Hi all. I hope you all are enjoying your weekend. As for this blog post, I’d like to highlight and discuss my performance in our local tournaments from yesterday’s FNM and today’s Saturday Standard. As for this week, I piloted aBlack White Tokens aggro deck with reference from Tom Valkeneers of GP Lille.
The deck was created a few weeks ago by my Teammate Raoul and I noticed how it performed well with the meta, even with the danger of Ratchet Bomb.
Here is my current list:
Black White Tokens
by Mark Ian Alloso
2 Blade Splicer
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Doomed Traveler
2 Hero of Bladehold
1 Elspeth Tirel
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
4 Gather the Townsfolk
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Intangible Virtue
4 Lingering Souls
2 Midnight Haunting
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Isolated Chapel
12 Plains
1 Shimmering Grotto
4 Swamp
3 Vault of the Archangel
Sideboard
1 Celestial Purge
1 Day of Judgment
1 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Nevermore
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Revoke Existence
2 Shrine of Loyal Legions
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Timely Reinforcements
I made changes for Saturday’s tourney by swapping two hauntings with two Blade Splicers (the orginal list had 4 Midnight Hauntings). As for the FNM tourney, here is a short recap of the event.
Round 1 vs John Carlo (RG Werewolves) won 2-0
Game Highlights: Just overwhelmed him with pumped up flying Spirits.
Round 2 vs Charles (Mono Green Aggro) won 2-1
Game Highlights: I was able to race his Sword of War and Peace equipped critter with Vault of the Archangel. Good thing his sideboard Bomb didn’t came out.
Round 3 vs JR (BR Zombies) won 2-1
Game Highlights: Tokens without the virtue or honor are just mediocre chump blockers for his undead army. Spell clumping can sometimes can’t be avoided.
Round 4 vs Raoul (Tempered Steel) drew 1-1-1
Game Highlights: We made some playtest games and the tokens can really hold the fort against Steel’s aggressive start. You just need to answer the enchantment later on.
Overall record: 3-0-1, 1st place.
That turned out pretty well. I’d really wanted to test play it against Delver Blade which we did after the tourney. It was somewhat a 50/50 matchup as the slow draws can be quickly out tempo with. My concern at this time was on how to stop an early Delver or other similar threats.
Saturday Standard
My little change on the list with Blade Splicer was to test how it would work with Champion of the Parish, which I think needs more Humans to get it pumped early. I only added two to make it flexible on sideboarding and stuff. Let’s see if it will work.
The tournament today had 18 players so it’s five rounds of gameplay. Here is how I performed on the event:
Round 1 vs Mao (Wolf Run Ramp) won 2-0
Game Highlights: I had to play it safe against his Slagstorms and Whipflares, and reserve my removals for his Titans.
Round 2 vs Raymund (Bant Pod) lost 0-2
Game Highlights: The deck is pretty slow against ramping with Birds and Pilgrims. An online Birthing Pod is much worse. He just crushed me on both games with better creatures; one in particular is the double Frost Titan on game two.
Round 3 vs Ramon (UB Control) won 2-0
Game Highlights: Playing around counterspells and mass removals is just very hard. The best gameplay I think is to stick with an early Doomed Traveler with Honor of the Pure and burned out his Mana Leaks with Lingering Souls. Reach the ‘Mana leak mana’ as soon as possible before spending your big spells.
Round 4 vs Rei (UB Control) won 2-0
Game Highlights: Same gameplay with that of Ramon. Play around with counterspells as much as possible. Black Sun Zenith is okay as long as you don’t over commit or if you have reserve token generators in hand.
Round 5 vs Franz (Delver Blade) won 2-0
Game Highlights: Take advantage of the life payment for Phyrexian mana. It helps you to out-aggro him and end the game quickly. Also burn out his Mana Leaks with Lingering Soul. Sword of War and Peace can be a nuisance preboard so reserve your Oblivion Rings for that (most of the critters are hexproof anyway).
Overall record: 4-1, 2nd place.
The deck’s performance was impressive, even with a few mana flooding at times. One thing I’ve majorly noticed is that I sided out the champion almost all of the time, maybe because of my matchups. I don’t really know which deck he is good against, maybe versus Humans. He is okay but mostly don’t coordinate well with the draws, because of the lack of Human spells. Anyhow, he is the one I’m looking to replace in the future playtests.
To conclude, the deck is in good shape with the current meta and the benefit of not being the center of attention (and hype). I am looking to pilot this in Grand Prix Kuala Lumpur while the anti tokens sideboard are not yet considered. I’ve got to work around the sideboard again, like adding Mortarpod vs Mana critters or maybe a fourth Oblivion Ring. We’ll just see.
Thanks for reading and until the next post. 😀