MTG Salvation

Red/White Tokens

Introduction
Hello everyone! I have been trying to make Monastery Mentor work in Modern for a while now and I wanted to share a new list I've been having good results with.

The basic strategy is to get a bunch of tokens quickly and efficiently and then finish the opponent off with burn if necessary.

The core cards are Young Pyromancer, Lingering Souls, and Monastery Mentor. The synergy between these cards is amazing because you get two sorcery casts out of one Souls, which gives you two triggers on your Pyromancers and Mentors. Furthermore, Souls itself makes tokens itself to get buffed by Intangible Virtue and our planeswalkers.

Creatures
4 of Young Pyromancer because it is a proactive two drop as well as one of the main staples of the deck.
3 Monastery Mentors because it is the other main staple of our deck. It is not as good in multiples because you want noncreature spells once you have one out. Having multiple mentors out is almost always win-more, and even in those situations one mentor and a noncreature spell would probably be better.
2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos. Brimaz is amazing in this deck, the only reason I don't run more is because he's legendary.
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar and 2 Regal Caracals - These are our curve toppers, giving us 3 creatures per card, with extra utility on top. I don't think I've cast these a single time in my playtesting, so I'm unsure of how I feel about these. I have a hunch that Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is a better alternative to these, so I took out one of each and put in two Gideons. This will require more testing. The remaining Caracal and Nalaar are not core pieces of the deck, so I am open to suggestions for replacements. A little interaction worth noting is that the Caracal buffs Brimaz and his tokens because they are all cats.

Instants and Sorceries
All of these are pretty straight forward.
4 Lingering Souls because it is a core part of the deck, creating tokens while triggering abilities on other creatures which also make tokens
4 Lightning Bolt, 4 Lightning Helix and 4 Path to Exile for dealing with creatures or burning the opponent.
2 Boros Charm is good because it gives you 4 damage to the face, or allows blowouts during combat or against sweepers such as Supreme Verdict.
Depending on the amount of sweepers in your meta, you might want to add more Boros Charms to the main deck or the sideboard

Enchantments
4 Intangible Virtue is pretty straightforward. This is one of our payoffs for playing so many tokens and token creators. This plus only a lingering souls equals 8 power worth of flying and vigilant tokens.

Planeswalkers
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is great here. Each of his abilities is useful and the two able to be used the turn he comes into play directly fit our theme.
1 Ajani Steadfast is another planeswalker with great synergy in our deck. He can buff your entire board and remain in play the turn he comes into play.
1 Ajani Vengeant is like a Lightning Helix that can win the game if left unchecked. He can also lock down a problematic land or creature.

Sideboard
3 Kor Firewalker because he is great in any matchup where the opponent is playing red. Also destroys grapeshot storm by himself. He also gains us life off our own red spells. I could see easily running four in a meta with lots of storm and burn decks.
2 Stony Silence because it destroys affinity, tron, lantern control, aether vial decks, etc.
2 Rest in Peace for storm again as well as dredge, delve, any deck playing snapcasters, etc
2 Anger of the Gods for most decks running creatures. The exile is important against dredge.
2 Ricochet Trap is cute, but sometimes effective against decks with counterspells.
1 Grim Lavamancer for repeated removal against decks with small creatures
1 Relic of Progenitus works as additional hate against graveyard decks. Could be switched for another rest in peace.
1 Shatterstorm for when you want to make the opposing affinity deck concede
1 Shattering Spree for see above. Also each replicate is a separate trigger for mentor and pyromancer.
The sideboard is really metagame dependent, so adjust accordingly. The cards here I think are least important are the Ricochet Traps and the Grim Lavamancers. You can easily swap them out for more of the other choices.
Another option is Blood Moon, which completely destroys certain decks. You might have to change the maindeck manabase a little, but it could be worth it.

Conclusion
Thank you for taking the time to read this post, hopefully some of you try this list and have good results or can suggest cards with sweet synergy that I have missed.
I have attached some proof that this deck works at least decently, a screenshot of 8 and a half wins in a row on MTGO. The one "loss" was me conceding because the opponent was taking forever each turn, then went afk for 5+ minutes.
Enjoy!

Okay so nice deck list. I do see a few glaring issues then I'll have a few suggestions from experience.
First is I'd strongly suggest dropping the cat Lord for P&K Nalaar. The flying and a Mana cheaper is pretty critical. Life gain shouldn't be as big a deal. Also Nalaar provides additional reach.
I'd consider thanking out 1 path for charm. You have a good amount of tokens and a good amount of them have flying. You can basically ignore a good bit of dudes and race very well. Path is only needed against bombs. 3 should work fine. The charm also gives you reach and to kill opposing guys. Giving your team indestructible allows you to block their entire team instead of killing 1 dude.
That little bit is the obvious changes I'd make right away. Now for the more abstract things I've noticed about tokens.
So splashing black for a 2 or 3 of Butcher of the hoarde. This guy swings games so wide open in tokens. 5 or 6 power haste flying for the sac of a 2/2 token is a pretty easy decision. He busts up planeswalkers better than any creature in modern.
Next is I like the new Legions Landing. Makes an early lifelink token and can flip to give you fodder and give you much needed pressure.
But the single best thing I can suggest is playing the red God hammer. Gives all your tokens haste and makes 3/3s. I'd suggest this as a 2 of because it must be answered. Giving you the ability to cast lingering souls and flash it back with a virtue in play is like 8 flying haste damage.

Here is my updated list.
I went up to 4 Boros Charms, took out Caracal, changed the lands around a little, and made the sideboard better.

Also attached more MTGO success.

Why still no Hammer of Purphoros? Have any of you guys actually tested it? My group has soundly been on tokens when it was just a wee standard deck way back in inn. I've played so many iterations of tokens it's unreal. And my play testing always concludes that Mardu is best because of this single card. Butcher being the 3rd best thing in the the deck behind hammer and souls.

Hammer is a win more card in my opinion. If you can afford to spend two turns, a land and 6 mana to make a 3/3 haste token, you're probably already winning.

I have a Mardu version of this deck, too, and I find Butcher underwhelming compared to other 4 drops.
With the prevalence of path to exile and fatal push, he is often negative card and tempo advantage.
Compared to other 4 drops like planeswalkers or Pia and Kiran Nalaar where you are almost guaranteed to get extra value, butcher is just too risky.

Quote from jackkbro »

Hammer is a win more card in my opinion. If you can afford to spend two turns, a land and 6 mana to make a 3/3 haste token, you're probably already winning.

I have a Mardu version of this deck, too, and I find Butcher underwhelming compared to other 4 drops.
With the prevalence of path to exile and fatal push, he is often negative card and tempo advantage.
Compared to other 4 drops like planeswalkers or Pia and Kiran Nalaar where you are almost guaranteed to get extra value, butcher is just too risky.

That's kinda the thing though. It's wins, not win more. You can play it 3rd turn if you want to give all your dudes haste, or turn 6 or later for much more board presence.
The token can be made at EoT. What this does is put you in control by, let's say you have a bolt, charm in hand and a hammer out. You get to decide what the best line of play is. Do I make a 4/4 token eot and save the bolts helix and charms for later or do I need to fire them off now and maybe make a dude on my turn?
It complicates combat math by a large margin. Let's say you are sitting on a clear board after a damnation or something. Play mentor, play bolt, play helix swing for 9. Where as before you would be swinging for exactly 0.
It's a must answer card. This is huge. They literally have to kill it if they are playing anything fairish. The ability to play it and pass turn then next turn swing for 6, or 8, or even 10 has to be taken into account. I say run 2 or maybe 3 because it can give you wins that you normally wouldn't be able to take. But it's at it's best later in the game.
It turns your token makers into a form of burn in a sense. Play lingering souls and flash it back to swing for 8 flying haste vigilance.
I can go on and on about it's merits, but it's a lot more of a have to try it and see card.
Butcher is just plain good. Yes they can path or push it. That's not the situations you want to cast it though. Affter they tapped out for a plainswalker, when you have exhausted their removal and you want a good fast clock are much better times to play it. (Granted my Mardu has a good amount of discard to make sure he can usually come out with out much to worry about)

Any reason not to run 4x Gideons instead of the random Ajani's ?
Another decent PW for a tokens deck can be Elspeth, Knight-Errant (a bit forgotten since the printing of Gideon Ally).

Another card which seems good here is Smuggler's Copter which will have plenty of pilots and will provide a flying threat which also loots to improve the hand quality since there is nothing of the sort in these colors.

While it might be a bit win-more (compared to P&K) Hero of Bladehold can run away with some games.
There are also Hanweir Garrison and Goblin Rabblemaster which can provide tokens as well.

The benefit of running two different Ajanis instead of two more Gideons is that they can be out on the battlefield at the same time, where you will sometimes get stuck with multiple Gideons in hand. Even though you can chain them with his -4 ability, most of the time it's better to have multiple planeswalkers sticking around to use their abilities each turn.

Smuggler's Copter and Hero of Bladehold are fine cards, I run Copter in my esper tokens list that has more graveyard synergy and it's definitely a solid card.
Hero of Bladehold is higher risk and higher reward compared to Pia and Kiran Nalaar, so it mostly comes down to preference.
Goblin Rabblemaster is similar to Hero where if they don't have removal they probably just lose.
Running both Rabblemaster and Hero could be good with so many high priority targets to spread their removal thin.

"Emblem"ing a Gideon and casting another one is a very good play in any tokens deck.
And making sure you draw the Gideon (which is much better than any other PW for this deck) is also pretty important imho.

Hordeling Outburst (Spectral Procession is better but harder to cast) is a rather cost efficient token spell
and as a sorcery is supports Y.Pyro and Mentor as well.
As cheaper (and instant speed) option Raise the Alarm can be decent as well.

Rally the Peasants seems really good here as a combat trick/finisher.
Other similar options can be Fortify (flexible) or Kytheon's Tactics (for the vigilance).

I'd probably go with Westvale Abbey or Shefet Dunes over Ghost Quarter in this deck, if you want to destroy lands there is always
Molten Rain (or Boom // Bust/Stone Rain) for the SB.

Quote from D90Dennis14 »

"Emblem"ing a Gideon and casting another one is a very good play in any tokens deck.
And making sure you draw the Gideon (which is much better than any other PW for this deck) is also pretty important imho.

"Emblem"ing a gideon is good, but if you only want the +1/+1 you are better off playing Glorious Anthem.
The reason you play planeswalkers is the flexibility and the ability to use their abilities more than once. Playing the two Ajanis plays to this strength rather than making your extra Gideons more expensive anthem effects.