Every once in a while I come across something in our Vorthos community that really grabs my attention. Whether it's a cosplay, a flavorful decklist, or fan art, it’s something done well enough that I need to know more about the person behind it. The other day, this post was rocketing up the MTG reddit front page, and I immediately knew I needed to know more about the creative mind behind such an awesome project.

Today will be another addition to my community spotlight series, as I interview Leo and his absolutely incredible porcelain legion tokens. So sit back, relax, and become compleat.

Community Spotlight: Custom Tokens with Leo

Introduce yourself! Who are you, and what do you do?

My name is Leo. I work in structural engineering. I started to play MTG at the tail end of Innistrad, and I played on and off in a kitchen-table group for a few years. At around 2013, I found Commander and thought it looked interesting, I built my first Commander deck, and I have been playing mostly Commander ever since.

What inspired you to make such on flavor tokens for your deck?

I’ve always been fond of the flavor in Magic, and my inspiration for new decks mostly come from interest in a particular character or faction that I find interesting on a thematic level. Elesh Norn and her Machine Orthodoxy was one of coolest things I found when I first started playing, and I even had a sixty-card casual deck built around the faction. I held off on a Commander deck for her for a long time because there weren’t enough playable cards that suited the flavor, but I thought about it and found custom tokens to be a workable solution to that problem. The deck runs few creatures outside of these tokens, and the creatures it does run are mostly included on flavor grounds.

My favorite part of the tokens is that each art is unique and each has its own personality. Was that a conscious decision? if so, what made you keep each one unique?

The biggest part of that decision was actually to keep myself from getting becoming drawing them; however, there are justifications on flavor grounds I think. I don’t imagine the soldiers have much free will, but New Phyrexia’s society is surprisingly individualistic when compared to Yawgmoth’s Phyrexia, with the various leaders and subleaders vying for power. So over time, I think some shadows of personality might even emerge from the soulless soldiers of the Orthodoxy. Plus, I don’t imagine the manufacturing process for these soldiers would be such an exact science that some variation can’t be allowed.

An early sketch of the soldier tokens by Leo

How were these tokens made?

The card itself is watercolor paper cut to Magic card size. The artwork is done with ink and colored pencils. I used the non-textured face of the paper so the pattern in the paper would not show in the coloring.

Do you have plans to add additional tokens to your deck in the future—or plans to do a similar treatment for a different one of your decks?

I do plan to slowly add to this set of tokens until every token created in a game can be represented with an actual card. This will be an on-and-off process that won’t be my primary focus, but always something to work on if I have a bit of time to spare. My other decks don’t have a heavy focus on tokens, and the official ones are on-flavor, so there is no need to make any.

An early sketch of the cat tokens by Leo

Do you have a compleat decklist you can share? I know I definitely want to take this deck for a spin.

Sure thing! Note that I am still pending some changes to the deck, as it is still fairly new, including the addition of Terminus, Batterskull, Path to Exile, Extraplanar Lens and taking out the less flavor-oriented cards such as Hokori, Dust Drinker and Heliod, God of the Sun.

Elesh Norn ? Commander | Leo

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (15)
• 1 Blade Splicer
• 1 Chancellor of the Annex
• 1 Master Splicer
• 1 Mirror Entity
• 1 Priests of Norn
• 1 Sensor Splicer
• 1 Shattered Angel
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Suture Priest
• 1 Blinding Souleater
• 1 Porcelain Legionnaire
• 1 Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Heliod, God of the Sun
• 1 Hokori, Dust Drinker

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

• Spells (50)
• 1 Apostle's Blessing
• 1 Return to Dust
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 War Report
• 1 White Sun's Zenith
• 1 Alliance of Arms
• 1 Armageddon
• 1 Conqueror's Pledge
• 1 Decree of Justice
• 1 Deploy to the Front
• 1 Dust to Dust
• 1 Gift of Estates
• 1 Mass Calcify
• 1 Nomads' Assembly
• 1 Phyrexian Rebirth
• 1 Planar Cleansing
• 1 Rout
• 1 Armored Ascension
• 1 Aura of Silence
• 1 Banishing Light
• 1 Blind Obedience
• 1 Cathars' Crusade
• 1 Crackdown
• 1 Endless Horizons
• 1 Karmic Justice
• 1 Land Tax
• 1 Luminarch Ascension
• 1 Mobilization
• 1 Nevermore
• 1 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Rest in Peace
• 1 Book of Rass
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Candles of Leng
• 1 Dreamstone Hedron
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Norn's Annex
• 1 Pearl Medallion
• 1 Phyrexian Processor
• 1 Phyrexian Vault
• 1 Planar Portal
• 1 Shrine of Loyal Legions
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Slate of Ancestry
• 1 Smokestack
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Tangle Wire
• 1 Spear of Heliod

• Lands (33)
• 31 Plains
• 1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1 Temple of the False God

Buy This Deck

Now for some more questions about you. What guild are you?

Orzhov. I really enjoy their over-the-top decadence.

An early sketch of the angel tokens by Leo

Your home world is doomed, and you must planeswalk to a new plane. Which plane do you pick as your new permanent residence? What three things will you take with you?

I think Shandalar would be a good place that is relatively free of threats (until Wizards decides otherwise, that is). I would take an umbrella, some tea, and a nice, sturdy towel.

All will be one

A huge thank you to Leo for sitting down with me and talking more about these incredible tokens. I for one cannot wait to test out his list in my next Commander rumble.

Do you have any Vorthos creations you would like to share? Hit me up on Twitter or drop me a message at anthroplasm909 at gmail dot com.

Until next time, may you find a creative way to make your own deck compleat.

-Ant