 Hashep Oasis
1 Memorial to Folly
1 Memorial to Unity
6 Swamp
3 Woodland Cemetery
2 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
4 Fungal Plots
2 Heroic Intervention
3 Naturalize
1 Duress
2 Fungal Infection
1 Vicious Offering
Metallic Mimic only ever seems to be good if I have two or more in play. When it's just one, it dies far too readily to anything. I find the ETB requirement on creatures causes me to want to hold back on casting creatures to benefit from the +1/+1. I haven't taken them out this week because I'm not going to FNM tonight.
Skysovereign, Consul Flagship is on the chopping block. A 5 CMC is too expensive for ONE creature even with the special abilities. I'd generally would rather flood the field by paying kicker costs and use fog-like or removal spells to stave off my opponents flyers. With enough tokens, many of my opponents usually don't want to attack unless they know they can get me to zero life on the turn.
Deathbloom Thallid was great during pre-release. I never thought to consider it for this deck due to the 3 CMC cost. It won't survive Shock but it can survive Goblin Chainwhirler so I'll take a second look.
Divest can probably be better served with Lost Legacy, I forgot Legacy existed.
Duress does a really great job teasing out counterspells, burn and Sagas but I don't know if I want to keep it mainboarded. Saga removal is better served by Naturalize and my meta doesn't have too many counterspells or direct burn decks.
I don't know about Hashep Oasis anymore. Early on, I usually pay the life for Unbridled Growth to get the color fixing needed. Saved my bacon more than once. Mid to late game, I sacrifice Unbridled for a card but rarely trigger Oasis' +3/+3 due to it being sorcery speed.
Unbridled Growth combined with Llanowar Elves means I rarely feel like I have too few lands. I won't remove any lands but I do wonder if I should add 1 or 2 more. I need to do the math on that before I decide. By that same token, I really don't remember why I left out Blooming Marsh. Do I not have any in my collection? Did the LGS not have any in stock? I have no idea. I'll have to revisit it again now that I'm looking at both lists here.
I always forget that Heroic Intervention is basically a fog and forget to sideboard it in for Goblin Chainwhirler. I might move it to mainboard and just deal with it as a dead card sometimes. Honestly, I feel it would rarely ever be a dead card.
I don't get to trigger both Memorials but on the rare times I do, they're great. One lets me get a dead creature back and the other let's me dig deeper into my deck for an answer. I don't feel I should play more than 1 each though. I admit that Journey to Ertinity might be the better card, I just don't have one.
I had an instinct that there were going to be decks trying to go wide or tall and I needed my deck to be flexible to deal with both. Turns out I was somewhat right. A number of players had tailored decks to specifically beat token generating decks like knights. Strangely I didn't see anyone play Chainwhirler. It was a small group due to GP being in town this weekend so I went 1-2 and placed 8th.
First match was against a W Angel deck. Flyers and Seal Away were the primary focus on a deck specifically tailored to bash down token decks. Awesome. What is there to say? Even after sideboarding, I couldn't draw my answers and my opponent had three 5/5, 4/5, and 4/3 angels with some combination of hexproof and lifelink. I only had one Vicious Offering as an answer. That was 0-2.
Second match was against a WG deck featuring Jadelight Ranger, Shanna, Sisay's Legacy, Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma and Hunt the Weak. The deck dumps about three or four cheap creatures, drops in Shanna, then proceeds to beat face. Jadelight helped to ensure he wouldn't miss any land drops. We went toe to toe to 14 life then he pulled ahead with Shanna. Round 2, I swapped in Duress, Divest and Vicious Offering but only pulled one Offering before he pulled out Shana and beat my face with her. 0-2
Third matchup was a hollow win. Opponent was special needs playing a knight/soldier deck he put together earlier that day. Round one he missed too many land drops. Multiple Vicious Offerings cleared a path for my Saproling hoard. Never found Hydra, Duress, Divest but drew all my Freyalise' WTH? Round 2 saw us mulligan down to five and we both had land troubles. We stalled at 4 lands, he's down to 3 life. Freyalise was ready to pop so I cast Spore crown Thalid. His turn, he misses his land drop and cycles two Djeru's Renunciations!!! I thought I was doing some blunders tonight but this was HUGE!! It's only FNM so I gently remind him of the blunder but he was super flustered and frustrated and refuses to take it back. With no other creatures to target, at the end of his turn I cast Fungal Infection on my Thalid. Freyalise pops and I get my two 3/3's. I swing for 6 and I was correct, he had Seal Away. A victory but a very hollow one. 2-0.
A snafu caused FNM to end after three rounds.
I played a fourth round against a pure G deck that was there. Another anti-Token deck :angry: We went toe to toe and I decided to aggressively stack my Freyalises to get the triggers sooner. Cast Hydra to 7/7 tapping all my resources except for two Saprolings that didn't have the dork ability. First Freyalise will pop next turn and I'm down to 8 life. She has two Steel Leaf Champions and a mana dork. She buffs one with Oakenform and attacks with both Champions. I block with Hydra thinking I can go to 3 then punch back with my hoarde once Freyalise pops. She smiles then plays Titanic Growth on the unblocked Champion. My biggest blunder of the night. Round 2. I never see Hydra again but won round 2 and 3 by creature counts and casting buffs alone. The deck finally executed flawlessly despite never seeing Duress or Divest the entire night!
I think Freyalise might stay. It seems to play better if I aggressively cast them and stack the Sagas even if I never utilize the dork capability fully.
I'm not sure yet if I should return the Flagship or return Plumet. I never saw Plumet the entire night!
I'm not quite show how to manage against decks optimized for token removal.
In a surprise twist, I even managed to survive Goblin Chainwhirler and pounded the opponent anyways while still losing to a Guttersnipe.
I'm not bored but I'm rather tired of being so darn close but rarely winning with this deck. Every one of my opponents said the same thing last FNM, "they were terrified," or, "or that was the closest match I had so far."
So I'm done with this for now. Maybe RtRtR might have something that'll make this reasonably viable. Maybe not.