My favourite card: Grand Abolisher
When I started first playing magic I was playing the WB M11 intro deck. I was having a blast with it, however I began to remove more and more of the black, until it became mono white. I had named it 'Control the Battlefield', and it was a blast. Though I remember the day that I cracked the Abolisher and was able to put it into my deck. It was glorious. I only had the one. However it would stymie my friends' plans and help me hold the fort down till I could start swinging in with my finishers.
The card really help drive my interest for magic. I will always have fond memories of playing it.
Going with pikes and delver turns this into a U/W Delver Spirit Variant. Just minus the Snapcasters. I had something akin to that early on when I working with bone_doc's original list. It was sort of working... But it never really gained any momentum. One aspect was the lack of anthems for the spirit tokens. To make room for Delver, Pike and the instant and sorcs, at least 20 to flip Delver, it meant less room for anthems, bodies and alternate turn one plays. The deck began to lack synergy and wanted to be more U/W Delver - Snaps & RestoAngel. Which I didn't want to play.
I've enjoyed playing up the token theme and that's where I'll keep my focus for this deck. Delvers and Pikes, they have their decks. This one isn't for them. This one is for tokens.
4 Doomed Traveler
4 Drogskol Captain
2 Dungeon Geist
Instants
3 Midnight Haunting
4 Mana Leak
3 Tragic Slip
3 Vapor Snag
Sorceries
4 Ponder
4 Lingering Souls
Enchantments
4 Intangible Virtue
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Favorable Winds
6 Plains
1 Swamp
5 Island
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Darkslick Shores
3 Drowned Catacombs
3 Glacial Fortress
3x Negate
3x Tormond's Crypt
3x Feeling of Dread
2x Safe Passage
2x Tribute to Hunger
2x ?????
So there are two open spots in the sideboard... I'd like to get Cackling Counterpart in MB, however I'm pretty good with how things are looking. Perhaps the spot for him is the in the SB?
If that isn't you're thing, you should look at Niblis of the Urn and Feeling of Dread. Tapping out your opponents' creatures to get in for damage is very powerful.
I think your curve is very heavy at 3 CMC and on.... Your mana base looks good, however it feels like without some ramp you're stuck with only one play per turn. How well does the deck get moving and hold its momentum? Also whats your current list?
Got a bit of play time in tonight with a few changes. I wasn't able to get the Cackling Counterpart so I kept the Dungeon Geists in the MB. I was playing against a Modern-ish (most cards were Standard) Genesis Wave Elf deck. I found against that particular deck the control elements in the list were particularly effective.
Also keeping the Geists in allowed for them to interact nicely with Favorable Winds and act as a beat stick.
Hopefully this Friday I'll be at a FNM and smash with other Standard decks for a fuller report. Cheers.
-2 Geist Honored Monk
-2 Favorable Winds
-1 Evolving Wilds
+4 Intangible Virtue
+1 Swamp
I've run into really random situations where I've had my only black mana source destroyed. Run a second. Just to play it safe.
Your deck feels consistent, just lacking a good two drop. Virtue and Winds would fill this spot fairly well.
Taking out Divination and putting in something like Feeling of Dread over Ponder I think would win you more games. Dread at the end of Main Phase 1, stops their attacks; flash it back to tap out blockers, swing in unimpeded. Manipulating the board's creatures is very powerful and though I'm not running Dread MB in my Esper version, siding it in hasn't been a disappointment.
I really like your deck. Good luck with it!!
And of course, let us know how it goes.
Delver doesn't quite have the synergy with tokens and spirits, but as an alternate play to Traveler, he is strong. You could run Cackling Counterpart and copy a flipped Delver. Thus increasing the synergy within the deck. Something to try.
@zemanjaski - I really like your list. I've seen that variant on Delver before and like it. I just don't have Snapcasters available to build a deck. So I've been working on this build. How does Moorland work for you? Would you drop it for a second Vault?
Played the posted list last night with the following sideboard:
2x Tormond's Crypt
2x Nihil Spellbomb
3x Feeling of Dread
3x Safe Passage
1x Tribute to Hunger
Our play group is pretty random, played against a modern Genesis Wave Elf deck, a standard B/W Token deck, a Quirion Dryad/Delver of Secrets build, and a UG Infinite Reflection. The deck performed well and definitely slants to a more aggro style of play.
I'm going to be dropping the Dungeon Geists and putting Favorable Winds in its place. I found myself with only blue or black sources of mana (rarely) and needed an anthem to start picking up the tempo. A 2 of Winds will help with this and make it more consistent for getting an anthem.
Also I'll take out Phantasmal Image and possibly put Cackling Counterpart in its place. The synergy of Cackling with Winds (most of guys are flying) and Virtue is too strong to be ignored. I did like Image and it gave me some fun tricks like copying a Dryad, but its main purpose was to copy the Captains or Geists. Cackling gets that done and adds synergy to the deck.
I'll be dropping Doom Blades for Tragic Slip. With its aggressive cost it feels like I'll be able to utilize it more often. Taking out an early Dryad, mana dork, etc, while still leaving land for an anthem or a Souls flashback.
This deck really does have wheels. And it wants to be aggressive. Once I make some more changes, I'll post the revised deck list. Hopefully I'll hit up an FNM or an other standard tournament and post more results.
2x Tormond's Crypt
2x Nihil Spellbomb
3x Feeling of Dread
2x Safe Passage
2x Tribute to Hunger
Feeling of Dread - Taps down fliers so mine can get in for damage
Safe Passage - Tricksy combat trick. Want to swing in for lethal? Sure!
Tormond's Crypt - Turn 1 graveyard hate... Hurts Snapcaster/Pike/Self-Mill strategies
Nihil Spellbomb - Turn 1 or 2... Bonus of card draw
Tribute to Hunger - Gets rid of Hexproof creatures
Negate - Hard counter to everything but creatures.
I feel Hunger isn't the strongest contender to rid my opponent of their hexproof creatures. While it can work, I'm not sure that it will be 100% effective. I'd something more like [CARD]Black Sun's Zenith[Card], but not so damaging to my own side.
I just need to pick up the extra copies of what I want to add in. In the mean time I'm thinking of dropping the Darkslick for a Swamp. I found using Wilds to search was super effective against decks that were using [CARD]Ghost Quarter[CARD] to mess with my mana base. If I can't have both sides of the dual, I'll take what I want. Also having a second swamp, means I can search for it if someone blows up my only black source. Seriously, this happened.