Modern BW Tokens

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

If you've been reading us here at MTG Realm, you will certainly know that know that since we first blogging about Magic: the Gathering back in 2008, we sort of have this thingy for token decklists.  Furthermore, you may surmise that pro-player Craig Wescoe is certainly held in high regard around here as we feel we share similar overall game strategies and deckbuilding styles. 

To say that we were crestfallen after Honor of the Pure, and latter on, Lingering souls rotated out of standard would be a gross understatement.  We will not feel too sadened however as there is always Modern format for us to get another kick at the can as it were.  Anywhoos, as today's post title suggests, we are having a looking at Modern Black / White tokens and more specifically, the deck that Craig Wescoe took to game with at the recent Born of the Gods Pro tour Valencia Spain last weekend.  Here is the list now - 

MAIN DECKCreatures [4]
4 Squadron Hawk

Spells [31]
4 Doom Blade
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Honor of the Pure2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
4 Path to Exile
4 Spectral Procession
3 Sword of War and Peace
4 Thoughtseize

Lands [25]
4 Arid Mesa
3 Fetid Heath
4 Godless Shrine
3 Isolated Chapel
4 Marsh Flats
2 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Tectonic Edge
1 Vault of the Archangel

SIDEBOARD
3 Disenchant
2 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
1 Tectonic Edge
The first thing you may note is why no Bitterblossom?  Bitterblossom was very recently unbanned in this format and there is little doubt that this is a powerful token generator.  What we were most interested in after the un-banning is finding a home for
Bitterblossom in a 'Soul Sister' strategy where the continual one life point loss each turn for Bitterblossom would be negated by the one life point gain from either Soul Warden or Soul's Attendant.  We would also strongly consider using the token critter +1/+1 pump offered by Intangible Virtue over Honor of the Pure which of course only pumps white creatures (since we're greedy, we'd most likely use both).  All-in-all, this was certainly a difficult meta-game decision Craig had to take.

There is no doubt that Craig's list using Squadron Hawks, and a package of removal and discard was very robust. Some eight cards of instant spot removal is excellent to disrupt combos such as Deceiver Exarch / Splinter Twin and the like while six discard spells helps remove troublesome spells.  Squadron Hawks and Lingering Souls can pick up Sword of War and Peace and cause serious damage by flying over Kitchen Finks or Wall of Omens.  There is also 3 copies of Tectonic Edge in the main board to blow up the potentially very powerful Gavony Township.

In short, we love this build and hope to put our own touches on to it after we acquire a few odd singles from MTG Mint Card.

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