Land (25)
- 4x Concealed Courtyard
- 4x Drowned Catacomb
- 2x Fetid Pools
- 2x Field of Ruin
- 4x Glacial Fortress
- 1x Irrigated Farmland
- 2x Island
- 3x Plains
- 3x Swamp
Artifact (2)
Instant (8)
Enchantment (8)
Creature (12)
Sorcery (3)
Planeswalker (2)
Sideboard
Instant (6)
Creature (2)
Sorcery (3)
Enchantment (4)
Maybeboard
Enchantment (7)
Artifact (3)
Creature (2)
Land (1)
Instant (2)
Sorcery (1)
Planeswalker (1)
4-0, in progress. Complex, controlling, explosive, competitive, and fun token based deck.
Usually I'm brewing different budget decks, trying to think of something creative, but ever since Early Xmas in Esper (HOU), I keep returning to my Esper tokens deck, which has evolved. It is such a blast to play and blows out games on a regular basis. My latest iteration has been very strong, so I thought I'd put it up here to share with you all.
Also, check out my teaching project: Budget Beginner Teach Decks (#1 Green) w Puzzles! which includes a combat teaching PDF lesson I made.
Intro
This deck is all about exploiting Anointed Procession. It has plenty of diverse control to keep us in the game, until we can start pulling shenanigans. Initially our creatures mainly help hold off the opponent, but later in the game they come back in force and win the game. It has a lot of high CMC cards and 3 colors, so the filtering built into the deck is invaluable.
Breaking Anointed Procession (AP)
Quick rules explanation, Anointed Procession (AP for short), stacks exponentially. That is to say, if you have 2 out, your will get 4x token production. 3 out give 8x, and so on.
First, and I had to play the combo a little to see how useful it is, but AP and Treasure Map are BFFs. Playing AP on turn 4 can be painful, it leaves no mana for counterspells or other action if needed. However, put down a treasure map on turn 2 (or 3), and activate it the end of turn 3 and 4. If you have an anointed procession on turn 5 you can cast it and then flip the treasure map. This will give you 6 treasure tokens on the spot, and won't stall your tempo. This combo is a bread and butter early game play. Tip: if you desperately need a certain card, say a land, then you can activate the map on the end of your upkeep, before you draw a card, and hopefully scry your way to the card you need.
If you can get away with casting AP on turn 4, then this sequences nicely into a turn 5 Spell Swindle. At that point in the game, a greedy opponent may want to finally cast that 5 mana spell, which will then give us 10 tokens! Even spell swindling a 2 CMC spell nets us 4 treasure tokens, which can be enough of a mana buffer to stay "shields up" the rest of the game.
The other main abuse of AP comes from our graveyard. Our creatures have embalm or eternalize. These are good abilities already, but if you have an AP out, you get double tokens. In the majority of late games, we will have 2 AP on the battlefield. When this occurs, each token creature made makes 4 copies. If we embalm Anointer Priest, that will heal for 16, and if we eternalize Champion of Wits, we can dig 16 cards deep in our deck and keep the 7 we need most while stocking the graveyard for the next round. Embalming Angel of Sanctions will exile 4 of their permanents. This is all while creating 4 creatures (or 8 if we have 3 APs).
Control
We need to survive until we have everything in place for our synergies, and have great options in Esper. Fatal Push is effective already at turn 1. I also run a pair of Fungal Infection as well. This synergizes well with AP later in the game. Also, if used on a creature with 1 toughness, both kills their creature and gets us one(two-for-one), which is a great stabilizer in the early game. There are a lot of important 1 toughness targets, including Llanowar Elves and Adanto Vanguard (which fatal push can't get). We have one Vicious Offering. The advantage of that card is that it can be kicked to kill a 5 toughness creature, including indestructible ones like Hazoret. The fact that we have to sac a creature is actually a benefit; sometimes, we have a creature on the board that we want in the graveyard so we can embalm or eternalize it, and our opponent won't or can't kill it.
In addition to Spell Swindle, we also have 2 Disallow which can block abilities including Scavenger Grounds in a pinch. The Syncopate plays reasonably well, but falls off late game, although it lasts a little longer than Censor. Cast Out and Ixalan's Binding are vulnerable to enchantment hate, but can really hamper an opponent if they can't deal with them. I prefer Cast Out because the cycling is great when we don't need the card in the early game, but might need another land. We also have Fumigate and Settle the Wreckage in our 75 to help stabilize if we got behind.
The Graveyard
Search for Azcanta and Champion of Wits can essentially provide card advantage when they discard. If we can get one of our creatures in the graveyard, then they can still be used later (which is when we want to be making tokens anyway).
The Scarab God can be devastating if he gets to make tokens with AP on the board. Funny story about that card. I bought 2 of them when I could get them for $3, thinking "this card is under appreciated, it'll go up in value for sure". Well, when it rose to $8, I cashed 'em in for profit. Should have been more patient, because I had to pay $25 to get the one I'm using now.
Answers
Mastermind's Acquisition has been a great addition to the deck. It helps us find an AP or other missing combo piece if needed, but also lets us run one-of's, including in our sideboard, to get the card we need when we need it, without having it show up when we don't. There are certain cards that will hose opponents decks, and we plan to abuse those weaknesses even on game 1.
Approach decks or decks that rely on one card: Lost Legacy, Ixalan's Binding
Go wide decks: Trespasser's Curse
Control: Nezahal, Primal Tide, Duress, Negate, and Arguel's Blood Fast
. Our graveyard redundancy helps a lot in this matchup.
Red or other aggro: Authority of the Consuls, more Vicious Offering, and the rest of the sweepers in the main can help.
Marionette Master stays in the sideboard until it comes in to end the game. There are times where we have plenty of mana and tokens, but the opponent can still potentially win if they get a turn. Use acquisition to get a Marionette Master, set fabricate to +1/+1 counters, then sac the tokens. This can drain the opponent out of life on the spot.
Overwhelming Splendor also should stay in the sideboard, but can effectively end a game in the right setting.
There are other considerations in the maybeboard, that may be useful in your meta (Solemnity, The Immortal Sun), and cards I thought could be good but didn't make the cut.
Lands
The current land mix has been fine tuned quite a bit to achieve the current balance. The cycle lands can help if we flood out, and also provide land types for our check lands. There are a lot of potential tapped lands in the deck, and early on we want to be able to cast our spells, so I have Concealed Courtyard instead of Isolated Chapel.
This hopefully give some idea of how to run the deck. There is a lot of decision making involved, and it might take a while to get the hang of it, but it is immensely fun. I can be very resilient and ridiculously explosive late game. 10+ treasure tokens? Happens all the time. 50+ health? Yep. Drawing so many cards you need to be careful so you don't mill yourself? Happens all the time.
There is a lot of thought behind the card choices in this deck. If you have any questions, leave them in the comment section below. All feedback is appreciated, and an upvote is as well.
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Revision 2 See all
(5 years ago)
| +1 | Anointer Priest | main |
| +1 | Authority of the Consuls | side |
| +1 | Cast Down | side |
| -1 | Cast Out | main |
| -1 | Duress | main |
| +1 | Fatal Push | side |
| -1 | Fumigate | main |
| -1 | Fungal Infection | main |
| +2 | Karn, Scion of Urza | main |
| +1 | Negate | side |
| -1 | Overwhelming Splendor | side |
| +1 | River's Rebuke | side |
| +1 | Seal Away | main |
| -1 | Spell Swindle | main |
| -1 | Syncopate | main |
| -1 | Trespasser's Curse | side |
| -2 | Vicious Offering | main |
| +1 | Vraska's Contempt | side |
| Date added | 5 years |
| Last updated | 5 years |
| Legality | This deck is not Standard legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 5 - 0 Mythic Rares 33 - 9 Rares 7 - 3 Uncommons 7 - 3 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.89 |
| Tokens | Angel of Sanctions 3/4 W, Anointer Priest 1/3 W, Champion of Wits 4/4 B, Construct 0/0 C, Copy Clone, Sacred Cat 1/1 W, Saproling 1/1 G, Servo 1/1 C, Treasure |
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