Black/Red/Green Token Deck With Sarkhan Vol and Sprouting Thrinax
September 15, 2008
A forum thread on StarCityGames.com got me thinking about building a Black/Red/Green deck with a lot of token creatures and the new Shards of Alara cards, Sarkhan Vol and Sprouting Thrinax.
I think the one instance where Sarkhan has the potential to be very, very good is in a token based deck, like the Torrent of Souls decks (Torrent of Vol, anyone??) since you can mimic plays like those available with Saproling Burst by AnthemHasting a newly dropped Marsh Flitter or SGC.
He’s also great because you can give Haste to the tokens made by the guy you Torrented back, which you previously couldn’t do.Once you put Sarkhan in the RB deck, you’re RBg and can run Sprouting Thrinax or whatever as well, which seems like a potentially nice inclusion in a deck running 4x Nantuko Husk (nice Threaten synergy with Sarkhan too…).
So, let’s build this Magic The Gathering deck. I would base it on this decklist that got top 8 in German Nationals.
Creature Token Producers
We’ll need a lot of token generators to take advantage of Torrent of Souls and Sarkhan Vol.
4 Bitterblossom
4 Sprouting Thrinax
2 Marsh Flitter
3 Siege-Gang Commander
Let’s not forget the red Bitterblossom, Goblin Assault. I think this enchantment will fit perfectly this deck.
4 Goblin Assault
Overrun Effects
2 Torrent of Souls
3 Sarkhan Vol
I think these numbers are a good starting place to playtest. You don’t want too many Torrent of Souls because it costs 5 mana. And 4 Sarkhan Vol may not be worth it because of his legendary status.
Sacrifice Outlets
Too bad Greater Gargadon is rotating out, but we still have Nantuko Husk. And like Seryph said Husk has great synergy with Sarkhan Vol’s second ability.
4 Nantuko Husk
Removal
We don’t want the mana curve to be too high so let’s go for a lot of cheap removal.
4 Shriekmaw
4 Nameless Inversion
2 Murderous Redcap
I added the Redcap even though he’s more expensive because he combos well with Marsh Flitter, Siege-Gang Commander, Torrent of Souls, Nantuko Husk, and even Nameless Inversion. You can deal five damage by putting Redcap’s ability on the stack and responding with Nameless Inversion.
Putting it all together, here’s a preliminary build for Shards of Alara Standard.
Black/Red/Green Tokens
| Maindeck: | |
|---|---|
| 4 Bitterblossom | 4 Auntie's Hovel |
| 4 Sprouting Thrinax | 4 Gilt-Leaf Palace |
| 4 Goblin Assault | 4 Graven Cairns |
| 2 Marsh Flitter | 4 Karplusan Forest |
| 3 Siege-Gang Commander | 4 Mutavault |
| 1 Sulfurous Springs | |
| 2 Torrent of Souls | 3 Llanowar Wastes |
| 3 Sarkhan Vol | |
| 4 Nantuko Husk | |
| 4 Shriekmaw | |
| 4 Nameless Inversion | |
| 2 Murderous Redcap |
The manabase is shaky with 8 painlands since I wanted to keep the Mutavaults. I’m hoping Shards of Alara will have good three color lands.
The curve is pretty good with
12 2cc (two casting cost spells)
12 3cc
7 4cc
5 5cc
9 Responses to “Black/Red/Green Token Deck With Sarkhan Vol and Sprouting Thrinax”
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Nice deck.
i’ve been trying to work on a new artifact deck with the new artifact planeswalker.
Thanks. Good luck on your artifact deck. Tezzeret could be really good if Shards of Alara has cheap, quality artifacts.
I think this is a pretty good deck. I played a RED/Black version before Shards and it was real fun. Now this is just CRAZY. I would suggest maybe taking Shriekmaw out. There might be more black creatures out there now that three colors is no big deal. What are you thinking Sideboard wise?
I’m not sure about the sideboard. It will depend on the new metagame.
Hi everybody! I think we can play Bone Splinters against Shriekmaw, it’s more synergetic with the deck and costs just1.
I think also we can play Soul’s Fire against Nameless Inversion to do a combo with a giant Nantuko Husk!
Zano, interesting suggestions. In your playtesting, keep me posted on how those two Shards of Alara cards work out. Thanks!
Looks really good. I have to say it will be really expensive. $90 at least with just the Vol’s.
You could add a couple Jund Battle Mages
i would take out the 4/husks 2/shreikmaws 2/nameless inversions 1/sprouting thrinrax and put in 3/birds 2/warhammers 2/thoughtseize 2/blightings,
i don’t feel like you need that much removal when you can just block with your army of pawns. i also think if you focus too much on the theme of having the creature advantage you will lose to wrath of god cards. putting a the birds in also will let you play more green land.(TREETOP VILLAGE).the treetop and the warhammer will give you more ways to score big against control decks. the discard will make your sideboard stronger. 2 more blightings and 2 more thought sieze will melt a control deck.