Modern Deck Analysis: BW Tokens!

This article to the series is slightly different. I didn't have the chance to play the event due to budget constraints. Instead, I would like to dive into a detailed analysis of a deck and how the deck, in my opinion, should function. Fair warning, all opinions and thoughts are entitled to each and everyone, hence, whatever I post in the following article is strictly to my own opinions.

I'd clearly state that the analysis of the deck strictly targets the mainboard, and is by my own opinion that what cards are best for the deck in the mainboard. 

Note that I did not include sideboard for the sake to just concentrate on the main 60. There are many sideboard options and I cannot address them individually. But, I would agree that most of the common  suggestions in many decks are viable and they are meta-dependent; so meta calls for the necessary changes. 

Thirdly, the deck I'm presenting is to an extend, a workable deck. But, it is NOT, I repeat, not the best deck out there. Again, meta-calls is very important and the necessary changes to your own decks are strictly to your professional opinion and judgment. I'm in no way or in no intention to criticize others.

Deck: BW Tokens

As much as I want to keep it a secret, I am an avid fan of token decks. I love spamming tokens to create an army and induce fear with my mass army. Yea, come to think about it, I'm pretty much like a dictator... not.

As far as technical experience counts, I haven't actually played token decks in sanctioned events like FNMs, but I do play them on a casual level and I do own the following token decks; some were in the past, the more recent would be my active EDH deck.

• Mono-Green Elves (Casual)
• Ghave, Guru of Spores (EDH)
• BW tokens <Shelved>(Modern)

I personally think that a good BW Token deck runs as a semi-reactive Tempo/Aggro build. Yes, I said Tempo. But, do not be mistaken as the same tempo of card advantage/counterspells kind of tempo as commonly referred. I talk more about this later.

Firstly, my "Ideal" decklist for BW Tokens:

To kick off the discussion, I cover them by different headings for the different aspects of the deck.

General Strategy

As I mentioned, a good BW Token deck runs as a semi-reactive Tempo/Aggro build. The idea of the deck is simple; build up an army of tokens and smash! But, realistically speaking, we have a whole lot of threats that can and will easily kill off our tokens. 

This is my take on the general strategy of the BW tokens. Disruption will always come into my mind in the early to midgame. Why? Token decks gain the advantage of having more bodies over a single card. I only need to resolve 1 token spawn card to get at least 2 bodies. 1 buff card + 1 token card easily deals 4 damage at minimum. that's already 20% of the opponents life gone. Going by the ratio of effectiveness, I actually think it's pretty effective!

Now, the fine line to know when to be reactive in my disruption and removals and when to be aggressive is based on practice. It will become a gut feel that you know you can dominate the board with your tokens and easily buff them with your enchantments or Zealous Persecution.

When going aggressive, the common mistake is to over-commit the board. Well, admit it. We can get carried away. I know I will; next thing is a board-wipe will tilt the deck. Optimally, 2-4 token creatures at a time will suffice. 2 is due to the nature of cards we are playing, each time we play it, we will see at least 2 creatures. 4 at max is that we would want to activate Windbrisk Heights. Maybe the last guy would be a blocker if necessary or the vital turning point for the deck.

From the point above, this is where disruption comes in handy; It's important to note that the disruption is not to just plainly disrupting the opponents for the sake of having the cards. The point of disruption is that if I were to plan out my attacks at a certain turn, I have to be sure that on that turn and next, the opponent do not have means to disrupt to my plans. My all out attack must not be the turning point for my opponent to counter-attack. Also, the use of disruption is to ensure that we gain advantage from the quantity of cards we can throw out. Numbers is a critical factor for the deck. 

The plan of buffing the tokens is essential. Buff them as soon as possible and try to keep them at a minimal 2/2 body. The threat of 2/2 is obviously better than 1/1, but it's not just about the threat, but is also because of the survivability of the tokens. They may not avoid bolt, but they sure avoid a lot of other overlooked things at being a 2/2. 

You can swing and keep the pressure with just 1 token if needed. Not necessarily that token deck must always be full of creatures and attacking with a whole army. The main thing is to always remember that the deck is more resilient than what many people think. Think, manipulate their options, and go offensive whenever possible.

Deck Components

Land Base

Land base is fairly straightforward. The lands are mainly there to thin the deck and fix the colours. Some special utilities are present, but at minimal.

• 4 Marsh Flats + 4 Godless Shrine 
  The primary core that fixes your mana colours. The fetchlands also becomes a method to thin the deck. Some may argue that more than 4 fetches are needed. I personally think that 4 would suffice. 
  If really needed to go into such, the maximum of 6 Fetches would be included. But, do note that while you thin your deck faster, you are doing it at the expense of your life. Also, the reason why I mentioned 4 is enough is because Ghost Quarters can be thought as Fetchlands.
• 2 Isolated Chapel
  Checklands are never bad. Too many is clunky though. I found that 2 is a sweet spot.
• 1 Fetid Heath
  More filters? Sure! But 1 is enough. Excess becomes redundant and it becomes more of a hassle than a help.
• 2 Windbrisk Heights
  Older decklists will say run 4. But, being an aggressive deck as the core, we cannot afford too many lands that comes into play tapped. It disrupts our tempo of play. Especially in the first 3 turns, which can greatly affect your odds of winning.
• 2 Ghost Quarters
  Hits Tron lands, Manlands, etc. A good Land-based removal and it actually helps to filter colours and thin the lands! This is actually my 5th and 6th fetchlands.
• 1 Vault of the Archangel
  Tertiary win con. Overlooked many times by opponents. Giving your creatures Lifelink/Deathtouch can really change games. 1-off is enough. Excess will become redundant.

Token Spawns

The Core of the deck. That's why we are playing deck in the first place.

• 4 Lingering Souls
  Probably the best token card ever printed. A powerful 3-mana card, giving 2 tokens and the ability to flashback for another 2. It's a great card! Also, giving the colour of the casting cost, it's very easy to cast and flashback. It's also go very useful card as a recovery tool after a board-wipe.
  
  
• 4 Spectral Procession
  I once had a friend coming up to me and asked me to take an opinion of his Token deck. The first thing I pointed out was, "why wasn't there any Spectral Procession?" He told me that trying to hit 3 white source is difficult. I told him to forget about playing the deck. 
  Lingering souls may take the spot of the best token card, but Spectral Procession IS THE MOST IMPORTANT card in the deck. 1 card generating 3 flying tokens at irregardless the casting cost of 3-5 is always good! I cannot express how important this card is. This must be a 4-off. Anything less is bust.
  
  
• 4 Raise the Alarm
  Instant speed at 2 mana to give 2 bodies, it's a no brainer that this is a 4-off. A good card to be drawn in both early and late game. It's a simple card that is just good at what it does. Just consider this as a 2 mana instant speed creature on 2 bodies; you can flash them in as blockers, or at opponent's end of turn, cast that and upon resolution, you have 2 more attackers as pressure!

Buffs

Buffs come mainly as Enchantments; Honor of the Pure, Intangible Virtue, etc. They are the ones responsible to maximize the token's P/T and be as threatening as possible in the numbers. Both quantity and stats-wise.

• 3 Honor of the Pure
• 2 Intangible Virtue
  Honestly it really doesn't matter in the numbers and their combination, but my preference is as shown. Because I run a lot of white; well, actually mostly white, Honor of the Pure becomes the main card. Intangible Virtue gives only the buff on the Tokens, but thing is that having vigilance means that you get to attack and block without hesitation. Also, 4 seems underwhelming, while 8 is too much. I would want to have about 2 in a game and also in my opening hand. I'll leave it at 5 as the slot permits. Anything more or less seems to be too much or too little.
  This forms the necessary backbone to aid our creatures to become bigger and more powerful as threats. An ant is no threat, but an army of ants does some serious damage. Likewise, having a chopstick is easily broken, but not with a bundle of them. My point is that having a board of 1/1 tokens are easily rid off. But getting them to reach the size of 2/2 or 3/3s are considerably threatening. If a single large creature is an immediate target by most opponents due to their sheer size and threat, imagine what slightly smaller, but slightly more abundant in numbers can do.

• 4 Zealous Persecution
  Another underrated card in the deck. The two sides of the this card's ability can really help change the game for us. Essentially, it can make and break game by itself. I mean with the tokens on board will be nice, but if necessary, it makes combat damage a little less painful for a turn, and that minute life saved can save you a turn later in most games.
  The thing about Zealous Persecution is that it is the 5th-8th buff card that the token decks lacked. In the older builds with 4-off Honor of the Pures and Intangible Virtues, the deck is clunky and at times, we want that extra reach in combat. Having the enchantment buffs makes the opponents prepared and planned; they know what to expect, but with an instant speed buff like this, it's usually unexpected. And, even if that is expected, you can bait off a counter-spell which may land you in some other strategies to put you in the edge. The point is that 4-off seems overkill at first, but I personally think that this card deserves more attention in this deck.
  Plus side, this card lets you survive 1 turn against Splintered Twin match-ups. (Not Kiki though...)

Support

• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 1 Thoughtseize
  Both hits different targets, but they do the same thing; disruption. The point to look at them as methods to ensure you and your tokens stays alive! I know most approach this as a method to slow them down, but think about this, most other decks that run for this purpose have additional means to ensure the opponents will not catch up to their tempo; They have counters, discards and maybe even manipulation strategies to keep you behind in resources. Look back at the deck, do we have any of these? No.
  It's best to look as methods to ensure we get our tokens out, and we keep them alive. The disruptions are not per say, disrupting the opponent's tempo. We are essentially disrupting the opponent to prevent them from disrupting us. The first 3 turns in modern is crucial. If we can stop their plans to remove our threats in the next turn or so they are behind. This fulfills the common understanding of the cards' abilities. If you look at the general picture, it's the same thing, but look closer at how and when to use, it becomes a card that disrupts opponents, but does nothing to protect your key cards, or it becomes a card that may require you to invest some resources to save your game.
• 3 Path to Exile
  Arguably the best removal in Modern Format. So what's the reason not to add 4 into any white deck? But, the draw back is this, you ramp your opponent's mana base. The thing is this, ramp-ing your opponent's mana base is going to be counter-productive against the disruptive plans in certain games. While it is a very powerful spell, it is a double-edge sword if used unwisely. 3 pieces will suffice to ensure you mostly will have the removal, but not to the point of having it abusing the abundance.

• 1 Elspeth Tirel
  I initially have some reservations about using Elspeth Tirel; she is slower than Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, which the latter gives tokens, buffs them and just that coupled that  Sorin, Lord of Innistrad is a 4 CMC Planeswalker is a very good reason to run the latter.
  However, at a closer look, Elspeth Tirel gives something that  Sorin, Lord of Innistrad lacks; Support. She supports the deck by sustaining your life total. the 2 life net off is very similar to how Kitchen finks annoys most red decks. The difference in that 2 life is very important; especially in such fast format, every life count! Now the thing is that Elspeth Tirel nets off a good amount of life, say around 2 or 4 life per turn, that is actually enough to negate quite a bit of damage per turn. The race against your opponents may be sustained by just that bit of life. Again, every life count.
  If we were to compare both token spawn ability, Elspeth Tirel generates 3 tokens at once, while Sorin gives 1 token with lifelink. If we play by the numbers game, Elspeth gives a better board dominance than Sorin, while  Sorin, Lord of Innistrad would give a better survival rate than Elspeth Tirel. However, noting that aspect is also well-covered by Elspeth Tirel, and having that many buffs as shown earlier, we can safely assume to say that Sorin is great if you are running a more disruptive build, which may have lesser buffs or support, but I feel that Elspeth Tirel is better in most cases.
  Finally, She is the fastest planeswalker to activate her ultimate ability. Giving her 1 turn-clock, she can nuke the board free of any non-Tokens. If this does not change and win you games, I don't know what does. Also, the 5 mana slot doesn't compete with, in my opinion, the other finishers in Token decks.

• 3 Auriok Champion
  Arguably weak and irrelevant, but with the point as mentioned with Elspeth Tirel, every life counts. Make use of every opportunity to keep the life total high and with Auriok Champion, the ability will abuse all the amount of creatures entering the battlefield. As all of the token spawn cards give a good tempo of 1-for-2 bodies, the lifegain is considerably relevant. Plus side, she is already protected against red/black spells, so it's a double-threat against burn/removal spells and creatures of that colour.
• 1 Rootborn DefensesThis would be an odd choice, but if going by the fact that combat tricks are best won by the element of surprise, this gives the best element of surprise. It saves your tokens from a lot, and I really mean a lot of wipes that can kill your deck tempo. Exiling and -x/-x would suck this card up, but I mean, look at most of the cards people are playing. "Destroy" is the main keyword around and having this as a 1-off keeps you in the element of unknown. If you pull of this once, it really crushes the opponent's train of thought. They'll be suspicious; more reserved with their strategies as they have met an unknown, the element of surprise.
  I personally seen this card in action and every time this card is drawn, it saves him games. The mass removal becomes redundant, the board-wipes can't clear anything, the token player basically gained the upper-hand to win that game.

Finishers

• 3 Hero of Bladehold
  My figure is that most people would argue that Brimaz, King of Oreskos deserves a mention or even the throne as a finisher. My first point would be that as a finisher, the minimum damage output that the creature can give would be the most important factor. The fact that Brimaz may enter the board a turn earlier, spawn a token to block with him and able to attack the next turn for maybe both tokens, he essentially dealt 5 damage before Hero of Bladehold can attack.
  But, let's put it this way, how many times do you really want your finisher to actually block something? If you do, does the token survive? Let's assume just raw bodies attacking, Brimaz can attack for 4 damage in that turn and another 4/5 in the next, assuming the tokens survived and he managed to attack again, we get a range of 8-10 damage within the 2 turns.
  In comparison, Hero of Bladehold resolves on a turn later, and deals 7 damage due to her battlecry ability, giving her 2 tokens spawned +1/+0. If we were to look at it this way, sure, Brimaz may have the advantage in numbers, but look again. Hero of Bladehold deals a minimum of 7 damage per turn while Brimaz does 4-5. In the longer run, Hero of Bladehold will eventually overtake Brimaz; in both situations where either then tokens survive or do not. Plus, the Battlecry ability is the one that is the deciding factor. Hero of Bladehold essentially helps to give the last push to win games. Brimaz don't. 

Well, with that, my analysis of the BW Token deck comes to an end. Agree, disagree? Let me know in the comments and we can discuss!

If you want to see an established primer and join in the discussion with the people there, click HERE! I'm not involved in the discussion as I don't play the deck in Modern, but this is a deck that I personally can pick it up and play it anytime.