Locations
Let's just get right to it. This is the deck I will be looking at today:
"Black-White Tokens by LSV"
- Lands (25)
- 4 Arcane Sanctum
- 4 Caves of Koilos
- 4 Fetid Heath
- 2 Mutavault
- 2 Plains
- 4 Reflecting Pool
- 1 Swamp
- 4 Windbrisk Heights
- Creatures (16)
- 4 Cloudgoat Ranger
- 4 Kitchen Finks
- 4 Knight of Meadowgrain
- 4 Tidehollow Sculler
- Spells (19)
- 3 Ajani Goldmane
- 4 Bitterblossom
- 4 Glorious Anthem
- 4 Spectral Procession
- 4 Terror
- Sideboard (15)
- 1 Ajani Goldmane
- 3 Burrenton Forge-Tender
- 1 Celestial Purge
- 2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
- 2 Head Games
- 3 Path to Exile
- 1 Wispmare
- 2 Wrath of God
For a while BW Tokens was one of the major archetypes in Standard, which means it is a reasonable place to start when looking at Extended decks. So how do we bring this deck into a new metagame? It's a three-step process.
Step 1: Identify the fundamental strategy
This version of BW Tokens (and there were many), is an aggressive mid-range deck designed to supplement value creatures with the card advantage provided by Windbrisk Heights. It takes advantage of Crusade effects to pump its team of many small men.
Step 2: Categorize non-land cards
Token generators: Cloudgoat Ranger, Spectral Procession, Bitterblossom
Value creatures: Kitchen Finks, Tidehollow Sculler
Added Aggression: Knight of Meadowgrain
Removal: Terror
"Crusades:" Glorious Anthem, Ajani Goldmane
Step 3: Find functional analogs
Since most of these cards are still legal in Extended we won't need to find that many functional analogs, but it is always wise to consider new options. New cards are constantly being printed and it is possible that even if a card is still legal, it is no longer the best card for a job. The main losses from the maindeck are Terror and Glorious Anthem, but let's look at reasonable choices for all categories that were not in the original deck, but are legal now.
Token generators: Elspeth Tirel, Conqueror's Pledge, Martial Coup, Grave Titan
Value creatures: Many, but Murderous Redcap, Stoneforge Mystic, and Shriekmaw seem particularly big
Added Aggression: Once again, many
Removal: Doom Blade is a very close analog to Terror, but we also have Path to Exile and Oblivion Ring to keep in mind.
"Crusades:" Eldrazi Monument, Honor of the Pure
After doing this, we can begin re-building and updating the deck. We have a basic card pool to keep our eyes on and guide us.
The first place to go is, of course, the deck's core elements, in this case, the token generation. The use of Windbrisk Heights is a critical part of this strategy and one that will have to be replicated in the new version.
LSV ran 12 token generators, so that is what we should try for. Of course, 10 or 11 is probably okay, but I doubt 8 or 9 would be enough. As far as the maindeck token generators, Bitterblossom and Spectral Procession clearly are not being cut, so those are automatically in. That leaves the 4 Cloudgoat Rangers. Because we have two other comparable token generators (Elspeth and Conqueror's Pledge), let's take a look at the three.
Cloudgoat Ranger – 6 power across 4 creatures on offense, 8 power across 4 creatures on defense. Provides a single 3/3.
Conqueror's Pledge – 6 power across 6 creatures.
Elspeth Tirel – Recursive source of tokens, but only provides 3 at a time. Gains life, and can sweep the board.
Cloudgoat Ranger seems strictly better than Conqueror's Pledge, especially in a world with Volcanic Fallout, Infest, and Marsh Casualties. Elspeth Tirel, on the other hand, has a number of advantages. Firstly, she can generate more than 4 creatures over the course of her lifetime. Secondly, she helps you defensively by gaining you life. Thirdly, she can act as a sweeper to cement advantages or help pull you out of holes. Fourthly, she can kill Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Cloudgoat Ranger can do none of these things. Elspeth Tirel seems worth a shot at least. There are no guarantees she'll be superior, but she does enough things well that she could very well shine.
The "other" token generators, Grave Titan and Martial Coup, are probably too expensive for the job, although Grave Titan off of Windbrisk Heights is pretty sexy. If the list ends up more controlling, both of these cards are options to keep in mind. They could also serve as viable sideboard cards, so I would set them in a separate mental pile for the moment.
The second part of the token generation plan is the "Crusades." Ajani Goldmane is still legal so he should probably reprise his role, but Glorious Anthem is a pretty big loss. The two candidates to replace it are Eldrazi Monument and Honor of the Pure. Both have their disadvantages – Honor of the Pure does not affect Rebecca's tokens, and Eldrazi Monument costs 5 mana, which is 2 more than I want to be paying. I think the 5 mana of Monument is the more workable disadvantage, especially when combined with the added power of the card, so I will choose that as the main replacement for Glorious Anthem. However, I don't want to run the full 4 copies of Monument, so a single copy of Honor of the Pure seems to be in order to get to the seven "Crusade" effects.
So far, our deck looks like this:
[cardlist]
4 Bitterblossom
4 Spectral Procession
2 Cloudgoat Ranger
2 Elspeth Tirel
3 Ajani Goldmane
3 Eldrazi Monument
1 Honor of the Pure
[/cardlist]
This seems like a reasonable starting point. Now we have to add the decorations. The easiest thing to add is removal. I am going to default to the combination of Path to Exile and Oblivion Ring, because I think those are just stronger cards than Doom Blade. In light of cost considerations I am going to go 3 Path, leaving us with the following:
[cardlist]
4 Bitterblossom
4 Spectral Procession
2 Cloudgoat Ranger
2 Elspeth Tirel
3 Ajani Goldmane
3 Eldrazi Monument
1 Honor of the Pure
3 Path to Exile
1 Oblivion Ring
[/cardlist]
The last two categories are "value creatures" and "added aggression." This is shaping up to be a more controlling list, so I am going to skip the "added aggression" category. I think the change to Eldrazi Monument makes it difficult for this deck to be as aggressive but gives the deck more mid to late game oomph, so a slightly more controlling direction is superior.
This, of course, means that Kitchen Finks is an excellent creature to have, and if we are going to be more controlling, Wall of Omens is a potential option, although the fact that it doesn't attack is a serious detriment. Tidehollow Sculler is, of course, still good as well. Let's go with a 3/3 split to start.
[cardlist]
4 Bitterblossom
4 Spectral Procession
2 Cloudgoat Ranger
2 Elspeth Tirel
3 Ajani Goldmane
3 Eldrazi Monument
1 Honor of the Pure
3 Path to Exile
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Tidehollow Sculler
[/cardlist]
This gives us 29 cards. Considering we want 25 or 26 lands, this leaves us 5 or 6 slots. Given that we have a more controlling list, some more card advantage seems good, and I believe Scars provides us with the perfect card – Culling Dais. If ever there was a deck to utilize Dais, this is it. It's worth a shot at least, so let's run three. Also, since we are running a more controlling build, Grave Titan is probably good for at least two slots. That's five, leaving us with 26 lands.
[cardlist]
4 Bitterblossom
4 Spectral Procession
2 Cloudgoat Ranger
2 Elspeth Tirel
3 Ajani Goldmane
3 Eldrazi Monument
1 Honor of the Pure
3 Path to Exile
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Culling Dais
2 Grave Titan
[/cardlist]
Now we move on to building the manabase. Let's begin with the obvious – Windbrisk Heights, Fetid Heath, Marsh Flats. Other candidates include Murmuring Bosk, Reflecting Pool, and Arcane Sanctum. We have 12 slots already taken, so that leaves 14 remaining. Reflecting Pool and Arcane Sanctum allow us to produce mana without pain, and Arcane Sanctum enables a blue splash. Bosk, however, is accessible via a fetchland (Verdant Catacomb), and allows us to splash green. At this point, the splash may not even be good. For now I will run Reflecting Pool, but the modification to splash either blue or green is simple. This puts our manabase in a fixed list. And having done that, our final maindeck is as follows:
[cardlist]
[Creatures]
2 Cloudgoat Ranger
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Grave Titan
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Bitterblossom
4 Spectral Procession
2 Elspeth Tirel
3 Ajani Goldmane
3 Eldrazi Monument
1 Honor of the Pure
3 Path to Exile
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Culling Dais
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Windbrisk Heights
4 Fetid Heath
4 Marsh Flats
4 Reflecting Pool
7 Plains
3 Swamp
[/Lands]
[/cardlist]
I have been running a list very similar to this with relative success online in the past few days. There is no real sideboard at the moment because the metagame has not fully developed yet, also, the deck's weaknesses have not been fully determined. Of course, there are many sideboard options for the deck ranging from Luminarch Ascension and Duress to Infest, Day of Judgment, and Condemn.
Black and white have some of the most powerful cards available to them in Extended, and the strategy is a proven, solid one from past years. It has a good performance record against many of the archetypes that are showing up in Extended tournaments right now, so I think that updating this strategy for the new Extended metagame definitely has potential.
Chingsung Chang
Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO
Khan32k5@gmail.com
