A token deck is s somewhat more likely to use Skullclamp as card draw compared with the pure spellslinger of Niv-Mizzet. The token deck might also use Spell Swindle as one of its counters due to the high synergy. Packing in a Ghired's Belligerence as one of the single-target kills also gives some nice synergy, as does using Crush of Tentacles as one of your board wipes.
This is the path I've taken to keeping my decks interesting, along with keeping tutors to a minimum and absolutely refusing to run any fast mana (piss off Sol Ring!). The more innately powerful a commander, the more synergistic elements I put in instead of the strictly best cards. So my Boros combo deck, it ran everything near 100%, because even at full power Boros is relatively weak compared to the other combinations. But my Brudiclad deck is full of token-orientated answers and removal.
Another direction to go is to simply cut back on removal, which I say as a guy who used to run a mandatory 12-18 answers in every deck. Removal in that quantity is only strictly necessary if people are playing high powered explosive decks. My meta was removal heavy, leading to a lot of games where very little happened for a long time, a wrath every board rotation etc etc. Everyone slowly cut removal for more threats or value generators. Theres still removal in our decks but probably half as much. As a result, something will eventually stick instead of being insta-pathed.
Theres three outcomes to this. Firstly, that half a dozen answer spells become a bunch of unique picks for a deck. Secondly, games are faster, because threats end games and at this answer-density threats stick earlier than in the old meta. Finally, and most interestingly, games often turn into political battles of threats vs threats. If one player has a huge indestructible monster, and someone can path it, situation over. But what if he has a huge indy monster, I have a horde of small creatures and another player has a big flying monster. The interaction between these threats is much more interesting than the interaction between threats and removal.
This is the path I've taken to keeping my decks interesting, along with keeping tutors to a minimum and absolutely refusing to run any fast mana (piss off Sol Ring!). The more innately powerful a commander, the more synergistic elements I put in instead of the strictly best cards. So my Boros combo deck, it ran everything near 100%, because even at full power Boros is relatively weak compared to the other combinations. But my Brudiclad deck is full of token-orientated answers and removal.
Another direction to go is to simply cut back on removal, which I say as a guy who used to run a mandatory 12-18 answers in every deck. Removal in that quantity is only strictly necessary if people are playing high powered explosive decks. My meta was removal heavy, leading to a lot of games where very little happened for a long time, a wrath every board rotation etc etc. Everyone slowly cut removal for more threats or value generators. Theres still removal in our decks but probably half as much. As a result, something will eventually stick instead of being insta-pathed.
Theres three outcomes to this. Firstly, that half a dozen answer spells become a bunch of unique picks for a deck. Secondly, games are faster, because threats end games and at this answer-density threats stick earlier than in the old meta. Finally, and most interestingly, games often turn into political battles of threats vs threats. If one player has a huge indestructible monster, and someone can path it, situation over. But what if he has a huge indy monster, I have a horde of small creatures and another player has a big flying monster. The interaction between these threats is much more interesting than the interaction between threats and removal.