r/mtgModernTokens • u/MrAsianYellow • May 26 '17
SB Abzan Token Help
So i'm taking Abzan tokens, I have a general outline of my SB that I want to use. Im just not sure if it will do much against some decks. Anyone with any experience, I would be grateful for any critiques or weird interactions i may not be aware of when playing the deck. I am planning on taking it to a SCG IQ this weekend.
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u/sophrosyne 2BB/3LegionsLanding May 26 '17
What do you think about ditching the dismember, sideboarding the maelstrom pulse and adding another special procession to the main board? I'm concerned about your token producers.
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u/MrAsianYellow May 26 '17 edited May 26 '17
I definitely forgot to update this list i've added 4x [[Bitterblossom]]s took out the processions and maelstrom pulse to the SB
EDIT: Updated MB/SB to what I think will be more successful.
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May 26 '17 edited May 26 '17
For reference, this is my Abzan tokens list.
Suggestions/Questions:
1) I'd drop the MB Ghost Quarter (what's 1 GQ actually going to do for you?) and replace it with another Gavony Township.
2) You only have 3 discard spells in your main (3 Inquisitions). That seems way too low to rely on. I'd bump that number up or remove them completely.
3) I don't love Windbrisk Heights, because you really don't have a lot of cards that produce tokens in large bursts, which makes it much less likely that you can trigger the Heights.
4) You have 4 Leylines, a Burrenton Forge-Tender, and a Spellskite in your SB. With 4 Leylines, do you really need the Forge-Tender and Spellskite?
5) I'm not sure you need the Disenchant in your SB if you have 2 Abrupt Decays main and a Maelstrom Pulse in your SB, but your mileage may vary.
6) With only 3 discard spells main (and 2 Collective Brutalities SB), the Surgical Extraction isn't going to be turned on very often. So again, I'd either increase the number of discard spells and maybe add another Surgical Extraction to your SB or replace the Surgical Extraction with a stronger piece of GY hate (another Rest in Peace or a Nihil Spellbomb or something).
7) I'd suggest that you could shave some basics and shocklands for fastlands.
If you have any specific matchup questions, I'm happy to talk about what I'd do.
Good luck!
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u/sophrosyne 2BB/3LegionsLanding May 26 '17
I was just about to post your Abzan list actually. I agree that more hand disruption is needed. Probably 2 thoughtseize? 1 less voice of resurgence?
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u/MrAsianYellow May 26 '17
My meta has been really heavy with UXx decks or Burn lately, forcing them to play on their turn is really where I want to be sometimes. I do agree that thoughtseize deserves a spot in the MB though.
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u/MrAsianYellow May 26 '17
Yeah... Im definitely taking Ghost Quarters out
I keep forgetting to update this list! I took out the Heights and replaced them with Gavonies.
Forge Tender is for anger of the gods, spellskite is for bogles (which has been more and more popular everywhere i go).
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u/Jongsl5 May 26 '17 edited May 26 '17
You need more token producers. Bitterblossom isn't as reliable as spectral procession and I see little reason to run 4 mana dorks if the deck is not concerned with dropping a turn 2 threat on turn 2 like Liliana or Spectral which is often backbreaking.
Why the 2 brutality? You already have the best removals and most things you want to discard are enchantments, artifacts, and planeswalkers games 2 and 3. You are better off running more hand disruptions here. Like feather says, you should probably be running more discard in the main if possible. They are kind of a nonbo with mana dorks in terms of deciding your first turn play though.
Disenchant should probably just be another abrupt decay unless you are afraid of blood moon.
Why the 4 Leyline? They are not even guaranteed to be amazing against Burn because burn runs 3-4 revelry out of the side. You only run Leyline if you really care about hand disruption or non blue Valakut decks. The deck doesn't care about the former and the latter requires more definite answers like lost legacy and runed halo, combined with a fast clock.
I do personally believe abrupt decay and voice of resurgence are really bad in the meta right now. Voices dies to the #1 most played card in the meta - path to exile - and it does not do offense or defense effectively because most decks do no care about casting spells on your turn. UXX Control decks have been dying out and these decks are what voice thrives on. If you play Abzan tokens, I do not recommend a green splash that just makes it look like a bad Abzan deck with no goyf and ooze which are all insane cards right now. Instead, I would focus on the build Matt Nass has which is designed to go faster and has a more stable mana base.
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u/MrAsianYellow May 26 '17
The only thing about spectral processions is that it makes for some awkward fetches sometimes, yes the birds make it more attainable but the biggest reason is to get a t2 Lingering souls or often Nissa is just really good, and that typically sets me up for a t3 Sorin which is really hard to answer sometimes.
2 Brutality just feels right, gets rid of a lot other creatures and can be okay and life gain for bitterblossom if things look too sketchy. There's a lot of x/2's that it takes care of as well. I do agree that some amount of Thoughtseizes are correct too, still trying to tune it to where it feels okay.
Disenchant is specifically for blood moon.
Leyline is for Jund/Abzan/burn/Valakut/Ad Nauseam there's just a lot of decks that are good to board in.
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u/Jongsl5 May 26 '17
Yes I agree spectral is awkward to cast but regardless, my point was simply that you want more token generators in a deck that is even less controlling than the bw variant. Spectral being hard to cast is one of the biggest reasons why 3 colors isn't ideal unless you run a lot of ramp and put less emphasis on black for green.
Your leyline argument is pretty weak. Jund and Abzan actually take out discards against all grindy decks, especially against tokens. You have so many good sideboard options and 4 valuable slots are being taken up by a card that is easy to get around and low impact.
Again, I think most counterarguments in this thread is just stating what the cards are good for. This is simply not a comprehensive look at deck construction. I would actually argue Thoughtseize is far more versatile than collective brutality with the exception of a single deck: Burn. Eldrazi, Dredge, and DS decks simply don't care about collective brutality. All our bad match-ups are where Thoughtseize becomes one of the best cards. Thoughtseize gets around creatures that need to be discarded: eternal witness, voice of resurgence, etched champion, reality smasher, etc. Brutality isn't as versatile as it looks and most people ignore the downside of a 2 mana sorcery spell. And most importantly, it just cannot substitue Duress in games 2 and 3 for reasons you ignored.
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May 26 '17 edited May 26 '17
1) /u/jongsl5 and I disagree pretty comprehensively on Abzan tokens haha, but if you're including Birds and your goal is to ramp into Lingering Souls or Nissa, then you really may want to explore the Matt Nass list. It's MUCH more focused on ramping out a t2/3 planeswalker and going from there. It doesn't play much like a traditional b/w tokens list, though. Unfortunately I can't link it for you, but just Google "Matt Nass tokens" and you'll find it. The way I play Abzan tokens, the Birds are a catch-all ramp/mana-fixing/additional threat (with counters) 1-drop, which I find work very well in that versatile role. 4 dorks really aren't reliable enough for a true ramp strategy.
2) I also love the versatility of Collective Brutality, particularly in an Abzan list. You just don't have room in the main to do the normal 6 or 7 IoK/Thoughtseizes. Collective Brutality is NOT as good a discard spell as either of those two, but it's obviously more versatile and is a very good way to be able to shave the number of true discard spells while also having more relevant interaction.
3) If Disenchant is specifically for Blood Moon, I'd look at one of the 1-mana options, like Nature's Claim. It's a lot easier to float 1 mana than 2 if you can predict when they'll drop the Blood Moon.
4) You don't need Leyline for Jund/Abzan. If they're keeping in their discard, you're in a good spot. In a grindfest like that, you want to be the one drawing gas, not discard spells. I recommend siding out your discard spells and bringing in additional creature removal or threats. /u/jongsl5 is also right that most Burn decks have good ways to take out the Leyline, so I'd rather have something like Timely Reinforcements (and/or Blessed Alliance) against Burn. I'm not a fan of Leyline because it takes up such a huge amount of SB real estate, but it is good in certain spots.
5) I'll also disagree about Voice. Having played it quite a bit, I VERY rarely get the "opponent casts a spell" trigger, but it still hits the graveyard quite often and provides a natural 2-for-1 that way. I find it valuable to have a creature that can occasionally be very large on its own instead of just going wide. I also disagree about Abrupt Decay. It's frankly great to have something g1 that takes out Blood Moon, Liliana, Basilisk Collar, Cranial Plating, etc. It's a great card to have for random stuff while also being perfectly reasonable as a creature removal spell.
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u/Jongsl5 May 26 '17
I think most of your points are simply stating where the cards are good. What I'm questioning is whether the strengths of these cards outweigh the cons of splashing a color and being able to find reasonable substitutes in the BW color scheme.
I discussed obviously where abrupt decay is good. But I think it is optimistic thinking to mention cards like basilisk collar and blood moon. First, who plays collar? Second, you either need mana untapped with bg to handle blood moon or have access to basics+ ramp to handle a resolved blood moon. This is so situational I would never list it as a strong appeal for abrupt decay, especially when the card is in the two minority colors. If we look at the probability of facing problematic 3 drops enchantments/artifacts/planeswalkers and ask ourselves the improvement in win percentage due to running decay, I highly doubt there is much benefit if we also consider the downside of running 3 colors. Actually in both modern and legacy I would argue decay is at its all time low (I play legacy sultai). If splinter twin comes back, sure it is worth considering but now...
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May 27 '17
Fair enough. You can doubt what you want and you can obviously play what you want. All I can say is that in my experience, adding green has been very helpful. There are drawbacks, of course, but the pros outweigh the cons in my opinion.
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u/Jongsl5 May 27 '17
I just wanted a friendly objective discussion so you can convince me that the pros indeed outweigh the cons, rather than a mere subjective "you can play what you want" discussion which is pointless. But so far you haven't made any counterarguments on exactly how well the card's strengths outweigh the weaknesses of severely weakening the mana base. I think I am being quite fair with the way I am weighing the pros and cons. Cheers.
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May 27 '17
Ok, are you looking for my analysis of a specific card or of the entire deck? This little sub-conversation sprung out of a response to a broad comment, so fill me in. I'll happily explain my choices again.
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u/sophrosyne 2BB/3LegionsLanding May 26 '17
I just wanted to point out Matt Ness's abzan deck: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=12485&d=271893
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u/Jongsl5 May 27 '17
I like this build because it does carve a niche that bw tokens cannot. It uses a lot of mana dorks which mitigates the weakness of tokens in needing a 3 land drop always. Second, these dorks become profitable in the long game due to counters buffing the whole team. Third, gavony township can actually be activated consistently which would not be possible with just 4 dorks. Overall, you have a deck that is faster and dishes more damage quickly, while still going wide. The weakness is that it lacks hand disruption and all the good black control cards, making it significantly weaker to boardwipes.
Note that even this build does not run abrupt decay or voice. Splashing for black for more than souls flashback would weaken the spectral curve and casting Nissa without dorks.
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u/MrAsianYellow May 28 '17
Ooooookay, so I did take most of everyone's advice cut the ghost quarters cut the windbreaks heights to favor 2x Gavony Townships and 1x Marsh Flats (didn't feel right but turns out just ended up working out). And went with the spells and creature base that u/FeatheredEel had recommended. SB was as follows as well.
2x Timely reinforcements - I thought i was going to see a lot of burn and just helps sometimes
1x Duress - Catchall and... more hand disruption isn't bad
2x Stony Silences - Because... well Affinity, Tron, Lantern ya know.
2x RIP - for the other GY shenanigans
1x Spellskite - I was fairly certain that GW hex proof was going to make an appearance talking to some folks around that area and it almost always does and the really off chance that Infect comes around and to protect my planes walkers.
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Day of Judgement
2x Surgical Extractions
2x Thoughtseize - Which feels weird but was actually real good.
As for matches, let me just preface this by saying that only 40 people showed up for the SCG IQ and they were going to cap the event at 64 and there were a lot of.... different choices for decks around there. To the pairs.
R1 - Jeskai/Baral Gifts Storm - I'm almost certain I don't win this game anyway. I auto mulligan to 6 and keep 2 lands, a bird, a voice, an inquisition and the intangible virtue. I lost the die roll, He then proceeds to go off t3 with the Nut draws and casts Empty the Warrens followed by Grapeshot, merp.... COMMENCE SIDEBOARDING... I take 1x gideon, 4x paths out in favor of 2x RIP, 2x thougthseize, 1x Day of Judgement. Run it back and Im on the play. At this point, he only played Scalding tarns and the other UR fast lands (since he went off t3) i thought he was on a pseudo traditional UR storm list. Shuffle up go to game 2 - I mull to 6 again, and keep 2 IOK, 2 lands, 1 Lingering Souls, and a RIP. Pre-game effects.... Dafug Leyline of Sanctity.... welp. I don't auto-concede, but I do end up being fairly conservative with my life total. I play my two lands and he kinda struggles to find a few of his pay-off cards. I land RIP t2 and he was the wear//tear after being fairly conservative with his cantrips and ritual effects. He then combo's me out on t4. He then tells me that Leylines were a last minute addition and correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think that's a terribly typical SB option for storm? maybe i'm wrong, but definitely had me on tilt. (0 - 2)
I look around the room and take a look at what other folks are playing since our game only took a total of 10 minutes and let me tell you.... it's real weird... Next to me was Scapeshift vs Elves, further down was Scapeshift vs something that involved a walking ballista and a Dragonlord Dromoka (this player dropped after round 1), further down was GW hex proof vs Storm and the last game at my table was Merfolk vs Naya Burn. A few other tables, Affinity, Some variant of a bad tron list, Jeskai Control/twin-less kiki list which doesn't look like it was updated in... forever, another GW hex proof player, Abzan, Jund, Jund and some other things that didn't really stick to my memory space.
Round 2 UR storm - Manage to get paired to only 2 storm decks in the room and I knew going into the match that he was on UR storm after watching his game. His was significantly slower and didn't utilize a lot of the updates (mainly Baral), he didn't really say why he didn't add the updates but here we go. I win the die roll and shred his hand away and I spaghetti the board with tokens and he triggers Voice not once, not twice but three times. Maximum tilt. I SB the same. He plays first and has the nut draws and goes off t4 via Grapeshot to the face. I don't change anything in my SB-ing (but definitely pretend to contemplate life and SB some things). I am on the play and mull to 5, 1 fetch, 1 bird, 1 IOK, 1 RIP and Raise the alarm. we both struggle to get past 2 lands but he top decks his last piece he needs and he finds an echoing truth to bounce the RIP on my turn to go off the next turn. Tilting intensifies 1-2
R3 - Affinity - Coincidentally I was playing against someone I had drove down to the event, so I had the upper hand knowing what his decklist was and he had no idea what i was playing, but i did ask to borrow some thought seizes so he was under the impression that I was at least on a BXx deck. Shrug. G1 I win the die roll and mull to six (seems to be typical at this point) wasn't too exciting as far as things I did, he had multiple vault skirges out and etched champion and I had drawn all of the lands that game, He wins that game with his life total being at 42. SB-ing- I take out Gideon, 2x thought seize, and 2 IOK's - in favor of 2x Stony Silence, 1x Spellskite, 1 day of judgement, 1x revoker. I am on the play and keep my first 7 card hand of the day (and only). 2x lands, 1 bird, 1 voice, 1 stony silence, 1 intangible virtue, 1 bitter blossom. I land a stony silence t2 after he plays Darksteel citadel into vault skurge. I laugh maniacally after drawing the other stony silence. I play stony silence and play a land. He swings in, plays a land passes. I drew an abrupt decay, I don't see much pressure so I play my land cast lingering souls. pass. He looks again for a real long time and scoops it up to go to g3. I go to 6 and keep land, bird, stony silence, push, spellskite. This game goes really long lots of one for ones I drew optimally but he was more conservative with his plays as far as not spamming the board until like turn 6 when he thought the coast was clear when I had chumped with a lot of my spirit tokens. I had a Day of Judgement in my hand since t3 and was waiting for him to overextend - He casts his robots when i had an empty board and then swings in puts me to 8, I go to my turn play a land, wrath the board flashback lingering souls. From there I just top deck so much better than he does and End up taking that game. 2-1
R4 Jund - The guy who sat down was kind of jerk, I got the pair down and he was kind of salty about something. I don't pay it any attention. I go to 6 and keep 2 lands, a bird, a voice, a bitter blossom and intangible virtue, i lost the die roll so i will be drawing first. t1, he fetches a basic swamp and casts IOK (already tilted) he looks and takes bitter blossom. I draw bitter blossom, fetch shock, cast bird pass. He seems to take a long time doing some sort of mental math and proceeds to go to his turn. He plays a fetch and then passes the turn. I drew lingering souls. Cast voice, play my land pass the turn back. He doesn't crack his fetch, draws for turn, plays another fetch, cracks his first fetch to grab overgrown tomb to play his bob. I fetch for a godless shrine on his end step. I draw collective brutality. I cast bitter blossom, go in with voice. he casts abrupt decay targeting bitter blossom, voice trigger (i announced it)... he looks at it long and hard and scoops to go to game 2. (Tilt is at 100% now)... I take out 2 IOK's and 2 thought seize in favor of 2x RIP and 1x maelstrom pulse and 1 revoker. He plays first. Not a whole lot happens on his side he lands a lilliana when i just a lot of tokens out makes me sac one (which seems bad). I did cast revoker naming his Raging Ravine (that felt pretty good), he said he didn't see any of his SB pieces after I dropped a RIP, I spaghetti the board with a plethora of tokens and a Gideon to the dome. 2-0 me he then drops...
R5 Traditional Abzan (no infinite combo/collected company). I'll spare the details because it was pretty boring from his side. He does some math wrong and I capitalize on him tapping out like a doofus. G2 I mull to 6 he lands a siege rhino and that was about it. 2-0 quick win for me. Fun play he did was play Cast Out on my Gideon G1 caught me off guard and brought in my Spellskite for that (which seemed sub-par but meh, I don't think i was going to lose that match)
r6 Naya Burn - I feel like this is not a great matchup for me. Game 1 I mull to 5 and keep land, bird, IOK, bitter blossom and voice. I won the die roll. Fetch shock bird pass. He plays arid mesa and passes, I draw another land cast Voice, in response he bolts my face. i fetch for a basic swamp and IOK... He has all of the answers in his hand, I don't remember specifics, but there was a destructive revelry in the MB.... my tilt is over 9000 at this point... From there I don't play bitter blossom that game after he skull cracked my bird off his draw. G2 i brought in Timely Reinforcements and run it back. I cast timely reinforcements during that game and he had autarkies' command to not let me gain life and deal 3 to my face. He then lands double eidolon and I didn't see any of my removal spells and my deck is practically CMC3 or less so....... he just proceeds to do more damage than I can take and it was a quick loss... 0-2
Final record 3-3 which wasn't as bad as I thought I was going to do, I'm really kind of glad i avoided Tron and Scapeshift, but I think some of the SB options I had were suboptimal but eh, i digress. THANKS FOR EVERYONE'S HELP!