Green Token Deck

10.11.04 

Hey all, and welcome back to the Magic Deck Garage! This week, we’re shying away from the tournament scene and going towards a fun, theme deck sent in by Mike. Here’s the e-mail I received…

Hello, I'm Mike and I've been playing for a less that a month. Have have good friend who play Magic so, they've been really helpful. I kinda had all my cards stolen and one of my friends have made me a pretty good deck. If you have any suggestions it would help. Thanks in advance.

Name: So many Tokens so Little Time.

Land: 23

20x Forest
2x Tree of Tales
1x Squirrel Nest

Creatures: 10

3x Copper Myr
3x Steel Wall
2x Tel-Jilad Exile
2x Krosan Archer

Other Spells: 34

1x Epic Struggle
1x Midsummer Revel
1x Sproiling Cluster
4x Roar of the Wurm
2x Predator's Strike
4x Beast Attack
3x Chatter of the Squirrel
1x Crush of Wurms
2x Loxodon Warhammer
2x Darksteel Brute
2x Naturalize
4x Parallel Evolution
3x Journey to Discovery
4x Elephant Ambush

Total: 67

As you might have guessed (or not) my deck needs for my tokens to survive. But, it never usually happens so I have the Parallel Evolutions. My token cards and PEs have flashback so, if I need them that's good. I'm really looking for an infinite creature combo. Why do I need it? Well, I have Epic Struggle and I can win easily if I have unlimited tokens.

First and foremost, boo on people who steal cards. This is an incredibly lame thing to do, and it leads to Bad Karma. Enough to where the B and the K are capitalized.

I’m diggin’ the basic concept behind Mike’s deck – hooray for a ton of tokens! First and foremost, I want to up the count on Squirrel Nest.

+3 Squirrel Nest

Then, as Mike requested an infinite creature combo, I’m sticking in a horrifically stupid card – Earthcraft. Here’s how it goes: place Squirrel Nest on a basic land. Then, tap that basic land to create a Squirrel. Next, tap that Squirrel to untap the basic land with Squirrel Nest attached to it. Repeat. Mike, just be aware: if you use this combo too much, you will lose some friends. It’s that sick!

+3 Earthcraft

Since he would like to win the game via Epic Struggle, why don’t we throw another Epic Struggle into Mike’s deck as well?

+1 Epic Struggle

The next change I would like to make is to ditch Elephant Ambush in favor of the less costly, user-friendly Call of the Herd. I absolutely love playing this card when I can, so I’m going to sneak it into Mike’s deck as well.

-4 Elephant Ambush

+4 Call of the Herd

I’m not so sure about Copper Myr, Steel Wall, Tel-Jilad Exile, and Krosan Archer. Instead of these, why don’t we stick in Llanowar Elves and Vine Trellis. Both produce green mana (the only color Mike needs), both are solid drops for their cost, and both are easy to find.

-3 Copper Myr

-2 Krosan Archer

-3 Steel Wall

-2 Tel-Jilad Exile

+4 Llanowar Elves

+4 Vine Trellis

Since this is a token deck, why don’t we go ahead and run the full set of Chatter of the Squirrel? I can’t think of a good reason why not.

+1 Chatter of the Squirrel

To help save some space, let’s go ahead and cut two of the Parallel Evolution – you don’t really need a bunch of those; just a few will do.

-2 Parallel Evolution

With seven slots left to fill, it looks like we are going to have to choose Mike’s last few cards carefully. I feel horrible if I don’t include some way to take care of artifacts and enchantments in the main, so Naturalize has to make the cut. We’ll even add a third to make sure they come up often enough.

+1 Naturalize

I don’t think Saproling Cluster is the best call here, since we don’t want Mike’s opponent making cheap tokens. Roar of the Wurm and Crush of Wurms are really too expensive, especially since Mike doesn’t have a way to discard his Roars. Predator’s Strike is only so-so, Darksteel Brute doesn’t quite fit the theme, and Journey of Discovery and Loxodon Warhammer are really unnecessary. I thought a while on Midsummer Revel, and it almost filled out the last slots until I came up with the perfect card.

Mike is using a *lot* of Flashback spells. Meaning he has quite a few cards heading directly to his graveyard. Meaning he has Threshold. Meaning Grizzly Fate can be absolutely sick for him. Who wouldn’t want to make four 2/2s for five mana? Who wouldn’t want to flash that spell back?

+4 Grizzly Fate

Glancing over at Mike’s land, I can’t argue too much with the choice of Forests, but I can’t think of a good reason to be running Tree of Tales. It is just a liability because of all of the artifact destruction roaming around, so it has to go.

However, I would like to stick in Tranquil Thicket for cycling (and to fill the graveyard for Grizzly Fate’s threshold). Also going in are a set of Treetop Village. Why? Because it’s good, and it’s another dude. ‘Nuff said!

-2 Tree of Tales

-6 Forest

+4 Tranquil Thicket

+4 Treetop Village

With these last changes, I think we are all wrapped up. Mike has quite a few token producers, his only creatures help him get up the mana he needs to make a lot of tokens, and he has the infinite creature combo he requested. Here’s the finished product…

LAND (22):

14 Forest

4 Tranquil Thicket

4 Treetop Village

CREAUTRES (8):

4 Llanowar Elves

4 Vine Trellis

NON-CREATURE SPELLS (30):

4 Beast Attack

4 Call of the Herd

4 Chatter of the Squirrel

3 Earthcraft

2 Epic Struggle

4 Grizzly Fate

3 Naturalize

2 Parallel Evolution

4 Squirrel Nest

Hope that helps, Mike, and good luck! I’ll see y’all next week.

-Paul Hagan

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