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Token Control
So many cool combo's and ways to overwhelm your opponent.
Just got home from FNM, had another amazing night to follow my last week's success. Going home with another 12 packs is always fun.
Match 1 - Opponent: Prime Speaker Bant Midrange: 2-1
Round 1 double Intangible Virtue with 2 spirit tokens + a Vampire Nighthawk putting him on a clock and finishing it with Rally the Peasants
Round 2 it looked like his deck ran 10 copies of Restoration Angel and Thragtusk , I think he swung for the kill with 2 thrags, 2 resto's, 2 beast tokens, 1 avacyn's pilgrim and a Rhox Faithmender , as if his life total of 30something wasn't enough at this point.
Round 3 came down to the wire, again Rally the Peasants stealing the game for me, in combination with an Assemble the Legion that was getting out of control. He used Feeling of Dread flashback when I declared attack step to tap 2 of my 5 legion tokens, my 3 that were coming in had a Sorin, Lord of Innistrad token and a single Intangible Virtue so they were 3/2's, I responded to his non-existing blockers block step with a Rally the Peasants + flashback for 15 damage
Match 2 - Naya Blitz: 2-0
Round 1 Cartel Aristocrat + Blood Artist + nonstop stream of chump blockers from Lingering Souls + Blind Obedience grinded him to dead.
Round 2 probably the funniest round of the whole night. I offered the deck cut before pulling 7 cards, being silly he picked half my deck up and pulled one card to the top of my deck. I pulled it off and put it face down on the table saying it was going to be the best card in my deck. Pulled the remaining 6 cards and kept, looked at the 7th and laughed...and laughed. He pulled the single and only copy of Blasphemous Act to the top of my deck. Him on the play, turn one unleashed Rakdos Cackler , I play land and ship, he plays land and another cackler unleashed then plays Legion Loyalist (seems pretty good against tokens), swings for 3. I play land and Blood Artist and ship it, he plays land another Legion Loyalist and swings for 6, I play land and Lingering Souls and ship. He plays Ash Zealot , swings for 8. My turn, land, (laughing as I play it and remind him of his cutting abilities) blasphemous act for 1 mana, he loses 8 life, I gain 8 putting me back to 11 health, him to 12 (blood artist triggers). We both got some laughs out of that, but they ended when I used my remaining mana to flashback Lingering Souls and pass. He played Flinthoof Boar gave it haste and swung for 3, My turn I played Hellrider and swung for 8 and passed. Him at 4 now, he burns my hellrider with Searing Spear and passed. I revealed another hellrider and he scooped. Really fun games
Match 3 - American Midrange: 2-0
Round 1 held his Geist of Saint Traft
at bay with 2 tokens supported with Intangible Virtue
because I could double block, I hit him with Slaughter Games
naming Azorius Charm
and got the intel on his deck and hand so I was able to play around his Izzet Charm
counter magic which he had 2 of in his hand, I grinded him for 4 damage a turn until he was dead with my 2 tokens.
Round 2 was alot of the same, I just traded and grinded away until turn 6-7 when he played thundermaw and swung in after tapping my vigilance fliers down, hit me for 11 damage, I took it and cast Beckon Apparition twice at the end of his turn burning 2 counterspells from his graveyard putting me to 4 tokens on the field with Intangible Virtue next turn, he was tapped out, so I cast Rally the Peasants and flashed it back for 4/0+4/0+4/0+4/0 on all of my 2/2 tokens. I hear that wins games.
Match 4 - Reanimator: 1-2
My only loss of the night, and my hardest matchup for this deck.
Round 1 I took this round very quickly, he got land screwed and I took further advantage by Dreadbore on his dorks. Overhead for 4 each turn seems to work good for me.
Round 2 After sideboard, he drew the nut draws and even after Slaughter Games on his Unburial Rites he hardcast Angel of Serenity and I never recovered.
Round 3 On the play, mulling to 5, incredibly slow start and hand, when he does turn 2 Mulch to hit 3 land, and turn 3 Grisly Salvage to pull Rhox Faithmender I couldn't get his life total to go down after Centaur Healer , Thragtusk and Restoration Angel kept hitting the board.
Match 5 - Esper mill: 2-0
I feel bad, because I dreamcrushed this very same guy last week at FNM and the box tournament the next day as well...and proceeded to do the same tonight. He doesn't like my deck very much lol. Really cool guy and fun to play against though.
Round 1 - 2 virtues and Assemble the Legion after burning his counterspells and removal out, after a few Feeling of Dread , he finally died. The people around me were amazed to see that I main decked Slaughter Games but I named Sphinx's Revelation hitting 3, gathering intel on his counterspells to bait them, and finally dropped my Assemble the Legion in which he responded by saying: "well.......fuck"
Round 2 I boarded in Beckon Apparition to shut down his snapcasters, and Stab Wound is pretty good against Augur of Bolas considering I don't block ground units anyways. This game was funny because he boarded in Illness in the Ranks specifically because of last weekend playing against me and he changed his sideboard. turn 2 I played intangible, he plays illness, I play Blind Obedience and he plays another illness, I responded by playing another Intangible Virtue and as luck would have it, a good 8 turns into the game I dropped Assemble the Legion when I had enough mana to burn his graveyard counterspell targets from Snapcaster Mage , he just shook his head and died a few turns later.
Match 6 - Intentional Draw.
Match 7 - Reanimator 2-0
Round 1 - intrepidly knowing what my opponent plays, I sat down sad that I faced off against this decktype in top 8, and then smashed on him. He was running a reanimator with infinite lifeloop around Angel of Glory's Rise , Fiend Hunter and Huntmaster of the Fells Flip . I hit Slaughter Games on Unburial Rites and the game ended shortly after, he hardcast the angel, but it came in tapped from my Blind Obedience , I responded with Midnight Haunting putting 4 tokens on the field. Next turn attack step rally + flash back dead.
Round 2 - Dreadbore , Tragic Slip kept hitting his mana dorks to prevent acceleration and I kept 1 mana open the whole game waiting for him to cast unburial rites, so I could Beckon Apparition it, my 2 tokens with intangible virtue put him on a clock and Rally the Peasants top deck turn 6-7 or so sealed the game.
Had an amazing night playing this deck, it's so fun. We chopped 48 packs and went home.
I had him in the deck for a while. I removed him because I only played him for the token ability. I prefer the Assemble the Legion more because its consistent pressure with haste that is great with my sac engines plus it overwhelms control players. thanks for the suggestion but I've put him in and taken him out like 4 times! lol
if your going control why not toss in Descent into Madness as long as you play it before Assemble the Legion you will still be gaining tokens. (assuming this is not an option you have thought about since you do have black)
play decent after assemble* sorry about the double post i'm unsure how to edit my comment once posted :|
Lol if they weren't both so high in cmc that would be so fun lol
Mentor of the Meek and Bloodflow Connoisseur
Killing Wave when you have Blood Artist out is also a great choice
Burn at the Stake is funny as a win
I'm interested in the killing wave and burn at the stake. .. we'll see
I would say take your land count up to 24-25 just because you HAVE to hit those land drops, as I'm sure you know, and I would drop Beckon Apparition, and that is just my personal opinion, because for some reason it just never really did it for me, I fell you would be better off doing something like -2 Beckon, -1 or 2 Chandra, strictly because I don't see her being incredibly game changing, I know you can double a spell, but if you need it that bad, there are better options, and her +(plus) ability is almost useless in standard what with all the Thraggy and Sphinx's Rev runnin around, -1 B-Act because it may actually end up HURTING you with how big Boros Reckoner is, it would become almost a dead draw because it may kill you, then I would get maybe a 1 of Mutilate to replace the board wipe = win factor for Blood Artist, then get more black sources, your mana is all fucked in my opinion, not nearly enough black sources, also try 2 of Obzedat because he is that good xD, then more things in the removal category, because you need to have that safety net of "oh shit I don't want to swing into that, BLAM headin to the graveyard bitch!" So yeah, that is my advice and I truly hope it helps!
I'm on the fence about Beckon Apparition. I see the value of having flying tokens, but at the same time I'd rather have Cremate who turns itself into a card in hand. I used Vile Rebirth a little bit in the summer, and it did alright though. I even found myself flashing it back with Snapcaster Mage once or twice. So like I say, something to think about.
I think beckon apparition is one of the most solid cards in the deck. Amazing against cards like deathrite shaman and snapcaster which both see fair play, and reanimator decks and flashback components suffer to the fact that i get to burn their graveyard target and get a dude for one mana that gets benefits from sorins token and intangible virtue
I really considered cremate but the hard fact is that my deck synergies revolve around token generation
Ever consider Bloodline Keeper Flip
Hmm I kind of want to do some testing with Aurelia, the Warleader
Yea Bloodline also works well with Mentor of the Meek as does sorin
Yea i had a big personal debate on that jminute, it really came down to most games i need more board presence instead of card advantage because of how aggressive the format is right now.
Drbannon yes i did and removed it, effective unit terribly slow
It beats Sign in Blood
Sign in blood gives card advantage and can kill my opponent especially with an extort trigger which one done with success, and I was referring to bloodline keeper being slow
@ dbrannon
Sign in Blood is black card advantage at it's best. If you need to finish your opponent off with it you can. If you need two cards you can probably afford two life, since this is a control deck. Bloodline Keeper Flip is great, and he is running a few vampires to make it more viable, but probably the most expendable card to put in for it would be Chandra, the Firebrand since it sits on the same spot on the curve and has a similar impact if she's dropped turn four. But Chandra has more utility, whereas the Keeper is a token generator, and potential endgame. It just has to wait a turn to do anything that isn't attract removal.
That was my problem with her was waiting a turn to use it which is why i removed krenko and goblin token generation from my deck. 4 cost unit that is vanilla until next turn didn't impact the board state enough for me. At the 4 cost spot I prefer hellrider over all because it's beast with tokens but it suffers to board wipe and spot removal whereas chandra can recover me from a board wipe by making lingering or haunting pop me off 4 tokens
Name. +1
Lol thanks
This is rad. I'm running the same deck theme, but I've seen almost nobody else with it. We both independently came up with really similar numbers on a lot of cards, take a look: So I Heard You Like Tokens.
I've been running variants of the deck all year (I just added the green splash for thraggies, deathrite, ground seal, and collective blessing). If you're interested, here's some things I've noticed (I've tried pretty much every card in your deck in my deck at one point):
Maybe some of that helps. Super curious what your take on it all is!
Slaughter games was a great suggestion so I changed that immediately.
Stab wounds amazing and no one sees it coming, my deck is pretty grindy so it helps me kill my opponent when i can stab their reckoner or augur or centaur and i take less damage each turn, plus it forces the bounce out of their hand which I'm good with too.
Chandra was a test pilot, she crashed so hellrider back in. Crowd goes wild.
Nighthawk is amazing in here. Another flyer lifelink and 3 toughness shuts down agro. Bonus points for this unit because when i cast rally the peasants I gain more life. #winning
Faithless looting is awesome, my problem with that card is drawing into it when I'm topdecking nets me 0 cards. I actually cut sign in blood to try firemane avenger last night with great success.
2 things about blind obedience. 1 it's a grindy win condition in and of itself. 2, it slows agro down, and when I'm swinging in with fliers I no longer fear flash blocks like restoration angel. Blood artist works well here too. Cast lingering, extort, use tokens to chump block. Opponent loses 3 I gain 3 for 4 mana essentially.
Thanks for the dialogue and suggestions,!
This deck blows me away at how fun it is to play, chopped 48 packs tonight at FNM with top 4 players the description is above on the match's, check it out!
MVP card: Rally the Peasants
Rally the Peasants is just disgusting. Nobody sees it coming, and the flashback is beautiful. I'm glad Slaughter Games worked so well for ya!
Rally is super disgusting, and slaughter games does work, I concur.
Indeed it is! Try it!
Burn at the Stake is brutal when you have a decent army of tokens with Intangible Virtue out
I definitely see where you're coming from with Bonfire of the Damned and Stab Wound in the SB. However, I would strongly recommend adding Slaughter Games and either Rest in Peace or Grafdigger's Cage . Slaughter Games is just too good not to have if you have the colors for it and you need more general graveyard hate than just Beckon Apparition (though that's definitely a good card. Might also consider Pithing Needle for the SB. Take a look at my deck if you have a minute, colors are similar so you might be able to get some SB ideas from it: Extortionists with Sniper Rifles. +1
Why not Burn at the Stake its another Win condition and worlds better for you than Assemble the legion. You set this up like you arent after a quick win.
I'm not after a quick win, and with as much mill and control as there is in this format, Assemble the Legion
has won me a ton of games. Burn at the Stake
is alright, but its sorcery speed, if I don't have Intangible Virtue
out then its just an okay card because I can't attack then cast it, and with as much board wipe as there is my aim is to not flood the board, but to grind away at a solid pace. I have tested the deck with Burn at the Stake
and its too situational, also 3 red is a brutal casting cost if I don't hit the right mana.
I also look at this, let's say I have 3 spirits on the board, all vanilla 1/1's (can't rely on hitting Intangible Virtue
every game). I cast Burn at the Stake
opponent takes 9. Or my personal favorite win condition, the same 3 tokens, declare attacks overhead for 3, after blocks are declared which most don't have any to declare, I cast Rally the Peasants
and flash it back at instant speed. 15damage vs 9 for almost the same casting cost, and not nearly as dependant on hitting 3 red sources of mana.
Subbed out Firemane Avenger for Mondronen Shaman Flip I like the idea of making my opponent feel awkward so it should be interesting
+1 from me, looks solid. What are your thoughts on Doomed Traveler and Skirsdag High Priest for a deck like this?
I love both of them just not in this deck. Both require work to benefit from intangible virtue and they're slow. Skirsdag was in and out a few times just too slow and requires hope that my creatures don't get killed first
4x Intangible Virtue is too many. It doesn't combo with your 12 creatures, and getting more than one has diminishing value. I'd consider cutting one or two and thinking about what else you could put in that slot.
Maybe some instant-speed creature removal?
Maybe Searing Spear or Boros Charm ?
Maybe a rakdos return or an Olivia Voldaren ?
I have a concern about keeping pace with aggro, specifically like Naya Human Blitz decks that can throw out 10+ damage turn 3 if they combo right, and turn 3 if you have the draw your field is empty besides maybe a Blood Artist. I do see that Blind Obedience helps with that, but as a 2 of its not going to come up every match. I was just wondering how well the deck holds up to aggro decks like that.
4x intangible virtue is something i absolutely won't change. It is so vital to the deck it's not even funny. I don't care if my other creatures don't benefit from it because the lifegain on sorins tokens and vigilance flyers are boss.
I have to play against a lot of aggro at my local shop and I've only lost to it once. Don't get me wrong it's tough but the 3/3 creatures shuts down aggro, the lifegain is relevant and I usually stabilize with blood artist / blasphemous act combos. In the top 8 run down up top my match 2 was against a good naya blitz player, he had me to 3 life on turn 4 so yea it's rough but i manage
i would replace the Stab Wound with Obzedat, Ghost Council
Played it at tonight's FNM. Did really well but ran into some problems against a new deck I wasn't expecting to play against which had some really big hitters and combo's. Blasphemous Act / Boros Reckoner / Falkenrath Aristocrat / Cartel Aristocrat / Skirsdag High Priest / Lingering Souls / Doomed Traveler / Blood Artist / Olivia Voldaren
Quite a few of the things I run in my deck are similar so it was directly countering me, but at the same time I wasn't drawing into the removal I needed to get rid of the high-priests and couldn't stop the slew of 5/5 demon's coming into play from his sac engines. Both games were up hill battles for me and I need to figure out something to combat this deck, considering I seen 3 other people playing it tonight so it seems like its gaining popularity.
I went up against this deck last week and won, I made a list similar to yours too with some minor changes. I run 2 Angel of Serenity and Oblivion Ring s 1 main and 1 side and they helped out a ton, especially the angels. Also rakdos return hits that deck pretty hard too. I actually went 4-1-0 with the deck last night, the draw was intentional to split 1st and 2nd prizes.
The 2 Angel of Serenity s are in the sideboard too, i forgot to put that
hmm, interesting thought. I may sideboard up some of these and take out some of my elements against control decks considering I don't have a hard time playing against control..
I added 2 Olivia Voldaren after tonights tournament, because the Hellrider was a card I found myself sideboarding out a lot because it's very aggressive and doesn't play 100% well into my deck, I am thinking that the ping ability of olivia will not only allow me to rid myself of pesky things like Blood Artist / Skirsdag High Priest etc, but it will also allow me to steal things if I'm playing against reanimator decks or if the game goes too long.
Angel of Serenity is a good suggestion, I wonder what else would be good. I don't really want to run oblivion rings but I may end up having to put them back into my board.
Olivia Voldaren isnt a bad choice either, ya I have been taking out Hellrider alot too but mostly for slowing down the deck for when its not the smartest idea to throw tokens around all willy nilly. The only reason I ended up putting Oblivion Ring in was to deal with enchantments, like Sphere of Safety and opposing Assemble the Legion s which is never fun to race against. But, I really dig your line of thought with the Olivia's she is pretty tough to bring down once she has some counters and you can take a Falkenrath Aristocrat the turn after you play Olivia haha.
Damn, I just thought of some next level shit lol.
Turn 2 Nearheath Pilgrim
Turn 3 Boros Reckoner paired with Nearheath Pilgrim
Turn 4 Olivia Voldaren
Turn 5 declare attack step, 4-5 mana depending if you hit the 5th or not you can activate first strike if you have to so reckoner doesn't die, and he will gain you 3 life, before damage resolves you can ping the reckoner 1-2 times with olivia to grow her and redirect the damage from the reckoner to opponent creatures and/or the player for more lifegain. Beast. Mode.
Olivia's ability states that it only targets other creatures, and it seems pretty badass to be able to hit the opponent with that damage and with potential lifelink. Reckoner states that "whenever damage is done to Boros Reckoner ~IT~ deals that much damage to target creature or player.
What are you playing against and this deck requires a good amount of decision making against the colors your opponent is playing. This last fnm was the first in 5 tournaments i didn't top 8 with it and still came very close
I played a restoration angel/thragtusk combo, a black/red/green deck that ran the guy that flips (blanking out on his name, he is like a werewolf or something), and I played a copy of this deck except without the token aspect, so vampires and such. What am I doing wrong because I am trying to make smart decisions in game?
I like this deck. I have nothing to add.+1
Lol thanks, I love this deck so much I'm foiling it out
Made a very similar deck just last week (Lingering Nightmare), then I stumbled across your build. +1 for sure -will be following your updates to help improve my list.
Any play tips would be much appreciated!
Thanks Taytora, it's definitely fun to play. I've been working and improving this one for a month now.
The biggest suggestions i would have for you is don't over extend because it's very easy to do that here with tokens.
The other thing directly for your deck is to get rid of boros charm and replace it with blood artist. Indestructible with the charm is cool but the blood artist will punish board wipe like nothing else and when you're playing aggro you can chump and double block with your tokens until you stabilize and they run out of steam. I have won games against aggro simply because of 15+ blood artist triggers.
second thing is, reevaluate if hellrider works for you. I used to run it and loved it until i find myself boarding it out every match. It encouraged me to over extend and was too aggressive. I found olivia to be a more stable 4 drop because she has evasion, removal, control and ultimately must be dealt with. I am also considering tajic because he is difficult to remove as well.
That makes sense. I know it's situational, but how many tokens do you roughly aim to have on the field at 1 time?
Yes, the Blood Artist
is in deck, just hadn't updated it to reflect that yet. Thanks
I'm sure I may end up in the same boat as you, but I'm going to start with Hellrider
to see how he works, mainly because I already own him and have no Olivia Voldaren
. thoughts on Falkenrath Aristocrat
? I do have a few of her.
Have you ever run Tragic Slip MB? Right now I have a 2-2 split between that and Dreadbore . Curious about your experience here.
Tragic slip requires an activation which is why i sideboard it, dreadbore is much more reliable so no i never main boarded it.
Aristocrat is great but i didn't want to use it because olivia offers way more utility.
I usually aim to have 2-4 tokens on the field at once
Have you considered Frontline Medic ? I hear Indestructible Tokens win games! Also I would drop a copy of Altar's Reap for another Rally the Peasants and I would drop Searing Spear for Boros Charm . I hear Boros Reckoner is also good.
Just removed 4 reckoners, didn't like it in the deck.
Boros Charm doesn't activate morbid.
Frontline Medic is amazing but my tokens already have evasion and devalues Blood Artist
Appreciate the suggestions though!
| Date added | 2 months |
| Last updated | 2 days |
| Legal formats | Commander / EDH, Extended, Legacy, Standard, Vintage |
| Sets | |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.38 |
| Top rank | #18 on 2013-05-03 |
Embed code |
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Controlkens
essiga9 says...
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad try him, super good in this deck.
March 14, 2013 3:17 a.m.