I play BW Tokens as a control deck, managing the board-state with a never-ending supply of card advantage via flying tokens. Discard spells, removal, and tokens on chump duty buy you time to set up a huge alpha strike, typically over two or three turns, once you’ve sufficiently swarmed the board. There are a good amount of situations and matchups when you need to switch gears and race, but for the most part, you’re an underdog boxer fading early brute force only to harness a series of haymakers once you’ve weathered the initial surge.
Tokens is great when fair decks like Jund and Death’s Shadow reign supreme. Those decks just can’t keep up with your three and four for one threats. Anytime the format slows down just a little bit, Tokens is primed for a push. Now for a reality check. Even when the format slows down, Tokens is not overly powerful (you are literally playing 1/1s), it’s not too consistent (you should generally mulligan any non-token generator opening hand and you’re still at risk of drawing the wrong side of your deck), and while it’s resilient, it takes time to rebuild your army. Tokens is not close to an overpowered deck, but I believe it’s a lot better than people give it credit for. Like all decks, it has some bad matchups, but it can win all of those matchups. I’ve beaten some of my worst matchups at Grand Prix against excellent players and if Tokens can occasionally survive bad matchups against the best players in the world, I believe it should be taken seriously.
I’m a believer there are many ways to build BW Tokens. After playing the deck competitively (I admit this is up for debate) the past six years, this is my current assessment of the best competitive configuration for the current Modern metagame. I stand by these decisions while conceding that my way of building Tokens is not the right away, it’s just the way that works for me currently.
4 Auriok Champion
I wouldn’t leave home without 4 Auriok Champion. Sure, she comes out half the time and she’s horrible in your bad matchups, but those matchups are bad anyway you look at them. If you’re playing BW Tokens, you’re just not going to beat combo or big mana most days. Auriok is the glue holding Tokens together. Without her, your good matchups would become mediocre at worst, sketchier at best (e.g., shadow, burn, dredge, mono-red phoenix). Auriok belongs in this deck if you’re serious about being the midrange deck to beat midrange decks. She helps buy you plenty of time while you stabilize against whatever your opponent is doing, and is a silver bullet vs. red and black decks. She’s great against aggro and midrange and your best card vs. Jund, Izzet Phoenix, and Rock – since Rock is apparently no longer playing Golgari Charm in the sideboard, Auriok is looking mighty fine these days. Of course, when she’s bad, she’s really bad, I mean really really awful, so I understand why people aren’t always high on her, but she’s an integral part of your game plan and not including her hurts against the matchups you should be winning. If you’re playing BW Tokens in Modern, you’re already carrying a knife into a few gun fights, but you should play to your strengths, and Auriok Champion brings the biggest knife to the fight.
4 Lingering Souls
Any deck without 4 of these is not BW Tokens. This is the best card in your deck and you NEVER cut it in any matchup whatsoever. Non-negotiable.
4 Spectral Procession
Many Tokens decks I’ve seen don’t play this card or play just two. I played two copies for a long time because with Vault and Swamp sometimes it’s hard to cast and having multiples stuck in your hand looking at Plains, Plains, Swamp feels horrific. You can’t play four if you play with ghost quarters (more on this card below). Despite these drawbacks, Spectral is your second best token generator and along with Souls is what you absolutely want to be doing on turn three. It produces three tokens for the low price of three mana, and the three life from Auriok is often important. If you don’t draw Souls or they get extracted, you need to process really badly. This is the card you almost always are happy to see as a top deck (besides Souls, Secure, or Sorin) and it comes with an immediate board statement and threat. It does what the deck wants to do, which is vomit out flyers out of nowhere. As an added bonus, Spectral, with cmc=6, dodges Eidolon of the Great Reveal and Spell Queller. I’m confident that four is the correct number and have come around to this revelation after toying with the number for years.
2 Bitterblossom
Bitterblossom wasn’t in my deck for a long time and the reason was that Bitterblossom doesn’t really improve your good matchups and doesn’t help your bad ones. Here are your bad matchups, from worst to less bad, in my opinion:
- Bant Eldrazi
- Tron
- Living End (this is arguably worse than Tron)
- Storm
- Valakut/TitanShift/really any combo deck that can combo without creatures (whether or not it also has that capability with creatures)
- Merfolk
Take a look at those matchups. Is BB good in any of them? Now look at our best matchups:
- Goblins
- Grixis or UR Delver/Mardu Pyromancer/anything with Pyromancer
- Grixis Death’s Shadow
- Faeries
- Mono-Red Phoenix
- Jund/Abzan/Rock
- Dredge
- Affinity/Hardened Scales
- Burn
- Humans
Notice anything? Bitterblossom is meh in most of these matchups, with clear exceptions of Faeries, Jund, Affinity, and Humans (though on the draw vs. Humans it’s iffy). While it’s great vs. Jund, it will get destroyed instantly, thank you very much. Bitterblossom shines when you have lots of time and is best against Control or a midrange deck without access to Assassin’s Trophy. Also, remember that in your bad matchups you typically take Auriok Champion out, so BB becomes more of a liability to kill you in those matchups. That said, Bitterblossom is likely the best card in the mirror (besides Gideon, or if we’re being brutally honest, Elspeth, Sun’s Champion), and a great turn two play.
2 Hidden Stockpile
When I saw this card spoiled, I wasn’t impressed. I was the nay-sayer doubting this card would ever make it into my deck. Why? (Besides the fact that triggering revolt can be hard when your opponent doesn’t want it to happen?) Because the tokens don’t fly. Sure, they can block an Etched Champion and brick wall Apostle’s Blessing shenanigans, but if a token isn’t flying in this deck, there needs to be a GREAT reason to include the card. The reason in this case is card selection. While Tokens has great card advantage due to our cards creating multiple creatures, Tokens offer squadoosh in the way of card selection (unless you count Windbrisk Heights). You’re stuck with your 20 or so cards each game and that is that. Stockpile helps smooth your draws like no other card in the history of Tokens. While good in multiples on paper, some games you’ll have two of these stuck in your hand with no chance to revolt and you will rue the day you ever took deck building advice from this blog because this card is terrible! Yes, it can clog your hand like Spectral, but them’s the breaks. Magic is full of them. Hidden Stockpile is a necessary evil and better than 4 BBs, in my opinion, for the reasons listed under BB above (also, you never want BB vs. Burn). It is the weakest token generator in your deck.
2 Secure the Wastes
The second-worst token maker in the deck. Secure carries the huge upside that you can cast it at instant speed and it’s part of your game plan to win out of nowhere with a huge alpha attack. You can play it after a sweeper, gain life in response to being dead on the stack if Auriok is out, and it’s one of your best win conditions vs. Tron – after Ugin wipes your board, play this and then cast the Virtues you’ve been sand-bagging. This is also great vs. decks where you need to hold up mana for spot removal and all of a sudden you play this card for a million. It’s a fantastic top deck and playing this into Sorin is often back-breaking. People won’t expect this card so you also get free wins from opponents who tap out thinking they’re safe because you have no board presence. This card is great in the mirror as well. Secure is not great vs. fast decks with flyers, like Affinity or Spirits.
3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
In my opinion, Sorin is the best planeswalker and the only one you should play maindeck. He does it all – you get flying tokens when you need them (and everyone seems to forget they’re 2/2s, not 1/1s), his ultimate is fine, and his +1 is glorious. He saves you vs. Mono-Red, lets you race Merfolk, gives you an extra turn against Scapeshift, and completely alters combat. If your tokens are blessed with the virtue, forget about it – it’s Magical Christmas land. He’s better than Gideon because Gideon cannot save you when you’re behind. Sorin can. He can be the answer to your prayers and completely affects the board state anytime he’s cast. I’ve been hard-pressed to find any sound debate usurping Sorin as the best planeswalker so I’ll take your challenge to play anything over 3 Sorins.
0 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
A sweet card, but I think it’s worse than both Solemn Visitor and Gideon. The token doesn’t fly, the anthem doesn’t include a buffer for toughness, and you’re already good against creature decks so the ultimate, certainly a powerful effect, is not as exciting. Lord of Innistrad doesn’t impact combat the way Solemn Visitor does.
0 Gideon
Gideon is a better card than Sorin, Solemn Visitor. Hands down. He makes a token for free and gives you an anthem if you really need it. However, he’s a lightning rod for spot removal in a deck where you don’t want to turn on any spot removal. Most decks will keep in path against you, even if it’s bad. Also, Gideon doesn’t affect the game the turn he comes into play like Sorin does. You’re already a SLOW, DREARY deck durdling in a modern world of turn 4 kills. He’s the Jace of this deck – once he gets going he looks unstoppable, but Modern is just too fast to be messing with Jace in a midrange deck. Sorin is the best person for the job. I can’t fault people for putting Gideon in their sideboard – he’s the BEST card in the mirror (ok, big Elspeth really is, but she costs six mana) and a huge beating versus fair decks. So what’s the problem? The problem is you’re already great against fair decks so what does Gideon really do? My answer is nothing more than what you already have, which is an infinite supply of tokens. You don’t need Gideon’s assistance to crush those decks. Of course, if the mirror becomes a thing, you want a deck with 8 Virtues, 4 Gideon, 4 BB, and 12 Lingering Souls. Also, Worship.
Controversy brews when people become attached to cards, and I’m not innocent, either. My contention is that BW Tokens is underpowered in a world of brokenness. In response, it’s tempting to play the most broken cards BW has access to, but when looking holistically at what this deck is doing in said broken world, I think Gideon is best left behind. Herb Brooks cut some of the most talented players to create the best functioning US hockey team back in 1980, and sacrifices need to be made in the name of compiling the best functioning 75.
0 Liliana of the Veil
I’m a firm believer she does not belong in this deck for two big reasons.
- You don’t want to be discarding anything. It’s possible you flood out late, but you want those lands to translate into Secure Warriors. You’re a control deck where your advantage comes in creature resources, so discarding Souls isn’t great because you’re down two spirits.
- The three-drop slot is the bread and butter of this deck. Lili competes with Souls and Spectral, and you want those on turn 3 most.
0 Elspeth, Knight Errant
A great card, not as good as Gideon, even if she grants flying, kind of.
0 History of Benalia
History of Benalia could theoretically replace Spectral Procession, but I’ve never tried History of Benalia because I think it’s terrible in this deck for a few reasons.
- History if out of touch with your game plan. Your goal is to control the battlefield with a swarm of creatures. Your mission is to buy enough time, chump with enough flyers, to acquire an overwhelming position and attack for a ton of damage over a few fateful turns in the air. History is best in an aggro deck, not a swarm-based evasive strategy.
- This deck is built around controlling the battlefield, and the +2/+2 for one turn is not part of that controlling game-plan. However, even when considering that +2/+2 (which doesn’t pump any of your spirits, btw), you’re forced to consider attacking that turn rather than waiting for the right time to jam your swarm.
- Lingering and Spectral produce four and three FLYING tokens each, while History produces two NON-FLYING tokens and you only get one per turn. Sacrificing numbers as well as evasion just seems like a disservice to your chance to win games.
- A 2/2 body and then another over two turns without evasion seems blah in a deck where your three-drops need to matter right away.
When you cast Souls or Spectral you have the opportunity not only to chump block into oblivion, but also to set up your battlefield for a giant attack in the air. Very few Modern decks can block flyers, but almost all don’t care about the ground. You typically do damage in large clumps and having two 4/4 vigilance soldiers that don’t even pump your spirits or fly is just not where you want to be. The soldiers are going to be a lot worse blocking than 1/1 flying spirits and a lot worse attacking than 1/1 giant spirits. This deck wants evasive creatures, it wants cards that create multiple creatures, and it wants to rebuild right away if necessary. It doesn’t care about attacking on the ground, it doesn’t care about vigilance because you have Virtues, and it can’t be bothered to need to attack when more often than not you’re chipping away in the air. Secure the Wastes and Stockpile tokens often cannot attack and I can’t imagine History would be any different. Let’s consider the most popular modern decks with History:
- Death’s Shadow – the 4/4s are severely outclassed
- Izzet Phoenix – Pyromancer tokens can block for days
- Dredge – the flying doesn’t really matter here, but having three bodies at once does
- Burn – gaining three life off Spectral with Auriok and dodging Eidolon is huge
- Bant Spirits – that flying thing
- Mono-Green Tron – Wurmcoil
A rule I like to follow is that every token producer that doesn’t have flying needs a very good reason to be in the deck, and History of Benalia offers nothing in the way of advancing your game plan so it’s out. Yes, it’s a good card and yes, some games you’ll jam two of these and win the game wondering how on earth this card doesn’t get respect, but I doubt most games will go according to that plan.
0 Start/Finish
I have never played with this card, and while it certainly seems reasonable to have a doom blade attached to an overcosted Raise the Alarm, I think we can do better than this. The extra side of this card is a trap – while it looks good to have more flexibility with the second spell attached to a token producer, the effect isn’t THAT good. We’re already good against creature decks, and there’s a real sacrifice to be made for using our turn three to cast two non-flying tokens when we’d much rather cast Souls or Spectral. As I noted above, there should be a very good reason to play non-flying tokens in this deck and I just don’t think this card cuts it at a competitive level. I think Raise the Alarm is better for the sole reason that you can play it a turn before Souls/Spectral and ground tokens are much better in the early game than after the battlefield becomes clogged. If the back end were an instant and not a sorcery, I might be higher on this card.
0 Hero of Bladehold
Opponents will still keep in Path to Exile against you. They will still have ways to kill your creatures. It pains me not to play this card because she was my go-to back in Standard 2012, but now she’s just another Admiral Ackbar quote waiting to happen.
0 Timely Reinforcements
See multiple references to my rule regarding non-flying tokens above. Like Hidden Stockpile, you might not even get tokens out of this card, which is just not where you ever want to be with this deck. We need to be gunning on turn 3 and to stumble because we have more creatures than our opponent is a real concern with this card. Red decks are already okay matchups. Secure and Hidden Stockpile are just better.
0 Legion’s Landing
Yes, in the late game this card can be great vs. control and midrange, if it survives that long. But you’re already pretty good in long, grindy games and this card just seems horrendous in a turn-four format. The token don’t have flying, it’s probably never going to do much damage by itself, and if you’re alive by the time you start cashing this in for a token a turn, this card probably isn’t going to alter the outcome of the game in any meaningful way. It’s not even that good against Burn because Searing Blaze is a thing. Pass.
Lands
Some lists play Ghost Quarters to help your big mana matchups, but I’d stay away from this because those matchups don’t get remarkably better even if you change up your manabase. When you play Tokens, you are giving some concession to those bad matchups and that’s just life.
0 Ghost Quarters
If you want to cast Auriok, Spectral, or History of Benalia, I advocate for no Ghost Quarters.
2 Shambling Vents/0 Windbrisk Heights
Windbrisk used to be good when the format was slower. Currently, I like Shambling Vents better because it can also produce black mana. You would think that our mana would be good in a two-color deck, but it’s not. I’m inclined to go with the dual tap land that moonlights as a body versus the tap land that everyone is gunning to destroy. I think two tap lands is ok in this deck, but wouldn’t go over two.
I don’t have much else to say about my lands other than you want fetches for Hidden Stockpile, Vault is still the best utility land, and getting triple white for Spectral is super important. You need one Swamp. I’ve been happy with one Fetid Heath.
4 Intangible Virtue
Don’t play Honor of the Pure with Sorin and BB. You want four of these, but sometimes you side them out.
2 Zealous Persecution
This unassuming card does it all – it kills mana dorks, elves, Thalia’s Lieutenant targeting other sitting ducks, robots, and it completely alters combat. It’s great. I used to run three, but found three was too many.
4 Path
Don’t leave home without it. Blood Moon isn’t great against you, but sometimes it is and you can path one of your own minions. Since most games go long, it’s not as though giving your opponent and extra land matters a ton.
3 Seize, 2 IOK
I’m not too high on discard spells right now. Seize is the best against your bad matchups, but a liability against burn and aggro and usually a HORRIBLE top deck. Turn 1 discard into BB is still your best starting combination, but with certain decks reclaiming their place in Modern (e.g., Jund, Dredge, Affinity, Burn), Thoughtseize isn’t really where you want to be. If the format shifts away from those good matchups, I could see going to more discard spells to buy you more time, but let’s face it, most decks are resilient and can come back from your early discard because you’re just SLOW. Auriok Champion, multiple flying spirits, and creature removal are the best ways you nullify your opponent’s gameplan.
0 Worship
If you want to play Worship, main deck it. Every deck can kill enchantments post-board and guess what, your deck has infinity enchantments so everyone will emerge from their stocked sideboard with ammunition to destroy this, even if they have never seen this card before, pick it up to read it, and then shrug and fire off that Nature’s Claim. Wrath of God is a better card in this spot. The days of Worship-locking people with Auriok Champion are over. Sure, it’s great game 1 in the tokens mirror, you can’t lose, but after board Disenchant comes in and lots of other decks just don’t care about a four-mana do nothing. This card was great for me maindeck in 2015, but since that time every time I’ve cast this card it’s just been a disappointment.
0 Surgical Extraction
This card is fine, but RIP is where you want to be. Magical Dreamland of Ghost Quarter + Surgical or Seize + Surgical are just that, dreams, and great stories. Just play RIP and Lost Legacy.
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
Great vs. Burn, Ad Nauseum, Anger of the Gods – this little woman can do it all. One of my favorite sequences was preventing a Death’s Shadow opponent from bolting their own Izzet Staticaster in response to my path so they couldn’t Kolaghan’s Command it back later. There’s some play to this deck.
3 Stony Silence
Yes, KCI is gone. Yes, you still need three.
2 RIP
Three would be fine. Living End is a horrible matchup.
2 Duress
My answer to having only five discard spells in the main. You really want to be executing your game plan of controlling the game with your spirits rather than controlling with discard. If you want to max out on discard, play Rock. Then you can turn 1 discard, drop a threat, and tick up Liliana forever.
1 Lost Legacy
Perfect vs. combo decks. Nabs their payoff card. Also fine vs. control. I used to like it vs. Tron naming Karn or Ugin, but then they just play another win condition. This is best in decks with few win conditions.
0 Fulminator Mage
I don’t think you’re reliably going to stop Tron with this card so I’d just not play it. I main-decked Fulminator once upon a time and I learned the hard way that casting any non-Auriok creature is just inviting your opponent to be happy to cash in a removal spell, even if it just forces you to use your Mage.
1 Runed Halo
Awesome catch-all. Great vs. all kinds of decks. Names Eidolon of the Great Reveal, Lightning Storm, Grapeshot, Infect creatures, Etched Champion. I like it better than Nevermore because, as mentioned above, your deck is full of enchantments waiting to get zapped.
1 Wrath of God
Yes, you’re good against creature decks, but this can really help in a pinch because you can rebuild while they usually can’t. Great vs. Humans, Merfolk, Slivers, any value-town green deck. Sure, it’s not great vs. Spirits with Selfless Spirit, but it’s solid and many games you’re about to lose you will hope and pray this is your top deck.
2 Disenchant
You don’t have a catch-all for problematic cards like Ensnaring Bridge or Cranial Plating. This is it.
0 Sundering Growth
When you want disenchant, what you want to do is kill the artifact or the enchantment. You don’t really need an extra token. Sure, it’s a nice bonus, but you’re not dedicating a sideboard space for a lousy extra token. The times you only have one white mana due to Blood Moon or there’s a Vault or a Swamp (and God forbid both at the same time) in play happen far too often for you to care about Sundering Growth’s bonus. Don’t play it.
0 Anguished Unmaking
I ran this card for awhile and while there’s nothing wrong with it, it was just underwhelming and losing the three life and needing to pay three mana just wasn’t where I wanted to be. I like Disenchant better. Some folks are running Cast Down or Conclave Tribunal. I haven’t tried those, but there’s something to be said about a slot for this type of card.
1 Fatal Push
You’re generally already good vs. creature decks, but this is great vs. many decks and threats, notably Walking Ballista, all Merfolk, and Thing in the Ice.
1 EE
Great vs. Merfolk, Elves, and Affinity when you don’t have Stony. Be mindful that most of your stuff costs two – you usually set your bomb to one, but at times it can be more or less.
0 Damping Sphere
I put this in my deck for Tron, Storm, and Amulet for the GP, but I regretted it. BW Tokens is already bad against these decks and Damping Sphere is probably only fantastic vs. Storm of all three of those. It also seems good vs. Phoenix, but that matchup is already pretty good in my opinion. I’m dropping it for Wrath of God’s triumphant return.
0 Harsh Sustenance
A good friend of mine advocated for this card when he was playing Tokens. I don’t think it’s great, but it’s a card I’m going to keep in mind.