As I’m finishing this up, the Dark Ascension spoiler just went up. As much as I would love to go through and card by card the relevant parts, I’m not on nearly enough sleep to do so and have no idea how certain things are going to work until I play a game with them. Undying? Is Strangleroot Geist more of a 2/1 or 3/2? Who knows!
Instead, I’m just going to talk about the obvious thing: Black-White Tokens. Everyone has mentioned that it now is back, but rather than work on building a list, I’m going to focus on the fundamentals of the deck. What did Tokens gain to make it good? Why do we even want to be playing Tokens in the current metagame, and given the anticipated popularity of the deck how do we approach beating it?
First Question: What does Tokens gain in the abstract?
Sorin isn’t even the real issue. It’s a cool additional Anthem. Once I realized the Vampires it made didn’t fly, I lost a lot of respect for that mode. It will be very good once you have already set up your pumps as just another impossible-to-kill threat, but a bunch of 1/1 lifelinks aren’t really going to do much on their own. I expect Sorin to just be a more balanced Ajani Goldmane. Instead of being terrible against control mages, it loses some value when you get into a pure race scenario, which is probably healthier for the format as a whole. It used to be if one player had Ajani they just won; with Sorin the other player can Anthem their way into the race.
The short answer to this question: Lingering Souls is pure shenanigans.
First, the tokens are white, making Honor of the Pure into a more realistic pump. Before, you just had Midnight Haunting, Hero of Bladehold, and Elspeth Tirel for white tokens. We can strike out Hero, as once she starts making tokens you don’t really need to Honor of the Pure them for a win, and Midnight Haunting wasn’t quite good enough to make the cut. That leaves a five-drop, which just happens to be a planeswalker that shouldn’t need help from a two-drop. Now that there is redundancy in the early token makers that enable Honor of the Pure, you can double up on Anthem effects and start getting a little more aggressive. The two-three curve of pump into tokens is going to be quite common and probably very potent this Standard season.
On the subject of Haunting not being a threat on its own, Lingering Souls fixes that by representing four power in one card without factoring pumps. As opposed to drawing Haunting late game and feeling outclassed, as we learned last year, four power is a legitimate clock even in the form of some 1/1 fliers.
Finally, the delayed aspect of the flashback is going to be huge. Part of what makes Tokens decks so good is how poorly traditional removal matches up against them, and this card further pushes that by making Wrath effects worse. You have two 3/2 tokens from a Sorin emblem and random enchantment? Well, have to Wrath them and then find another out for the next two.
Second Question: Why is Tokens going to be relevant in this format?
Just because the deck exists doesn’t mean it will be good, but it happens that this is a very favorable time for tokens to pop into the metagame.
Gut Shot, Vapor Snag, Delver of Secrets. This trio of one-drops is currently carving Standard into the shape it has taken, most notably making most attempts at traditional board presence bad ideas. As a result, U/W Delver variants have taken over, as they are so good at punishing people for simply doing reasonable things all the way up the curve.
You want to play cheap, aggressive creatures? Okay, but your opponent can trade their zero mana and two life for your actual investment if they are 1/1s. Don’t worry; that’s just all of the Stromkirk Nobles, Signal Pests, Llanowar Elves, and Skinshifters you could ever want to cast completely wrecked in terms of tempo and early game development.
You still want to try to attack people? Is your creature going to kill them faster than a 3/2 flying for one? Delver of Secrets is just that guy this time around. He’s the best one-drop early because when you hit, he just kills them. He’s the one-drop late because he flies. He’s probably better than most of the two-drops and many three-drops as a 3/2 flier. Sure, he doesn’t always flip, but the “drawback” is that you have to play with cards like Vapor Snag and Gut Shot. Rough life.
You want to play big creatures? They better do something right there to rectify the board state, or you are going to fall behind to Vapor Snag. The life loss should be marginal, but for some unknown reason, the blue creatures in this format just hit so hard that the one is worth way more damage than it should be, and the reach just gets better. It’s either that or the fact Snapcaster Mage exists to double up into a Man-o’-War Highway Robber. This is also on top of big threats dealing with Mana Leak related issues that typically plague four or higher drops in the world of aggro-control versus midrange.
So now that we have established what makes the current Standard the way it is, why is Tokens going to snap this open?
Gut Shot? That kills half a Midnight Haunting or Lingering Souls, not even accounting for any of the eight copies of Honor of the Pure and Intangible Virtue that the Tokens player could have curved out into the Spirits with. The one-drop of choice for Tokens, if there is one? Probably Doomed Traveler. Pay two life, discard a card, your guy gains flying? Not what we are looking for here.
Delver of Secrets? Sure, trading for a Midnight Haunting is fine, as you can blow them out with a single trick, and even if the exchange happens, you are up two mana, but what about a Lingering Souls? Half a card for Delver is not a good deal. Even a full card for Delver and a trick is not what you are looking for. Now moving back to those eight pumps, you are looking at both of these trades being completely miserable for the Delver side of things.
Vapor Snag? See Gut Shot, only slightly better for the blue mage. This time, you take one, and it overrides the Anthems. Still, it’s half a card at best.
Point established: Tokens is very well positioned against the current slew of Delver decks. Even marginal things are going to make life awkward for these lists, like how chumping an Angel token is easy if necessary and costs the Tokens deck very little.
Third Question: How do you beat Tokens?
Let’s take a step back to 2009 and compare lists.
Creatures (16)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (25)
Spells (16)
Creatures (11)
Planeswalkers (8)
Lands (25)
Spells (16)
On paper, these decks look very similar. In practice, I would bet that holds true as well. Luis’s deck is a bit better at pushing forward in the early game with Spectral Procession making three tokens as well as Bitterblossom just being a card, but the new deck Patrick Chapin has suggested has a bit more staying power with Shrine of Loyal Legions, multiple planeswalkers, and Lingering Souls. The old list has a bit less linearity as well and can just as easily kill you with Tidehollow Sculler and Kitchen Finks, but the tokens core is very much the same.
So, how did people approach that deck back then?
Option one: Oversized fast creatures. Anything that you can just shove at their face without them being able to set up profitable blocks. In case you didn’t notice, the actual curve of the tokens deck is fairly high, and they don’t really start making a board until around turn three. Just going one-drop, two-drop is fairly effective against them assuming your guys are big enough to fight and survive. Haste and other ways to provide a tempo swing are also huge here, as it keeps you on the aggressive side of things without letting them clog up the board and make profitable blocks. Skinrender might see another day in the sun. This might not be the best option this time around due to the pump effects costing two and naturally curving as opposed to costing three and four, but it still exists.
Option two: Plague Winds. Just having big dudes to pressure them isn’t quite enough, but if you can cheaply wipe their board and keep yours, it makes it much easier to either kill them or get into a board state where every attacker you have is The Abyss. Maelstrom Pulse and Volcanic Fallout were the past options, and Whipflare may be able to fill in now depending on how your deck is set up. Barring that, aggressive Ratchet Bombs away! Another option is Falters to just let you follow through on early attempts to force in damage, though there isn’t an obvious card here like Cryptic Command. As a note on this last one, a lot of the decks that leaned on one-shot effects to beat B/W Tokens were token decks themselves. Most of these mirror matches devolved into both players having lethal power on board, so a Falter would make any sort of small numbers or size advantage irrelevant.
Option Three: Cruel Ultimatums, or in this day and age Titans. The Standard rule of how to beat midrange decks applies. If your opponent wants to grind out a long game, fight them on a different level. Turn the game into a race to see if they can kill you before you land your finisher. While it is probably hard to construct a control deck that properly stalls both Tokens and Delvers, it can be done. Cast some dumb big spells that end the game. This can also mean comboing them out, as evidenced by the Seismic Swans deck that ended up breaking the Tokens hold on the metagame back in Alara Standard.
I’m expecting the last of these to be the go-to choice for most people. I’m fairly sure Primeval Titan is going to cause massive issues for the first builds of Tokens. In terms of other things that are currently in common use, I expect Hero of Bladehold and Sword of War and Peace to shine here. Hero mixes the first and third options, while Sword is a bit of an aggressive body and a bit of a Falter. Both of these cards will also appreciate the shift away from Vapor Snags associated with Tokens’ presence in the metagame.
One thing I expect people to assume beats Tokens that won’t is Curse of Death’s Hold. They are paying two mana for the reverse of this card; you are paying five. They have eight of their card; you have four Curse at most. If you can handle Honors and Virtues, it might do something, but it isn’t a plan on its own.
While I don’t think Tokens is the end-all solution to the format, it is going to cause some shakeups. The driving forces of the format are going to be redefined from one-cost tempo spells to including the ability to deal with midgame swarms. If you are planning on playing Standard in the near future, be prepared for this eventuality.
Modern Updates:
While I was unable to make it to the Detroit PTQ this past weekend, I have still been working on the format. Given that people have taken to extremely spiteful sideboards towards Affinity and Twin, I’ve decided to shop around. Both decks are still fine, but if you can break the format equally hard and dodge the hate, why bother having to drudge through it?
The main list I’ve been working on is an update to the Gifts deck I posted last week.
Creatures (7)
Lands (25)
Spells (28)
The main changes were moving to Talismans to smooth out the mana slightly, upgrading the removal suite, and moving the Wraths to the board. The first two are fairly reasonable and shouldn’t require much explanation, but the last seems odd at first. However, if you look at the format, you don’t actually want the Wrath effects against many decks. Even against those that you do want them for, you would rather set up a Gifts game one. They are still in the board if you need them, but they aren’t a mainstay of the archetype.
The Baneslayer Angels are to augment your plan B against the various Delver decks as well as Big Zoo. They could be any big idiot that takes over the game while costing a reasonable amount of mana, but I think Angel is the best one on cost and ability to race. This is also why I’ve opted so far against switching Grave Titan to Sphinx of the Steel Wind. While the latter’s ability would give you some more options when double Entombing with Gifts, Titan is still fine, and I would rather have it when I move to the main plan post-board.
Night of Soul’s Betrayal has been nothing short of insane. It is good against Twin (all of their combo options can’t kill through it), Affinity (they have eight creatures that live through it, and four are Ornithopter), Delver decks (Tarmogoyf lives, and that’s about it), Martyr (kills everything, though that matchup is basically unlosable as is), and a bunch of random things like Elves. I almost want to just play more of that card over Wraths.
The only issue I have with this deck still is that it is inherently clunky and randomly loses sometimes because of it. However, given how high variance the other great options are, I can’t complain. Having four insane cards and the rest of your deck being a reasonably live control deck is probably something a lot of people find more appealing than the 6 win-the-game, 54 bricks of Affinity or the topdeck wins and losses of Splinter Twin.
As for the Emrakuls I mentioned last week, here you go.
Creatures (30)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
- 4 Nest Invader
- 2 Fauna Shaman
- 4 Primeval Titan
Lands (26)
Spells (4)
The idea is that Through the Breach-Emrakul is one of the sickest combos in the format that no one is playing. The issue is you need some sort of backup plan to make the cards work. Owen Turtenwald had a Fist of the Suns build with Time of Need to double up on both ends, but the splash damage from Affinity made untapping with an artifact combo piece too unreliable of a plan. Travis Woo also posted a list with a Polymorph-Tokens shell that seems interesting and more effective than the current U/W Tokens lists floating around trying to do the same thing.
This, however, is where I chose to start because it has the most explosive draws. Turn-three Emrakuls occurred when this deck was legal last Extended season, and this list has better mana and more ways to execute the nut draw. You also have very nice overlap with Through the Breach and Primeval Titan. For those who haven’t played the Hideaway deck, in testing we found two triggers of Titan was usually enough to find something game ending. Incidentally, sneaking in a Titan gives you two triggers. The sideboard is extremely loose still, but that is mostly because of how hard it is to board anything out of the main shell of the deck.
All of the playsets in the maindeck are pretty much locked to ensure the deck functions. Fauna Shaman is just the generic decent card that fits in the middle. I originally had Garruk Relentless as another tutor effect and a win condition, but he wasn’t flipping nearly enough in this format to be relevant.
The main problem this deck has right now is that Emrakul is embarrassingly bad against Splinter Twin. Turns out the protection granted by all those tentacles does not cover Faeries and Clerics Twiddling away at him. Arena helps out here by letting a Knight of the Reliquary turn into a Visara and peg down any attempted untappers, but your core deck is just not well built to beat theirs. Given how prominent Twin is right now, I would be wary of playing this deck, but it definitely has the power to hang around with everything else. Who knows? There might be a reasonable eleven cards to bring in for that matchup that fixes it while you literally annihilate everything else.
That’s about it for this week. Join me next week when I run a breakdown of how Dark Ascension is going to shake up Limited. Will G/W beats still be the default best? Will you still be able to make all the Spiders you ever wanted? I don’t know now, but I expect in a week I’ll have a good idea on both of these.