Hey guys. I have been using B/W Tokens as my secondary deck to Living End for a long time up until recently. I feel that Living End isn't as good as it used to be with the current meta and decks main boarding [card]Scavenging Ooze[card] and hate filled sideboards. Since 2 weeks ago I have been playing B/W tokens at my LGS and have gone 4-1 each week. This is my current list.
The more I played the deck, the more I disliked Tidehollow Sculler, Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. I thought that TS was too slow and was dealt with too early to lead to any real disruption. The planeswalkers were just... slow and I would rather play either Brimaz or HoB in their place.
Mainboard I am feel like dropping down to 3 of for Raise the Alarm and Zealous Persecution and maybe adding Ajani Goldmane.
Thoughts? Thanks everyone.
I like your list a lot. If you add a walker though I'd add Elspeth Tirel. I run 1 Elspeth Tirel and 2 Liliana of the veil instead of your 3 brimaz, otherwise our decks are identical.
I might run a couple Lillies in place of a Raise The Alarm and a Zealous Persecution. I like Brimaz a lot. Worst case scenario he is removal bait to let HoB though.
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Modern
Bogles / BW Tokens / Skred Red Legacy
Burn Pauper
Songs of the Damned / Elves Commander
Lin Sivvi
I've been finding success against a lot of gy recursion by playing Beckon Apparition for Raise the Alarm slot. 1 less creature for 1 less mana but I hose their target and they waste mana. Plus it's a flyer.
Does Brimaz, King of Oreskos not clog up your 3-drop spot? And does he not get immediately removed? I run a couple Hero of Bladehold, and I have a love/hate relationship with them because they either stick and win the game or they eat a Path to Exile and do absolutely nothing. And I feel like Brimaz has less board impact than the Hero does.
For me, Hero its a lot better, put 2 tokens each time she attacks, and give +1/+0 to ALL tokens, she itselfs its a finisher given +1/+0
If we have nothing on board, she swing by 3 + 2 + 2 = 7 damage, whit Honor of the pure in table, we swing for 10, for only 4 mana ...
Brimaz is slower than she, brimaz only swing by 4 on turn 4, Hero swing by 7 on turn 5, and put more presure on table
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Modern: RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries Legacy:BRx Renimator Playing right now:Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
I played my deck with Brimaz and Hero, they both performed rather well, but I found Brimaz to be better on the blocking plan - so I would side him in when I was on the draw. Hero, on the other hand, did much better when I was trying to be aggressive.
Oh, I read somewhere earlier in this thread was the consideration of Pack Rat. I actually really like this card in this deck, but I think it has to do mostly with my playstyle. When playing playdoods;swing.dec I really hate being blown out by a board whipe, but I hate playing cards that require you to keep up mana in order survive it. So, consider, untapping on turn 5 after we just ate a board whipe, but we have the Rat in our hand. From there I normally play the Rat and proceed to make every single card we draw into something good, at that point - when this really happened - he became a two-of in the side against decks that like to board wipe alot. That's just my two cents though.
Pack Rat is absolutely nuts. It's just an insane card. But I feel like in Tokens, we don't really have enough cards to pitch to it. Like the first post says, we have absolutely no way to draw. I feel like Pack Rat works better in stuff like Standard Monoblack Devotion because they have Underworld Connections. But I'm sure it still performs well regardless.
I still don't agree...I have (almost) never run into a situation where I was out of cards in my hand...if you are playing against control with board wipes the goal is to play conservatively and always have a token generating spell available for after the wipe. Whether that be lingering souls in the grave, or something in your hand it does not matter. Pack rat is slow, and I think is more card disadvantage then anything (in BW tokens specifically)...although I have never playtested with it so I am not discouraging anyone from trying it and letting us know how it works.
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I still don't agree...I have (almost) never run into a situation where I was out of cards in my hand...if you are playing against control with board wipes the goal is to play conservatively and always have a token generating spell available for after the wipe. Whether that be lingering souls in the grave, or something in your hand it does not matter. Pack rat is slow, and I think is more card disadvantage then anything (in BW tokens specifically)...although I have never playtested with it so I am not discouraging anyone from trying it and letting us know how it works.
For those of us playing the list without fetches (as many probably are due to modern event deck), I think Pack Rat is probably a great way to get rid of not needed lands at the very least. I think one of the most interesting things about the rat is that it makes it safer to play more lands in most any deck you put it in.
I honestly love Pack Rat but have not tried him in this deck. What I love about Pack Rat is that every card you draw is good, period. Lands? Awesome. Legendary things? Awesome. Matchup dead draws? Awesome. Slightly subpar Raise the Alarm or Tidehollow Sculler? Awesome. Another Pack Rat? Awesome. I will say, though, that he is better late game when you are top decking crap that may be too low impact or no impact than he is in the early game when you still have lots of options. If your decks is poised to make use of the graveyard in any capacity his usefulness shoots through the roof.
If I were going to do a modern tokens thing with Pack Rat though I would build the list quite a bit differently. Tidehollow would be a staple I think because he is an easy decision to pitch if you draw it after the early turns when Tidehollow is a good tempo play. I would nearly completely drop Honor of the Pure and I would run Sorin and probably like 3 or 4 copies. Sorin is powerful enough to want to see every game and is an easy decision to pitch if you see too many. Bitterblossom also fits this bill. You probably want 1, maybe 2, Bitterblossoms per game but is an easy decision to pitch if you see too many. Basically I would try and build the deck with powerful cards that I want to see extremely often but would hate to see in multiples. That's when Pack Rats value begins to take off.
Now, all that being said the deck I play Pack Rats in where he is an absolute all-star is not a token deck and I'm not even sure how competitive it would be in a modern tournament setting as I built it with the intention of only ever playing it in casual settings where is actually really strong. Link here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/pack-rats-of-revenge/ The only reason I mention the deck is because it is designed to take advantage of Pack Rat and if you want a basic understand of what that looks like than take a look. It is very different from what we are running here and I am using this as an example of the kind of rebuild we might want if we are going to try and seriously consider Pack Rat.
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For those of us playing the list without fetches (as many probably are due to modern event deck), I think Pack Rat is probably a great way to get rid of not needed lands at the very least. I think one of the most interesting things about the rat is that it makes it safer to play more lands in most any deck you put it in.
Playing more lands is definitely not the solution even with pack rat...and why would you even want to? Also fetches are not needed to play this deck at all. Yes having them makes the deck more consistent, but they are definitely not required. Playing pack rat and playing fetches are two different conversations.
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in my LGS there is some guys sayin that pack rat will be play on modern for sure, the are testing it on an Orzhov Deck whit Liliana, dark confidant and other stuff
PTQ Khans of Tarkir - Little Rock, AR
Number of Players : 168
Date: 28/06/2014
Format: Modern
Deck Name: White-Black Midrange
Position: 1
This kind of decks are doing it good in PTQ tournaments
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Modern: RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries Legacy:BRx Renimator Playing right now:Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
A black-heavy version with Sorins and Bitterblossoms could be more viable if you played Bad Moon over Honor of the Pure. I want to play that pretty bad, but I can't afford the Bitterblossoms yet. Also, has anyone tried out Mirror Entity? It seems good here.
First, I'm working on a heavy black build, so don't make it "more white" please. I may change them to Elspeth Tirels over Errants, but want to test this one for now because it seems solid with Sorin Vampire Tokens (4/4 flying lifelinkers sound good). I'm going to test Arenas because of the horrendous lack of draw this kind of deck often has, and this one is no exception. I don't like Bob here (I do own a set, so that isn't it, but most WB Tokens players wouldn't suggest Bob anyway.), but I'm also concerned about how slow Arena could be, and how bad a second one is, especially as a top deck/draw off of the 1st Arena. Anyway, it's something I've been theorizing lately. I'm looking into maybe playing Bogle, so I don't know if I'll test this or that, but I'm going to continue working on them. I think even if I do go Bogle, I have enough of this deck in my possession plus it's sleeved (I'm missing a single card before I can play a version of WB Tokens) that I won't quit working on this, but I may not have much to update with for a while because of this.
If you want a competitive Token Deck in Modern, i would definitely not play Pack Rat!
To be good in the common built and to get out of burn range (Anger of the Gods), you have to pitch at least three other Cards. This costs you 9 Mana and considering that you play the rats in turn two it takes at least 3 further turns and you have to waste cards I am sure you would need more than a vanilla token. Until this point the rats just die too easily and also have no flying to be justified in an agressive decklist.
Even in our late game it is a bad Card. Maybe we have the mana but no cards for the tokens left. The only Thing I could imagine is to build a deck around Pack Rat but this would not be tokens anymore...
Furthermore you have to ask yourself. Does this Card improve any match up against the proven decks like Pod or Twin for example? No, it does not. It is even the other way round, it just slows us down.
I don't mean to be rude, but Pack Rat is the best card in our sister deck, Dead Guy Ale. I play both of these decks at PTQs and Weekly events at my LGS. I understand what you say about combo decks, but that's why we run more disruption spells. This is a fair deck, we need to make our opponent to be fair, or else we will lose more often than not.
You do have some solid points. Mikaeus is just bad. I like Mirror Entity but I would never play more than one. I'm going to keep that, and in some testing and talking today with some buddies, I'm going to drop Bogle for the moment for reasons, stop working on the black build due to my metagame and put some real time in on a more classic list like the ones you guys are discussing. I need more practice with it before I can start tinkering with any effectiveness.
I think Elspeth Tirel is in fact the best one for the deck, so I'm going to pick up 2x of her.
My "classic" WB Tokens build that I will be playing for the foreseeable future:
Do you guys like the Fetid Heath? Do you see any glaring errors in my build? This is what I'm going to play. If I were to take it out of my meta and to a large tournament, I would find a spot for 2x Ghost Quarter for the Tron matchup. I'm looking for sideboard help at this point. Thanks,
First off, I agree that the discussion of Pack Rat and a more "black heavy" build starts shifting us away from the core of BW Tokens, and into the realm of Modern Deadguy Ale. Second (this is kinda a sidetrack) have you seen the news about Microsoft laying off 18000 employees? Well I'm one of them. I'll check in when I can and keep the primer up to date, but I definitely won't be an active player for a bit. Keep the deck alive!
I like your list a lot. If you add a walker though I'd add Elspeth Tirel. I run 1 Elspeth Tirel and 2 Liliana of the veil instead of your 3 brimaz, otherwise our decks are identical.
Bogles / BW Tokens / Skred Red
Legacy
Burn
Pauper
Songs of the Damned / Elves
Commander
Lin Sivvi
I play 3 of each and it works well for me.
WBB/W TokensWB
WUBAd NauseamWUB
- Commander
WG Captain Sisay's LegendsWG
If we have nothing on board, she swing by 3 + 2 + 2 = 7 damage, whit Honor of the pure in table, we swing for 10, for only 4 mana ...
Brimaz is slower than she, brimaz only swing by 4 on turn 4, Hero swing by 7 on turn 5, and put more presure on table
RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron
R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries
Legacy:BRx Renimator
Playing right now: Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
Oh, I read somewhere earlier in this thread was the consideration of Pack Rat. I actually really like this card in this deck, but I think it has to do mostly with my playstyle. When playing playdoods;swing.dec I really hate being blown out by a board whipe, but I hate playing cards that require you to keep up mana in order survive it. So, consider, untapping on turn 5 after we just ate a board whipe, but we have the Rat in our hand. From there I normally play the Rat and proceed to make every single card we draw into something good, at that point - when this really happened - he became a two-of in the side against decks that like to board wipe alot. That's just my two cents though.
For those of us playing the list without fetches (as many probably are due to modern event deck), I think Pack Rat is probably a great way to get rid of not needed lands at the very least. I think one of the most interesting things about the rat is that it makes it safer to play more lands in most any deck you put it in.
If I were going to do a modern tokens thing with Pack Rat though I would build the list quite a bit differently. Tidehollow would be a staple I think because he is an easy decision to pitch if you draw it after the early turns when Tidehollow is a good tempo play. I would nearly completely drop Honor of the Pure and I would run Sorin and probably like 3 or 4 copies. Sorin is powerful enough to want to see every game and is an easy decision to pitch if you see too many. Bitterblossom also fits this bill. You probably want 1, maybe 2, Bitterblossoms per game but is an easy decision to pitch if you see too many. Basically I would try and build the deck with powerful cards that I want to see extremely often but would hate to see in multiples. That's when Pack Rats value begins to take off.
Now, all that being said the deck I play Pack Rats in where he is an absolute all-star is not a token deck and I'm not even sure how competitive it would be in a modern tournament setting as I built it with the intention of only ever playing it in casual settings where is actually really strong. Link here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/pack-rats-of-revenge/ The only reason I mention the deck is because it is designed to take advantage of Pack Rat and if you want a basic understand of what that looks like than take a look. It is very different from what we are running here and I am using this as an example of the kind of rebuild we might want if we are going to try and seriously consider Pack Rat.
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Playing more lands is definitely not the solution even with pack rat...and why would you even want to? Also fetches are not needed to play this deck at all. Yes having them makes the deck more consistent, but they are definitely not required. Playing pack rat and playing fetches are two different conversations.
there is 1 or 2 decks that runs it on large events http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14111&iddeck=103827
PTQ Khans of Tarkir - Little Rock, AR
Number of Players : 168
Date: 28/06/2014
Format: Modern
Deck Name: White-Black Midrange
Position: 1
This kind of decks are doing it good in PTQ tournaments
RW R/W Burn WB B/W TokensXU MonuU Tron // UWX UW Tron
R GoblinsW Soul SistersRWG Small ZooWUR WUR Geist/Control/Kiki-Resto Combo/NahiriUR Splinter Twin (90% Japanese)/ Grixis TwinRUB UR Delver / Grixis Delver UR Blue MoonBWU Ad NauseamWDeath and TaxesRUB Grixis ControlUMerfolksX Affinity RGB Living End UR Storm/PiF Combo RGX R/G TRON GWU Bant Eldrazi BW Eldrazi and Taxes RUBGoryos Vengeance UB Faeries
Legacy:BRx Renimator
Playing right now: Standard: Jeskai Control Modern; GoryosVengeance/UBFaeries/Affinity Legacy: BRx Reanimator Pauper: UR Drake (banned) Commander: Merieke Ri Berit Esper
1 Mirror Entity
3 Tidehollow Sculler
31 Spells
3 Bitterblossom
2 Sound the Alarm
4 Lingering Souls
2 Spectral Possession (I don't know if I like this, the only thing keeping it in is Windbrisk Heights)
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Intangible Virtue
2 Honor of the Pure
2 Bad Moon
2 Zealous Persecution
4 Path to Exile
1 Smother
1 Doom Blade
3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Arid Mesa
4 Godless Shrine
2 Isolated Chapel
2 Fetid Heath
3 Swamp
2 Plains
3 Windbrisk Heights
First, I'm working on a heavy black build, so don't make it "more white" please. I may change them to Elspeth Tirels over Errants, but want to test this one for now because it seems solid with Sorin Vampire Tokens (4/4 flying lifelinkers sound good). I'm going to test Arenas because of the horrendous lack of draw this kind of deck often has, and this one is no exception. I don't like Bob here (I do own a set, so that isn't it, but most WB Tokens players wouldn't suggest Bob anyway.), but I'm also concerned about how slow Arena could be, and how bad a second one is, especially as a top deck/draw off of the 1st Arena. Anyway, it's something I've been theorizing lately. I'm looking into maybe playing Bogle, so I don't know if I'll test this or that, but I'm going to continue working on them. I think even if I do go Bogle, I have enough of this deck in my possession plus it's sleeved (I'm missing a single card before I can play a version of WB Tokens) that I won't quit working on this, but I may not have much to update with for a while because of this.
EDIT::: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to double-post.
I don't mean to be rude, but Pack Rat is the best card in our sister deck, Dead Guy Ale. I play both of these decks at PTQs and Weekly events at my LGS. I understand what you say about combo decks, but that's why we run more disruption spells. This is a fair deck, we need to make our opponent to be fair, or else we will lose more often than not.
I think Elspeth Tirel is in fact the best one for the deck, so I'm going to pick up 2x of her.
My "classic" WB Tokens build that I will be playing for the foreseeable future:
Creatures: 5
3 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Mirror Entity
1 Hero of Bladehold
Spells: 32
2 Elspeth Tirel
4 Intangible Virtue
3 Honor of the Pure
2 Zealous Persecution
4 Lingering Souls
3 Raise the Alarm
2 Spectral Procession
4 Path to Exile
1 Doom Blade
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
Land: 23
4 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Arid Mesa
4 Godless Shrine
2 Isolated Chapel
2 Fetid Heath
3 Windbrisk Heights
1 Vault of the Archangel
3 Plains
2 Swamp
Do you guys like the Fetid Heath? Do you see any glaring errors in my build? This is what I'm going to play. If I were to take it out of my meta and to a large tournament, I would find a spot for 2x Ghost Quarter for the Tron matchup. I'm looking for sideboard help at this point. Thanks,
-ABC