Overwhelming Opponents with a Mardu Tokens Deck

Hello everyone!  Welcome to Standard Weekly!

This week we are going to look at one of the newer decks in standard: Mardu Tokens.  This deck is centered around Mondrak, Glory Dominus.  Mondrak’s ability to double the number of tokens created gives players the opportunity to go wide with small creatures that can quickly overwhelm an opponent.

The Deck

CREATURES: (13)

  • 2 Sanctuary Warden

  • 3 Riveteers Requisitioner

  • 2 Resolute Reinforcements

  • 2 Skitterbeam Battalion

  • 4 Mondrak, Glory Dominus

INSTANTS: (5)

  • 2 Cut Down

  • 3 Go for the Throat

PLANESWALKERS: (4)

  • 1 The Wandering Emperor

  • 3 Ob Nixilis, the Adversary

SORCERIES: (2)

  • 2 Rite of Oblivion

ENCHANTMENTS: (10)

  • 4 Wedding Announcement

  • 4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

  • 2 Skrelv’s Hive

LANDS: (22)

  • 1 Plains

  • 1 Swamp

  • 2 Sulfurous Springs

  • 3 Caves of Koilos

  • 3 Battlefield Forge

  • 3 Blackcleave Cliffs

  • 2 Haunted Ridge

  • 4 Shattered Sanctum

  • 4 Sundown Pass

  • 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire

  • 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance

  • 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

SIDEBOARD: (15)

  • 2 Cut Down

  • 1 Duress

  • 1 Abrade

  • 1 Sunset Revelry

  • 1 Graveyard Trespasser

  • 1 Parasitic Grasp

  • 1 Ob Nixilis, the Adversary

  • 1 Unlicensed Hearse

  • 1 Archangel of Wrath

  • 2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

  • 1 Loran of the Third Path

  • 1 Skrelv’s Hive

  • 1 Urabrask’s Forge

In the YouTube video for this article, you will get a deck tech and gameplay.  The deck uses Mondrak to double the tokens generated by the twenty-three cards in the deck that create a token.  When this works correctly, the deck feels amazing.  Getting two tokens each turn from Skelv’s Hive and Wedding Announcement quickly develops your board.  Then you can play Skitterbeam Battalion or Sanctuary Warden to finish off an opponent.

Here is what I liked and disliked about the deck. 

First, I like that when you had Mondrak in play you could quickly generate a large army of tokens and win the game in one or two turns.  I really liked Urabrask’s Forge.  In a couple of games, playing it out of the sideboard won the game.  When Urabrask’s Forge goes unchecked, it will lead to a large creature with trample turn after turn and when you can double it with Mondrak it can win the game in one attack.

Another good piece in the deck was Ob Nixilis, the Adversary.  The ability to casualty him when you play the card provided a lot of value for the deck.  Especially when Mondrak was in play.  Getting two devil tokens provided protection for Ob Nixilis while also providing extra damage when the devil token died.

A negative side of the deck was its lack of consistency.  There were to many games that I did not have an early play, so my opponent was able to put his/her game plan into action before I had a chance to start.  The lack of enough one and two drops in the deck is a clear concern for play consistency.  A second issue was the deck had limited ways to deal with graveyard decks.  I played against Atraxa decks to often to not want more graveyard interaction.  Only having two cards in the sideboard that could interact with the graveyard made it difficult to stay in games with Atraxa Reanimator decks.

Finally, the deck was very susceptible to board wipes and did not have the resiliency to overcome them.  In fact, I think adding White Sun’s Twilight to the deck would be a good addition or another card that could help deal with the opponent’s threats while helping your game plan.  I was able to consistently get to seven mana with the deck so you would be able to play White Sun’s Twilight for seven or more mana to create Phyrexian Mite tokens and wipe the board of all other creatures.

Overall, the deck performed well when it was able to get its game plan going, but in the games where it was clunky, it felt like the only person playing the game was my opponent.

That’s it for this week.  I hope you enjoyed the deck tech and gameplay footage.  I’ll see you next time.

By: Scott Trepanier

Scott began playing Magic the Gathering in 1994.  His preferred format is standard.  Typically, you will see him playing aggro decks focused on quickly defeating his opponent but will pivot to midrange or control when standard is unfavorable for aggro decks.  He began creating Magic content in 2019.