Much Abrew: Tokens, but Really It's Prison (Pioneer)
Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Much Abrew About Nothing! This week, we're heading to Pioneer to answer a simple question: what if your token deck were actually a hard-lock prison deck in disguise? Our deck today starts off looking like Standard Boros Token Control, with Caretaker's Talent as a card-draw engine, lots of random token producers, and some Pioneer upgrades like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and The Wandering Emperor. But the deck's real plan isn't so much to grind our opponent out with tokens but to use the card advantage we generate from Caretaker's Talent to find High Noon and Possibility Storm, which together form a hard lock that keeps both players from casting spells forever! While locking ourselves out of casting spells might seem counterintuitive, thanks to Fountainport (assuming the board is mostly at parity when we assemble the lock), we'll eventually make a Fish token and use it to very, very slowly beat our opponent into submission! Can tokens work in Pioneer with a surprise prison plan? Let's find out!
Much Abrew: Token Prison Surprise
Discussion
Record-wise, the deck felt solid. We went 5-1, only losing a second match against Mono-Green Devotion. While our sample size wasn't huge, the deck felt solid in general, and we played against several of the best Pioneer decks along the way. More importantly, the lock was hilarious. We got people with it multiple times, which usually led to quick concessions once our opponent realized that they'd never be able to cast a spell again!
The part of the deck that surprised me most, though, was just how strong High Noon was as a standalone card. If we can get it with Possibility Storm, the hard lock is obviously super strong. But even just limiting players to one spell a turn without Possibility Storm was absurd against decks like Izzet Phoenix and Mono-Green Devotion that typically need to cast a bunch of spells in one turn. While we've had similar effects in the past like Rule of Law, High Noon is a massive upgrade, not just costing less mana but also being able to sacrifice itself, which is important with the lock since we can always just sacrifice High Noon to break out of the lock if things somehow go wrong.
The other thing I really like about the deck is how much it looks like Standard Tokens. If you already have the cards to play Boros Token Control in Standard, you're a decent way toward playing the deck. And the most expensive cards in the deck are things like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and The Wandering Emperor that were recently in Standard. One thing I've been missing since Modern turned into Modern Horizons block constructed is a non-Commander format where you can realistically play your rotated Standard cards. This deck shows that Pioneer might be the place to fill this gap, which I think is important to Magic in general.
So, should you play Token Prison Surprise in Pioneer? I think the answer is yes! The deck is unique, it felt competitive, and I found it super fun to play! If you're looking for something different to explore in Pioneer while you wait for Duskmourn to drop, give Token Prison Surprise a shot!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
