by Johnny Cycles, Wednesday, November 11th, 2026

Welcome to the latest edition of Keeping Modern Janky! This week’s deck is a bit on the non-janky side as we’re trying to take advantage of all that text on Belladonna Took and some of the best token producers in Modern happen also to be some of the most played cards. Ocelot Pride, Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, Voice of Victory, and Orcish Bowmasters all make tokens that can trigger our centerpiece Halfling Citizen.

But never fear! We’re still playing some jank. Here’s the decklist:

Decklist – Modern Horizons Silverquill

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern

Creatures (27)

4 Guide of Souls
4 Ocelot Pride
4 Ajani, Nacatl Pariah
4 Belladonna Took
4 Orcish Bowmasters
2 The Queen of Dale
2 Voice of Victory
3 Adeline, Resplendent Cathar

Spells (12)

4 Fatal Push
2 March of Otherworldly Light
2 Thoughtseize
2 Village Rites
2 Thraben Charm

Lands (21)

2 Bleachbone Verge
1 Castle Ardenvale
3 Field of Ruin
2 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
4 Plains
3 Shadowy Backstreet
2 Swamp

Sideboard (15)

2 Thoughtseize
2 Vexing Bauble
2 Rest in Peace
2 Sheoldred’s Edict
3 White Orchid Phantom
2 Wrath of the Skies
2 Flare of Fortitude

Deck Tech

Primary Game Plan

Our main goal is to trigger Belladonna Took as many times in a turn as possible. To make this happen, we’re playing many of Modern’s best creatures, as they all happen to generate tokens. Guide of Souls and Ocelot Pride can flood the board with Cat tokens. Ajani, Nacatl Pariah and Orcish Bowmasters bring a friend along. And Voice of Victory can trigger Belladonna Took twice all by itself!

The Queen of Dale is another card from The Hobbit I’m testing. It synergizes with our strategy insomuch as it can make a token. Otherwise, it’s just something I want to try out.

Why Modern Horizons Cards?

Quite honestly, these cards do a great job making tokens. And they also do a great job taking over a game. The same can’t be said for cards like Raise the Alarm, Gather the Townsfolk, and even Lingering Souls. The latter is the best of the bunch, but in a format like Modern, making vanilla 1/1s, even if they have flying, is rarely a winning strategy.

And yes, I’ve learned this the hard way…

Furthermore, we only have four copies of Belladonna Took and no way to tutor her up. If we’re relying on her block of text to power up our tokens, then the percentages don’t work out in our favor. We could try playing some Glorious Anthem effects to increase the power of our tokens (Intangible Virtue is great), but, again, power creep in the format has made this kind of strategy obsolete.

What this Means for Game Play

In many of our matches, we either win or lose without ever even drawing our signature card. That’s variance. There are a handful of times we get to see her action and once where she goes off, which was pretty sweet.

Otherwise, I have some other builds I’ll be testing out with Belladonna Took. Stay tuned!

Game Play

Overall Record: 2-3

Eh, not too shabby. Overall, the deck played about as I expected. The Modern Horizons cards did their thing and won us some games. Boros Energy was the better version. We lost to one combo deck and beat another. Got a game against Izzet Prowess, but wasn’t fast enough otherwise. The deck can compete.

But what about Belladonna Took?

She did her job when we drew her. Sometimes she drew out a kill spell. Sometimes she only got us a single life. Once she did it all! I think she is a fine addition to this strategy, but I wouldn’t expect her to win a lot of games by growing our team. It’s hard to make that many tokens consistently.

Conclusion

Orzhov Tokens is a fun and competitive deck! I don’t think it’s the best version of this kind of strategy in Modern, but it’s a strong start. I think a more dedicated lifegain strategy, perhaps Mono White, would be a better home for Belladonna Took. She would be one of a number of ways to gain life, which would trigger a number of other support pieces. I just played against such a deck (minus Belladonna) with a Draconic Visitor Affinity deck (stay tuned!).

Thanks for reading and watching!