My partner loves playing Magic (perhaps not as much as I do, but she still has quite the passion for it!), however she gets more enjoyment out of building a casual deck,  gradually adding fun “one-of what if?” cards to it, and then playing it against other similar decks.

I love Standard. I love competitive play, and knowing that I’ve beat other competitive players feels pretty great. Last week I went 4-0 in Standard, won my entry fee back plus $20.00 in prizes, so I was quite happy with the outcome.

I’m going to be doing a regular segment on this blog called “Magic on a Budget”. Until last week, Wizards ran a regular column called “Building on a Budget” over at Daily Magic, and I’ve decided to carry the idea myself and write some introductory pieces on deck construction, whilst still keeping it cost effective enough to let newer players start with the deck.

Today’s deck is a Black/Green/White Token deck. I brewed this for my partner, and it’s designed to be competitive, whilst still be fun enough for her to play in a casual setting.

Last week I wrote a piece on the competitive future of the U/W Delver archetype. I got a lot of feedback, and it was basically agreed that right now it’s not going anywhere any time soon, so we have to endure it until rotation come October. The best way to get around this? Accept that we will be facing Delver and its variants until rotation does come around (pun not intended).

B/W Tokens were quite an impressive force when Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Lingering Souls, and Gather the Townsfolk were granted upon us with the release of Dark Ascension. Sorin was able to churn out Lifelink chump blockers, while cards like Lingering Souls provided flying attack and swooping defenders, and then Gather the Townsfolk provided us another solid token creating source.

As quickly as it appeared, B/W Tokens disappeared from the regular meta, possibly due to U/W Delver/Control’s ability to pay life for cheap cards like Gut Shot or Vapor Snag, and then bring out Snapcaster Mage to punish you all over again. Losing one life isn’t really worth it, at least not for a 1/1 Spirit or Human creature token.

“Mmm-mmmm. That is a tasty burger!”

The best part of any decent burger is the meaty filling. No-one likes a burger that’s small or poorly constructed, and much the same can be said for creating a competitive deck. You might have a good land base, or a few good Sorcery speed spells, but without a decent set of creatures to drive victory home you’re pretty much throwing the game before it even starts.

Doomed Traveler is a no-brainer when it comes to any token production deck. He’s a 1/1 body one-drop that offers up a 1/1 Spirit when he dies. Your opponent can block him and give you a free token with flying evasion, or he can let the Traveler chip away and become a problem over time. You can also use him to block creatures as a martyr of sorts, and then give yourself a free token.

His built in token production makes him a deterrent for Gut Shot, too. While the version my partner is using takes advantage of Birds of Paradise, the more budget friendly version can run Avacyn’s Pilgrim, and almost to the same effect. His mana production is great, and his 1/1 body also acts as a blocker when you no longer need the early game mana ramp. Finally, our last “four-of” creature is Strangleroot Geist.

Geist is without a doubt the best two-drop in Standard right now. There’s no question about it. He comes in on Turn 2, hits for two damaged right away, and even if he is killed by Gut Shot he comes back as a 3/2. Granted, Vapor Snag or Unsummon can keep him at bay, but then you’re controlling the tempo of the game and forcing your opponent to play around your aggressive attacks in the early game, right?

Our Geists are going to kill things like Geist of St. Traft, Champion of the Parish, and even Black’s potent one-drop 2/2 Diregraf Ghoul. And when they aren’t attacking? They’re still potent blockers, and can often shut your opponents board right down.

To even out the top end of our otherwise low mana ramp, we’ve got a couple of Wolfir Silverhearts for some late game beatdown, Requiem Angel and Hero of Bladehold to assist in our token production, and then Geist-Honored Monk to come in and use all of the tokens we’ve spawned.

“That show’s called a pilot.”

Just like our creature spells, we don’t want our main token production spells to resolve once and then do nothing else for us. Lingering Souls is a massive four-of, thanks to not only it’s cheap initial cast, but then its even cheaper Flashback cost. Five mana for four 1/1 Spirits? Okay, sure.

Gather the Townsfolk is another big tool in this arsenal. Even if you take a bit of early aggro and your life total slips down, you’ll be able to benefit with Gather the Townsfolk’s Fateful Hour rule. It’s not going to save you all the time, but it’s a handy enough tool to keep around.

I mentioned in the title of this piece the “built in anti-Delver” tech. What is it? Intangible Virtue. Giving your tokens +1/+1 and Intangible Virtue for two mana is a huge tempo jam for Delver decks. A Delver player (myself being one) will not pay four life just to Gut Shot one token. So what will they do when you have four or more on the field and a couple of Intangible Virtues?

We’re choosing to run four copies of Intangible Virtue and one copy of the also good Honor of the Pure, just to round out our buffing abilities. Removal? Yeah, some of that too. A copy of Doom Blade and a few Oblivion Rings round out our semi-potent removal library.

I also threw in a solitary Hunger of the Howlpack, just for some counter allocation if we ever need it.

 ”That’s how you’re gonna beat ‘em, Butch. They keep underestimating you.”

I played around with the mana for this deck quite a bit, and I think I finally struck a nice and even balance.

With double Green cards like Strangleroot Geist being quite harsh on our land, we never want to end up stalling and losing tempo because of one Forest missing.

Our basics aside, we also have utility lands like Vault of the Archangel and Grim Backwoods. The former allows us to turn our tokens into vicious little chump blockers with Deathtouch and Lifelink, which is perfect for running them into bigger threats, or even just to neutralise cards like Huntmaster of the Fells, and other big threats.

Coupled with our Requiem Angel, Grim Backwoods also gives us as regular token production facility, however for one mana more you can fully cast (Flashback included) Lingering Souls, so it’s something we don’t want to rely on to an extent that we lose a game using it poorly.

If your land draws aren’t good, you might consider removing the single Grim Backwoods, and instead opting to run another Forest, thus giving you six sources of green mana instead of five.

Danielle’s B/G/W Tokens

2 Evolving Wilds
5 Forest
1 Grim Backwoods
6 Plains
4 Sunpetal Grove
3 Swamp
2 Vault of the Archangel

23 Lands

4 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
4 Doomed Traveler
1 Geist-Honored Monk
1 Hero of Bladehold
1 Requiem Angel
4 Strangleroot Geist
2 Wolfir Silverheart

16 Creatures

1 Doom Blade
1 Hunger of the Howlpack
4 Intangible Virtue
1 Honor of the Pure
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Gather the Townsfolk
1 Increasing Devotion
4 Lingering Souls
1 Timely Reinforcements

20 Other Spells

1 Elspeth Tirel

1 Planeswalker

This is a budget friendly list. You could easily give the deck more flexibility by switching out Avacyn’s Pilgrim for four Birds of Paradise, and just as easily run a second Hero of Bladehold and drop the Honor of the Pure.

It’s also hard to look at tokens without the inclusion of Gavony Township, and you could easily make that a two-of by removing the one Timely Reinforcements and Hunger of the Howlpack, or even by choosing to only run Intangible Virtues and no Honor of the Pure.

Have fun, and happy building!

Magic 2013 is readily approaching (prerelease is this weekend!) and Magic fans around the world are eagerly anticipating what looks to be a fun set, and also a little glimpse into the future of what Wizards has planned for the future of the game.

He works tirelessly in his little lab, crafting abominations that we could only imagine, and for that Delver of Secrets and his Insectile Aberration flip counterpart aren’t liked very much. Arguably one of the greatest one drops in the history of the game, Delver decks are shaping the Standard meta in a way that many fans are not happy with, and Wizards hears you loud and clear.

Of course, it’s not only Delver of Secrets that is getting a bit of flak. It’s more the cards like Ponder, Mana Leak, and Snapcaster Mage that really define the titular archetype. Magic 2013 is delivering a number of tools to the field that can not only shake up Delver’s hold on Standard (maybe?), but also setting up for October when the rotation happens and Delver does lose a number of its most effective tools.

Ponder, Vapor Snag, Mana Leak, and Gitaxian Probe all rotate come October. Those are all “four-ofs” in most Delver decks, so there goes sixteen or so cards. You’re losing nearly one third of your deck, and then Seachrome Coast rotating out (however Shock lands should be getting reprinted, so Hallowed Fountain returns) means you really are losing a whole third of the basic U/W Delver build.

Back in April Wizards of the Coast admitted that they “messed up with Snapcaster Mage”, however that was really all that was said. Avacyn Restored saw the release of Cavern of Souls, and while that did help it still didn’t remove any of the “Oh, well here’s a Snapcaster and let me reanimate this here Vapor Snag.” hijinks.

 

Tormod’s Crypt and Ground Seal are the two cards people think are going to “make or break” the Delver archetype. We’ve seen Tormod’s Crypt before in the shape of Nihil Spellbomb, although this time it’s absent the ability to pay for a cantrip, although it’s free instead.

Ground Seal is once again, nothing new, nor nothing exciting. You’re getting a one-for-one in the shape of playing it and getting a free draw, but you’re also wasting a turn just to get the fuzzy feeling of “Oh, I showed him!”. Two mana just to make Snapcaster “fair” is a waste. I would rather drop by Strangleroot Geist on Turn 2 as opposed to this, even if they do manage to flash their Snapcaster in, because then I’m in an even better position.

And even with Ground Seal’s “free” card, you’re still looking at it for the anti-Snapcaster/Surgical Extraction protect first, and the card second, and if not you really are doing it wrong.

What happened to Grafdigger’s Cage back in Dark Ascension? Sure, it saw some fringe sideboard play and a few times it made it into mainboard, but it hardly “hosed” Snapcaster in a way that many people predicted. Now I understand that Wizards plans the sets in advance, and they probably expected Undying to be a bigger mechanic than it was (outside of Strangleroot Geist and Geralf’s Messenger), but in the end Grafdigger’s Cage fell flat.

The real thing that I see breaking Delver long term is all of its key cards rotating out. Ponder is an important part of the Delver arsenal, simply because of the card advantage it affords the player. Don’t like your top three? Cool, shuffle them up and draw. Then with Snapcaster you’re getting that up to eight times each game. You might as well be playing with your deck face up, because more often than not you control the cards you draw almost entirely.

Originally seen in Eighth Edition, Index is being reprinted in M13 and has been sensibly suggested as a replacement for Ponder, but it’s just not good enough, not even close. Revealing the top five cards is a lot of reach, but not even Thought Scour is going to fix up the times when your top five cards are all poor. Opt could have shone in this Standard meta, however it was not to be.

I see a lot of Delver players just removing the Ponder replacement from their decks, instead running with cards like Divination or even the recently spoiled Augur of Bolas. Costs one mana more, has a similar effect, and also gives you a 1/3 body.

Mana Leak might be disappearing, but it has some form of shadow behind it when it does leave. Essence Scatter has its uses, although it’s limited target really pales it in comparison to the admittedly overpowered Leak. Negate will also float around, however it also faces the same linear use that Essence Scatter does.

Losing the Swords, namely Sword of War and Peace is another big blow, however it’s definitely not a game breaker, specially with Runechanter’s Pike still seeing a lot of play, even in the current meta.

Unsummon is the obvious replacement for Vapor Snag. The same core effect, minus the one life burn, Unsummon will see play, albeit with a cold shoulder. There is some cases where it’s better than Vapor Snag (bringing your own guy back as a form of evasion), however it’s still going to be looked at like the middle child.

Rewind is another Eighth Edition reprint, and I think it will see some dynamic play, specially in U/W Delver decks featuring Restoration Angel. “Oh, you cast your spell? Well here’s my Rewind, then Restoration Angel, which I’ll target Snapcaster with, and then use this Unsummon from my graveyard to wipe your board.” That’s a big swing, and Rewind will definitely make it possible, it’s just a matter of whether or not the four CMC is deemed too high for competitive Standard play.

Come rotation – Delver builds – based on the information we have now are going to get a bit of a shakeup. It might break the archetype completely, it might turn the Standard format upside down entirely, but either way it will be interesting to see how the Delver builds react and adapt.