Huatli’s Procession

Hello All,

Anointed Procession decks are now seeing less and less play – moving to the higher performing GPG decks. With the rise of enchantment-based hate like Ixalan’s Binding and Cast Out the combo pieces are getting harder and harder to pull off.

This got me thinking of making a more direct approach to tokens that don’t necessarily have to durdle early in the game while it waits to get all the combo pieces together.

Inherited from the UW tokens deck that used Anointed Procession with Embalm and Eternalize creature, I will swap the Blue for Red to have mid-to-late game reach. There are very few red creatures worth embalming or eternalizing, but it does have one of the best in combat – Earthshaker Khenra.

Late game, an eternalized Earthshaker Khenra presents 8 damage on the board while disabling two blockers. This line of play can sometimes steal the game by getting through congested board states.

Sacred Cat, Adorned Pouncer, Sunscourge Champion join the fray to give us early threats that die quickly but come back with better stats.

For Red, we play Pia Nalaar and Captain Lannery Storm. Annointed Procession doubles any tokens to Pia’s thopters and Lannery Storm’s clues get doubled as well. Take note that with Pia’s thopters and Lannery’s treasures, Pia can spam her unblockable ability many times over and Lannery can ramp us to a turn 4 Huatli.

To further the token strategy, it’s also worth playing Legion’s Landing because it helps us generate tons of value once we have Anointed Procession out. It won’t be too difficult to flip this card either.

To cap off our threat list, we will play some copies of Oketra the True. She’s perfect for a deck that can clutter the board to activate her in combat. She’s also a great mana sink and turn the corner against decks that plan to outnumber us.

Another red card that takes advantage of Anointed Procession is Huatli, Warrior Poet. Her 0 ability immediately gets you two 3/3 dinosaurs with trample – perfect for your go-wide strategy. Her -X ability also compliments Earthshaker Khenra which you can eternalize a turn after Huatli enters the battlefield. Ticking down 3 to remove 3 blockers, then eternalizing Khenra to disable 2 more blockers and attack with two 3/3 dinosaurs and two 4/4 Khenras is 14 damage. Not a bad play sequence if I say so myself. Also, Huatli is costed perfectly after the turn you play Anointed Procession.

Other cards worth considering are removal spells. Lightning Strike seems to be an auto-include because its versatility against both creatures and players. Ixalan’s Binding is also a great card to disable a card for the rest of the game. Lastly, some copies of Dusk//Dawn also looks promising since most of our creatures are below 3 power.

Here’s my RW Token List!

Creatures: 20

4 Sacred Cat
4 Adorned Pouncer
4 Earthshaker Khenra
2 Pia Nalaar
2 Captain Lannery Storm
3 Sunscourged Champion
1 Oketra the True

Spells: 17

2 Legion’s Landing
3 Lightning Strike
3 Ixalan’s Binding
4 Anointed Procession
2 Dusk // Dawn
3 Huatli, Warrior Poet

Lands: 23

4 Inspiring Vantage
3 Stone Quarry
3 Shefet Dunes
2 Ramunap Ruins
6 Plains
5 Mountain

Sideboard: 15

4 Abrade
3 Glorybringer
3 Cast Out
1 Sunscourge Champion
3 Fumigate
1 Plains

The sideboard is tailored to give us some fighting chance against decks that get bigger very fast.

Abrade to take down Longtusk Cubs and Whirler Virtuoso. Also a great answer to GPG in game 1.

Cast Out comes in on matches where Ixalan’s Binding is slow – like decks that run Glorybringers or GPG. It also comes in as added exile cards for pesky permanents that red removal can’t deal with.

Fumigate is there for crucial resets where our creatures just finished chump blocking to get us to 5 mana. Sometimes Dusk/Dawn gets evaded by Glint-Sleeve Siphoners and Longtusk Cubs once they see it on game 1, swapping it out for a hard sweeper does the trick.

Glorybringer is there for decks that durdle and we want to end the game quickly. It’s also a proactive answer to opposing Chandra’s on the play. It doesn’t go with the token strategy but it’s still a powerful 5 drop that’s both a clock and removal rolled into one.

An additional land is in the side because with so many 4-5 drops, we need to up our mana base to consistently cast them. I am in debate if this should be another Desert.

That’s it for today! Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below!

See yah’!

Vanson