Prior to rotation, Mono-White Token Control was one of the stronger archetypes in Standard. The deck’s ability to generate tons of value helped it dominate the late game. Despite not actually losing many tools via rotation, the evolution of the Standard metagame made the archetype fall out of favor.
Thanks to some recent innovations, however, a deck using a lot of the same tools has started putting up strong results once more. This shell combines elements from Mono-White Token Control and Jeskai Artifacts in a way that helps you interact early without sacrificing late-game power.
Mono-White Token Overlap
Like previous iterations of Mono-White Token Control, this list is centered around the power of Caretaker’s Talent. Even ignoring the benefits of Level 2 and 3, simply getting this card onto the battlefield should reward you with a flow of card advantage. Of course, if you ever run out of ways to make tokens, Level 2 provides an efficient way to copy one of your tokens and trigger the Class again.
Given the wealth of ways this deck has to make tokens, though, this shouldn’t ever be a problem. Carrot Cake is one of your stronger tools, helping you trigger Talent the turn you cast it and the turn you sacrifice it. Unsurprisingly, Fountainport plays an essential role as well. Having access to a repeatable token producer in the late game that comes at such a low opportunity cost is a huge luxury.
Where this list starts to differentiate itself is with the lack of Enduring Innocence. Enduring Innocence was a fantastic complementary piece to Talent in traditional lists, but this deck doesn’t play enough creatures. There are no copies of Voice of Victory or Overlord of the Mistmoors to speak of. Instead, this creatureless deck utilizes an artifact subtheme that perfectly complements Talent in a different way.
Weapons Manufacturing Package
Rather than relying on creatures to cross the finish line, your main win condition is Weapons Manufacturing. This enchantment singlehandedly enables you to deal lethal damage without ever needing to get into combat. It gives you a constant influx of tokens to trigger Talent turn after turn, too. All you need is a high density of artifacts to trigger it and ways to get your Munitions tokens off the battlefield.
Fortunately, many of your cards help on both accounts. Legion Extruder is an artifact that triggers Manufacturing as well as a sacrifice outlet for your Munitions tokens. Your 3/3s help close games while also giving you a stream of blockers to protect you against aggro decks. Meanwhile, the consistent production of Munitions tokens makes it trivial to pay the additional cost on Dusk Rose Reliquary.
Once you factor in Perilous Snare as a catch-all answer to any problematic permanent and Cake, you have more than enough ways to trigger Manufacturing. From there, Reliquary, Fountainport, and Torch the Tower all act as decent sacrifice outlets.
With so many cheap, noncreature permanents present, United Battlefront becomes your ultimate value engine. The card selection goes a long way for a strategy so heavily built around Talent and Manufacturing as ways to pull ahead. Against Superior Spider-Man Combo, having extra ways to find Rest in Peace is crucial, too.
Improving Key Matchups
While it may seem a bit weird to go this direction and mash two archetypes together, the way this deck is constructed makes it line up quite well against a lot of the top decks in Standard. First and foremost, you get access to so much efficient removal that drastically improves your position against the red decks.
Versus Mono-Red Aggro, Torch and Extruder buy you a lot of time. Reliquary is a clean answer to Screaming Nemesis, and Manufacturing gives you inevitability by threatening to kill every creature that hits the board after stabilizing. At the same time, while Enduring Innocence is unreliable in the face of Torch, Izzet Cauldron decks don’t have any ways to remove Manufacturing permanently. Add in Reliquary as a way to keep Agatha’s Soul Cauldron in check, and you’re in great shape.
While the red cards all excel versus Mono-Red Aggro and Izzet Cauldron, Caretaker’s Talent singlehandedly threatens to break the Dimir Midrange matchup wide open. So long as Kaito, Bane of Nightmares is kept in check, the card advantage from Talent will eventually become insurmountable. Dimir Midrange’s abundance of black removal also lines up incredibly poorly against this token variant.
Still, this doesn’t mean the deck is foolproof by any stretch. The lack of early pressure makes the Simic Omniscience matchup very difficult. Torch theoretically deals with Kona, Rescue Beastie, but your opponent often has enough time to find Lost in the Maze and a Station land to make creature removal ineffective. Once Omniscience hits the board, you’re toast.
Playing so much removal also comes back to bite you when facing control decks. Sticking Talent long-term or even just resolving United Battlefront is tough. Getting to bring in Voice of Victory out of the sideboard for games two and three after the opponent likely trims down on creature removal at least helps on that front.
Given how much more popular Mono-Red Aggro and Izzet Cauldron are than every other archetype, Boros Manufacturing is currently a reasonable meta-breaker. While the upcoming ban announcement is bound the shake things up, perhaps players will flock to Dimir Midrange and make Caretaker’s Talent an even more appealing centerpiece. We’ll just have to wait and see how things play out, so make sure to keep this deck on your radar as we push forward.
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