Boros Tokens – Alchemy Deck Guide

Hey all, Strickles here. Aetherdrift is around the corner, with spoilers starting on the 21st, so while we wait and prepare for that, I’ve been playing some Alchemy, as per usual. 

Alchemy is in an interesting spot right now. The release of Foundations and the buffs/nerfs that occurred around the same time, have shaken up the format from what it was a couple of months ago. A lot of aggro decks have fallen by the wayside in Bo3 as players try to grind each other out with the buffed Chorus cards.

Because of this shift in the meta, players are generally less prepared for go-wide aggro decks in their sideboards then they might have been back when Boros Mice was a menace in the format. So I decided to build a deck to take advantage of that.

Boros Tokens is an aggressive deck that is looking to go wide, buff up our team in various ways, and then end the game before our opponent can stabilize. To do this, we have various token makers, buffers, and solid removal.

Let’s break it down!

Key Cards and Strategy

Let’s start with our token makers, the core part of the deck.

Resolute Reinforcements is the bread and butter of the deck. Two mana for two bodies, at instant speed. The instant speed is key because it can help us not overextend into sweepers, leaving up our mana to flash it in on our opponent’s endstep.

Dragon Fodder is a simple and clean token maker. Two mana for two tokens. It is a sorcery, unlike Resolute Reinforcements, but it is still a solid rate, and helps us get to the three creature threshold that several of our cards need.

Hop to It is also a very straightforward card. Three tokens for three mana. This is both a great card and an awkward card for us. Three bodies when we have various buffs in play is great, but all of our other three drops are a bit more powerful, meaning that sometimes we don’t get to deploy the bunnies on curve.

Sanguine Evangelist is both a token maker and a token payoff. It comes alongside a 1/1 bat token with flying, and when it dies we get another one. More importantly, it has battlecry, so when it attacks all of our other attacking creatures get +1/+0 until end of turn. This is one of our ways to buff up our army of tokens and make them a much more threatening force. The death trigger is nice because it lets us attack with Sanguine Evangelist into blockers to buff up the rest of our team and still get something out of it after it dies.

Heroic Reinforcements is one of our finishers, giving us two tokens but then buffing our whole board and giving all of our creatures haste. When we have five or six mana, we can use this haste to even greater effect, by deploying a one or two mana play and then using Heroic Reinforcements to give them +1/+1 and haste.

Heroic Reinforcements is also one of our ways to recover after a sweeper, as even on its own it is four damage, and maybe even more if we have an anthem in play.

Next, let’s talk about our buffs.

Warleader’s Call is a great tool for this deck, both buffing our creatures and giving us extra damage by pinging our opponent every time a creature enters. This means that Warleader’s Call is both good when we have a board, and fine when we don’t, because as we build our board we will be doing extra damage to our opponent. It is also a great tool to have against sweepers, as it can help us get in those last few points of damage after our board is cleared.

Ruby Collector is a sweet card for this deck, giving us a way to pump our creatures multiple times, and if we meet that three creature threshold I mentioned earlier, and attack with them, we conjure a Mox Ruby into our hand, which is really useful not just for activating Ruby Collector’s activated ability, but because we do have a low land count and the mana from the Mox Ruby can help us cast our more expensive spells.

Case of the Gateway Express is our main removal spell, helping us take out problematic blockers on the opposing side, but also another card asking us to meet that threshold of three attackers to solve and turn into a permanent +1/+0 buff to our team. Even if our board gets cleared, this buff will remain, making all of our future tokens much more threatening.

Lastly, we have Pollen-Shield Hare, which is a flex slot in this deck. It is quite good, just being a 2/2 for two mana that buffs up all of our tokens, but we do have a hard time making use of its adventure, although with Captivating Crossroads it is possible to cast. 

One of the powers of our deck is that most of our creatures are not worth using a removal spell on, but when we have creatures like Pollen-Shield Hare or Ruby Collector in play, it helps our opponent figure out their gameplan.

Rounding out our main deck we have Seasoned Warrenguard, a great play on turn one, as we have a variety of ways to make tokens on turn two and turn it into a 3/2 attacker. Our most aggressive draws involve Seasoned Warrenguard getting down early and getting in hits for three right away.

We also have one copy of Song of Totentanz, just as a big finisher later in the game, maybe after a sweeper or once we have several buffs in play. This is also a flex slot in the deck and could be a variety of cards.

Our mana is a bit awkward but we make it work. Our deck is predominantly white with a few red cards, so we do favor Plains. We have a few tapped lands like Restless Bivouac and Elegant Parlor that are kind of a necessary evil in this deck. Captivating Crossroads can also be a tapped land when we are on the play, but it also helps us fix our mana, and as I mentioned earlier, can even be put on green to cast our adventure on Pollen-Shield Hare.

Sideboard Options

Aven Interrupter is both our anti-heist card and anti-sweeper card. It is great at stealing back our heisted spells, putting them into our exile instead of our opponent’s, and it is good against sweepers and other control cards, helping us buy time to get in a lethal attack.

Sheltered by Ghosts is our main removal spell to help us out in aggro mirrors, while Get Lost is better if we are expecting big creatures or problematic enchantments such as Authority of the Consuls

Abrade is our tool against artifacts but also good against other creatures decks, although I haven’t found myself bringing it in very often so maybe it should be something else.

Lastly, we have Rest in Peace to slow down graveyard decks, which do exist in the meta so it is a valuable tool to have access to.

Tips and Tricks

There are a lot of little optimizations that can make this deck feel a bit better to play and make you more competitive in your matches.

If you have both Ruby Collector and Seasoned Warrenguard in your opening hand, I tend to lead with Seasoned Warrenguard, even if I don’t have a token maker on turn two, because Ruby Collector will be much more valuable later on.

You usually want to deploy Ruby Collector when you have three attackers in play, so you can trigger it right away and conjure the Mox Ruby into your hand. Of course sometimes it will make sense to deploy it earlier than that, such as when we have two attackers but want to activate the pump ability on Ruby Collector, or just when it makes sense with our curve.

On turn two, if you have both Dragon Fodder and Resolute Reinforcements, I tend to use Dragon Fodder first. Resolute Reinforcements is much more flexible because of flash, so we want to use it on a later turn when we can bluff a removal spell or just play around a sweeper.

If you have a variety of options on turn three, here is how I tend to think about it.

I will almost always deploy Sanguine Evangelist first, just because it is two good bodies and if it eats a removal spell we get another token out of it. Warleader’s Call will usually take precedence over Hop to It, but if we have no tokens in play or are setting up for a Heroic Reinforcements the next turn, then it might be better to have those three tokens in play.

Do math when you are playing this deck. I know sometimes it can feel easy to just hit attack all and hope it works out, but doing math will help you figure out if it makes sense to throw a couple of tokens away to force through damage, or wait and continue to grow your board.

Heroic Reinforcements is also a big math card, because not only does it add two bodies, but it buffs the whole team. There have been several games where I was trying to decide between growing my board with a card like Hop to It and then going for Heroic Reinforcements the next turn, or just using the Heroic Reinforcements right away, only to do some math and realize that Heroic Reinforcements was lethal. 

So line up the blockers in your head, count how much damage will get through with your various buffs, and consider the removal your opponent could have. Doing math will save you from those awkward attacks that leave your opponent on one or two life, versus closing out the game.

This deck has a lot of options, and I encourage you to try them out. You can trim a card like Warleader’s Call, cut Pollen-Shield Hare, or Song of Totentanz for cards like Toby, Beastie Befriender, or just some more removal in Bo1. I also tried out Impact Tremors, but found that I was cutting it most games as I would rather have my two drops play to the board.

That said, be careful with your curve, this deck already feels like it has too many three drops, so I would say if you plan on adding in three drops, you have to cut three drops.

This also applies to sideboarding. If you are bringing in Aven Interrupter then I would suggest trimming a couple copies of Hop to It, and a Warleader’s Call, and a Heroic Reinforcements. We need to be able to curve out well and not have our hand clogged up with three drops, so just be mindful when sideboarding.

When sideboarding against other aggro decks, I tend to cut Pollen-Shield Hare, a copy of Warleader’s Call, and a copy of Heroic Reinforcements to bring in all four copies of Sheltered by Ghosts. The goal here is to cut clunky cards that don’t impact the board. Pollen-Shield Hare is just such an easy target for their removal, Warleader’s Call can help us win the board, but we don’t want too many copies clogging up our hand, and trimming a Heroic Reinforcements will just lower our curve to help us keep presence on the board.

Wrapping Up

Alchemy is still one of my favorite formats because it just feels so unexplored. While there are solid players in the format, there are so many cards and strategies that don’t have a home or haven’t been tried out yet.

This deck came about just because I was perusing Foundations cards and thought that there had to be a home for Heroic Reinforcements, and sure enough the deck came together. So as usual I cannot wait for Aetherdrift to come out and give us even more fun new decks to brew up.

I hope this deck guide was interesting and gave you something to try out as we wait for Aetherdrift spoiler season to start. As always, best of luck in all of your matches and I’ll see you next time!