Unless you're an uber-fan of Trixie (like a certain blogpony that shall go unnamed) then you'd probably agree that the most exciting addition to MLP: CCG in High Magic is Token Friend cards, which we took a close look at in a previous article here on EQD.
Today we have a deck list and primer from Adam, one of the game developers, and the guy primarily responsible for the majority of cards you'll find in High Magic! He's worked up a fun Purple deck that focuses on Events, Tokens, and letting Trixie pull off lots of faceoff tricks. Head below the break to check it out!
The deck list is available below in text and as a link on Ponyhead.
Mane Character:
1 x Trixie, Tricks of the Trade (High Magic)
Problems:
2 x Halfway Across Equestria (Equestrian Odysseys)
2 x Spell Showdown (EO)
2 x The Trouble With Trixie (HM)
2 x Under Lock and Tree (HM)
2 x Equalist Propaganda (HM)
Draw Deck:
3 x Dream Network (HM)
3 x Through the Ages (HM)
3 x Phantasmal Tale (HM)
3 x Princess Luna, Web of Dreams (HM)
3 x Zecora, Forest Shaman (HM)
3 x Napcakes (EO)
3 x Ponyville Emergency (EO)
3 x Scope Things Out (EO)
3 x Interdimensional Portal (EO)
3 x Cheerilee, Foal Herder (HM)
3 x Arimaspi, Ancient Terror (EO)
3 x Double Diamond, Starlight's Lackey (EO)
3 x Owlowiscious, Reshelver (HM)
3 x Star Swirl Research (HM)
3 x Starlight Glimmer, Enforced Equality (EO)
Here’s an unconventional Event-centric Purple Token Friends deck, legal in Harmony format and Odysseys Block. This deck uses the new Trixie Mane Character from High Magic, which benefits from a deck full of Events, especially those with Immediate timing. It's pretty light on Friend cards, and compensates by using Figment Tokens to build its board presence.
If we’re going to rely on Figment Tokens, we’ll want to pay particular attention to the cards that generate them. Dream Network is fairly straightforward: every turn, we’ll be able to check the top card of our deck and, if it’s an Event, we’ll have the option of putting a two-power Figment Token into play for the low low price of one action – without even spending a card.
Really, the only catch here is that it only works if the top card is an Event, and we have two things going for us on that front. The first is that we already plan on putting a bunch of Events into the deck. The second is that since we’re Purple we’ll have access to cards which can manipulate the top card of our deck, allowing us to sneak Events to the top in time for Dream Network’s check.
Princess Luna, Web of Dreams also does excellent work for us here: she lets us pay an action for a Figment Token whenever we play an Event, and comes with Meticulous to boot, helping us set up Dream Network to give us even more Figments. One of her key interactions is that with Trixie, Tricks of the Trade as our Mane Character, any Events we play during a faceoff our opponent started will come at an action discount, effectively covering the cost of Princess Luna’s ability – which, in turn, makes our faceoff tricks even more potent by adding a Figment Token to our team mid-faceoff!
Lastly, Phantasmal Tale serves a dual purpose by giving us a way to get rid of powerful opposing Friends while also adding to our growing army of Figments. It’s a fairly simple card on its own, but it fits into our plan very nicely – in addition to making its own Figments, as an Event it also helps us get better value out of both Dream Network and Web of Dreams.
Some more quick points to consider:
- We’re going mono-color to help minimize the space we need for color fixers and to have room for more Events.
- Without point acceleration, we’ll want to include some Troublemakers to slow down the opponent, but we’ll want to avoid Villains since frightening our own Tokens is particularly painful. Luckily, we can also defend our Troublemakers, since we’re running a lot of faceoff-disrupting Events.
- Starlight Glimmer, Enforced Equality is a great fit – she cuts opposing Friends down to two power, but doesn’t do much to us since all our Friends are already that size. She also makes tricks like Napcakes particularly effective, since everything becomes a Napcakes target.
- We’re also running some 0-point non-Epic Troublemakers so that we can confront behind them. Aramaspi is here for his resilience to opposing Epic Troublemakers and Double Diamond, Starlight’s Lackey is in for his high power and his ability to keep a lid on combo decks. This is probably one of the more flexible parts of the deck, so feel free to experiment.
- This leaves us room for around eighteen Events, which is pretty good – with our deck manipulation options, we should be able to keep both Dream Network and Web of Dreams firing regularly.
- In addition to Phantasmal Tale, we’ll be running Napcakes, Through the Ages, and Scope Things Out – all nice faceoff tricks which often become free with our Trixie Mane. Other things like Interdimensional Portal also benefit from Trixie. Having several ‘free’ faceoff tricks means our opponents can’t assume a faceoff is safe even when we’re out of actions.
Thanks for checking out Adam's take on a fun Token deck! Personally I think Figments are the coolest of the Tokens, between the limited edition "Nightmare Moon" and that incredibly friendly flower with so much love to give. But there are five more colors of Tokens out there, so feel free to try out Critters, Rocks, and Pegasi aplenty!
