michael921,
I still think Nissa, Voice of Zendikar is really good here, but I was thinking about the impact of Smuggler's Copter, and it seems like she's best considered as three-mana Sorcery with a great -2. Which is awesome of course, especially when at parity or ahead. But it made me think about Collective Effort, which is more versatile and also much better when behind. I know going Abzan would wreck your manabase (especially for a card with ), but if you were thinking about some White cards anyways, it might be worth a relook ...

clayperce, the idea of Collective Effort is an interesting one. The reason that it's taken me so long to reply is that I've been trying to develop an Orzhov version of this deck that uses Collective Effort rather than Nissa, Voice of Zendikar. As for your other recommendations, I'm not a fan of the defensive combat tricks for flyer hate, as if they go badly, you get completely blown out. As for the Aetherworks Marvel being a strong force, I think that it is better for me to go after the eldrazi that they can summon rather than the marvel itself.

If you want to take a look at that deck, take a look this!

Orzhov Counting Tokens

Standard michael921

101 VIEWS

As for other thoughts...Odyssey, I will try some testing with the tireless tracker and 24 land, but the tracker might be too slow for the standard format with Electrostatic Pummeler and RW vehicles being decks in standard.

ulmo, Collective Brutality is a very interesting card. However, as I've cut Grim Flayer from the deck, the ability to add more cards to my graveyard is kind of void. In addition, as combo decks are usually more reliant on artifacts and creatures rather than instants or sorceries, so I think Transgress the Mind has more general application than the brutality.

Cheezy_, I Sylvan Advocate was in my earliest build of the deck, but I had actually cut him because I wasn't getting much value out of the land situation with only 22 lands, and I was wanting to try more synergystic cards. Having vigilance is a massive benefit however, so the advocate is still greatly on my shortlist.

michael921,
I playtested against Joey Manner's White-Blue Flash and Gruul Pummeler (KLD), and a lot of the comments I made over at Orzhov Counting Tokens apply here too. But I also wanted to mention ...

• You may still need some more removal or Flyerhate. Clip Wings is just not that effective against a deck that's planning to sac' a Selfless Spirit anyways :-)
• I frankly enjoyed playing the Orzhov deck more. Nissa, Voice of Zendikar is fine, but Collective Effort is a beast.
• I know the deck has morphed a lot since you first created it, and I not sure you want to head off in another direction. But you might want to check out EFro's GB Aggro deck guide. Idk, but a build like that (with Drana instead of Liliana), may actually be more of what Drana is looking for.

Whichever direction you end up going: Draw well!

I'm assuming the sideboards in these decks are still tentative, but I've noticed you've fallen into a common sideboarding trap, especially common amongst Standard players.

Your sideboard in this deck, as well as the Orzhov one, contains only answers.

This is a problem because good sideboards contain a mixture of threats and answers. Look at Efro's GB aggro SB in this article:http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/gb-aggro-deck-guide/

6 threats in the SB (7 if you count Ob Nixilis, as he must be answered after being played) and the other half are answers.

Why is this important? Because sometimes you will assume the control role in game 2, and sometimes you will assume the aggro role. Playing against a Metalwork Colossus deck? You're an aggro deck now, don't bother taking the time to set up synergies. You can bring in Transgress the Mind to slow them down, but what you really want is a faster clock, because you aren't going to beat 3-4 Colossi chained together for free (or nearly free) followed by an Elder Deep-Fiend getting emerged off one of them at the end. Lost Legacy won't help you here. Even if you play against an Aetherworks Marvel deck, Lost Legacy can only take their payoff cards and can't touch their engine. But against any black deck they'll be siding into a more diverse threat package in game 2 anyway (World Breaker, Desolation Twin, maybe new Kozilek too), so Lost Legacy is still not going to help you much.

Right now your sideboard is heavily geared towards beating aggro decks. That's it. You're not setup to beat control or combo because you are forced to keep some removal in (to deal with manlands, opposing Glint-Nest Cranes that can block Drana, etc) but you also don't want to remove threats either. So what goes? Cryptolith Rite and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar are engine pieces so you don't want to side them out if you can avoid it. Same for Animation Module. Whatever you end up doing though, you need a better balance of threats and answers in your sideboard. Your SB threats will need to be resilient or powerful against certain archetypes, and your SB answers (including discard) will need to be very effective for their cost against certain archetypes.

There's an easy way to avoid this problem though, and it's to run more answers in your main deck. You have 4 removal spells in your main deck, meaning it's likely that you'll see one of them in a typical game. Maybe two if you get to loot multiple times with Smuggler's Copter. Can you win a game against a typical midrange deck playing value creatures plus removal on curve if you only find one Grasp of Darkness? Probably not. Your deck is a synergy deck and takes time to get going. Not putting together the pieces on time is a real risk, and removal helps buy you that time. Without enough removal in the main deck, you are forced to race other decks and that's not where I think you want to be. Your creatures can grow big or you can go wide, but only if your opponent doesn't kill your engine pieces when you're starting out.

In the Orzhov version, you run both Fretwork Colony and Syndicate Trafficker in a 2-drop slot that's already pretty crowded. Chances are one is better in your main deck (depends on your metagame, potentially) and the other is better in the sideboard. Deciding which is better and putting the other in the sideboard can help you avoid putting only answers in your sideboard.

You also have to consider what answers you will face. For example, Syndicate Trafficker is great against red decks, but black decks will be running Grasp of Darkness (and Flaying Tendrils out of their SB), so he's not as impressive there. Hanweir Militia Captain  ^Flip is also terrible against decks packing a lot of removal, so is potentially more useful in the sideboard.

I also think that some form of card advantage that doesn't require you to already be in a winning board position (such as Armorcraft Judge) is needed. Cards like Armorcraft Judge help you refill after you've built up a board and need card advantage to break parity with your opponent, but they don't help you hit land drops or find synergy pieces early on. Something as simple as Live Fast will help you do that, but for that card in particular you'd want to have a use for the energy before you play it. Cheap, all-purpose, unconditional card draw also helps you recover from mulligans (and you will mulligan, since you are trying to put together synergies in a 22 land deck that curves out at 4).

You have a lot of mana sinks, but only 22 lands. Games where you don't draw Cryptolith Rite will be very swingy as a result, with you getting mana screwed more often than you'd like. I'm skeptical of Rite in this type of deck, but I haven't tested it so it could deserve its place. I imagine you also run the risk of running out of gas while having too much mana though. Card draw can smooth this out.

Happy deckbuilding!

Undergrowth Champion? Harvester Troll? Oran-Rief Hydra? Also, if you have enough ways to add a third color, Woodland Wanderer wouldn't be too bad.

Also, no offensive but Fretwork Colony is god-awful. Remove that garbage from your deck and put a better creature that does something with +1/+1 counters in its place.

It seems like you definitely should have a full playset of Tireless Tracker, a couple Verdurous Gearhulk, Kalitas, Woodland Wanderer, Undergrowth Champion and Drana as your creatures. If you play four Aether Hub, there will be times when you can use four different types of mana to cast the wanderer. You could add one or two Botanical Sanctum to aid in this endeavor.

Oh, and if you have ways to add blue while we're at it, Altered Ego seems like a hilarious sideboard card.

It might also be good to add Natural Connection and/or Attune with Aether, as well as Blighted Woodland to try and take advantage of the landfall triggers that give you clues and counters.

Nissa, Vital Force might be good too since you can get the Blighted Woodland back after you sac it. Which works with Evolving Wilds as well.

Ballzanya, thank you for your advice. I'll break down all of the cards that you recommended and my personal opinions on each of them. In addition, if I were to put any of these in, what would you cut in order to keep a reasonable curve?

Card Break Down

• Undergrowth Champion is too slow of a card for standard. It is at a minimum a turn four card in order to have protection for him, but even with that, every black deck or white deck has easy guarenteed removal for him, either through -X/-X effects, destroy effects, sacrifice effects, or exile effects.
• Oran-Rief Hydra is another card that is way too slow for standard. For many of the same reasons as to why the champion is bad, it's too easy to remove him and he has not nearly as large of an affect on the board compared to a card like Verdurous Gearhulk, which my thoughts on which were simply costing too much for the deck and not having enough synergy with Animation Module, which the deck is built around. Also Reflector Mage.
• Harvester Troll is another card similar to Verdurous Gearhulk, but is, again, still worse than the gearhulk, and sets me back on resources.
• Woodland Wanderer has a large enough board impact to be considered, but I personally feel that splashing a third colour makes my mana significantly weaker, and thus the deck in its entirety, unless I changed the entirety of the deck.
• Fretwork Colony in this deck often acts as a Bitterblossom that also acts as a massive source of damage that quickly snowballs out of control if left unchecked. While it certainly does have downsides, I have found that its strengths outweigh these weaknesses. Why do you think that the card is so bad?

In fact, looking at your deck inspired me to make this deck

Well, the Fretwork Colony is sort of a bitterblossom for +1/+1 counters, but it can't block which sucks, and you lose life. It's easily going to be killed or exiled before it gets big enough to become a threat.

Also, You can give yourself more energy counters with the Animation Module, right? if so, running Aether Hub for the wanderer just got a little bit better in the deck.

Ballzanya, a couple thoughts. First of all, your deck concept just crumples against control decks and aggro decks. Your deck only has four removal spells, preventing you from interacting in the early game, and suffers greatly against any form of hard removal or counterspells.

Secondly, Fretwork Colony + Animation Module produces a servo every single turn, which creates either a chump blocker or more attackers, and most people do not consider the card to be a threat, allowing the fretwork to live far longer than most think. In addition, a card can't block anyways if it's turned sideways :P

Thirdly, Blighted Woodland is reallly only sufficient in a ramp deck that wants colourless sources, of which this deck is neither.

Finally, adding energy with Animation Module is hardly ever relavent, as it's far more efficient to simply pay four mana to give another one of your a +1/+1 counter AND make a 1/1 servo in my experience.

I agree on all but Fatal Push for the main 3, it could be worth an inclusion in the sideboard however?

Then Yahenni, Undying Partisan might be worth it, however there's a problem, and that's Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. He has those creatures exiled instead of dying so these two out on the field don't work together very well.

As got the rest I'm rather unsure and will give it some thought.

I really like Walking Ballista, because it fits well on the curve because of the X cost, but also synergizes heavily with the rest of the deck. You mentioned that it could be an alternate win condition, but I think the ability to ping creatures is much more powerful than it seems. It can kill servos and thopters really well, and also give you the little extra damage you need post-combat to finish off blockers or attackers. All in all, it should probably go in the main as a 1 or 2 of, or in the sideboard against tokens.

With Winding Constrictor, Endless One becomes worse because it doesn't benefit from the counters other than an on-curve play, since it is not placement. I suggest switching Endless One out for the new cards, because it is just a body with no other function.

Monkeylordz,
I was wondering the same thing earlier about Endless One and Animation Module, but they work fine together, and Winding Constrictor does too. The Release Notes on Constrictor actually specify: If an artifact or creature you control would enter the battlefield with a number of any kind of counters on it, it enters with that many plus one instead.

Great concept! Some thoughts:

• You may not need 23 lands in a deck with only one four drop. Although this isn't as aggro as a white weenie deck, it probably can do with 22 or even 21 lands.
• Definitely worth trying 1-2 Verdurous Gearhulk, though if you go with two, you could stick with 23 lands.
• You need the full four Tireless Tracker. I'd get rid of the Copters for those (as much as that is blasphemy in this standard). The Copters don't have much specific synergy and the trackers give you some of the card draw that Copters would.-Out of the rest of the cards, Rishkar seems like the one you most want to try to include. Just not sure where, though.-Not a fan of Walking Ballista. No way does this deck want you paying four mana for a counter. Trading counters for burn has more possibilities, but most of the time those counters are going to be better off on the creature. Without these extra options, it's just a vastly inferior Endless One, which itself is only a borderline include in this deck IMO.
• You don't have a lot of ways to trigger revolt outside of combat (a single Kalitas plus the clues from TT), so Fatal Push is not as great in this deck as in many others. Maybe a SB card and include 2 against Mardu Vehicles and creature-based aggro decks.

The key to this deck will be surviving long enough for your creatures to get big. Actually using Animation Module and the clues from Tireless Tracker slows you down through at least turn 5-6. Drana doesn't go out until turn 4 if you're using Animation Module, and can't attack and start creating counters until turn five. So you need a fourth Grasp of Darkness in the S/B for decks with a lot of small/medium creatures. Proper sideboarding will be key. I think you've got a pretty good balance in the maindeck, though!

Once you have four Animation Module in a deck I feel like it's hard to resist adding Metallic Mimic. The two on the field at once can result in a slew of servos quickly. But then you start getting a lot of cards that don't add counters themselves (mimic, module, constrictor).

But the mimic combo seemed worth a mention.

gebell, Monkeylordz, Carnivorous_Death_Parrot, clayperce, and Delta-117, thank you all for your input and comments! Due to semester finals, I haven't had much time to appropriately reply to your comments, but I'm getting around to them now.

Delta-117, I agree that Yahenni, Undying Partisan is a non-bo with Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, which severly detracts from the viability of him. However, with the addition of Winding Constrictor, the deck feels more like a beat down strategy rather than a grindier deck that looks to edge out value over the course of the game. As such, as Yahenni is a more agressive card, he may end up making it. I have some more testing to do though. In addition, why do you think that Fatal Push isn't great for the main board? Is it just that the Revolt is unreliable and thus better for just against aggro match ups?

Monkeylordz, I agree with Carnivorous_Death_Parrot on the topic of Walking Ballista. Because the cost is XX, it ends up being significantly behind curve compared to my other creatures. And as clayperce pointed out, the constrictor does work with Endless One.

Carnivorous_Death_Parrot, The issue with going below 23 lands is that every land below 24 decreases the effectiveness of Tireless Tracker. If I go lower to 20-22 land, the tracker may get a total of one clue, in which case a simple draw spell like Live Fast would be more efficient, especially with an energy subtheme, which is something that I'm looking at with cards like Longtusk Cub, which work well with the constrictor.

As for your point on Smuggler's Copter, wizards took care of that problem for me by banning that card! Now I don't have to worry about which is better. :P I do feel like I need more removal in the mainboard though, but I'm not sure which cards I can take out to slot them in.

gebell, the reason why I'm not running the mimic combo, is that the deck is feeling far more agressive with the addition of Winding Constrictor. If I built a WB servo token build however, that combo would be sure to make the cut for a massive mana sink that I could use. However in golgari, because I have Nissa, VoZ and Drana, I already have a similar effect that uses my mana similarly to how the mimic combo works.

Well I don't know if this was ever suggested but have you given Aetherborn Marauder much consideration for this?

And actually I take back the point on Fatal Push in the maindeck it looks like it will be fine, although another Evolving Wilds might never hurt. This also benefits Tireless Tracker.