This deck began its life in 2016 after reading SaffronOlive's article Budget Magic: $95 (36 tix) Modern White-Black Tokens
Eric Froehlich of Channelfireball posted an updated version of the deck in the article Deck of the Day: B/W Tokens (Modern)By Eric Froehlich // 5 Jan, 2018.
My deck is not intended to compete in Modern, but rather to have fun at the kitchen table on a budget. I do not have a sideboard because I do not have a defined meta game. As with every possible opponent, matchups depend on the strength of their deck.
Token Makers
Raise the Alarm and Gather the Townsfolk are pretty close to the same card with since we don't care about creature types. On turn two, Raise the Alarm is better because we can play it at instant speed, which sometimes means we can pick off an opposing one-drop by surprise. However, once the game goes long, Gather the Townsfolk becomes the better card, since we can occasionally trigger the "fateful hour" clause of having five or less life and make five 1/1's, which is an insane deal for only two mana. Plus, since we are on a budget we have Caves of Koilos as one of our dual lands and we can use the pain land to manipulate our life total to turn on fateful hour.
Spectral Procession and Lingering Souls are the reason to play White-Black Tokens. They have the ability to create a huge advantage for a small amount of mana. Spectral Procession gives us three evasive bodies for only three mana. While Lingering Souls is not as efficient on turn three, the ability to flash it back is huge. Not only does it protect against cards like Liliana of the Veil, but it makes four 1/1 fliers for only five mana.
These cards give us a ton of redundancy in creating evasive tokens. While they might not look all that scary on their own, once we start playing cards that buff them up, they can close out the game in short order.
Legion's Landing // Adanto, the First Fort
I only own one of these for this deck and looking for a second, though I am not sure where I would slot it in. It makes fora nice one drop and is easy to trigger. When it becomes a legendary land, it then acts as a form of ramp that can churn out more tokens with lifelink at instant speed without having to invest cards.
The Buffs
In a deck that is exclusively token based, Intangible Virtue is the best anthem effect ever printed. Not only does it give all of our creatures +1/+1 for only two mana, vigilance is a huge benefit. It allows us to attack with everything, but still have creatures on defense to chump our opponent's biggest threats. One of the benefits of playing a token deck is that we are really, really good at blocking.
Why is Zealous Persecution good? Let's count the reasons. First, and most obviously, it's another way to pump up all of our creature tokens and get in a ton of damage. Second, since it also gives all our opponent's creatures -1/-1, it makes attacking and blocking really hard for the opposition. Third, and most importantly, Zealous Persecution actually kills a lot of stuff. It can take down any number of Eldrazi Mimics, Delver of Secrets // Insectile Aberrations, Snapcaster Mages. Young Pyromancers (and all his Elemental tokens), Eldrazi Skyspawners, Dark Confidants, and most Affinity and Infect creatures. There are some matches where Zealous Persecution is essentially a two-mana Plague Wind, which makes it extremely powerful. Even when it is "bad," it's still giving our horde of tokens +1/+1 until the end of turn.
Hero of Bladehold is our finisher, and she's a good one as a four-drop that attacks for seven all by itself. When we have some extra tokens laying around, she usually only takes one attack to finish the game thanks to the power of the battle cry mechanic. Perhaps the best thing about Hero of Bladehold is that she is fairly resilient. Costing four mana means she doesn't get hit by Abrupt Decay and having four toughness means she dodges Lightning Bolt. A fairly common scenario is to play a Raise the Alarm on turn two, a Spectral Procession on turn three, and a Hero of Bladehold on turn four, which means we are attacking for 17 damage on turn five. That's not even counting what happens when Intangible Virtue is in play.
Sorin, Solemn Visitor does pretty much everything we could want. First, he gives all of our creatures +1/+0 and lifelink until our next turn, which is very good at keeping us alive when things go wrong. Second, he can make 2/2 flying Vampire tokens to protect himself and us if things go wrong. I have never activated his ultimate. If his +1 and -2 abilities aren't enough to win us the game, we probably weren't going to win anyway.
Removal
Path to Exile is the best removal in Modern, killing anything for just one mana.
Disruption
Watch what the Magic Man Sam (Now known as Rhystic Studies) has to say about Thoughtseize in his video, Thoughtseize in Retrospect.
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (34) | |||
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$0.80 | |||
$0.44€0.29 | |||
$0.44€0.63 | |||
$0.25€0.16 | |||
$0.30€0.09 | |||
$1.23€1.04 | |||
$4.00€3.550.02 | |||
$0.65€0.61 | |||
$0.29€0.09 | |||
Land (23) | |||
$1.21€0.830.14 | |||
$1.96€1.48 | |||
13
Plains
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$0.84€0.07 | ||
$0.39€0.220.02 | |||
Planeswalker (3) | |||
$2.00€1.600.02 |
$7.91€9.922.85 |
1
Soldier
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€0.20 | ||
1
Vampire
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€0.16 | ||
1
Spirit
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1
Human
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