Post SoA: BRx Tokens

I've been out of Magic for a few years now but recently got back in on account of Shards being an amazing set [at least from the last set I played, Kamigawa] and Trey's ability to finagle me into doing things I've said I won't. I put together this deck and have revised it and revised it. I think it's close to being solid but I need some input.

5 Swamp
6 Mountains
3 Savage Lands
3 Jund Panorama
2 Graven Cairns
1 Fire-Lit Thicket [I need more I know. All we have atm]
____
24 Lands


4 Bone Splinters
4 Draggon Fodder
3 Grave Pact
1 Bitterblossom [Once again I need more but don't have them.]
2 Necrogenesis
2 Beseech the Queen
2 Torrent of Souls
____
18 Spells


3 Broodmate Dragon
3 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Nantuko Husk
4 Sprouting Thrinax
1 Predator Dragon
1 Fury-Stroke Giant
____
16 Creatures

3 Garruk
___
61 Cards


I'm going pretty consistently 1-2 at FNM with this, and usually I lose that second one because of a player mistake or my combos not going off. The combos have gotten better with the revised editions, but I still have some mana problems occasionally and then of course there's my deck's bad match ups against players with a lot more experience then me. There's 61 cards in this deck, I posted that because I'm at a loss as what to cut. Maybe one Broodmate or the Predator Dragon? The Fury Stroke Giant is still in there because I haven't been able to play test it well yet, but the idea behind that combo with all my tokens is appealing. Thanks for any input, I apparently need it.

*Edit* My roommate and I talked a bit about my deck and we decided that the big problem with my deck is that its highest threat level, efficiency level, and dependability on combos centers around one card: Grave Pact. So we thought what could we put in that is around the same turn drop as Grave Pact that would give me an alternative to it to help with the threat and effectiveness. The answer was staring us in the face the whole time... Warhammer. This makes my Husk a much bigger threat then it was before without grave pact. The creature base here I think is solid and doesn't need tinkering, but as I said I'm inexperienced so input still highly desired. We thought of a few other modifications as well so this is my revised Spells for my deck.

4 Bone Splinters
4 Dragon Fodder
3 Grave Pact
1 [+2] Bitterblossom
2 [-2] Necrogenesis
2 Makeshift Mannequin
2 Loxodon Warhammer
____
18 Spells

Creatures
4 Furystoke Giant
4 Marsh Flitter
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Nantuko Husk
2 Shriekmaw

Enchantments
4 Goblin Assault
4 Grave Pact


Sorceries
4 Dragon Fodder
3 Thoughtseize

Tribal Enchantments
4 Bitterblossom

Basic Lands
6 Mountain
8 Swamp

Lands
1 Auntie's Hovel
4 Graven Cairns
4 Sulfurous Springs

obviously you dont have all these cards so proxy and try or borrow but this seems to be the optimal build and obviously i think you should cut green

I prefer to play BRG more controlling, with Firespouts and large animals like Broodmate Dragons. But here's a straight Tokens list:

3 Furystoke Giant
4 Marsh Flitter
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Nantuko Husk
4 Sprouting Thrinax
3 Sarkhan Vol
3 Dragon Fodder
2 Seige-Gang Commander
4 Thoughtseize
4 Bitterblossom
5 Mountain
5 Swamp
2 Fire-lit Thicket
2 Karplusan Forest
2 Llanowar Wastes
4 Savage Lands
4 Sulfurous Springs
1 Twilight Mire

Sideboard
3 Grave Pact
3 Shriekmaw
2 Puppeteer Clique
4 Resounding Thunder
3 Cloudthresher

Sideboard is kinda slopped together, but something like that. I think green is easy to play with the right lands and has some good cards. I'd prefer to put Grave Pact in the sideboard because it's not good against every deck. For example, 5-color control or Faeries.

Do you really think thoughtsieze belongs in this deck Ben? I played a terrible build at todd's last week and it did ok, but I can't imagine wanting thoughtsieze in the deck at all. And the deck should definitely play 4 Torrent of Souls. That card is an absolute beating. Sprouting Thrinax is everything that it was cracked up to be, and is worth the green splash. And Festering Goblin was strong for me, but that may have been a product of playing against Kithkin for 3 straight rounds.

I think you need to play either Thoughtseize or Fulminator Mage. Mage is an attractive option if you are playing lots of Torrents. I played against a RBW version of this deck with Spectral Procession and Ajani Vengeant, it was kind of a beating. Dunno if it's good against the field though.

In both of the deck lists posted in response it seems like there's a lot of pain lands. Plus running Bitterblossom and Thoughteize, isn't that too much self inflicted damage? It seems like if I played control on that I'd end up killing myself half the time. It's hard for me to visualize all the combos with these new lists in a game situation though, so I'm going to slop them together as much as I can and play test them. At the very least I will get some new ideas on strategy and on how to augment my previous build.

I made those changes in my deck that I posted previously and it made a noticeable difference. The only other thing I changed was my mana base and it seems to be performing much better. The Warhammer did what I wanted it to do and almost every game now I get a Hammer or Grave Pact out within the first 6 turns. Right now the deck is playing control aggro, but I'd like to get some sort of permeation of this build working well enough to go have some fun at States with. Any other suggestions would be helpful as I take a look at these new lists and see how I like them. Thanks again

I did not see that there are 8 painlands in the list I posted, that is too many. You should probably cut it down to about 4. You could use filter lands to fill the rest of the slots, but I'd think about getting some Treetop Villages in there too.

The things a token deck does well include smashing creature decks due to things like Furystoke Giant and being pretty good against Faeries due to their lack of sweepers or defensive creatures. Control decks tend to be a rough matchup unless they have trouble drawing their board sweepers, in which case you have a decent shot.

What would I sideboard in Grave Pact against? Anything but 5 color control and Faeries? Also what would you think about main decking Grave Pact and sideboarding in some of those other cards? Perhaps Thoughtseize in for Grave Pact since it will help me get rid of removal before they can play it. I play tested Tony's deck and it was very fast but it felt like the deck wasn't as good without Sprouting Thrinax. That card in combination with Husk with or without a Hammer equipped is just too good. The build I have now uses very little green except things like Thrinax or Broodmate which are Jund colored cards. Marsh Flitter is a good cad that I hadn't seen before though so thanks for the heads up on that one.

I honestly don't like Broodmate Dragon in this deck. You already have multiple 5 mana win the game cards (Torrent of Souls, Furystoke, Siege-Gang) and they do the job just as well and more efficiently than the Dragon does.

I did some merging because there are like 3-4 Tokens threads!

If you play Broodmate Dragon, you should probably be playing Firespouts and basically become a different deck. A big mana-style control deck. That would certainly involve cutting Torrent, Furystoke, and likely Siege-Gang and adding stuff like Rampant Growth or Mind Stone, maybe Shriekmaw and Primal Command.

i think you should stay small if that matters i think control has a much harder time with little dudes than big mana

I think the big mana versions can be tuned to do anything. Control has a hard time beating Resounding Thunder, which you can play main and be well-equipped to cycle.

Ok... so I'm gunna throw the tweaked list out here one more time before states. I've been play testing it and it's getting better, but for some reason it still just isn't performing. I hate to say scrap it because I really do love this deck, but if I can't get it working and states fails for me, then it will be on to something else. [Although that something else will prolly be extended for the next PTQ season.] Hopefully you guys like the changes here and we can think about something else to help me out this Saturday if I get to go.

4 Savage Lands
3 Jund Panorama
2 Graven Cairns
6 Swamp
5 Mountain
4 Forest
____
24 Lands


4 Sprouting Thrinax
4 Nantuko Husk
2 Marsh Flitter
3 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Fury Stroke Giant
____
16 Creatures

4 Bone Splinters
2 Gilt-Leaf Ambush
3 Bitterblossom
4 Dragon Fodder
2 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Grave Pact
____
18 Other spells

3 Garruk
____
3 Planeswalkers

61 Cards


This list is assuming Jesse will let me use his 2 Bitterblossoms in my deck on Saturday. And also I need the 2 Fury Stroke Giants. I only have 1 atm. Any help would be appreciated.

This did well at a cruise qualifier:

Mainboard:
2 Graven Cairns
2 Twilight Mire
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Fire-Lit Thicket
4 Savage Lands
3 Vivid Crag
3 Vivid Marsh
1 Mountain
1 Swamp

3 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Sprouting Thrinax
2 Furystoke Giant
4 Nantuko Husk

4 Bitterblossom
4 Dragon Fodder
4 Bone Splinters
4 Incinerate

4 Sarkhan Vol
3 Garruk Wildspeaker

# 60

Sideboard:
3 Grave Pact
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Thoughtseize
4 Guttural Response

One of my friends really likes tokens, this is the most recent list I could find from him:

3 Furystoke Giant
4 Marsh Flitter
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Nantuko Husk
4 Sprouting Thrinax
3 Sarkhan Vol
3 Dragon Fodder
2 Seige Gang
4 Thoughtseize
4 Bitterblossom
5 Mountain
5 Swamp
2 Fire-lit Thicket
2 Karplusan Forest
2 Llanowar Wastes
4 Savage Lands
4 Sulfurous Springs
1 Twilight Mire

Sideboard
3 Grave Pact
4 Maw
2 Puppeteer Clique
4 Cloudthresher
2 Loxodon Warhammer

I'm pretty sure he sent me one with 3 Magma Spray 1 Necrogenesis main and 1 Necrogenesis SB but I can't find it. I don't like Necrogenesis, but maybe he's right.

Necrogenesis tends to not be a steady card for me because there's not always creature cards in the graveyards during my matches. In fact I don't think I've ever gotten use out of Necrogenesis before turn 6 or later. Bitterblossom seems to be the way to go and my deck is a lot better having three of them. Necro is in my SB against the lark mu though. "Get yo' fuckin Sower out o' here!" I need to play test my deck with Thoughtseize in main to see if I like it or not, but I don't have any. Proxy then beg on Friday before states if I like it I suppose.

Trey and I have been going back and forth about Loxodon Warhammer in my deck. The build I'm using right now to see if it works is
-2 Warhammer
-1 Siege-Gang Commander
-1 Swamp
+4 Manamorphose

That's from my deck posted above. What I want to know is what do you guys think about this change? Does it take too much threat out of my deck? Manamorphose gets to my other cards faster... but I'm worried I'm taking out an answer to a RDW to get more of the same stuff I'll be getting anyway. I'll keep play testing and await the advice

I don't like to play Manamorphose unless I have to, and I try to make my decks so I never have to. If you have a good manabase it's not worth it. You get some largely unneccessary manafixing in exchange for a random card. That card might be a land, it might be a good spell, it might be a crappy spell. What are you going to do if you draw a hand that is 4 land, 2 Manamorphose, 1 spell? You probably have to keep but you don't know if your Manamorphoses are going to draw you into lands or spells. It's basically a 5-land hand. The problem of not knowing what you're going to get off Manamorphose is basically why I don't like it. I can understand it in a Storm deck but that's about it.

So should I add back in those 4 cards or something else? Is Thoughtseize worth taking out those spells?

If I were going to start testing tokens I'd start with the list I posted and test against the main decks I expect to show up at States: 5cc, Faeries, Kithkin, RDW, Lark, etc.

The difference right now from that deck list to my build are
Mogg Fanatic
-1 Dragon Fodder
+1 Bitterblossom
3 Sarkhan for Garruk
4 thoughtseize

How much does that chnage the dynamic of the deck? I can see the tempo change a bit since Thoughtseize is a 1 drop instead of Grave Pact which is a 4 drop with 3 black, and of course the Planeswalkers makes for slightly different strategy, but Planeswalkers win the game maybe 15% of the time. So the deck is mostly the same, but I'm going to play test it to see how I like it. I'm trying to see how much different it's going to handle those archetypes were going to see at states. I'll proxy this up and play with it before Todd's tonight

So I finally came up with a Side Board.

3 Vexing Shusher
3 Naturalize
3 Magma Spray
2 Tar Fiend
2 Soul's Fire
2 Necrogenesis

Also in main deck
-2 Gilt-Leaf Ambush
-1 Bone Splinters
+3 Shriekmaw

Sorry to keep posting all these, I'm just trying to get as much input as possible. Oh and also sorry if I'm coming off as not taking advice. When I ask why certain things should be put in or taken out... it's because I really don't know; not because I think you're wrong. So any other words of wisdom on the deck would be appreciated before Saturday. Thanks

Not a problem, that's what these forums are for. You should always temper advice people give you with your own experience. We can work on a lot of this stuff Friday night. I'll try to bring some tier 1 decks for you to test against. Here's a rundown of how they try to beat you so you can get some ideas on sideboarding options:

Faeries, 5cc, and maybe Lark will try to counter your key spells to keep you from doing powerful things. 5cc and Lark will have some sweepers, and probably some Esper Charms for your Blossoms. Faeries may board Infest too. They will all kill you in different ways, but you mostly want to be aggressively trying to kill them rather than counteract their finishers. The only possible exception is Lark, but Relic of Progenitus will hurt your Torrents or Mannequins if you play them, and Necrogenesis seems too slow. They are options though I guess. Kithkin will play some efficient, probably Exalted, dudes in the early turns then switch to swarm mode with Spectral Procession, Ranger of Eos, and Cloudgoat Ranger. Removal and chumping with tokens will save you some damage in the first 3-4 turns, but after that you have to keep up with their token production, which is possible for your deck. Furystoke Giant should help a lot there once you have a few guys out. RDW will mostly play large creatures like Demigod, Gouger, Ram-Gang, Hell's Thunder and of course has to burn spells to finish you off if they get you low enough. People usually expect lifegain to be awesome against red decks, and while it's decent, modern red decks are based around fat creatures more than burn spells so it's not as good. Grave Pact should help a lot against their big guys, and Thrinax will buy you a lot of time.

As for the board you suggested, what are you doing with Soul's Fire, Tar Fiend, or Naturalize? I don't think you really need to fight Faeries' Bitterblossom. A bigger problem is that Mistbind Clique timewalks you every time, so maybe MD Terror would help. If you kill Clique with the champion trigger on the stack your lands won't get tapped and they won't have a 4/4 flyer. As a side benefit, Sower is pretty decent against you, and Terror kills that too. Cloudthresher is also a good option against Faeries, albeit slightly awkward with your own Blossoms. Soul's Fire seems like a weak removal spell that doesn't really fit in your deck. Grave Pact would be much better. Tar Fiend is alright if it resolves, but it costs more than every counterspell, so good luck with that. Thoughtseize and even Mind Shatter seem better. Another route you could take is having 4 Fulminator Mages somewhere to hopefully steal a game if they have a land-light draw.

Well Soul's Fire I was thinking would at least be mild burn spell, but against decks like Kithkin when I was having trouble smashing through their creatures, I could sack some creatures to Husk then Soul's Fire. Tar Fiend I thought was too expensive as well but Chuck and Evan thought it might be good in board and I hadn't played it there yet. Naturalize was for all the utility enchants like Runed Halo and Oblivion Ring not to mention stopping some of the artifacts that are being played. Rarely, but they are getting in there. But yeah if there are some better cards for this board let me know in play test.