Have you ever had one of those crazy MTG revelations when your drafting or just going through your collection and you thing "This is AMAZING"? Well, I did, and I came up with this.
After looking at Abzan Falconer and Abzan Battle Priest for the past year, I finally decided to put 2 and 2 together and make a full-fledged Abzan deck based around what Abzan does (well, is supposed to do) best - 1/1 counters.
I started the deck off by, actually scrapping another casual deck of mine, by B/W warriors casual deck. The deck didn't seem like it had a cohesive gameplan, mixing tribal themes in with a mess of 1/1 shenanegains. Don't get me wrong, that strategy COULD work out, but it wasn't right for me, so I took all of the 1/1 counter stuff out and started building this deck.
First, I added in all of the creatures that gave bonuses to other creatures with 1/1 counters on them, mainly Abzan Falconer, Tuskguard Captain, and Abzan Battle Priest. I then went through my cards from the KTK block, looking for things that synergized with these. I had two Dragonscale Generals, and having just one on the field is a huge boon to the deck, essentially giving me free 1/1 counters on my creatures every time I outlast something, which is how I came to the secondary theme of the deck - tokens.
The token package is pretty...unconventional. It's B/W, but it is also not what you would usually expect out of a token package. I have Increasing Devotion as my main generator, and then I can use Xathrid Necromancer to pump them up in a way by using them as chump blockers and then turning them into zombies (Why I have Risen Executioner in here). I can also make Herald of Anafenza do double-duty by having it tap itself for outlast, making Dragonscale General better, and then having the newly made 1/1 token get pumped up at the end of the turn.
Lastly, I use High Sentinels of Arashin as my finisher. I think of it as a one-sided, one creature only Coat of Arms. It helps the deck be able to push a lot of damage through against the big ass archetype, while also distributing 1/1 counters as needed.
The deck is extremely fun to pilot, and it's a very rewarding experience to blow out decks that you were previously having trouble with by using back to back Scale Blessings >:)
In the future, I hope to be able to tune the list a lot more, I already have my eyes on Hardened Scales and Abzan Ascendancy, and I'm sure more will come. I feel like as I find more useful cards though, the deck might lose its identity as a counter/token deck and start to look more like a goodstuff deck, which I don't want to happen. If there are any suggestions that would be helpful to the deck and/or make it more streamlined, all help would be greatly appreciated and should go into the comments below. Thanks for reading :)
