Winds of Exchange has been out (for the USA) for about six months, and with the 2023 Organized Play season wrapped up it's time to start some fights in the comments. I mean, reflect peaceably on my oversimplified categorization of token creature strength and utility.
Token creatures don't exist in a vacuum. In selecting tiers, I took into account season performance for Top 8* Winds of Exchange decks, and in-house synergies with token creature abilities.
One additional metagame note: there is great diversity of token creatures among Top 8 Archon decks. Six houses had at least one token creature appear in a Top 8 Archon deck (sorry Star Alliance), and the most frequently appearing tokens have a tight grouping.
S-Tier: Berserker, Scholar, and Prospector
The three tokens in this tier add a high amount of power to any deck they end up in, based on their own utility and high number of in-house synergies with commons and uncommons.
Scholar and Prospector allow card draw under two different conditions. Prospector provides draw if your opponent deals with it, and may reap if it survives, providing value along two distinct axis. Scholar combines the card draw with the reaping, and is in-house with a common which removes the downside of waiting to use the ability (Legionary Trainer). Prospector offers more options, while Scholar's ceiling is often higher due to combining card draw and reaping through a repeatable method - though, in my estimation, Scholar will give you less consistent performance on average in an Archon deck.
The ability to adjust for this in Alliance, and several key pilots showing off Legionary Trainer and Scholar's high ceiling during the 2023 season, resulted in 20 copies of Legionary Trainer across 13 Winds of Exchange decks entered into the Alliance World Championship.
Berserker, while much rarer, offers a truly bonkers amount of synergy with commons and uncommons in-house, along with the baked-in advantage of reaping while there are no enemy creatures in play. While Warrior appear more often in Top 8s in the 2023 season, Warrior is more common, serves a similar role, and most Warrior appearances were due to a single deck (The Ooze that Trains All Three Houses).
A-Tier: Bellatoran Warrior, Fish, Grumpus, Warrior, Diplomat, Grunt, Skirmisher
The A-Tier tokens are all survivable with good, synergistic utility within their houses. While Warrior has many more appearance in Top 8s than the S-Tier token Berserker or the other two Brobnar tokens in this list, most of them are due to one Team SAS deck, The Ooze That Trains All Three Houses. Brobnar tokens are both each strong on their own, and empowered by a high number of synergies in-house.
Bellatoran Warrior, Diplomat, and Grunt each have their own style of survivability pushing them to the A-Tier, since generating token creatures that stick and repeatedly reaping out is a strong play in any deck which can pull it off.
B-Tier: Cleric, Trooper, Blorb, Cultist, Defender, Explorer, Rebel, Researcher, Strange Shell, Trader
Token creatures selected for the B-tier are a mix of mid-strength consistent performers (Trooper, Cleric, Explorer) and high variance in utility (Strange Shell, Researcher, Blorb). Some of these tokens will feel flat in some list, while they'll find good synergies in others.
Cleric is a special case where its unique use of the "enters play" distinction turns all token creation into capture and thus aember tempo. When you can overwhelm your opponent's ability to deal with them, this tempo hit is a serious ingredient toward a win.
I would like to use this blog post to publicly apologize to Trooper. I thought it was terrible. It's not GREAT, but in practice the survivability from five power, synergy with exalt mechanics in-house, lots of Saurian removal for creatures smaller than it, and full agency over whether or not you do use it and exalt it combines into a token creature that can really hold its own in the right circumstance.
Explorer is a very skill-testing token creature and the highest Star Alliance places on this list. Get it together, Picard. Scry on a body with After Reap is quite good, but a strong and synergy-heavy Star Alliance pod is much rarer than other houses would have with their tokens.
C-Tier: Aemberling, Cadet, Disciple, Senator, Squire, Priest
The C-Tier token creatures are generally only good as bodies used to reap. Cadet on average is pretty dang useless, though has some high combo ceilings (not frequently enough to warrant a higher spot on this list).
Aemberling had a lot of excitement around it early, but it turns out the tradeoff that it cannot reap is tough to make up for.
Priest and Senator have some value in simply being two power, giving them a modicum of survivability, but their printed abilities leave much to be desired relative to other token creatures.
D-Tier: B0-T, Raider
The sheer uselessness of these pieces of hot garbage is difficult to understate. When you open them, weep. And cry onto the cards in an attempt to disqualify them from organized play through tear-induced warping.'
How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways:
- Both can be removed by the effort contained in a gentle sneeze.
- B0-T says with its ability: Hey, I'm useless, so after you wait a whole turn to use me, maybe you'll have a mildly useful ability on another creature and you still want to call Star Alliance? No? This will never happen? Okay :D
- Raider is a blank one-power creature on your opponent's turn.
- I'm almost angry that Raider's art is so good. It's almost an insult to Radial Studio.
- Sorry Raider, 25% of all common and uncommon Winds of Exchange creatures have armor. Sucks to be you.
Conclusion
Generally speaking, the token creatures have a spread of utility, synergy, and power spread across a reasonable number of houses and have many different kinds of interesting synergies and available, viable strategies. While the volume of the community's play experience points to a few tweaks that would some needs for balance that would preserve fun, the context for the design of the set (FFG handing a 90% complete set to Ghost Galaxy, with mostly just Michael Hurley to test and make changes) I think the design of our 28 token creatures is a big win.
Lastly, I counted token creature Top 8 appearances in Archon this season, and might as well leave the data hear for you:
Archon Token Creature Performance
Philadelphia: Prospector
Indianapolis: Grunt, Scholar, Warrior*
Roseville: Warrior*, Prospector, Warrior, Scholar
Seattle: Warrior*, Berserker, Diplomat, Skirmisher, Berserker, Defender
Dallas: Strange Shell, Grunt, Fish, Warrior*, Berserker, Prospector
Shanghai: Rebel, Warrior, Prospector
Florence: Defender
Vegas: Cleric, Warrior*
Worlds: Fish, Scholar
*Top 8 means the top cut of tournaments that meet the following requirements: results are posted on Keyforging.com, and World Championship invites were at stake.
