By now we’re all familiar with the power of Oketra’s Monument. The late bloomer last season made its mark early in Hour of Devastation Standard before being eclipsed by the likes of Ramunap Red, Zombies, and Temur Energy.
One of the issues the deck has is its reliance on its namesake card, leaving it vulnerable to artifact removal, in particular Abrade. Sure, the deck is capable of functioning reasonably well without it, but the delta between games where you cast Monument on turn 3 and those where you don’t is huge.
Today’s deck tries to sidestep that issue by building the token generation into its cards. There are tons of ways to generate Servo tokens in white and plenty of ways to pump them, so the pairing is obvious.
Of course, the tradeoff is that your individual cards aren’t as powerful, so you really need to get value from the tokens themselves, hence the deck’s eight Anthem effects.
Angel of Invention is the star attraction, since it pumps all your non-token bodies, but don’t sleep on Master Trinketeer. At three mana, it’s not a huge investment, but it can dominate a battlefield both early and late, making it a must-answer threat much of the time.
This list is definitely hyper-focused and a rough draft as all four-ofs, but there are plenty of directions to go in that add some standalone power.
Toolcraft Exemplar is great if you want to get more aggressive. Oketra the True gives you a hard-hitting threat that survives sweepers. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar does everything. Even something like Eldrazi Displacer could work well if you go up to four Shefet Dunes, which is almost assuredly correct anyway.
The best part is the deck? It’s essentially immune to artifact removal. I don’t think I have to explain in much detail how Abrade-ing half of your opponent’s two-drop is a poor trade. The best target for Shatter effects is a Clue token. And if your opponents start bringing out all such removal, you can pack some high-powered Vehicles in your sideboard to take advantage.
No Monument, no problem.
Creatures (24)
- 4 Thraben Inspector
- 4 Selfless Spirit
- 4 Glint-Sleeve Artisan
- 4 Master Trinketeer
- 4 Angel of Invention
- 4 Visionary Augmenter
Lands (5)
Spells (31)
