Personally, I run as many Shrines and BW lands as I can. I don't like 4 or even 3 concealed courtyard because they kept ETB tapped late game when I needed 4 mana. 2 seems good and it synergies better than Isolated Chapel.
On a side note, while we all reference and read articles by the pros, I think it is also important to realize that with the exception of a few, most of the pros focus on standard and (by their own admission) their knowledge of modern and legacy and other formats is more limited. This isn't to say that they don't know anything or shouldn't be listened to, but rather that there are regular contributors to modern forums whose opinions I take rather seriously because I know they grind modern a lot. Several regular contributors here, for example, I may not agree with, but I also listen to their opinions and respect their judgement. I think that they have a lot of good insights and a lot of experiencing grinding BW tokens (certainly more than I do). IMO they are the experts on the archetype, even more so than some of the pros who picked up the deck for a weekend. I mean, I Craig Wescoe and Melissa De Tora, but I don't always agree with them and where they take the deck. I use the ideas I read about in my own brews to see if the deck gets better. I have my own preferences, and sometimes I don't like the tweak or the card interactions and abandon it.
My point is that there are plenty of experts on MTG Salvation. They aren't all pros.
I think you make a decent point, and really I think results show more than pro opinions, but they are a relevant data point because the pro mindset by definition is the very essence of Spike - their job is to maximize win %, and they are by definition good players or they wouldn't be pro, so if they think a card was worth running in their 75 it's probably at least...worth consideration, and at the very least not likely to be "unplayable," as people are fond of throwing around. Pro opinions are often at odds with each other, so it's not like everything they say and do is gospel truth, but in an archetype piloted by amateurs, any additional data points we can bring into the discussion are relevant pieces of information. In a forum where we simply cannot see the win rates and matchup histories of everyone discussing the deck, I view an opinion as being considerably bolstered if it's backed up by a decklist a pro piloted at some event, or by a high finish. It doesn't make them necessarily right, but it would be willfully negligent to discount those data points outright or sweep them away as wholly irrelevant.
The only issue I have with using the Del Tora and Wescoe lists from the primer is that they're all several years out of date. The most recent Wescoe list was discussed several pages ago and was drastically different from most lists. As poor as it tends to be I unfortunately have to use the recent reported lists from MTGTop8 as a basis for what is and isn't good card choices currently.
The only issue I have with using the Del Tora and Wescoe lists from the primer is that they're all several years out of date. The most recent Wescoe list was discussed several pages ago and was drastically different from most lists. As poor as it tends to be I unfortunately have to use the recent reported lists from MTGTop8 as a basis for what is and isn't good card choices currently.
That's a very good point - if you were to reference some of her old decklists the card choices are very dated for where the archetype has gone since then with card options that have come out since then (Elspeth and Sorin LoS have been fully supplanted by Sorin Solemn Visitor, etc.). Pro opinions definitely have to be taken within their context (meta, card pool at the time, and potentially how they actually did with the deck). Decks are works in progress for them too, and when we quote an opinion they posted or cite a decklist they put up, that was just a snapshot along a continuum of ongoing development (or implied continuum, if the deck was abandoned) that is invisible to us. More reasons it should be taken with a grain of salt and understood to have...nuanced applicability.
@pzbw7z
Yes, I got a message from a moderator regarding the wrong subforum. To be honest, I haven't even seen the budget section, but I'll try it there next
My group is pretty casual. We're a bunch of Timmys and Johnnys. Thoughtseize is an allowed card, but you have to get it from a booster. Buying it and spending $ 100 on a playset, while every other deck costs $ 100-200 overall, is kind of a dick move.
Anyway, I'm wrong here :3 Have fun and good draws, guys!
I've never once had Windbrisk effect colour requirements running 4 fetch, 4 shock, 4 fastlands and two filters.
We do want to hit 4-5 mana if you're planning on playing Sorin or Vault on curve. There are numerous plays at 4-5 mana as we don't belch out our hand, have flashback and don't tend to kill before then. Mana is not a bad thing.
I remember reading articles espousing the benefits of Windbrisk if you want to go tic for tac. Martin Juza and his team have far more deck building knowledge and credentials than this entire thread combined.
Martin Juza and his team barely play tokens and their choice was mostly a one-time meta call in an Abzan-infested meta. Jiachen Tao played Tokens at World Championships - again a particular meta - but we don't adopt any of his ideas simply because there are some fundamental problems (e.g being too threat light). Don't get me wrong as a player he is probably better than most, if not all of us here.
And you're using two different arguments: running a lot of lands vs running Windbrisk Heights. I don't mind the former but what we're discussing is the latter and whether or not the pros outweigh the cons of running Heights. Considering your lack of counterarguments (e.g if we're playing Heights to make tokens better at what they do - a.k.a grinding - why not play cards X or Y), I see no reason to extend the discussion further.
And Windbrisk Heights won't affect your color requirements if you're not playing a bunch of black cards. But I argue that many Blacks cards like Fatal Push and Liliana of the Veil are simply far too good not to play. To accomodate, I can't see how the deck can run more than 1-2 Windbrisk in addition to its tempo disadvantage.
@everyone
I didn't mean to imply we should interpret opinions from what pros wrote couple years back as a 'holy grail'. However, *some* of their comments are still relevant to the meta today (e.g Hero of Bladehold mostly eating a removal when played or relevance of drawing removals against Merfolk). Why? Simply because the token shell hasn't changed much. We got new toys to play with but the strategy remains the same.
I also agree that many players who are not pros have better deck building advice than the pros. I didn't want to rely on an appeal to authority but sometimes, it's effective because I was highlighting how a 5-year old opinion of a pro (on Windbrisk Heights) is relevant for the same reasons today.
Yep you're right Jongsl5.
On another note, @MichaelVogler can you remove or create a new section for those extremely outdated articles/lists? I'd say anything from before the Bitterblossom unban (2/2014) is irrelevant excluding some tech discussion in accompanying articles. Additionally I'll try to get you a draft update for the Primer at some point, I keep forgetting to sorry.
Sorry for the long post, and thanks for the quick response.
The Landbase is probably the main thing I have to upgrade. I completely agree on the Isolated chapel being the worst lands now that we have access to concealed courtyard (Which I'm Currently searching a fourth copy of). I'm not a big fan of Fetid Heath, mostly because of the price tag on that land. If I was running some Ghost Quarters, maybe, but having only two nonwhite sources really defeat the purpose of this land for me.
Ultimately, I want my landbase to look something like this:
Still not sure about the two Shambling Vent, Feel like one in enough, but I'm gonna test it next monday. And I think I should just replace Windbrisk Heights with a plains and it wouldn't really make a difference. I feel like it entering the battlefield tapped is too much of a drag just for a potential free spell that's not even garanteed to be useful. Definitely feels like a winmoar card to me, but still just one copy can't hurt I guess. (Not four though. Sorry Sabinfrost)
Also, I'm not entirely sold on Burrenton Forgetender efficiency. Ultimately you want to prevent a Pyroclasm or Anger of the gods with it, but doesn't discard spells fill that role already? Guess I'm underestimating the value of a 1/1 blocker against aggro burn. Might try it out again.
I'm not a fan of Blessed Alliance against boggle since it seems like it's the only deck it counters and I don't want to waste 1-2 slots of my sideboard just for THAT one deck. The life gain is minimal, but might help a little against burn, and the untap clause is straight up useless. Also, if they have a leyline of sanctity in the sideboard it's a dead card and I feel Runed Halo does a better job just because it avoid this scenario while completely screwing them over if they get multiple copy of the same monster, not to mention its usefulness against way more deck than just boggles...
As for Dark Blast... That's actually a fantastic idea and I totally forgot this card existed. Getting rid of those pesky infect repeatedly is just so good, like wow. Not to mention the potential extra value to dump a Lingering souls from the deck to the grave. Thanks for the tip! Definitely gonna try this one out!
I also have no buyer/delivery problems. Just wallet problems (T^T'). So I tend to trade for the stuff I want more. I basically traded a Tarmogoyf I pulled from a pack of Modern master 2015 for my playset of Bitterblossom. That's also why I'm still missing three Marsh Flats. Nobody has them, and those who have it don't want to trade it now that it's going down in price... But that's my first world problem.
Blessed Alliance is actually really good against Infect, Eldrazi, and Merfolk as well as Bogles. Additionally while not great the lifegain mode is decent against Burn in a pinch.
Hmm... I don't play often against Merfolk, but I do agree for eldrazi that getting rid of Reality smasher without having to discard is definitely a plus. Then again, I do feel that Runed Halo is way better at this job since it gets rid of all the copies of the threat of your choice. The only downside is the potential enchantment hate, seeing as we play Intengible Virtue and Bitterblossom, I do see Back to nature and Disenchant pop off from time to time.
The instant speed is nice though and that life gain clause make it tempting... lots of burn deck in my meta...
I didn't even consider running both... Still my Sideboard is pretty full. I don't know what to cut. I recently put two Leyline of sanctity in it for testing and I don't want to cut my remaining Surgical extraction. Maybe swap them with my two sideboarded Thoughtseize?
Do you think a maindeck Blessed Alliance or Runed Halo Instead of some of my removal could do the job? I'm not against Some mainboard hate to boogle/Infect, but I do worry about the control match-ups. My meta is heavy on aggro, but there's still a few control player and they're usually top 4 material. the 3rd Round usually end me up against one of them if I do well My first two round.
I've never once had Windbrisk effect colour requirements running 4 fetch, 4 shock, 4 fastlands and two filters.
We do want to hit 4-5 mana if you're planning on playing Sorin or Vault on curve. There are numerous plays at 4-5 mana as we don't belch out our hand, have flashback and don't tend to kill before then. Mana is not a bad thing.
I remember reading articles espousing the benefits of Windbrisk if you want to go tic for tac. Martin Juza and his team have far more deck building knowledge and credentials than this entire thread combined.
Martin Juza and his team barely play tokens and their choice was mostly a one-time meta call in an Abzan-infested meta. Jiachen Tao played Tokens at World Championships - again a particular meta - but we don't adopt any of his ideas simply because there are some fundamental problems (e.g being too threat light). Don't get me wrong as a player he is probably better than most, if not all of us here.
And you're using two different arguments: running a lot of lands vs running Windbrisk Heights. I don't mind the former but what we're discussing is the latter and whether or not the pros outweigh the cons of running Heights. Considering your lack of counterarguments (e.g if we're playing Heights to make tokens better at what they do - a.k.a grinding - why not play cards X or Y), I see no reason to extend the discussion further.
And Windbrisk Heights won't affect your color requirements if you're not playing a bunch of black cards. But I argue that many Blacks cards like Fatal Push and Liliana of the Veil are simply far too good not to play. To accomodate, I can't see how the deck can run more than 1-2 Windbrisk in addition to its tempo disadvantage.
@everyone
I didn't mean to imply we should interpret opinions from what pros wrote couple years back as a 'holy grail'. However, *some* of their comments are still relevant to the meta today (e.g Hero of Bladehold mostly eating a removal when played or relevance of drawing removals against Merfolk). Why? Simply because the token shell hasn't changed much. We got new toys to play with but the strategy remains the same.
I also agree that many players who are not pros have better deck building advice than the pros. I didn't want to rely on an appeal to authority but sometimes, it's effective because I was highlighting how a 5-year old opinion of a pro (on Windbrisk Heights) is relevant for the same reasons today.
Really the deck will always be a meta call at high level. In casual play, it's whatever, but at high level I can't see it ever not being a meta call. That was another one of my points. The nature of Lingering Souls and Bitterblossom is that they pay off in longer games, not as bombs on curve. It's a grindy deck that wins out against certain metas. You can twist and pull and tweak tokens to try adapt and counter a different meta but all the ideas I'm hearing regarding that like Liliana of the Veil, dropping anthems for Control cards etc. make me believe people are putting a round peg into a square hole. If you start taking options like that you might as well play Abzan. Stack a deck full of handhate, removal, Souls, Goyf, Liliana, it works, it's not BW tokens though and dropping the Goyfs for Bitterblossom and Rhino for Sorin still doesn't make it BW Tokens, it makes it a variant on Abzan.
Heights is essentially card draw, like flashing back Souls it's a form of card advantage. You're still getting a land drop out of it, you're just getting the card pull with selection alongside. Card-advantage is a big deal in grindy matches.
The deck I use runs 7 handhate, 3 Sorin, Souls flashback, 2 Fatal Push. I've never had issues getting black or playing spectral procession running Windbrisk because of 4 fast, 4 shock, 2 filter and 4 fetchlands with 1 basic swamp. The deck also has 21 ETB untapped lands which is more than enough not to lose tempo and running 7 handhate spells, 4 bitterblossom, 4 virtue you wont always have a t1 or t2 play because of the nature of Magic, that is another opportunity to drop Windbrisk.
I didn't even consider running both... Still my Sideboard is pretty full. I don't know what to cut. I recently put two Leyline of sanctity in it for testing and I don't want to cut my remaining Surgical extraction. Maybe swap them with my two sideboarded Thoughtseize?
Do you think a maindeck Blessed Alliance or Runed Halo Instead of some of my removal could do the job? I'm not against Some mainboard hate to boogle/Infect, but I do worry about the control match-ups. My meta is heavy on aggro, but there's still a few control player and they're usually top 4 material. the 3rd Round usually end me up against one of them if I do well My first two round.
Leyline of Sanctity isn't worth playing, mainly because it's only relevant against Burn and heavy discard oriented decks (Smallpower). Midrange decks side out their discards against us.
Against Valakut decks you'd rather play a Runed Halo because you can name either Valakut OR Primeval Titan. Not to mention it has so many utilities outside of those.
I always found Surgical Extraction to be too unreliable in the side and would rather replace it with more powerful SB IMO.
Bitterblossom and Liliana of the Veil are the best cards in our deck against traditional control decks. Any one-sided grave hate like Relic of Progenitus (and actually against Grixis, even Rest in Peace) are great. I'm testing a 3/3 Liliana and Spectral Procession split and it's been nothing but amazing.
Sorry for the long post, and thanks for the quick response.
The Landbase is probably the main thing I have to upgrade. I completely agree on the Isolated chapel being the worst lands now that we have access to concealed courtyard (Which I'm Currently searching a fourth copy of). I'm not a big fan of Fetid Heath, mostly because of the price tag on that land. If I was running some Ghost Quarters, maybe, but having only two nonwhite sources really defeat the purpose of this land for me.
Ultimately, I want my landbase to look something like this:
Still not sure about the two Shambling Vent, Feel like one in enough, but I'm gonna test it next monday. And I think I should just replace Windbrisk Heights with a plains and it wouldn't really make a difference. I feel like it entering the battlefield tapped is too much of a drag just for a potential free spell that's not even garanteed to be useful. Definitely feels like a winmoar card to me, but still just one copy can't hurt I guess. (Not four though. Sorry Sabinfrost)
Also, I'm not entirely sold on Burrenton Forgetender efficiency. Ultimately you want to prevent a Pyroclasm or Anger of the gods with it, but doesn't discard spells fill that role already? Guess I'm underestimating the value of a 1/1 blocker against aggro burn. Might try it out again.
I'm not a fan of Blessed Alliance against boggle since it seems like it's the only deck it counters and I don't want to waste 1-2 slots of my sideboard just for THAT one deck. The life gain is minimal, but might help a little against burn, and the untap clause is straight up useless. Also, if they have a leyline of sanctity in the sideboard it's a dead card and I feel Runed Halo does a better job just because it avoid this scenario while completely screwing them over if they get multiple copy of the same monster, not to mention its usefulness against way more deck than just boggles...
As for Dark Blast... That's actually a fantastic idea and I totally forgot this card existed. Getting rid of those pesky infect repeatedly is just so good, like wow. Not to mention the potential extra value to dump a Lingering souls from the deck to the grave. Thanks for the tip! Definitely gonna try this one out!
I also have no buyer/delivery problems. Just wallet problems (T^T'). So I tend to trade for the stuff I want more. I basically traded a Tarmogoyf I pulled from a pack of Modern master 2015 for my playset of Bitterblossom. That's also why I'm still missing three Marsh Flats. Nobody has them, and those who have it don't want to trade it now that it's going down in price... But that's my first world problem.
Against Infect, pretty much any copies of Fatal Push is going to be more relevant than Darkblast - most of the time. Dark Blast has some nice utility elsewhere however, but I don't know if it's worth the SB spot. Something like Zealous Persecution has greater utility against Affinity, Infect, Dredge, Eldrazi, etc.
The nice thing about Burrenton Forge Tender is that it's one-mana. Against boardwipes, I prefer Selfless Spirit but being one-mana has its use as well as being an additional blocker against Burn. We only have so many discard spells to get rid of boardwipes, so it's a good strategy to put a proactive threat that also provides insurance.
I've tested 1-4 copies of Shambling Vent and eventually settled on 3. I would say about half the decks in the meta run spot removals. When your opponent lacks spot removals, Shambling Vent is insanely good. It helps break stalemates, speeds up your clock, and stabilize your lifeloss. It also is a threat you have when your board is wiped. There were a lot of games I shouldn't have won without it. I didn't like running 4 because I never wanted to draw more than one simultaneously but at the very least, it provides dual color.
I didn't even consider running both... Still my Sideboard is pretty full. I don't know what to cut. I recently put two Leyline of sanctity in it for testing and I don't want to cut my remaining Surgical extraction. Maybe swap them with my two sideboarded Thoughtseize?
Do you think a maindeck Blessed Alliance or Runed Halo Instead of some of my removal could do the job? I'm not against Some mainboard hate to boogle/Infect, but I do worry about the control match-ups. My meta is heavy on aggro, but there's still a few control player and they're usually top 4 material. the 3rd Round usually end me up against one of them if I do well My first two round.
I think @Jongsl5 actually explained the reasoning behind Runed Halo pretty well, as for Blessed Alliance it's just good against many linear aggro and hard to kill creatures, plus it's not awful vs Burn. Basically they both are good against a lot of the same decks but then each have some number that they're very good against on their own. My local meta is very varied but tends to be 50% linear aggro and 50% everything else you can think of so boards need to have a lot of broad catch alls like Runed Halo.
This is my current board.
2 Auriok Champion, 2 Blessed Alliance, 2 Celestial Purge, 1 Engineered Explosives, 3 Rest in Peace, 2 Runed Halo, 3 Stony Silence.
I've never once had Windbrisk effect colour requirements running 4 fetch, 4 shock, 4 fastlands and two filters.
We do want to hit 4-5 mana if you're planning on playing Sorin or Vault on curve. There are numerous plays at 4-5 mana as we don't belch out our hand, have flashback and don't tend to kill before then. Mana is not a bad thing.
I remember reading articles espousing the benefits of Windbrisk if you want to go tic for tac. Martin Juza and his team have far more deck building knowledge and credentials than this entire thread combined.
Martin Juza and his team barely play tokens and their choice was mostly a one-time meta call in an Abzan-infested meta. Jiachen Tao played Tokens at World Championships - again a particular meta - but we don't adopt any of his ideas simply because there are some fundamental problems (e.g being too threat light). Don't get me wrong as a player he is probably better than most, if not all of us here.
And you're using two different arguments: running a lot of lands vs running Windbrisk Heights. I don't mind the former but what we're discussing is the latter and whether or not the pros outweigh the cons of running Heights. Considering your lack of counterarguments (e.g if we're playing Heights to make tokens better at what they do - a.k.a grinding - why not play cards X or Y), I see no reason to extend the discussion further.
And Windbrisk Heights won't affect your color requirements if you're not playing a bunch of black cards. But I argue that many Blacks cards like Fatal Push and Liliana of the Veil are simply far too good not to play. To accomodate, I can't see how the deck can run more than 1-2 Windbrisk in addition to its tempo disadvantage.
@everyone
I didn't mean to imply we should interpret opinions from what pros wrote couple years back as a 'holy grail'. However, *some* of their comments are still relevant to the meta today (e.g Hero of Bladehold mostly eating a removal when played or relevance of drawing removals against Merfolk). Why? Simply because the token shell hasn't changed much. We got new toys to play with but the strategy remains the same.
I also agree that many players who are not pros have better deck building advice than the pros. I didn't want to rely on an appeal to authority but sometimes, it's effective because I was highlighting how a 5-year old opinion of a pro (on Windbrisk Heights) is relevant for the same reasons today.
Really the deck will always be a meta call at high level. In casual play, it's whatever, but at high level I can't see it ever not being a meta call. That was another one of my points. The nature of Lingering Souls and Bitterblossom is that they pay off in longer games, not as bombs on curve. It's a grindy deck that wins out against certain metas. You can twist and pull and tweak tokens to try adapt and counter a different meta but all the ideas I'm hearing regarding that like Liliana of the Veil, dropping anthems for Control cards etc. make me believe people are putting a round peg into a square hole. If you start taking options like that you might as well play Abzan. Stack a deck full of handhate, removal, Souls, Goyf, Liliana, it works, it's not BW tokens though and dropping the Goyfs for Bitterblossom and Rhino for Sorin still doesn't make it BW Tokens, it makes it a variant on Abzan.
Heights is essentially card draw, like flashing back Souls it's a form of card advantage. You're still getting a land drop out of it, you're just getting the card pull with selection alongside. Card-advantage is a big deal in grindy matches.
The deck I use runs 7 handhate, 3 Sorin, Souls flashback, 2 Fatal Push. I've never had issues getting black or playing spectral procession running Windbrisk because of 4 fast, 4 shock, 2 filter and 4 fetchlands with 1 basic swamp. The deck also has 21 ETB untapped lands which is more than enough not to lose tempo and running 7 handhate spells, 4 bitterblossom, 4 virtue you wont always have a t1 or t2 play because of the nature of Magic, that is another opportunity to drop Windbrisk.
Liliana of the Veil was previously not played because our mana could not afford triple white AND double black without the fastlands and manlands.
Abzan is a completely different deck. You think BW Tokens + goyf = Abzan? Not even close. You're splashing green for numerous other cards (Hierarch, maelstrom pulse, abrupt decay, scavenging ooze, grim flayer, manlands, anafenza, siege rhino, etc.) The idea of the deck is to go wide and make spot removals bad, while running 4+ slots for anthems to make this package offensive. Abzan is focused on going tall but with the printing of Fatal Push, cards like Goyf and Ooze has become much less reliable as one of their biggest assets was being "bolt-proof".
In addition to being good against reactive spot-removal decks, the reason to play BW Tokens over Abzan has to do with the prevalence of Affinity and Infect. We essentially run 12+ Lingering Souls and I don't know how that makes us anything like Abzan. Being in 2-colors and having more lifegain also makes us a better deck against Burn imo.
Everyone knows Heights is card draw. What we're debating is if a land that comes in tapped, produce one color, and that requires some setup for value that may or may not worth it is worth playing in the deck. Playing 1-2 copies for late-game play is something we can consider, as it's something we want to draw late rather than early. Playing 4 copies is asking for serious losses in tempo. And of course Heights doesn't affect casting Spectral Procession - never said it does. However, some of our best cards are now in Black which I was point to earlier.
Also, I'll emphasize that we're not removing any of the core token engine for Liliana, Fatal Push, etc.
The general rule for midrange in Modern right now is to run 3 EBT lands max. Even Jund cut down to 3 Raging Ravine, which I'm glad to see as drawing two simultaneous Ravines simply made hands way too slow.
I'm not sure there's room for that anymore since Concealed Courtyard. I'm down to three Plains. I could live with two Plains but I don't want to cut fetches; on the contrary, I'd like to go up to nine if I'm going to use Fatal Push in the numbers I want to try. I don't know where else to find room for Ghost Quarters and Flagstones of Trokair.
With twenty-four lands, one might find room for one of each, or perhaps even two GQ, but I'm on twenty-three and I don't want to cut spells for more land.
I dearly love Flagstones and I want to build a deck with it, but that's probably a Smallpox deck, not BW tokens.
Dunno about cutting Leyline of sanctity. There's a pretty good 8-rack deck, and a lots of burn in my meta. But I could maybe cut one.
I'm kinda 50/50 on the Surgical Extraction. I really like breaking combo decks with that. Also, hitting a red sweeper with a discard spell to Extract it afterward is always a nice thing to do. Getting to tcheck your opponent's deck is also a nice plus. Still, it's been underperorming recently, I could cut it to try something else.
As for Liliana of the Veil, the double black mana always put me off. Maybe I'm gonna pull one out of a modern master 2017 and get to try her.
As for grave hate, I'm a big fan of Rest in peace over Relic of Progenitus. I'd rather shut down the grave completely, especially against Dredge.
Also, I could try 3 copies of Shambling Vent. See what happens. I kinda like your reasoning.
As for Zealous Persecution I dunno. I don't really like running more than one in my 75. I feel my matchup against affinity is pretty good already, but if Dredge and Infect keep being popular after the bans, I might reconsider. Plus I hate drawing multiple of those.
I think you make a decent point, and really I think results show more than pro opinions, but they are a relevant data point because the pro mindset by definition is the very essence of Spike - their job is to maximize win %, and they are by definition good players or they wouldn't be pro, so if they think a card was worth running in their 75 it's probably at least...worth consideration, and at the very least not likely to be "unplayable," as people are fond of throwing around. Pro opinions are often at odds with each other, so it's not like everything they say and do is gospel truth, but in an archetype piloted by amateurs, any additional data points we can bring into the discussion are relevant pieces of information. In a forum where we simply cannot see the win rates and matchup histories of everyone discussing the deck, I view an opinion as being considerably bolstered if it's backed up by a decklist a pro piloted at some event, or by a high finish. It doesn't make them necessarily right, but it would be willfully negligent to discount those data points outright or sweep them away as wholly irrelevant.
That's a very good point - if you were to reference some of her old decklists the card choices are very dated for where the archetype has gone since then with card options that have come out since then (Elspeth and Sorin LoS have been fully supplanted by Sorin Solemn Visitor, etc.). Pro opinions definitely have to be taken within their context (meta, card pool at the time, and potentially how they actually did with the deck). Decks are works in progress for them too, and when we quote an opinion they posted or cite a decklist they put up, that was just a snapshot along a continuum of ongoing development (or implied continuum, if the deck was abandoned) that is invisible to us. More reasons it should be taken with a grain of salt and understood to have...nuanced applicability.
Yes, I got a message from a moderator regarding the wrong subforum. To be honest, I haven't even seen the budget section, but I'll try it there next
My group is pretty casual. We're a bunch of Timmys and Johnnys. Thoughtseize is an allowed card, but you have to get it from a booster. Buying it and spending $ 100 on a playset, while every other deck costs $ 100-200 overall, is kind of a dick move.
Anyway, I'm wrong here :3 Have fun and good draws, guys!
Martin Juza and his team barely play tokens and their choice was mostly a one-time meta call in an Abzan-infested meta. Jiachen Tao played Tokens at World Championships - again a particular meta - but we don't adopt any of his ideas simply because there are some fundamental problems (e.g being too threat light). Don't get me wrong as a player he is probably better than most, if not all of us here.
And you're using two different arguments: running a lot of lands vs running Windbrisk Heights. I don't mind the former but what we're discussing is the latter and whether or not the pros outweigh the cons of running Heights. Considering your lack of counterarguments (e.g if we're playing Heights to make tokens better at what they do - a.k.a grinding - why not play cards X or Y), I see no reason to extend the discussion further.
And Windbrisk Heights won't affect your color requirements if you're not playing a bunch of black cards. But I argue that many Blacks cards like Fatal Push and Liliana of the Veil are simply far too good not to play. To accomodate, I can't see how the deck can run more than 1-2 Windbrisk in addition to its tempo disadvantage.
@everyone
I didn't mean to imply we should interpret opinions from what pros wrote couple years back as a 'holy grail'. However, *some* of their comments are still relevant to the meta today (e.g Hero of Bladehold mostly eating a removal when played or relevance of drawing removals against Merfolk). Why? Simply because the token shell hasn't changed much. We got new toys to play with but the strategy remains the same.
I also agree that many players who are not pros have better deck building advice than the pros. I didn't want to rely on an appeal to authority but sometimes, it's effective because I was highlighting how a 5-year old opinion of a pro (on Windbrisk Heights) is relevant for the same reasons today.
On another note, @MichaelVogler can you remove or create a new section for those extremely outdated articles/lists? I'd say anything from before the Bitterblossom unban (2/2014) is irrelevant excluding some tech discussion in accompanying articles. Additionally I'll try to get you a draft update for the Primer at some point, I keep forgetting to sorry.
The Landbase is probably the main thing I have to upgrade. I completely agree on the Isolated chapel being the worst lands now that we have access to concealed courtyard (Which I'm Currently searching a fourth copy of). I'm not a big fan of Fetid Heath, mostly because of the price tag on that land. If I was running some Ghost Quarters, maybe, but having only two nonwhite sources really defeat the purpose of this land for me.
Ultimately, I want my landbase to look something like this:
5 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Windbrisk Heights
2 Shambling Vent
4 Concealed Courtyard
2 Godless Shrine
4 Windswept Heath
4 Marsh Flats
Still not sure about the two Shambling Vent, Feel like one in enough, but I'm gonna test it next monday. And I think I should just replace Windbrisk Heights with a plains and it wouldn't really make a difference. I feel like it entering the battlefield tapped is too much of a drag just for a potential free spell that's not even garanteed to be useful. Definitely feels like a winmoar card to me, but still just one copy can't hurt I guess. (Not four though. Sorry Sabinfrost)
Also, I'm not entirely sold on Burrenton Forgetender efficiency. Ultimately you want to prevent a Pyroclasm or Anger of the gods with it, but doesn't discard spells fill that role already? Guess I'm underestimating the value of a 1/1 blocker against aggro burn. Might try it out again.
I'm not a fan of Blessed Alliance against boggle since it seems like it's the only deck it counters and I don't want to waste 1-2 slots of my sideboard just for THAT one deck. The life gain is minimal, but might help a little against burn, and the untap clause is straight up useless. Also, if they have a leyline of sanctity in the sideboard it's a dead card and I feel Runed Halo does a better job just because it avoid this scenario while completely screwing them over if they get multiple copy of the same monster, not to mention its usefulness against way more deck than just boggles...
As for Dark Blast... That's actually a fantastic idea and I totally forgot this card existed. Getting rid of those pesky infect repeatedly is just so good, like wow. Not to mention the potential extra value to dump a Lingering souls from the deck to the grave. Thanks for the tip! Definitely gonna try this one out!
I also have no buyer/delivery problems. Just wallet problems (T^T'). So I tend to trade for the stuff I want more. I basically traded a Tarmogoyf I pulled from a pack of Modern master 2015 for my playset of Bitterblossom. That's also why I'm still missing three Marsh Flats. Nobody has them, and those who have it don't want to trade it now that it's going down in price... But that's my first world problem.
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
The instant speed is nice though and that life gain clause make it tempting... lots of burn deck in my meta...
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
Do you think a maindeck Blessed Alliance or Runed Halo Instead of some of my removal could do the job? I'm not against Some mainboard hate to boogle/Infect, but I do worry about the control match-ups. My meta is heavy on aggro, but there's still a few control player and they're usually top 4 material. the 3rd Round usually end me up against one of them if I do well My first two round.
In fact. Why do you run both Blessed Alliance and Runed Halo?
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
Really the deck will always be a meta call at high level. In casual play, it's whatever, but at high level I can't see it ever not being a meta call. That was another one of my points. The nature of Lingering Souls and Bitterblossom is that they pay off in longer games, not as bombs on curve. It's a grindy deck that wins out against certain metas. You can twist and pull and tweak tokens to try adapt and counter a different meta but all the ideas I'm hearing regarding that like Liliana of the Veil, dropping anthems for Control cards etc. make me believe people are putting a round peg into a square hole. If you start taking options like that you might as well play Abzan. Stack a deck full of handhate, removal, Souls, Goyf, Liliana, it works, it's not BW tokens though and dropping the Goyfs for Bitterblossom and Rhino for Sorin still doesn't make it BW Tokens, it makes it a variant on Abzan.
Heights is essentially card draw, like flashing back Souls it's a form of card advantage. You're still getting a land drop out of it, you're just getting the card pull with selection alongside. Card-advantage is a big deal in grindy matches.
The deck I use runs 7 handhate, 3 Sorin, Souls flashback, 2 Fatal Push. I've never had issues getting black or playing spectral procession running Windbrisk because of 4 fast, 4 shock, 2 filter and 4 fetchlands with 1 basic swamp. The deck also has 21 ETB untapped lands which is more than enough not to lose tempo and running 7 handhate spells, 4 bitterblossom, 4 virtue you wont always have a t1 or t2 play because of the nature of Magic, that is another opportunity to drop Windbrisk.
Leyline of Sanctity isn't worth playing, mainly because it's only relevant against Burn and heavy discard oriented decks (Smallpower). Midrange decks side out their discards against us.
Against Valakut decks you'd rather play a Runed Halo because you can name either Valakut OR Primeval Titan. Not to mention it has so many utilities outside of those.
I always found Surgical Extraction to be too unreliable in the side and would rather replace it with more powerful SB IMO.
Bitterblossom and Liliana of the Veil are the best cards in our deck against traditional control decks. Any one-sided grave hate like Relic of Progenitus (and actually against Grixis, even Rest in Peace) are great. I'm testing a 3/3 Liliana and Spectral Procession split and it's been nothing but amazing.
Against Infect, pretty much any copies of Fatal Push is going to be more relevant than Darkblast - most of the time. Dark Blast has some nice utility elsewhere however, but I don't know if it's worth the SB spot. Something like Zealous Persecution has greater utility against Affinity, Infect, Dredge, Eldrazi, etc.
The nice thing about Burrenton Forge Tender is that it's one-mana. Against boardwipes, I prefer Selfless Spirit but being one-mana has its use as well as being an additional blocker against Burn. We only have so many discard spells to get rid of boardwipes, so it's a good strategy to put a proactive threat that also provides insurance.
I've tested 1-4 copies of Shambling Vent and eventually settled on 3. I would say about half the decks in the meta run spot removals. When your opponent lacks spot removals, Shambling Vent is insanely good. It helps break stalemates, speeds up your clock, and stabilize your lifeloss. It also is a threat you have when your board is wiped. There were a lot of games I shouldn't have won without it. I didn't like running 4 because I never wanted to draw more than one simultaneously but at the very least, it provides dual color.
I think @Jongsl5 actually explained the reasoning behind Runed Halo pretty well, as for Blessed Alliance it's just good against many linear aggro and hard to kill creatures, plus it's not awful vs Burn. Basically they both are good against a lot of the same decks but then each have some number that they're very good against on their own. My local meta is very varied but tends to be 50% linear aggro and 50% everything else you can think of so boards need to have a lot of broad catch alls like Runed Halo.
This is my current board.
2 Auriok Champion, 2 Blessed Alliance, 2 Celestial Purge, 1 Engineered Explosives, 3 Rest in Peace, 2 Runed Halo, 3 Stony Silence.
It doesn't take out anything essential: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/bw-tokens-2017-1/
That always seemed a bit too cute to me, GQ isn't bad by itself but I don't really see a reason to run Flagstones.
Liliana of the Veil was previously not played because our mana could not afford triple white AND double black without the fastlands and manlands.
Abzan is a completely different deck. You think BW Tokens + goyf = Abzan? Not even close. You're splashing green for numerous other cards (Hierarch, maelstrom pulse, abrupt decay, scavenging ooze, grim flayer, manlands, anafenza, siege rhino, etc.) The idea of the deck is to go wide and make spot removals bad, while running 4+ slots for anthems to make this package offensive. Abzan is focused on going tall but with the printing of Fatal Push, cards like Goyf and Ooze has become much less reliable as one of their biggest assets was being "bolt-proof".
In addition to being good against reactive spot-removal decks, the reason to play BW Tokens over Abzan has to do with the prevalence of Affinity and Infect. We essentially run 12+ Lingering Souls and I don't know how that makes us anything like Abzan. Being in 2-colors and having more lifegain also makes us a better deck against Burn imo.
Everyone knows Heights is card draw. What we're debating is if a land that comes in tapped, produce one color, and that requires some setup for value that may or may not worth it is worth playing in the deck. Playing 1-2 copies for late-game play is something we can consider, as it's something we want to draw late rather than early. Playing 4 copies is asking for serious losses in tempo. And of course Heights doesn't affect casting Spectral Procession - never said it does. However, some of our best cards are now in Black which I was point to earlier.
Also, I'll emphasize that we're not removing any of the core token engine for Liliana, Fatal Push, etc.
The general rule for midrange in Modern right now is to run 3 EBT lands max. Even Jund cut down to 3 Raging Ravine, which I'm glad to see as drawing two simultaneous Ravines simply made hands way too slow.
I'm not sure there's room for that anymore since Concealed Courtyard. I'm down to three Plains. I could live with two Plains but I don't want to cut fetches; on the contrary, I'd like to go up to nine if I'm going to use Fatal Push in the numbers I want to try. I don't know where else to find room for Ghost Quarters and Flagstones of Trokair.
With twenty-four lands, one might find room for one of each, or perhaps even two GQ, but I'm on twenty-three and I don't want to cut spells for more land.
I dearly love Flagstones and I want to build a deck with it, but that's probably a Smallpox deck, not BW tokens.
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn
I'm kinda 50/50 on the Surgical Extraction. I really like breaking combo decks with that. Also, hitting a red sweeper with a discard spell to Extract it afterward is always a nice thing to do. Getting to tcheck your opponent's deck is also a nice plus. Still, it's been underperorming recently, I could cut it to try something else.
As for Liliana of the Veil, the double black mana always put me off. Maybe I'm gonna pull one out of a modern master 2017 and get to try her.
As for grave hate, I'm a big fan of Rest in peace over Relic of Progenitus. I'd rather shut down the grave completely, especially against Dredge.
Also, I could try 3 copies of Shambling Vent. See what happens. I kinda like your reasoning.
As for Zealous Persecution I dunno. I don't really like running more than one in my 75. I feel my matchup against affinity is pretty good already, but if Dredge and Infect keep being popular after the bans, I might reconsider. Plus I hate drawing multiple of those.
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)