"Selesnya: Some Token Goodness"

"Selesnya: Some Token Goodness"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. 

     Coming from a very Red back ground in Magic I normally don't play with tokens unless they were Goblin tokens from Goblin Assault , Dragon Fodder ,Goblin Offensive or Kuldotha Rebirth. It is all about the speed after all but as I grew in the game I realized that there are other colors out there that is also interesting to play with tokens. I first got into white soldier tokens because they were the closest aggressively to Goblins and then of course there were the green token creatures and the combination that is Selesnya. 

     If the original Selesnya took advantage of the fast mass production of tokens with the Convoke Mechanic to make even more,the present Selesnya just took it to another level with the Populate mechanic and this time its not just the 1/1 saprolings that you should be afraid of its the 3/3's, 4/4's ,5/5's and 8/8's tokens that can be easily made and doubled in no time at all. 

     In a new set I usually look at the common and uncommon cards that support a particular guilds mechanic ( because I support that Piso-Piso philosphy- Mura lang pero wasak ka Cards or In English Affordable but smash face cards) and there are 2 stand out cards that support Populate for the Green/White Cult.

     These 2 cards are Trostani's Summoner and Wake the Reflections. The Summoner Costs 5 Generic , 1 Green and 1 White Mana to cast and at the uncommon slot too. The Summoner does not have impressive stats with a frail 1/1 Body , its the 3 tokens that she brings with her that really stand out. A 2/2 Vigilance White Knight , a 3/3 Green Centaur and 4/4 Trampling Green Rhino. She could do all her fluffy dances but if she calls out these Fatties I would not really mind. They have a total of 10 damage spread across them and when they attack that means half of a players life in standard. Imagine if you could also blink this creature or hide it under your Fiend Hunter and then blink the Fiend Hunter.

     Blinking it just once means that there are at least 19 points of potential battle damage on the field that is waiting to be unleashed on your next turn. You could watch your opponent squirm as he or she would pray for a miracle on the upcoming turn. Try not to act too excited because it always spoils the moment when they do have a response to your threats.

The other Card is Wake the Reflections who at 1 White mana in the common slot has the ability to produce another token that you already have. An  8 / 8 Elemental from a Wayfraing temple or a 5/5 Wurm from Advent of the Wurm seems pretty nice when you have them in pairs. 

     In EDH you could have a copy of a 9/9 Golem or something that may have been imprinted on Soul Foundry or Mimic Vat. Yup these guys really stand out in delivering those token goodies.I wouldn't mind taking in some part of that action especially if the strategy really involves affordable cards such as these.