Welcome all of you token fans out there, this page is intended to help players choosing token based strategies and the cards to go in them.
This is not intended to just give you a list of decklists to run that are token based but instead to try to help think outside of the box and run your own token deck how you want it. Feel free to add comments on content you would like to see added to this primer. I was hoping to create a decent database with some great options here for new players and or players just looking to tune up some of their lists here.
Choosing your Token Commander
***NOTICE*** First of all when it comes to building token the possabilities of taking a commander and forcing a token strategy upon them is always an option. However I will go through and list most of the commanders which sort of have a natural nack at being run as a token strategy. By no means do you have to run these commanders as a token strategy nor do you have to run a commander who isnt on this list without tokens.
MONO WHITE
Playstyle: Crovax is sort of like playing mono white control tokens. He is nice in the fact that he rarely dies in a wrath due to his ability to bounce back to hand so he is always available for his same casting cost. His ability to hinder non white creatures primarily comes in with the fact that he kills a lot of utility creatures as well as the nonwhite token based decks.
Strengths: He has the ability to bounce back to hand and keep his own casting cost low.
Weaknesses: He buffs all white creatures not just yours. He also costs sort of a lot of mana for what he does.
Playstyle: Darien is sort of a suicide style of token deck in the fact that he wants to take some damage. He often will use some lifegain effects to offset the damage he takes but he will also deliberately run things that encourage people to swing at him to spawn tokens as well as fetchlands and pain lands just to spawn tokens. Suicide token is the best way to describe him.
Strengths: He can produce a large amount of tokens in a turn and sort of plays interestingly where people dont really want to hit him but are forced to do so. He also has the whole soldier tribal aspect that he can play with due to being such a strong token spawner himself.
Weaknesses: He costs a lot to cast and has no immediate results from being cast. He also dies somewhat easily considering he is only a 3/3 body.
Playstyle: Elesh Norn is all about immediate results and the fact that she will usually kill a lot of things from the board simply by being cast. Her tokens also get her +2/+2 immediately upon entry so her buff is all covered simply in her mana cost. While she is sort of a late game buff creature your tokens should be built up by the time she comes down where her tokens can run opponents over especially with their weakened creatures against your buffed tokens.
Strengths: She has immediate results and often kills a lot of the opposition's creatures just on her cast. Her buff + opponents weakening makes for a big power shift which she can take advantage of.
Weaknesses: She costs a lot of mana to cast being 7 mana on her first cast in mono white. Also there are some decks where she has a much smaller effect against such as control heavy and combo decks.
Playstyle: Kemba is all about the equipment and sadly there isnt a whole lot that I can include within this primer that specifically helps her out due to the nature of how she works. She is entirely equipment based in her token spawning however she is still a token based commander but also sort of a voltron commander at the same time. The more equipment she can amass the more tokens she spawns per turn.
Strengths: She has a very aggressively low mana cost to get started. She also spawns free tokens every turn based upon how many equipment you have on her. She can win by token overrun and or voltron attacking.
Weaknesses: Due to relying on several pieces of equipment kemba can get blown up by artifact sweepers. You need to be delicate in how much equipment you play on her at one time as it can backfire. This type of deck is also sort of reliant on the commander so tuck effects can really hurt her as the plan B often feels much weaker.
Playstyle: Mikaeus hands out pump to his friends so he is all about how many times he can tap to do such. This sort of deck requires large instant speed token production and several pump / proliferate / untap effects to assign his pumping powers quickly to his pals. Due to his low mana cost + having an x in his cost you have to sort of play with where the ideal place to cast him is but he can quickly distribute a lot of pumping to a token swarm to make them quite lethal. As a side note he might be the best of the token tactics for a mass LD style of package. The fact that it would give him time to really buff his pals as everyone restocks land and is unable to get land working again would be huge.
Strengths: Cheap to cast and draws a lot less hate than some of his other white counterparts. He can stack his buff up to be quite potent if given time.
Weaknesses: The nature of stacking buffs over time has a weakness to wrath effects. To capitalize on him you need to work quickly. Drop him in assuming you will get no more than two to three activations. Beyond that your opponents are just asking to die.
Playstyle: Odric is sort of a cool commander because his power isnt as obvious. He has a much more subtle presence on the field and by himself isnt all that frightening. He does however allow you to just kill things left and right in combat and allow you to push whatever you want through for damage that you would like. He always wins in offensive combat because you just set up how they will be defending themselves. He plays decent with a mixed token theme and regular creatures allowing him to use some good combat effect creatures as you will get to put them to use here.
Strengths: He wins combat every time which is great. Even if your opponent has flash in creatures it doesnt matter because you pick how they block. He works great agains decks that use a high density of utility creatures and decks that use ETB / chump blockers he can just push right through past them. His mana cost is very affordable for his size and ability as well.
Weaknesses: You are stuck with mono white and Odric cannot really do much on his own. You will require to have a decent board presence if for no other reason to free up your attack options. Generally speaking a 3/4 commander in mono white is a bit of an odd creature as it isnt excessively quick but it isnt the size of titans either. You might find that wrath effects can really put you behind with this sort of commander due to his nature to need multiple bodies to swing. Try to work with repeatable token producers as you just need to be able to keep that 3ish attackers handy at most all times.
Playstyle: Oyobi plays as a bit of an Arcane / Spirit based commander. The tokens that are spawned have flying and are actually good sized which is nice.
Strengths: The tokens that are spawned are really good sized and have evasion which is great.
Weaknesses: The downside of Oyobi is that he costs a lot of mana and his tokens are based upon a set type of spells which are very narrow. He cant spawn many tokens per turn as you are restricted by how many cards you cast in a turn. He would definitely be a difficult commander to make powerful but it could be a fun commander from a flavor aspect. He is also mono white which can be really tough as well.
Playstyle: Pianna gives sort of a mass buff for big armies of tokens to hit harder. This sort of deck utilizes a lot of big x token spawners and reusable token spawners to just pump tons of guys on the field then dropping all of the anthem effects it can.
Strengths: Pianna works will with decks that plan on spawning a lot of guys. The low mana cost is nice on this commander as well.
Weaknesses: Pianna doesnt really contribute that big of a buff on its own which is really sort of a problem. You need to add up several of these type of buffs to really have much of an impact. This type of deck can also have issues with card advantage as mono white already has a problem with that and due to the commander being sort of a smaller part of the deck it requires a lot of other buff effects as well as spawning effects to operate.
MONO GREEN
Playstyle: Jedit is an interesting commander as he is sort of a cross between a voltron commander and a token commander. Generally speaking I think he would work best in a green heavy meta where you can use him to sneak in for free damage and use the tokens for some abuse / chump blocking.
Strengths: He has a good p/t setup as well as evasion making him a decent sort of voltron commander.
Weaknesses: Spawning a single token every turn is generally speaking not enough to really have a good token theme going. He doesnt buff / give any support to the tokens outside of the single token he spawns either. He is mono green which can be an issue as well as costing 6 mana which makes him a bit slow. Unfortunately as well he only has 5 power as well so he is on a 5 turn clock without pumps.
Playstyle: Kamahl has a built in overrun and the ability to animate lands. This means that he is a bit versatile in play. Tokens become an easy way to overrun opponents and if someone tries to wrath you while you have mana up you can animate all their lands which will make them think twice about it. Kamahl is a poster child of ramping big so you can do more things with him.
Strengths: He is versatile with several useful abilities for an agro token themed deck. He is a finisher in himself so the rest of the deck can focus more on ramping and spawning dudes.
Weaknesses: 6 mana is again sort of expensive to cast however at least he is in mono G which makes that a little more bearable. He is also susceptible to spot removal which he doesn't really have any additional protections against.
Playstyle: Kaysa is a bit of a challange for those willing to play a bit more casually and or wanting a challange for playing. She does give a token friendly buff to her buddies however there are just so many other commanders who feel like they have a bigger impact on the board. You can use that to your advantage though as she doesnt feel that threatening so most people probably wont run out to kill her.
Strengths: Green is a great color for tokens and she is a commander who many might take lightly at first glance. You might be able to make allies and or just be ignored due to your commander choice.
Weaknesses: Lets be realistic here, Keysa is not a very impressive buff for tokens. She is sort of an expensive anthem effect. Mono green can be annoying as well when it comes to controlling the game especially against a big fatty creature.
Playstyle: Nemata is cool because he can both spawn and pump his own tokens. He is another big mana mono green style of token strategy. This sort of deck should ramp a lot and attempt to lower activation costs for abilities if possible.
Strengths: Nemata has sort of the whole package pump and spawning all contained on his card which allows for more other utility in the deck as he can be his own finisher as well as spawner. This is extremely rare to find on a commander where they serve both as the spawner and finisher.
Weaknesses: He is mono green which can feel a bit narrow in control aspects as well as costing 6 mana to drop in making him sort of expensive. Due to how all encompassing he really is the best defense against him is just to remove him at every opportunity.
Playstyle: Patron might not really be a classic style of token deck however his ability allows for massive spawning of tokens in a turn rotation as he can untap the lands thus allowing further token production essentially giving 3 times the production you would be capable in a normal turn.
Strengths: Generates huge amounts of mana for token production in a turn rotation. Anything green that taps to do something cool benefits from this commander.
Weaknesses: He is really expensive to cast and has no direct built in token production or pump so while he can be cool for tokens he doesnt have a direct ability that focuses him to be token based.
Playstyle: Sekki is sort of an interesting mono green commander where he is sort of a suicidal commander. Ideally utilizing him as a commander you need ways to inflict him with damage such as using effects like Arena, Prey Upon and other such effects possibly even Lure effects to force opponents to do damage to him. He has the ability to spawn a lot of creatures especially if utilizing some of green's token doublers he could be very nice as you could kill him off through damage and rez him off of the tokens netting some tokens as well as getting your commander back.
Strengths: Potential for big token spawning off of your commander. He can act as a deterrent from attacking into you and he can be a pain to block due to his size as well as the token spawning that will result in it.
Weaknesses: He is very expensive and rather fragile to creature removal. Mono green can also be a problem but at least green is good for token spawning / support.
Playstyle: Verdeloth is sort of interesting as not many token producing commanders can spawn on ETB. He also gives a slight pump to his tokens as well making them slightly stronger.
Strengths: Explosive token spawning from Verdeloth is unique for commanders to have.
Weaknesses: Due to having an X in his mana cost it makes him a late game sort of finisher. Every time he is cast he becomes harder to muster much out of the X mana spawning. He starts at 6 mana as well to drop so he is very very expensive.
MONO BLUE
Playstyle: I will be honest I have never seen a Meloku list however I would think that mass land manipulation would work into her strategy fairly well by bouncing some of your land then bounce everyone's land. Mono blue doesn't have a lot of token support so you could easily bank off of her token production then use things like Polymorph effects to rotate her tokens into broken creatures. Don't forget how amazing something like Walking Atlas would be in this deck as well as any variants you can come up with in blue / artifacts.
Strengths: Mono blue gives great control and the fact that she can manipulate her token production for very little mana at instant speed is fantastic. In blue we have amazing card draw and counter / bounce control.
Weaknesses: There is little token support in blue. The amount of mass pump and token production are very limited so you will be relying on the commander and a lot of artifacts for the actual token stuff. It can also be hard to find things to allow you to drop more lands into play in a turn to increase her token production.
Playstyle: Talrand is a very unique token commander in the fact that he can play off of blue's power rather than requiring a whole setup of token producers which blue does not have. You can turn the deck into a spellslinger deck and every time you cast a spell get a flying drake. Utilizing a high number of cantrip spells mixed with counterspells and extra turns can make for a very potent deck.
Strengths: Great color for control with a commander ability to stay in the control build. He is well costed and has a very powerful ability as well. Given a few turns in play you can usually maul the table with your army of drakes.
Weaknesses: The deck is extremely central on Talrand hitting and sticking to play. Due to this opponents will learn to tuck and kill him on sight. Without Talrand in play, the deck does very little but spin the wheels. Luckily you do have counterspells to try to fend them off.
MONO RED
Playstyle: Homura is a unique commander in the fact that when you cast him all you want to do is kill him off next so sac outlets are important for him. Once he comes back from dying he is an enchantment that buffs, gives evasion, and fire-breathing to all of your creatures. His buff is quite powerful but make sure to have enough sac outlets to easily transition as if you just cast him with no plan he might get exiled or locked down.
Strengths: A large static buff and evasion to all the tokens is good. The fact that he becomes an enchantment is a unique attribute that very few legends have.
Weaknesses: 6 mana is expensive to drop and mono red still has a little difficulty with tokens in EDH. He also really does need sac outlets to be at his best.
Playstyle: Ib is sort of an all in style of deck where you have to be ok with sacrificing all of your lands in a turn. However he can do some really impressive things especially if you are willing to float mana sac the lands then drop a Boom/Bust to clear opponents lands out. At his best he relies on using mass LD to seal the board behind his tokens
Strengths: He is cheap to get going at 4 mana and can have some very explosive turns due to the nature of his all in aproach.
Weaknesses: Something like a fog or Jund Charm can really destroy this sort of all in approach as it tends to blow all of its resources for one really big attack. If that attack goes poorly it can cost the game. Being in mono red can also be tricky as their token spawning is still a little weak for commander.
Playstyle: Kazuul is interesting due to the fact that he is sort of a pillowfort token deck. Just being in play can turn a lot of opponents away from swinging at him. This sort of deck would be a good token based anti token deck due to the fact that it would easily step in and drop normally larger tokens that could at the least chump block another token deck even if they do pump theirs up.
Strengths: Pillowforting survival style of play lends him to be a survivor.
Weaknesses: While his token spawning is sort of cool it is unpredictable as opponents dictate it for you. It requires other plans of attack if people are not giving you tokens. Being in mono red can also be tricky as their token spawning is still a little weak for commander.
Playstyle: Krenko is in incredibly powerful new mono red token commander. You can build this guy in a number of ways from tribal, mass land destruction, stax, throatpunching with things like Burn at the Stake / Goblin Bombardment / whatever. There are tons of ways to play this guy and he has one of the lowest activation costs for what he can produce avalible in the game. It is like Rhys the Redeemed in mono red with no cost to double.
Strengths: His production speed grows exponentially every turn. If your playgroup plays wrath light they might change their minds quickly. He plays amazingly off of red's strengths such as haste and largescale buffs such as Marton Stromgald, Tears of Rage, and Vicious Shadows. The fact that he is a goblin opens up several extra ways to tutor for him in the case that your opponents try to tuck him.
Weaknesses: You are stuck playing mono red and his tactics are very very predictable. Expect to get wrathed with this kind of setup because it becomes fairly obvious when you are getting close to critical mass.
Playstyle: Marton is another sort of all in style of commander where generally speaking poring all of his resources together for one really big attack. He doesn't require you to sacrifice your lands like Ib however if the one big attack goes array it can often be difficult to set up for another big attack.
Strengths: Very explosive buff to his buddies is unlike any other commander's buff. He is quite capable of killing a table of 4 with only 15 tokens in a single attack. He has a low mana cost as well which lends for a bit easier time casting him and doing other things in the same turn.
Weaknesses: If he is removed before you can attack it really screws with the deck's whole attack plan. Being in mono red can also be tricky as their token spawning is still a little weak for commander.
Playstyle: Norin often plays as sort of a chaotic ETB control style of token build. He will often set up a lot of triggers for when he comes in and or leaves play spawning tokens, trading himself off, and doing damage as he comes back in. He is very evasive and very cheap to cast. He is sort of the pinicle of red chaos decks.
Strengths: Norin is very very cheap to cast and quite difficult to actually kill. Due to the fact that he is your commander as well most people will not bother killing him off at all. He is really hard to predict and often utilizes some interesting
Weaknesses: Being in mono red is always sort of a problem. Playing with a somewhat chaotic mindset isn't for everyone either so some would say the whole chaotic is a strength and some would say it is a weakness. I suppose that is up to the individual player to decide.
Playstyle: Red Patron plays as a mass buff style of commander. These types of commanders are often running a low number of other buff effects and loading up more on the spawning / support effects. A big bonus to this type of commander is that if you can take extra attacks the buff stacks up. You could easily kill a whole table with a handfull of creatures + your commander + Savage Beating
Strengths: Red Patron is sort of cool because goblins are actually a very common creature type for his offering. Generally speaking when looking at red tokens you see a lot of means of spawning some goblins so you can actually get away with casting Patron at EOT off of the offering ability.
Weaknesses: Mono red requires some adjustments for sure. It can be a great setup for a fast all out agro style of deck though but mono red has some difficulty with card draw and ramp. Also having Patron cost 6 mana can be a little high but luckily you have the Goblin Offering to sort of reduce that.
Playstyle: Rakka is sort of one of those creatures who was great in standard who just doesnt scale nearly as well into commander sadly. Her haste + token production makes for fast recoveries between wraths but sadly to build her tokens up to anything significant it takes time which is tough to buy in commander. I havent seen a commander list with her at the helm personally but I could see some mass LD tactics working for her considering how little mana she really needs to operate.
Strengths: She is cheap to cast and has haste. The token she spawns also has haste. Her token production is very cheap to do in a turn as well.
Weaknesses: She is mono red and her abilities seem like they would be difficult to scale into multiplayer commander. Unfortunately she just doesnt spawn enough creatures fast enough and the tokens she can produce arent large enough to take on most things in multiplayer commander.
Playstyle: Urabrask plays a fast game of hard to block creatures. Even when you know that you will be attacked next turn it is hard to block due to the fact that your creatures come in tapped. He really plays with people's heads as calculating his damage output is hard due to his mass haste.
Strengths: Built in mass haste allows for fast attacks. He also taps down opponents creatures as they come in further complicating opponents defenses. He works on the basis of hard to read.
Weaknesses: He has no direct token support. Any sort of creature really does work with him.
MONO BLACK
Playstyle: Ascendant Evincar is sort of a vanilla buff / counterbuff. To be honest though the nonblack creatures get -1/-1 is a lot more powerful than his counterpart Chrovax's due to the fact that very few black decks are agro based. He is sort of a bland sort of commander but black buff effects are sort of scarce.
Strengths: flying evasion plus he shrinks a lot of other agro based stragegies. He has access to a lot of other effects that stack with his in black as well to really put the screws to opposing agro straegies.
Weaknesses: he is sort of bland for a commander with a bit of a high casting cost.
Playstyle: Endrek is sort of cool as he is one of the few token spawners in black. Keep a lot of sac outlets ready as you need to sort of meat grinder his tokens but I could see him working as a really cool stax / grave pact style of token commander.
Strengths: Really great interactions with stax effects as well as grave pact effects. He is all about sacrificing things. Really sort of a flavorful commander as well.
Weaknesses: 5 mana to cast him is a bit rough. His tokens also have sort of a hard time doing actual damage to opponents.
Playstyle: Kuon is sort of a Grave Pact style of stax token commander. He is another commander who flips into an enchantment on a condition that a token deck can easiest achieve. Token Production and stax effects are where he is all about.
Strengths: Very cheap to cast at 3 mana and a great built in stax sort of effect for creatures.
Weaknesses: It would be difficult to easily flip him in the first few turns of a game. He also doesnt absolutely require you to be in tokens but I think he could easily go there.
Playstyle: Marrow is sort of a rat tribal kind of guy but his numbers really do mass very quickly. He sort of works on an exponential style of building idea. His rats build very quickly however he still relies on you having a few rats to get him started.
Strengths: Exponential token production is sort of unique. He also gives evasion to his buddies.
Weaknesses: 5 mana to cast isnt cheap and he requires a certain element of tribal to work at all. He is vulnerable to wraths due to his slow token massing.
MULTICOLORED
2 COLOR
Playstyle: Agrus gives a nice buff that is solid for large number of attackers. Boros colors gives decent colors for token spawning as well. Unfortunately it feels sort of like Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer replaced him as a very similar larger buff in the same colors.
Strengths: A solid buff for decent mana cost of 5 to get going. Boros is weak colors but as far as token spawning and support it is fairly decent.
Weaknesses: Boros sucks at card draw and control. He has also been sort of replaced by Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer who gives a bigger buff for the same mana in the same colors.
Playstyle: Boris is of a bit of an unusual color combination for a token spawning commander. On the upside you have great access to black's token support and red's buffs / spwaning. Boris doesnt really feel like he has a set gameplan though as he isnt contributing strongly to any one area. He spawns small 1/1 creatures once a turn so a bit underwhelming as a commander who costs 5 to drop and 4 mana to recieve a single token.
Strengths: He is in red/black which is an unusual color combination for a token commander. He is a bit versatile as to what strategy you choose due to being sort of not commited to any one particular playstyle.
Weaknesses: He is horribly overcosted for what he does and his ability costs a lot to activate. He is underwhelming in most every way unfortunately. I don't want to discourage anyone from making him however I feel I need to mention that he will be extremely difficult to build well.
Playstyle: Edric is a mass card draw based commander and can be run a few different ways. Generally speaking when he is seen in the competitive multiplayer area currently it is as a very fast 1 drop creature agro. He can also be slown down and used as a token based agro as he can just drop into play as you swing with your group of 10+ tokens to draw a ton of cards then allow opponents to smash off of each other in an attempt to draw cards as well. It is important to understand the sort of hate you will tend to draw while running Edric as his card draw ability is very powerful and a lot of opponents will want to stop you from drawing all those cards so expect some hate.
Strengths: Very powerful card draw components and the colors are great for dropping lots of dudes and drawing cards. Edric is a very low CC for his first time coming into play as well.
Weaknesses: The colors sort of have some issues with some opposing creature based strategies and controlling the board. You can run counterspells in here however you cant counter everything in multiplayer. Edric also tends to get this sort of hatred mentality where he can be really hard to stick him to the board for even part of a turn as a lot of removal gets pointed at him.
Playstyle: Grimgrin has a big focus on his sacrifice abilities making him for an interesting choice of a gravepact style of commander. He has control elements in his attacking as well as in the ability to just sacrifice your own tokens to pump him up and trigger sacrifice triggers.
Strengths:U/ are a strong set of colors for some good utility and control. The support effects available in U/ for tokens is really solid as there are a lot of ways you can sacrifice and manipulate the tokens to make advantage of them.
Weaknesses: U/B has sort of a harder time than most configurations to spawn tokens. It has some great support for tokens though if you can manage to get over this. It can also be sort of a pain sometimes using Grimgrin as just to untap you have to sacrifice so if things are not going your way he can be hard to utilize.
Playstyle: Jor is an interesting commander due to how many ways he can be built. Most ways in which he is built though relies on a bunch of mana stones to get him active. He can work as a token based pump deck that gives a very potent pump effect to his token army. He can also work on a mass LD basis and as a voltron commander if you want.
Strengths: His pump is very powerful considering his cost and power. He is versatile in build as well allowing you to take a few different aproaches.
Weaknesses: Boros colors sort of suck for card draw and control. He requires metalcraft to be active as well so he requires some work to get active.
Playstyle: Lyzolda is another commander who operates well with Gravepact type of effects. Her own ability to sacrifice creatures gives card draw and removal options which is very strong. The inclusion of red in her colors gives for some decent token production and black has amazing token support cards.
Strengths: She is very cheap to cast, she gives great utility in her sacrifice ability to draw cards and or remove threats. She is in a decently good set of colors to spawn and support the tokens.
Weaknesses:B/ does still have a bit of a harder time to produce tokens than G/. Her frail body does make her prone to being killed by like everything out there.
Playstyle: Nath is sort of a cool guy in the fact that he is one of the very few hand manipulation based commanders out there. The only other hand manipulation commander I can think off offhand is Mr. Bolas. Nath has been dubbed the name of Death Cloud 9 by some as that is sort of a signature wincon of Nath by literally just stripping away every resource everyone has and spawning 20+ tokens off of doing so and just mauling people to death with them.
Strengths: Anything that works as mass discard will spawn a ton of creatures for you as well as remove a lot of chances that opponents will wrath your tokens. When Nath spits out a ton of tokens it is usually game over due to how hard it is to kill the tokens with no hand.
Weaknesses: Due to how powerful his discard is Nath gets targeted a lot especially in response to forcing everyone to discard their hands. If he gets to spawn his tokens he has usually won already.
Playstyle: Oona tends to be considered more of a combo deck as most players run her to combo out however if you wanted to run her as a control based token spawner she would also work.
Strengths: She can spawn a lot of tokens at instant speed keeping control options up. Using combo pieces she can also go infinite to exile her opponent's libraries.
Weaknesses: She is sort of expensive to cast and a known combo commander. If you try using her as a more casual token based deck without combo she might draw a lot more attention from people who dont know what you are running. This should wear off though over time if you play in a normal meta however if you play online assume you will receive hate based upon her being a strong combo commander.
Playstyle: Rhys is one of few exponential token production commanders. There really arent many commanders that scale exponentially so he can have very large amounts of creatures very very quickly. Generally speaking he doesnt even need much for pump as his numbers become outrageous very quickly.
Strengths: His mana cost is amazing being 1 mana for a creature that is powerful at most all stages of the game. He is easy to recast several times due to this low mana cost and he can easily out produce other token decks allowing you to block their tokens as you spawn another wave at the same time. GW is a great set of colors for a token spawning commander though.
Weaknesses: Rhys dies to a stiff breeze which is good that he is so cheap to cast. He really does need a few turns to build up generally speaking so if you see wraths every 1-2 turns he can have issues building up.
Playstyle: Savra fits into a stax / grave pact style of play. She operates off of sacrificing things thus making tokens a good source of fuel for her abilities. She has a built in Gravepact like ability depending upon what color the creature going through is making color of the token important and harder to utilize the artifact and colorless tokens for her purposes but still making her a strong commander.
Strengths:G/ is a great color combo. You have the best of the tutors and ramp and green can provide a lot of the tokens for the deck. She is well costed as well. She is really good at keeping other creature based decks in check.
Weaknesses: Unfortunately the deck really does need black creatures to trigger her gravepact abilities so it is hard to just use green token production to get there with her however they still do work with a lot of the actual gravepact effects that the deck can run. She unfortunately does not have a way to sacrifice creatures herself so a lot of slots will be taken up by things to sacrifice creatures to as well. Opposing token decks are sort of a pain for her to deal with as just using Grave Pact effects don't hurt them much.
Playstyle: Teysa is sort of a control based token deck where she can move her tokens around to do things such as exile creatures in play. She also turns her black creatures into white tokens when they die so you can get some added value out of sacrificing black tokens.
Strengths: She has a lot more control than most other token decks have by default. She can also do some cool things with sacrificing black creatures especially recursive creatures like Bloodghast and Reassembling Skeleton. Her mana cost is aggressive as well.
Weaknesses: Teysa draws a lot of hate from anyone who likes having creatures. She can often be pushed into being the moderator with everyone expecting you to be the one to clean things up. Due to this I have seen Teysa draw a lot of hate as well trying to push her mana cost up too high to be utilized.
Playstyle: Thelon is sort of a slow rolling style of token spawning deck as he relies on a lot of the thallids to spawn tokens which take several turns to build up their counters. Thelon helps speed them up a little bit but this style of play is often a bit slow for how frequent and often you can see wrath effects in multiplayer. The thallids do have some kind of cool abilities to them outside of just spawning tokens every now and then though making this sort of a cool casual token deck.
Strengths: G/B is a strong set of colors and Thelon is very aggressively costed at 2 mana. He can really help out the Thallid strategy a lot to speed up their slow crawl making them slightly more viable.
Weaknesses: This sort of token spawning is slow and requires a lot of creature resources to stay in play for a long time. It is very fragile to wrath effects which are more abundant in multiplayer commander.
Playstyle: Tolsimir is an interesting choice for a token commander. I would honestly say I think of him as a more casual token commander but he is still in good colors. He gives a pump effect to his buddies and can spawn a single legendary wolf token to use for whatever.
Strengths: He is underrated and would likely draw very little hate in respects to a stronger token commander. He is in good colors for tokens as well.
Weaknesses: He is expensive to cast and a bit underwhelming as a commander.
Playstyle: Ulasht provides a combo / control token strategy. He also works twice as good with things such as Doubling Season due to the fact that he comes in with twice the counters and when he makes snakes he produces twice the tokens. If you want to go into the combos a lot of them start with Mana Echoes to dump stupid mana into your pool and just go off from there.
Strengths: He is a bit of an underrated commander and little seen. Due to this he might receive less hate. GR are good colors for tokens as well allowing for some fun buffs and ramp.
Weaknesses: He sort of relies on already having a bunch of creatures in play before he comes in to give options for more. He has a bit of a low mana cost though so he can often come into play and do things in the same turn though which is nice.
Playstyle: Vish Kal can play a few different ways but more often than not I think he would be used as sort of a stax style of Gravepact commander. His ability to sacrifice creatures at will can activate the pact abilities as well as being in good colors for stax effects.
Strengths: Vish Kal is in good colors for stax as well as working his own abilities well into the strategy. He can assemble some infinite combos with Karmic Guide + Reveillark which are nice as well as having access to tutors to go get said tutors.
Weaknesses: Vish Kal has a rather high mana cost for a non green commander. His manacost will be a big deterrent to how competitive he will be. You can overcome it somewhat with mana stones however they can also be fragile.
Playstyle: Generally speaking Wort is more of a combo style of commander but due to her conspire and interaction with creatures you could use some spell based token spawning and double them up. Wort is your standard really big spell and make it double style of commander.
Strengths: Everything tends to get really big when you do it twice. GR is a good set of colors for tokens as well.
Weaknesses: 6 mana to cast her is sort of expensive and most people will try to hate on her to slow down her lame big splashy effects.
3 COLOR
Playstyle: Ghave has sort of moved more and more into being a combo based token deck. He has a lot of interactions with other cards that turn into infinite actions. He is a good commander in great colors who is very versatile. The fact that he has a sac outlet built in is really very useful in a lot of situations.
Strengths: A great set of colors and a reasonable casting cost vs power ratio. His strong abilities work very well with a wide variety of cards.
Weaknesses: If you dont like going infinite he is actually sort of hard to utilize as a lot of his normal interactive cards just go infinite with him. He is also very required for most of the cards to work as a lot of his combo pieces are sort of bad cards without him so tuck effects are very bad for him.
Playstyle: He ramps big then drops in to spawn a big token wave. The best part is that you get your token wave next turn so you have all your mana up to pump / give them haste / beat people to death with them. He tends to kill people the turn his tokens come down quite often.
Strengths: He has probably the best 3 colors for token support / spawning. He can drop in and die befor his tokens ever come in and it doesnt matter. The fact that his tokens come in a turn later means you have all of your mana to buff them up which is quite unusual for a token deck.
Weaknesses: He costs a ton of mana to drop in and if he dies while his tokens are in play his tokens all die. It is important to kill him off somehow before his tokens come around.
Playstyle: Riku is all about ETB creature token spawning. Creatures who come in to create more creatures just get out of control. This style of deck can do stupid things with token doubling enchantments as well. This type of deck is all about numbers. Finisher spells are often things like Warp World and Overwhelming Stampede.
Strengths: good colors for tokens and riku makes the spawners crazy good. There are a lot of options and you can get yourself out of a jam with some creature tutors as well.
Weaknesses: at 5 mana riku can feel a little slow. He tends to draw a ton of hate as well for being a bit ridiculous as well. You will constantly play the game of how many times can I cast my commander with him as most players know that letting you keep him out is bad news.
Playstyle: Rith is sort of interesting because he is one of very few token commanders who is based upon hitting opponents to spawn his buddies. His tokens can exponentially grow as he can just name green and double his count in play off of that once he gets going.
Strengths: He is a big old flying dragon which can be sort of tough to deal with. He can also spawn a ton of creatures for the mana as he never has to pay more than 3 mana to spawn. His colors are the best 3 colors for token spawning / support as well.
Weaknesses: His ability to spawn relies on him connecting to a player so if he gets locked down on the board of if someone mazes him you dont get tokens. He is also sort of big and slow at spawning tokens considering he comes down for 6 mana then he has to connect next turn to spawn his guys.
Playstyle: Sek'Kuar is sort of a sacrifice based token spawning commander. He will use a lot of non token creatures such as Bloodghast and Reassembling Skeleton and run them through a sac outlet to make other buddies. He is cool as he recovers nicely from wrath effects and he can beat everyone to death with insurrection type of effects.
Strengths: Jund is a good set of colors for token support and he is one of very very few commanders who actually come out of a wrath effect nicely.
Weaknesses: Sometimes it feels like he is sort of clunky to try to assemble all of his pieces. He then relies on everything staying together so if someone drops a spot removal on him then wrath's the board he will be no good.
5 COLOR
Playstyle: The queen is another one of those commanders who is often thought of as a combo commander. She can set up an infinite creature spawn using Mana Echos as well as infinite colorless mana generation from it.
Strengths: She can benefit from any sort of token support due to being 5 color and having access to it all. She is also very large being a 7/7 for 5 mana which enables her to chump most of the titans and kill them without dying... except grave of course.
Weaknesses: The mana base to do 5 color is extremely expensive to do it correctly. You also might draw a lot of hate from other players simply due to the fact that you are running 5c which is often combo based or crazy goodstuff lists.
Token Strategy
***NOTICE*** Most of these strategies are implimented to some degree in a token deck. You dont have to devote your deck to a single one of these. Different elements of a different playstyle will show up in different decks to varying degrees.
Swarm
Some token decks dont need to worry about quality of their tokens or messing with opponents resources. If you have 50 tokens coming at you even if they are 1/1s it is still damn near impossible to block them. Swarm tactics often come from commanders who can produce exponential tokens very quickly. This sort of strategy relies very little on the power of the token simply on how many you can afford to throw at someone.
This tactic can also be difficult just do the the fact that it is hard to mass 30-50+ tokens without someone wrathing you so you need to try to mass your army very quickly and be able to recover from a wrath very easily.
Pump
Obviously if you take 10 1/1s and turn them into 6/6s your opponents are going to suddenly have an issue dealing with your tokens. Pump effects are one of the most basic tactics that most token decks will implement in one way or another.
Keep in mind that generally speaking you only need one large pump spell to finish the job off however you need your tokens to stick long enough to use said pump spell. It is usually best to run a bit lighter on the pump spells and heavier on the production effects. It obviously does no good to have 4 pump spells in hand and no creatures in play. In vice versa though you can use 20 tokens to do something even if you don't have the pump to finish the job. Due to this I do like having the finisher effect built into a commander that way you can cut way back on pump effects and run more production. Make sure to have a plan B for if your commander doesn't work out in that situation though.
Wizards have been printing more and more Grave Pact style of cards which lend amazingly to token based decks. This allows tokens to operate a little like a Stax deck and if you want to you could even include some stax style of play if you want.
The idea behind playinig stax is that everyone has to sacrifice permenants. Considering you will be running recursive creatures and tokens you will have an easier time sacrificing permenants as you can sacrifice a token while your opponents sacrifice a land or other resource or a good solid creature that forces them to loose card advantage.
The best way to think about a Stax or Grave Pact effect is that you are using up a token which is simply a matter of time, life, or mana to produce to remove an opponent's cards. Anytime you can sacrifice mana for an opponent's resource it is a good trade.
Alternate Wincons
Sometimes your plan A is just not working and at that point you really do need a backup plan. Token decks can get shut down by a lot of varrying tactics such as someone with a reusable fog stick or Elesh Norn or someone just tucking a commander that is important for your strategy.
At this point you need to ask yourself what is my backup plan? This can be a lot of different things such as running Warp World, Insurrection, Vicious Shadows, Exsanguinate, set up a Kamahl LD combo or Lark infinite combo to blow away lands.
The point is sometimes plan A doesn't work and you need to gauge how often you will need to fall back to another strategy. If the probability of plan A failing rises too high you might even consider if your plan A is even worth perusing. However I for one don't like to put all my eggs into one basket so having backups is just good deck building.
Manabase and Draw
It might seem like an odd question but when playing tokens you really do have to ask yourself if you have enough ramp. Token strategies tend to rely on having tons of mana to make explosive turns and to do it as quickly as possible as well. If you don't have enough ramp you will find that you are taking longer to get to your big plays and your big plays might end up being smaller.
If you have trouble running enough ramp you might also look at the deck's card draw. If you can ramp hard and draw more cards you can make up for a lot of issues so I would say that these two things can heavily dictate how successful your token strategy can be.
I have found that some decks I can actually slack on the defensive answers some if I can ramp into a win fast enough that it doesn't matter then I can force my other opponents to try to answer other wincons and just try to outpace my opponents to victory. It wont always work but it is worth considering if you can do this.
***NOTICE*** I am not going to try to list any and every combo out there as I am covering 5 colors in this page however combos that are heavy in token friendly cards I will try to include here. By no means does a deck require combos however if you are looking for some of them I will list what I can here.
Intruder Alarm + (No Mana Token Spawner IE Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker) = infinite tokens (with this one you can also go to a 1 mana token spawner if you utilize something like Earthcraft in the mix to offset the cost.)
Isn't Smokestack pretty good in token strategies? It might also be worthwhile to mention free colorless sac outlets like Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar.
While we're on the subject of Ashnod's Altar, Grave Titan (who incidentally combos with Ashnod's and Nim Deathmantle for infinite tokens and colorless mana). Army of the Damned is obviously a solid black token producer as well.
Looks like a solid primer so far!
EDIT: Whoops, just saw Ashnod's Altar on your list. My bad. However, it costs 3 mana.
Isn't Smokestack pretty good in token strategies? It might also be worthwhile to mention free colorless sac outlets like Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar.
While we're on the subject of Ashnod's Altar, Grave Titan (who incidentally combos with Ashnod's and Nim Deathmantle for infinite tokens and colorless mana). Army of the Damned is obviously a solid black token producer as well.
Looks like a solid primer so far!
EDIT: Whoops, just saw Ashnod's Altar on your list. My bad. However, it costs 3 mana.
Sorry I talked about stax in the strategy section. I need to fill in a lot of the card options selections yet especially blue and black. Blue is going to be a pain in my ass as it is more about support spells for tokens as their token production is almost nill.
Still that is yet to come I will make sure to hit on Stacks and varients such as Braids etc.
EDIT: I will fix the alter issue.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
For token images on our gatherer, go to extras. It's sorted by set, but only since 10th ed or so? have they been doing tokens.
(if you didn't know about that)
Thanks, I am assuming that we can link images from gatherer then? I will make sure to jump on that as soon as I can.
I have to step out for now though. I have to prepare a deck for standard tonight and I have like nothing together yet so I have to run off to do that. I will try to come back and do some editing by the end of the weekend or early next week.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Edric, Spymaster of Trest is my "token deck" commander. He doesn't make tokens himself, but as soon as I untap with a few, I cast him and swing with my swarm to draw a mitt-ful of cards... which I can use to produce more tokens, so I can attack with more bodies, so I can draw more cards, so I can... you get the idea. And his colours work nicely (lots of green token producers/doublers, and blue provides nice support via Fable of Wolf and Owl, Followed Footsteps, Rite of Replication, various Clones, etc).
A couple of not-so-obvious token producers are Wurmcoil Engine and Mitotic Slime. They're passive token generators, but useful since they "survive" wrath effects (the most common defense against token decks), and with Doubling Season and/or Parallel Lives in play, they can each produce a decent-sized army themselves.
Here's a link to my Edric list. You can find some more token-related cards for U/ there (see also my "change log" as you'll find obscure "OK but not great" cards that I took out... like Leafdrake Roost and Nut Collector.
Ok... I think I got a lot of things updated. I took a first swipe at blue and black tokens but the decks in the database are a bit light on them so there was a little more of me just randomly fumbling through things on my own for cards so by all means if you have other card ideas you want added let me know.
I think I covered most all of the cards mentioned earlier in this now. I need to do a few other things that I can think of offhand as well yet.
I am updating some of the commanders to the list yet but I got Meloku up. I will have the other 2 up in a bit.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Great work ISB!! This Primer s going to be more helpful than any of us can imagine!!
I was going to comment on the Hierophants as well, but I heard you already fixed it.
Kresh has always been a great token general to me. His ability plus lots of little dudes has always seemed great to me!!
End of Line
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The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, ****s, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dikheads — they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.
EDH DECKS:
BGWKarador: Rock out with your **** out RGBorBor Unragey: Lightning bolts for everyone BGUMimeoplasm: +1/+1 counters RWUZedruu- Free off the top forging
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Thanks for all the props on the list so far everyone. I just got back from adding a bunch more stuff mainly multicolor token producers and buffs such as the Leiges as well as some of the actual commander options to the actual list of available cards. There is still plenty of work left to be done on the list.
I think I covered everything you discussed now. I added Rakka to the commander options as well. Originally I sort of just left her off due to her being a bit underwhelming as a commander but someone more creative than I might come up with a really solid list for her so I guess it isnt my place to judge her. I do want to keep this list informative and open to ideas when possible.
Great work ISB!! This Primer s going to be more helpful than any of us can imagine!!
I was going to comment on the Hierophants as well, but I heard you already fixed it.
Kresh has always been a great token general to me. His ability plus lots of little dudes has always seemed great to me!!
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As for Kresh, he just doesnt have much for a natural token strategy built in. There are so many commanders like him which can go in the direction of token but I am trying to keep the ones on the list to those that have a natural tendency to go to tokens. Kresh works with any old creatures and more often than not is just done as a non token agro commander.
I am not trying to dissuade anyone from building a Kresh token list however if I listed Kresh I would feel like I need to list almost every commander as I dont see how Kresh directly has any more token strategy naturally built into him than any goodstuff commander would.
You may wish to note which are more comboish, like Ulasht, who tends to be more combo than control due to what he can do.
I actually have never looked into Ulasht enough to really see him as a combo commander. What sort of combos does he usually run??? Perhaps I should look into the matter further but I will try to note the ones that are more combo oriented.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I actually have never looked into Ulasht enough to really see him as a combo commander. What sort of combos does he usually run??? Perhaps I should look into the matter further but I will try to note the ones that are more combo oriented.
Most lists run Mana Echoes combo, since the general facilitates it effortlessly, which can go near infinite with Doubling Season, Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, and a single creature or sources that generates a decent starting token amount to make general castable. Ulasht also works well with equipment ie death touch.
My list of Ulasht while flawed does mention some of them.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Hey ISB, why dont you also point out some good, resilient token making combos or ideas that may not be apparent to someone jumping into the wonderful world of squirrels, saprolings or Marit Lage's
Hey ISB, why dont you also point out some good, resilient token making combos or ideas that may not be apparent to someone jumping into the wonderful world of squirrels, saprolings or Marit Lage's
I could probably go into token combo... I will need to make up a new section for that though and it will take a little time to sculpt that up. However most anything + Intruder Alarm in tokens is stupid... Intruder Alarm + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + anything...
I will see if I can get that up and running by tomorrow.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Great job so far. This will be a great resource to anyone interested in tokens.
Small correction. Centaur Glade is 4 mana for each 3/3 token. Which isn't horrible. In the OP it says it costs 5 for each token.
There's also bestial menace. It's not incredible but it does create tokens. There's one more but I can't remember the name exactly. 10 pairs of eyes or something like that.
EVERYTHING TOKEN
Introduction
Welcome all of you token fans out there, this page is intended to help players choosing token based strategies and the cards to go in them.
This is not intended to just give you a list of decklists to run that are token based but instead to try to help think outside of the box and run your own token deck how you want it. Feel free to add comments on content you would like to see added to this primer. I was hoping to create a decent database with some great options here for new players and or players just looking to tune up some of their lists here.
Choosing your Token Commander
***NOTICE*** First of all when it comes to building token the possabilities of taking a commander and forcing a token strategy upon them is always an option. However I will go through and list most of the commanders which sort of have a natural nack at being run as a token strategy. By no means do you have to run these commanders as a token strategy nor do you have to run a commander who isnt on this list without tokens.
Playstyle: Crovax is sort of like playing mono white control tokens. He is nice in the fact that he rarely dies in a wrath due to his ability to bounce back to hand so he is always available for his same casting cost. His ability to hinder non white creatures primarily comes in with the fact that he kills a lot of utility creatures as well as the nonwhite token based decks.
Strengths: He has the ability to bounce back to hand and keep his own casting cost low.
Weaknesses: He buffs all white creatures not just yours. He also costs sort of a lot of mana for what he does.
Playstyle: Darien is sort of a suicide style of token deck in the fact that he wants to take some damage. He often will use some lifegain effects to offset the damage he takes but he will also deliberately run things that encourage people to swing at him to spawn tokens as well as fetchlands and pain lands just to spawn tokens. Suicide token is the best way to describe him.
Strengths: He can produce a large amount of tokens in a turn and sort of plays interestingly where people dont really want to hit him but are forced to do so. He also has the whole soldier tribal aspect that he can play with due to being such a strong token spawner himself.
Weaknesses: He costs a lot to cast and has no immediate results from being cast. He also dies somewhat easily considering he is only a 3/3 body.
Playstyle: Elesh Norn is all about immediate results and the fact that she will usually kill a lot of things from the board simply by being cast. Her tokens also get her +2/+2 immediately upon entry so her buff is all covered simply in her mana cost. While she is sort of a late game buff creature your tokens should be built up by the time she comes down where her tokens can run opponents over especially with their weakened creatures against your buffed tokens.
Strengths: She has immediate results and often kills a lot of the opposition's creatures just on her cast. Her buff + opponents weakening makes for a big power shift which she can take advantage of.
Weaknesses: She costs a lot of mana to cast being 7 mana on her first cast in mono white. Also there are some decks where she has a much smaller effect against such as control heavy and combo decks.
Playstyle: Kemba is all about the equipment and sadly there isnt a whole lot that I can include within this primer that specifically helps her out due to the nature of how she works. She is entirely equipment based in her token spawning however she is still a token based commander but also sort of a voltron commander at the same time. The more equipment she can amass the more tokens she spawns per turn.
Strengths: She has a very aggressively low mana cost to get started. She also spawns free tokens every turn based upon how many equipment you have on her. She can win by token overrun and or voltron attacking.
Weaknesses: Due to relying on several pieces of equipment kemba can get blown up by artifact sweepers. You need to be delicate in how much equipment you play on her at one time as it can backfire. This type of deck is also sort of reliant on the commander so tuck effects can really hurt her as the plan B often feels much weaker.
Playstyle: Mikaeus hands out pump to his friends so he is all about how many times he can tap to do such. This sort of deck requires large instant speed token production and several pump / proliferate / untap effects to assign his pumping powers quickly to his pals. Due to his low mana cost + having an x in his cost you have to sort of play with where the ideal place to cast him is but he can quickly distribute a lot of pumping to a token swarm to make them quite lethal. As a side note he might be the best of the token tactics for a mass LD style of package. The fact that it would give him time to really buff his pals as everyone restocks land and is unable to get land working again would be huge.
Strengths: Cheap to cast and draws a lot less hate than some of his other white counterparts. He can stack his buff up to be quite potent if given time.
Weaknesses: The nature of stacking buffs over time has a weakness to wrath effects. To capitalize on him you need to work quickly. Drop him in assuming you will get no more than two to three activations. Beyond that your opponents are just asking to die.
Playstyle: Odric is sort of a cool commander because his power isnt as obvious. He has a much more subtle presence on the field and by himself isnt all that frightening. He does however allow you to just kill things left and right in combat and allow you to push whatever you want through for damage that you would like. He always wins in offensive combat because you just set up how they will be defending themselves. He plays decent with a mixed token theme and regular creatures allowing him to use some good combat effect creatures as you will get to put them to use here.
Strengths: He wins combat every time which is great. Even if your opponent has flash in creatures it doesnt matter because you pick how they block. He works great agains decks that use a high density of utility creatures and decks that use ETB / chump blockers he can just push right through past them. His mana cost is very affordable for his size and ability as well.
Weaknesses: You are stuck with mono white and Odric cannot really do much on his own. You will require to have a decent board presence if for no other reason to free up your attack options. Generally speaking a 3/4 commander in mono white is a bit of an odd creature as it isnt excessively quick but it isnt the size of titans either. You might find that wrath effects can really put you behind with this sort of commander due to his nature to need multiple bodies to swing. Try to work with repeatable token producers as you just need to be able to keep that 3ish attackers handy at most all times.
Playstyle: Oyobi plays as a bit of an Arcane / Spirit based commander. The tokens that are spawned have flying and are actually good sized which is nice.
Strengths: The tokens that are spawned are really good sized and have evasion which is great.
Weaknesses: The downside of Oyobi is that he costs a lot of mana and his tokens are based upon a set type of spells which are very narrow. He cant spawn many tokens per turn as you are restricted by how many cards you cast in a turn. He would definitely be a difficult commander to make powerful but it could be a fun commander from a flavor aspect. He is also mono white which can be really tough as well.
Playstyle: Pianna gives sort of a mass buff for big armies of tokens to hit harder. This sort of deck utilizes a lot of big x token spawners and reusable token spawners to just pump tons of guys on the field then dropping all of the anthem effects it can.
Strengths: Pianna works will with decks that plan on spawning a lot of guys. The low mana cost is nice on this commander as well.
Weaknesses: Pianna doesnt really contribute that big of a buff on its own which is really sort of a problem. You need to add up several of these type of buffs to really have much of an impact. This type of deck can also have issues with card advantage as mono white already has a problem with that and due to the commander being sort of a smaller part of the deck it requires a lot of other buff effects as well as spawning effects to operate.
Playstyle: Jedit is an interesting commander as he is sort of a cross between a voltron commander and a token commander. Generally speaking I think he would work best in a green heavy meta where you can use him to sneak in for free damage and use the tokens for some abuse / chump blocking.
Strengths: He has a good p/t setup as well as evasion making him a decent sort of voltron commander.
Weaknesses: Spawning a single token every turn is generally speaking not enough to really have a good token theme going. He doesnt buff / give any support to the tokens outside of the single token he spawns either. He is mono green which can be an issue as well as costing 6 mana which makes him a bit slow. Unfortunately as well he only has 5 power as well so he is on a 5 turn clock without pumps.
Playstyle: Kamahl has a built in overrun and the ability to animate lands. This means that he is a bit versatile in play. Tokens become an easy way to overrun opponents and if someone tries to wrath you while you have mana up you can animate all their lands which will make them think twice about it. Kamahl is a poster child of ramping big so you can do more things with him.
Strengths: He is versatile with several useful abilities for an agro token themed deck. He is a finisher in himself so the rest of the deck can focus more on ramping and spawning dudes.
Weaknesses: 6 mana is again sort of expensive to cast however at least he is in mono G which makes that a little more bearable. He is also susceptible to spot removal which he doesn't really have any additional protections against.
Playstyle: Kaysa is a bit of a challange for those willing to play a bit more casually and or wanting a challange for playing. She does give a token friendly buff to her buddies however there are just so many other commanders who feel like they have a bigger impact on the board. You can use that to your advantage though as she doesnt feel that threatening so most people probably wont run out to kill her.
Strengths: Green is a great color for tokens and she is a commander who many might take lightly at first glance. You might be able to make allies and or just be ignored due to your commander choice.
Weaknesses: Lets be realistic here, Keysa is not a very impressive buff for tokens. She is sort of an expensive anthem effect. Mono green can be annoying as well when it comes to controlling the game especially against a big fatty creature.
Playstyle: Nemata is cool because he can both spawn and pump his own tokens. He is another big mana mono green style of token strategy. This sort of deck should ramp a lot and attempt to lower activation costs for abilities if possible.
Strengths: Nemata has sort of the whole package pump and spawning all contained on his card which allows for more other utility in the deck as he can be his own finisher as well as spawner. This is extremely rare to find on a commander where they serve both as the spawner and finisher.
Weaknesses: He is mono green which can feel a bit narrow in control aspects as well as costing 6 mana to drop in making him sort of expensive. Due to how all encompassing he really is the best defense against him is just to remove him at every opportunity.
Playstyle: Patron might not really be a classic style of token deck however his ability allows for massive spawning of tokens in a turn rotation as he can untap the lands thus allowing further token production essentially giving 3 times the production you would be capable in a normal turn.
Strengths: Generates huge amounts of mana for token production in a turn rotation. Anything green that taps to do something cool benefits from this commander.
Weaknesses: He is really expensive to cast and has no direct built in token production or pump so while he can be cool for tokens he doesnt have a direct ability that focuses him to be token based.
Playstyle: Sekki is sort of an interesting mono green commander where he is sort of a suicidal commander. Ideally utilizing him as a commander you need ways to inflict him with damage such as using effects like Arena, Prey Upon and other such effects possibly even Lure effects to force opponents to do damage to him. He has the ability to spawn a lot of creatures especially if utilizing some of green's token doublers he could be very nice as you could kill him off through damage and rez him off of the tokens netting some tokens as well as getting your commander back.
Strengths: Potential for big token spawning off of your commander. He can act as a deterrent from attacking into you and he can be a pain to block due to his size as well as the token spawning that will result in it.
Weaknesses: He is very expensive and rather fragile to creature removal. Mono green can also be a problem but at least green is good for token spawning / support.
Playstyle: Verdeloth is sort of interesting as not many token producing commanders can spawn on ETB. He also gives a slight pump to his tokens as well making them slightly stronger.
Strengths: Explosive token spawning from Verdeloth is unique for commanders to have.
Weaknesses: Due to having an X in his mana cost it makes him a late game sort of finisher. Every time he is cast he becomes harder to muster much out of the X mana spawning. He starts at 6 mana as well to drop so he is very very expensive.
Playstyle: I will be honest I have never seen a Meloku list however I would think that mass land manipulation would work into her strategy fairly well by bouncing some of your land then bounce everyone's land. Mono blue doesn't have a lot of token support so you could easily bank off of her token production then use things like Polymorph effects to rotate her tokens into broken creatures. Don't forget how amazing something like Walking Atlas would be in this deck as well as any variants you can come up with in blue / artifacts.
Strengths: Mono blue gives great control and the fact that she can manipulate her token production for very little mana at instant speed is fantastic. In blue we have amazing card draw and counter / bounce control.
Weaknesses: There is little token support in blue. The amount of mass pump and token production are very limited so you will be relying on the commander and a lot of artifacts for the actual token stuff. It can also be hard to find things to allow you to drop more lands into play in a turn to increase her token production.
Playstyle: Talrand is a very unique token commander in the fact that he can play off of blue's power rather than requiring a whole setup of token producers which blue does not have. You can turn the deck into a spellslinger deck and every time you cast a spell get a flying drake. Utilizing a high number of cantrip spells mixed with counterspells and extra turns can make for a very potent deck.
Strengths: Great color for control with a commander ability to stay in the control build. He is well costed and has a very powerful ability as well. Given a few turns in play you can usually maul the table with your army of drakes.
Weaknesses: The deck is extremely central on Talrand hitting and sticking to play. Due to this opponents will learn to tuck and kill him on sight. Without Talrand in play, the deck does very little but spin the wheels. Luckily you do have counterspells to try to fend them off.
Playstyle: Homura is a unique commander in the fact that when you cast him all you want to do is kill him off next so sac outlets are important for him. Once he comes back from dying he is an enchantment that buffs, gives evasion, and fire-breathing to all of your creatures. His buff is quite powerful but make sure to have enough sac outlets to easily transition as if you just cast him with no plan he might get exiled or locked down.
Strengths: A large static buff and evasion to all the tokens is good. The fact that he becomes an enchantment is a unique attribute that very few legends have.
Weaknesses: 6 mana is expensive to drop and mono red still has a little difficulty with tokens in EDH. He also really does need sac outlets to be at his best.
Playstyle: Ib is sort of an all in style of deck where you have to be ok with sacrificing all of your lands in a turn. However he can do some really impressive things especially if you are willing to float mana sac the lands then drop a Boom/Bust to clear opponents lands out. At his best he relies on using mass LD to seal the board behind his tokens
Strengths: He is cheap to get going at 4 mana and can have some very explosive turns due to the nature of his all in aproach.
Weaknesses: Something like a fog or Jund Charm can really destroy this sort of all in approach as it tends to blow all of its resources for one really big attack. If that attack goes poorly it can cost the game. Being in mono red can also be tricky as their token spawning is still a little weak for commander.
Playstyle: Kazuul is interesting due to the fact that he is sort of a pillowfort token deck. Just being in play can turn a lot of opponents away from swinging at him. This sort of deck would be a good token based anti token deck due to the fact that it would easily step in and drop normally larger tokens that could at the least chump block another token deck even if they do pump theirs up.
Strengths: Pillowforting survival style of play lends him to be a survivor.
Weaknesses: While his token spawning is sort of cool it is unpredictable as opponents dictate it for you. It requires other plans of attack if people are not giving you tokens. Being in mono red can also be tricky as their token spawning is still a little weak for commander.
Playstyle: Krenko is in incredibly powerful new mono red token commander. You can build this guy in a number of ways from tribal, mass land destruction, stax, throatpunching with things like Burn at the Stake / Goblin Bombardment / whatever. There are tons of ways to play this guy and he has one of the lowest activation costs for what he can produce avalible in the game. It is like Rhys the Redeemed in mono red with no cost to double.
Strengths: His production speed grows exponentially every turn. If your playgroup plays wrath light they might change their minds quickly. He plays amazingly off of red's strengths such as haste and largescale buffs such as Marton Stromgald, Tears of Rage, and Vicious Shadows. The fact that he is a goblin opens up several extra ways to tutor for him in the case that your opponents try to tuck him.
Weaknesses: You are stuck playing mono red and his tactics are very very predictable. Expect to get wrathed with this kind of setup because it becomes fairly obvious when you are getting close to critical mass.
Playstyle: Marton is another sort of all in style of commander where generally speaking poring all of his resources together for one really big attack. He doesn't require you to sacrifice your lands like Ib however if the one big attack goes array it can often be difficult to set up for another big attack.
Strengths: Very explosive buff to his buddies is unlike any other commander's buff. He is quite capable of killing a table of 4 with only 15 tokens in a single attack. He has a low mana cost as well which lends for a bit easier time casting him and doing other things in the same turn.
Weaknesses: If he is removed before you can attack it really screws with the deck's whole attack plan. Being in mono red can also be tricky as their token spawning is still a little weak for commander.
Playstyle: Norin often plays as sort of a chaotic ETB control style of token build. He will often set up a lot of triggers for when he comes in and or leaves play spawning tokens, trading himself off, and doing damage as he comes back in. He is very evasive and very cheap to cast. He is sort of the pinicle of red chaos decks.
Strengths: Norin is very very cheap to cast and quite difficult to actually kill. Due to the fact that he is your commander as well most people will not bother killing him off at all. He is really hard to predict and often utilizes some interesting
Weaknesses: Being in mono red is always sort of a problem. Playing with a somewhat chaotic mindset isn't for everyone either so some would say the whole chaotic is a strength and some would say it is a weakness. I suppose that is up to the individual player to decide.
Playstyle: Red Patron plays as a mass buff style of commander. These types of commanders are often running a low number of other buff effects and loading up more on the spawning / support effects. A big bonus to this type of commander is that if you can take extra attacks the buff stacks up. You could easily kill a whole table with a handfull of creatures + your commander + Savage Beating
Strengths: Red Patron is sort of cool because goblins are actually a very common creature type for his offering. Generally speaking when looking at red tokens you see a lot of means of spawning some goblins so you can actually get away with casting Patron at EOT off of the offering ability.
Weaknesses: Mono red requires some adjustments for sure. It can be a great setup for a fast all out agro style of deck though but mono red has some difficulty with card draw and ramp. Also having Patron cost 6 mana can be a little high but luckily you have the Goblin Offering to sort of reduce that.
Playstyle: Rakka is sort of one of those creatures who was great in standard who just doesnt scale nearly as well into commander sadly. Her haste + token production makes for fast recoveries between wraths but sadly to build her tokens up to anything significant it takes time which is tough to buy in commander. I havent seen a commander list with her at the helm personally but I could see some mass LD tactics working for her considering how little mana she really needs to operate.
Strengths: She is cheap to cast and has haste. The token she spawns also has haste. Her token production is very cheap to do in a turn as well.
Weaknesses: She is mono red and her abilities seem like they would be difficult to scale into multiplayer commander. Unfortunately she just doesnt spawn enough creatures fast enough and the tokens she can produce arent large enough to take on most things in multiplayer commander.
Playstyle: Urabrask plays a fast game of hard to block creatures. Even when you know that you will be attacked next turn it is hard to block due to the fact that your creatures come in tapped. He really plays with people's heads as calculating his damage output is hard due to his mass haste.
Strengths: Built in mass haste allows for fast attacks. He also taps down opponents creatures as they come in further complicating opponents defenses. He works on the basis of hard to read.
Weaknesses: He has no direct token support. Any sort of creature really does work with him.
Playstyle: Ascendant Evincar is sort of a vanilla buff / counterbuff. To be honest though the nonblack creatures get -1/-1 is a lot more powerful than his counterpart Chrovax's due to the fact that very few black decks are agro based. He is sort of a bland sort of commander but black buff effects are sort of scarce.
Strengths: flying evasion plus he shrinks a lot of other agro based stragegies. He has access to a lot of other effects that stack with his in black as well to really put the screws to opposing agro straegies.
Weaknesses: he is sort of bland for a commander with a bit of a high casting cost.
Playstyle: Endrek is sort of cool as he is one of the few token spawners in black. Keep a lot of sac outlets ready as you need to sort of meat grinder his tokens but I could see him working as a really cool stax / grave pact style of token commander.
Strengths: Really great interactions with stax effects as well as grave pact effects. He is all about sacrificing things. Really sort of a flavorful commander as well.
Weaknesses: 5 mana to cast him is a bit rough. His tokens also have sort of a hard time doing actual damage to opponents.
Playstyle: Kuon is sort of a Grave Pact style of stax token commander. He is another commander who flips into an enchantment on a condition that a token deck can easiest achieve. Token Production and stax effects are where he is all about.
Strengths: Very cheap to cast at 3 mana and a great built in stax sort of effect for creatures.
Weaknesses: It would be difficult to easily flip him in the first few turns of a game. He also doesnt absolutely require you to be in tokens but I think he could easily go there.
Playstyle: Marrow is sort of a rat tribal kind of guy but his numbers really do mass very quickly. He sort of works on an exponential style of building idea. His rats build very quickly however he still relies on you having a few rats to get him started.
Strengths: Exponential token production is sort of unique. He also gives evasion to his buddies.
Weaknesses: 5 mana to cast isnt cheap and he requires a certain element of tribal to work at all. He is vulnerable to wraths due to his slow token massing.
2 COLOR
Playstyle: Agrus gives a nice buff that is solid for large number of attackers. Boros colors gives decent colors for token spawning as well. Unfortunately it feels sort of like Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer replaced him as a very similar larger buff in the same colors.
Strengths: A solid buff for decent mana cost of 5 to get going. Boros is weak colors but as far as token spawning and support it is fairly decent.
Weaknesses: Boros sucks at card draw and control. He has also been sort of replaced by Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer who gives a bigger buff for the same mana in the same colors.
Playstyle: Boris is of a bit of an unusual color combination for a token spawning commander. On the upside you have great access to black's token support and red's buffs / spwaning. Boris doesnt really feel like he has a set gameplan though as he isnt contributing strongly to any one area. He spawns small 1/1 creatures once a turn so a bit underwhelming as a commander who costs 5 to drop and 4 mana to recieve a single token.
Strengths: He is in red/black which is an unusual color combination for a token commander. He is a bit versatile as to what strategy you choose due to being sort of not commited to any one particular playstyle.
Weaknesses: He is horribly overcosted for what he does and his ability costs a lot to activate. He is underwhelming in most every way unfortunately. I don't want to discourage anyone from making him however I feel I need to mention that he will be extremely difficult to build well.
Playstyle: Edric is a mass card draw based commander and can be run a few different ways. Generally speaking when he is seen in the competitive multiplayer area currently it is as a very fast 1 drop creature agro. He can also be slown down and used as a token based agro as he can just drop into play as you swing with your group of 10+ tokens to draw a ton of cards then allow opponents to smash off of each other in an attempt to draw cards as well. It is important to understand the sort of hate you will tend to draw while running Edric as his card draw ability is very powerful and a lot of opponents will want to stop you from drawing all those cards so expect some hate.
Strengths: Very powerful card draw components and the colors are great for dropping lots of dudes and drawing cards. Edric is a very low CC for his first time coming into play as well.
Weaknesses: The colors sort of have some issues with some opposing creature based strategies and controlling the board. You can run counterspells in here however you cant counter everything in multiplayer. Edric also tends to get this sort of hatred mentality where he can be really hard to stick him to the board for even part of a turn as a lot of removal gets pointed at him.
Playstyle: Grimgrin has a big focus on his sacrifice abilities making him for an interesting choice of a gravepact style of commander. He has control elements in his attacking as well as in the ability to just sacrifice your own tokens to pump him up and trigger sacrifice triggers.
Strengths: U/ are a strong set of colors for some good utility and control. The support effects available in U/ for tokens is really solid as there are a lot of ways you can sacrifice and manipulate the tokens to make advantage of them.
Weaknesses: U/B has sort of a harder time than most configurations to spawn tokens. It has some great support for tokens though if you can manage to get over this. It can also be sort of a pain sometimes using Grimgrin as just to untap you have to sacrifice so if things are not going your way he can be hard to utilize.
Playstyle: Jor is an interesting commander due to how many ways he can be built. Most ways in which he is built though relies on a bunch of mana stones to get him active. He can work as a token based pump deck that gives a very potent pump effect to his token army. He can also work on a mass LD basis and as a voltron commander if you want.
Strengths: His pump is very powerful considering his cost and power. He is versatile in build as well allowing you to take a few different aproaches.
Weaknesses: Boros colors sort of suck for card draw and control. He requires metalcraft to be active as well so he requires some work to get active.
Playstyle: Lyzolda is another commander who operates well with Gravepact type of effects. Her own ability to sacrifice creatures gives card draw and removal options which is very strong. The inclusion of red in her colors gives for some decent token production and black has amazing token support cards.
Strengths: She is very cheap to cast, she gives great utility in her sacrifice ability to draw cards and or remove threats. She is in a decently good set of colors to spawn and support the tokens.
Weaknesses: B/ does still have a bit of a harder time to produce tokens than G/. Her frail body does make her prone to being killed by like everything out there.
Playstyle: Nath is sort of a cool guy in the fact that he is one of the very few hand manipulation based commanders out there. The only other hand manipulation commander I can think off offhand is Mr. Bolas. Nath has been dubbed the name of Death Cloud 9 by some as that is sort of a signature wincon of Nath by literally just stripping away every resource everyone has and spawning 20+ tokens off of doing so and just mauling people to death with them.
Strengths: Anything that works as mass discard will spawn a ton of creatures for you as well as remove a lot of chances that opponents will wrath your tokens. When Nath spits out a ton of tokens it is usually game over due to how hard it is to kill the tokens with no hand.
Weaknesses: Due to how powerful his discard is Nath gets targeted a lot especially in response to forcing everyone to discard their hands. If he gets to spawn his tokens he has usually won already.
Playstyle: Oona tends to be considered more of a combo deck as most players run her to combo out however if you wanted to run her as a control based token spawner she would also work.
Strengths: She can spawn a lot of tokens at instant speed keeping control options up. Using combo pieces she can also go infinite to exile her opponent's libraries.
Weaknesses: She is sort of expensive to cast and a known combo commander. If you try using her as a more casual token based deck without combo she might draw a lot more attention from people who dont know what you are running. This should wear off though over time if you play in a normal meta however if you play online assume you will receive hate based upon her being a strong combo commander.
Playstyle: Rhys is one of few exponential token production commanders. There really arent many commanders that scale exponentially so he can have very large amounts of creatures very very quickly. Generally speaking he doesnt even need much for pump as his numbers become outrageous very quickly.
Strengths: His mana cost is amazing being 1 mana for a creature that is powerful at most all stages of the game. He is easy to recast several times due to this low mana cost and he can easily out produce other token decks allowing you to block their tokens as you spawn another wave at the same time. GW is a great set of colors for a token spawning commander though.
Weaknesses: Rhys dies to a stiff breeze which is good that he is so cheap to cast. He really does need a few turns to build up generally speaking so if you see wraths every 1-2 turns he can have issues building up.
Playstyle: Savra fits into a stax / grave pact style of play. She operates off of sacrificing things thus making tokens a good source of fuel for her abilities. She has a built in Gravepact like ability depending upon what color the creature going through is making color of the token important and harder to utilize the artifact and colorless tokens for her purposes but still making her a strong commander.
Strengths: G/ is a great color combo. You have the best of the tutors and ramp and green can provide a lot of the tokens for the deck. She is well costed as well. She is really good at keeping other creature based decks in check.
Weaknesses: Unfortunately the deck really does need black creatures to trigger her gravepact abilities so it is hard to just use green token production to get there with her however they still do work with a lot of the actual gravepact effects that the deck can run. She unfortunately does not have a way to sacrifice creatures herself so a lot of slots will be taken up by things to sacrifice creatures to as well. Opposing token decks are sort of a pain for her to deal with as just using Grave Pact effects don't hurt them much.
Playstyle: Teysa is sort of a control based token deck where she can move her tokens around to do things such as exile creatures in play. She also turns her black creatures into white tokens when they die so you can get some added value out of sacrificing black tokens.
Strengths: She has a lot more control than most other token decks have by default. She can also do some cool things with sacrificing black creatures especially recursive creatures like Bloodghast and Reassembling Skeleton. Her mana cost is aggressive as well.
Weaknesses: Teysa draws a lot of hate from anyone who likes having creatures. She can often be pushed into being the moderator with everyone expecting you to be the one to clean things up. Due to this I have seen Teysa draw a lot of hate as well trying to push her mana cost up too high to be utilized.
Playstyle: Thelon is sort of a slow rolling style of token spawning deck as he relies on a lot of the thallids to spawn tokens which take several turns to build up their counters. Thelon helps speed them up a little bit but this style of play is often a bit slow for how frequent and often you can see wrath effects in multiplayer. The thallids do have some kind of cool abilities to them outside of just spawning tokens every now and then though making this sort of a cool casual token deck.
Strengths: G/B is a strong set of colors and Thelon is very aggressively costed at 2 mana. He can really help out the Thallid strategy a lot to speed up their slow crawl making them slightly more viable.
Weaknesses: This sort of token spawning is slow and requires a lot of creature resources to stay in play for a long time. It is very fragile to wrath effects which are more abundant in multiplayer commander.
Playstyle: Tolsimir is an interesting choice for a token commander. I would honestly say I think of him as a more casual token commander but he is still in good colors. He gives a pump effect to his buddies and can spawn a single legendary wolf token to use for whatever.
Strengths: He is underrated and would likely draw very little hate in respects to a stronger token commander. He is in good colors for tokens as well.
Weaknesses: He is expensive to cast and a bit underwhelming as a commander.
Playstyle: Ulasht provides a combo / control token strategy. He also works twice as good with things such as Doubling Season due to the fact that he comes in with twice the counters and when he makes snakes he produces twice the tokens. If you want to go into the combos a lot of them start with Mana Echoes to dump stupid mana into your pool and just go off from there.
Strengths: He is a bit of an underrated commander and little seen. Due to this he might receive less hate. GR are good colors for tokens as well allowing for some fun buffs and ramp.
Weaknesses: He sort of relies on already having a bunch of creatures in play before he comes in to give options for more. He has a bit of a low mana cost though so he can often come into play and do things in the same turn though which is nice.
Playstyle: Vish Kal can play a few different ways but more often than not I think he would be used as sort of a stax style of Gravepact commander. His ability to sacrifice creatures at will can activate the pact abilities as well as being in good colors for stax effects.
Strengths: Vish Kal is in good colors for stax as well as working his own abilities well into the strategy. He can assemble some infinite combos with Karmic Guide + Reveillark which are nice as well as having access to tutors to go get said tutors.
Weaknesses: Vish Kal has a rather high mana cost for a non green commander. His manacost will be a big deterrent to how competitive he will be. You can overcome it somewhat with mana stones however they can also be fragile.
Playstyle: Generally speaking Wort is more of a combo style of commander but due to her conspire and interaction with creatures you could use some spell based token spawning and double them up. Wort is your standard really big spell and make it double style of commander.
Strengths: Everything tends to get really big when you do it twice. GR is a good set of colors for tokens as well.
Weaknesses: 6 mana to cast her is sort of expensive and most people will try to hate on her to slow down her lame big splashy effects.
3 COLOR
Playstyle: Ghave has sort of moved more and more into being a combo based token deck. He has a lot of interactions with other cards that turn into infinite actions. He is a good commander in great colors who is very versatile. The fact that he has a sac outlet built in is really very useful in a lot of situations.
Strengths: A great set of colors and a reasonable casting cost vs power ratio. His strong abilities work very well with a wide variety of cards.
Weaknesses: If you dont like going infinite he is actually sort of hard to utilize as a lot of his normal interactive cards just go infinite with him. He is also very required for most of the cards to work as a lot of his combo pieces are sort of bad cards without him so tuck effects are very bad for him.
Playstyle: He ramps big then drops in to spawn a big token wave. The best part is that you get your token wave next turn so you have all your mana up to pump / give them haste / beat people to death with them. He tends to kill people the turn his tokens come down quite often.
Strengths: He has probably the best 3 colors for token support / spawning. He can drop in and die befor his tokens ever come in and it doesnt matter. The fact that his tokens come in a turn later means you have all of your mana to buff them up which is quite unusual for a token deck.
Weaknesses: He costs a ton of mana to drop in and if he dies while his tokens are in play his tokens all die. It is important to kill him off somehow before his tokens come around.
Playstyle: Riku is all about ETB creature token spawning. Creatures who come in to create more creatures just get out of control. This style of deck can do stupid things with token doubling enchantments as well. This type of deck is all about numbers. Finisher spells are often things like Warp World and Overwhelming Stampede.
Strengths: good colors for tokens and riku makes the spawners crazy good. There are a lot of options and you can get yourself out of a jam with some creature tutors as well.
Weaknesses: at 5 mana riku can feel a little slow. He tends to draw a ton of hate as well for being a bit ridiculous as well. You will constantly play the game of how many times can I cast my commander with him as most players know that letting you keep him out is bad news.
Playstyle: Rith is sort of interesting because he is one of very few token commanders who is based upon hitting opponents to spawn his buddies. His tokens can exponentially grow as he can just name green and double his count in play off of that once he gets going.
Strengths: He is a big old flying dragon which can be sort of tough to deal with. He can also spawn a ton of creatures for the mana as he never has to pay more than 3 mana to spawn. His colors are the best 3 colors for token spawning / support as well.
Weaknesses: His ability to spawn relies on him connecting to a player so if he gets locked down on the board of if someone mazes him you dont get tokens. He is also sort of big and slow at spawning tokens considering he comes down for 6 mana then he has to connect next turn to spawn his guys.
Playstyle: Sek'Kuar is sort of a sacrifice based token spawning commander. He will use a lot of non token creatures such as Bloodghast and Reassembling Skeleton and run them through a sac outlet to make other buddies. He is cool as he recovers nicely from wrath effects and he can beat everyone to death with insurrection type of effects.
Strengths: Jund is a good set of colors for token support and he is one of very very few commanders who actually come out of a wrath effect nicely.
Weaknesses: Sometimes it feels like he is sort of clunky to try to assemble all of his pieces. He then relies on everything staying together so if someone drops a spot removal on him then wrath's the board he will be no good.
5 COLOR
Playstyle: The queen is another one of those commanders who is often thought of as a combo commander. She can set up an infinite creature spawn using Mana Echos as well as infinite colorless mana generation from it.
Strengths: She can benefit from any sort of token support due to being 5 color and having access to it all. She is also very large being a 7/7 for 5 mana which enables her to chump most of the titans and kill them without dying... except grave of course.
Weaknesses: The mana base to do 5 color is extremely expensive to do it correctly. You also might draw a lot of hate from other players simply due to the fact that you are running 5c which is often combo based or crazy goodstuff lists.
Token Strategy
***NOTICE*** Most of these strategies are implimented to some degree in a token deck. You dont have to devote your deck to a single one of these. Different elements of a different playstyle will show up in different decks to varying degrees.
Swarm
Some token decks dont need to worry about quality of their tokens or messing with opponents resources. If you have 50 tokens coming at you even if they are 1/1s it is still damn near impossible to block them. Swarm tactics often come from commanders who can produce exponential tokens very quickly. This sort of strategy relies very little on the power of the token simply on how many you can afford to throw at someone.
This tactic can also be difficult just do the the fact that it is hard to mass 30-50+ tokens without someone wrathing you so you need to try to mass your army very quickly and be able to recover from a wrath very easily.
Pump
Obviously if you take 10 1/1s and turn them into 6/6s your opponents are going to suddenly have an issue dealing with your tokens. Pump effects are one of the most basic tactics that most token decks will implement in one way or another.
Keep in mind that generally speaking you only need one large pump spell to finish the job off however you need your tokens to stick long enough to use said pump spell. It is usually best to run a bit lighter on the pump spells and heavier on the production effects. It obviously does no good to have 4 pump spells in hand and no creatures in play. In vice versa though you can use 20 tokens to do something even if you don't have the pump to finish the job. Due to this I do like having the finisher effect built into a commander that way you can cut way back on pump effects and run more production. Make sure to have a plan B for if your commander doesn't work out in that situation though.
Grave Pact / Smokestacks
Wizards have been printing more and more Grave Pact style of cards which lend amazingly to token based decks. This allows tokens to operate a little like a Stax deck and if you want to you could even include some stax style of play if you want.
The idea behind playinig stax is that everyone has to sacrifice permenants. Considering you will be running recursive creatures and tokens you will have an easier time sacrificing permenants as you can sacrifice a token while your opponents sacrifice a land or other resource or a good solid creature that forces them to loose card advantage.
The best way to think about a Stax or Grave Pact effect is that you are using up a token which is simply a matter of time, life, or mana to produce to remove an opponent's cards. Anytime you can sacrifice mana for an opponent's resource it is a good trade.
Alternate Wincons
Sometimes your plan A is just not working and at that point you really do need a backup plan. Token decks can get shut down by a lot of varrying tactics such as someone with a reusable fog stick or Elesh Norn or someone just tucking a commander that is important for your strategy.
At this point you need to ask yourself what is my backup plan? This can be a lot of different things such as running Warp World, Insurrection, Vicious Shadows, Exsanguinate, set up a Kamahl LD combo or Lark infinite combo to blow away lands.
The point is sometimes plan A doesn't work and you need to gauge how often you will need to fall back to another strategy. If the probability of plan A failing rises too high you might even consider if your plan A is even worth perusing. However I for one don't like to put all my eggs into one basket so having backups is just good deck building.
Manabase and Draw
It might seem like an odd question but when playing tokens you really do have to ask yourself if you have enough ramp. Token strategies tend to rely on having tons of mana to make explosive turns and to do it as quickly as possible as well. If you don't have enough ramp you will find that you are taking longer to get to your big plays and your big plays might end up being smaller.
If you have trouble running enough ramp you might also look at the deck's card draw. If you can ramp hard and draw more cards you can make up for a lot of issues so I would say that these two things can heavily dictate how successful your token strategy can be.
I have found that some decks I can actually slack on the defensive answers some if I can ramp into a win fast enough that it doesn't matter then I can force my other opponents to try to answer other wincons and just try to outpace my opponents to victory. It wont always work but it is worth considering if you can do this.
Volrath the FallenB Empress GalinaU Oona, Queen of the FaeBUAgrus Kos, Wojek VeteranRW
White
1 CC
2 CC
Gather the Townsfolk
Hoofprints of the Stag
Luminarch Ascension
Precinct Captain
Martial Coup
Militia's Pride
Mycologist
Patrol Signaler
Pegasus Stampede
Raise the Alarm
3 CC
Ajani, Caller of the Pride
Attended Knight
Benalish Commander
Blade Splicer
Decree of Justice
Entreat the Angels
Icatian Crier
Lingering Souls
Mobilization
Promise of Bunrei
Sacred Mesa
Spectral Procession
Thraben Doomsayer
Timely Reinforcements
Twilight Drover
White Sun's Zenith
4 CC
Captain's Call
Cenn's Enlistment
Elgaud Inquisitor
Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Emeria Angel
Field of Souls
Hero of Bladehold
Master Splicer
Pallid Mycoderm
Pegasus Refuge
Springjack Shepherd
5 CC
Cloudgoat Ranger
Commander's Authority
Conqueror's Pledge
Elspeth Tirel
Geist-Honored Monk
Increasing Devotion
Knight-Captain of Eos
March of Souls
Sensor Splicer
Sigil of the Empty Throne
6 CC
Captain of the Watch
Darien, King of Kjeldor
Icatian Town
Kirtar's Wrath
Nomads' Assembly
Requiem Angel
Voice of the Provinces
7 CC +
Luminous Angel
Storm Herd
Green
1 CC
Gelatinous Genesis
Thallid
Utopia Mycon
2 CC
Broodhatch Nantuko
Druid's Call
Elvish Farmer
Eyes of the Wisent
Jade Mage
Kazandu Tuskcaller
Night Soil
Nest Invader
Saproling Cluster
Thallid Shell-Dweller
Vitaspore Thallid
3 CC
Awakening Zone
Bearscape
Greener Pastures
Growth Spasm
Imperious Perfect
Orochi Eggwatcher
Psychotrope Thallid
Spawnwrithe
Squirrel Nest
Thallid Devourer
Thallid Germinator
Waiting in the Weeds
Words of Wilding
4 CC
Beacon of Creation
Elvish Promenade
Fertile Imagination
Fresh Meat
Fungal Sprouting
Garruk Wildspeaker
Kamahl's Summons
Kozilek's Predator
Liege of the Hollows
Lys Alana Huntmaster
Master of the Wild Hunt
Saber Ants
Saproling Symbiosis
Snake Pit
Spontaneous Generation
Sporesower Thallid
Squirrel Wrangler
Symbiotic Elf
Vital Splicer
Wolfbriar Elemental
Wren's Run Packmaster
5 CC
Ant Queen
Bestial Menace
Centaur Glade
Deranged Hermit
Flourishing Defenses
Garruk, Primal Hunter
Grizzly Fate
Infested Roothold
Kessig Cagebreakers
Midsummer Revel
Mitotic Slime
Mycoloth
Parallel Evolution
Reach of Branches
Saproling Burst
Savage Conception
Savage Thallid
Scatter the Seeds
Sporoloth Ancient
Sprout Swarm
Sprouting Phytohydra
Thelonite Hermit
Verdant Embrace
6 CC
Cobra Trap
Feed the Pack
Nemata, Grove Guardian
Nut Collector
One Dozen Eyes
Phyrexian Swarmlord
Rampaging Baloths
Symbiotic Beast
Verdeloth the Ancient
7 CC +
Avenger of Zendikar
Crush of Wurms
Endless Swarm
Hornet Queen
Howl of the Night Pack
Hunting Pack
Living Hive
Maul Splicer
Sekki, Seasons' Guide
Symbiotic Wurm
Verdant Force
Worldspine Wurm
Blue
1 CC
2 CC
3 CC
Cackling Counterpart
Homarid Spawning Bed
Spiny Starfish
4 CC
Chronozoa
Geist Snatch
Havengul Runebinder
Notorious Throng
Rite of Replication
Talrand's Invocation
Talrand, Sky Summoner
Undead Alchemist
Wing Splicer
5 CC
Followed Footsteps
6 CC
Back from the Brink
Sharding Sphinx
7 CC +
Red
1 CC
Dragonmaster Outcast
2 CC
Firecat Blitz
Krenko's Command
Mogg War Marshal
3 CC
Goblin Assault
Goblin Offensive
Goblin Warrens
Thatcher Revolt
Tuktuk the Explorer
4 CC
Elemental Mastery
Empty the Warrens
Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician
Krenko, Mob Boss
Rakka Mar
5 CC
Emrakul's Hatcher
Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Mogg Infestation
Siege-Gang Commander
6 CC
Goblin Marshal
Rally the Horde
Rapacious One
7 CC +
Chancellor of the Forge
Death by Dragons
Utvara Hellkite
Black
1 CC
Vile Rebirth
2 CC
Bitterblossom
Deathspore Thallid
Pack Rat
Zombie Infestation
3 CC
Cemetery Reaper
Pawn of Ulamog
Rotlung Reanimator
4 CC
Bloodline Keeper
Breeding Pit
Marsh Flitter
Moan of the Unhallowed
Sengir Autocrat
5 CC
Corpsehatch
Demonic Rising
Dread Drone
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Marrow-Gnawer
Syphon Flesh
6 CC
Essence Feed
Grave Titan
Maalfeld Twins
Skeletal Vampire
7 CC +
Army of the Damned
Plague of Vermin
Artifact
0 CC
Orochi Hatchery
1 CC
2 CC
Genesis Chamber
Shrine of Loyal Legions
Spawning Pit
3 CC
Druidic Satchel
Mimic Vat
4 CC
Acorn Catapult
Moonsilver Spear
Prototype Portal
Snake Basket
Soul Foundry
Throne of Empires
Trading Post
5 CC
Monkey Cage
Myr Matrix
Myr Turbine
Precursor Golem
6 CC
Myr Incubator
Thopter Assembly
Wurmcoil Engine
7 CC +
Myr Battlesphere
Multicolored
1 CC
Rhys the Redeemed
2 CC
Artifact Mutation
Aura Mutation
Necrogenesis
Rise of the Hobgoblins
Thopter Foundry
3 CC
Goblin Trenches
Flurry of Wings
Golgari Germination
Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Wayfaring Temple
4 CC
Dune-Brood Nephilim
Garruk Relentless
Growing Ranks
Huntmaster of the Fells
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
Ulasht, the Hate Seed
5 CC
AEther Mutation
Ghave, Guru of Spores
Leafdrake Roost
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Riku of Two Reflections
Ske'Kuar, Deathkeeper
Sliver Queen
Vraska the Unseen
Worm Harvest
6 CC
Armada Wurm
Dragon Broodmother
Fable of Wolf and Owl
Morbid Bloom
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Pollenbright Wings
Rith, the Awakener
7 CC +
Death Mutation
Hazezon Tamar
Land
Dark Depths
Grove of the Guardian
Khalni Garden
Kher Keep
Kjeldoran Outpost
Moorland Haunt
Springjack Pasture
Urza's Factory
Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
Token Buffs
White
1 CC
Mikaeus, the Lunarch
2 CC
Break of Day
Crusade
Honor of the Pure
Intangible Virtue
3 CC
Divine Sacrament
Glorious Anthem
Jihad
Mirror Entity
4 CC
Angel of Jubilation
Ajani Goldmane
Celestial Crusader
Goldnight Commander
Kabira Vindicator
Leyline of the Meek
Marshal's Anthem
Odric, Master Tactician
Sublime Archangel
5 CC
Cathars' Crusade
6 CC
Crovax, Ascendant Hero
True Conviction
7 CC +
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Green
1 CC
2 CC
3 CC
Beastmaster Ascension
Champion of Lambholt
Gaea's Anthem
Tribal Unity
Wild Beastmaster
4 CC
Muraganda Petroglyphs
Triumph of the Hordes
5 CC
Baru, Fist of Krosa
Overrun
Overwhelming Stampede
Predatory Rampage
6 CC
Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
Vigor
7 CC +
Craterhoof Behemoth
Blue
1 CC
2 CC
Favorable Winds
3 CC
4 CC
5 CC
6 CC
7 CC +
Day of the Dragons
Red
1 CC
Banners Raised
2 CC
Goblin Bushwhacker
Haze of Rage
3 CC
Aggravated Assault
Goblin War Drums
Mercadia's Downfall
Pyreheart Wolf
Shared Animosity
Trumpet Blast
4 CC
Marton Stromgald
Relentless Assault
Tears of Rage
5 CC
Cleaver Riot
Gratuitous Violence
In the Web of War
Riot Ringleader
Savage Beating
World at War
6 CC
Hellion Eruption
Hellkite Charger
Homura, Human Ascendant
Moonveil Dragon
Rage Reflection
7 CC +
Fury of the Horde
Black
1 CC
2 CC
Bad Moon
3 CC
4 CC
Corrosive Mentor
Death Pit Offering
Filth
Smogsteed Rider
5 CC
Ascendant Evincar
Intimidation
Zhang He, Wei General
6 CC
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Necropolis Regent
7 CC +
Artifact
1 CC
Signal Pest
2 CC
Konda's Banner
Leonin Sun Standard
3 CC
4 CC
Gauntlet of Might
Sword of the Paruns
5 CC
Coat of Arms
Eldrazi Monument
Gauntlet of Power
6 CC
Caged Sun
7 CC +
Akroma's Memorial
Multicolored
1 CC
2 CC
3 CC
Rally the Peasants
Rally the Righteous
4 CC
Ashenmoor Liege
Boartusk Liege
Creakwood Liege
Fervent Charge
Glen Elendra Liege
Glory of Warfare
Thistledown Liege
Wilt-Leaf Liege
5 CC
Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran
Anthem of Rakdos
Balefire Liege
Deathbringer Liege
Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer
Mirari's Wake
Murkfiend Liege
6 CC
Mindwrack Liege
Tolsimir Wolfblood
7 CC +
Titanic Ultimatum
Land
Contested War Zone
Gavony Township
Novijen, Heart of Progress
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Vault of the Archangel
Token Support
White
1 CC
Soul's Attendant
Soul Warden
Divine Deflection
2 CC
Auriok Champion
Fight to the Death
Mentor of the Meek
Suture Preist
3 CC
Fanatical Devotion
Martyr's Cause
Retribution of the Meek
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
4 CC
Humility
5 CC
March of Souls
World Queller
6 CC
Austere Command
Goldnight Redeemer
Martyr's Bond
7 CC +
Hour of Reckoning
Touch of the Eternal
Green
1 CC
Concordant Crossroads
2 CC
Earthcraft
Fungal Bloom
Quest for Renewal
Spore Flower
3 CC
Druids' Repository
Fecundity
Overwhelming Instinct
4 CC
Citanul Hierophants
Epic Struggle
Garruk Wildspeaker
Nature's Will
Nullmage Shepherd
Parallel Lives
5 CC
Doubling Season
Perilous Forays
Seedborn Muse
Skullmulcher
6 CC
7 CC +
Regal Force
Blue
1 CC
2 CC
3 CC
4 CC
Coastal Piracy
Opposition
Polymorph
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
5 CC
Beguiler of Wills
6 CC
Cultural Exchange
Mass Polymorph
7 CC +
Red
1 CC
2 CC
Battle Hymn
Goblin Bombardment
3 CC
Fervor
Raid Bombardment
4 CC
Anger
Flame Fusillade
Hellrider
Kyren Negotiations
Vigilante Justice
5 CC
Brawl
Burn at the Stake
Confusion in the Ranks
Furystoke Giant
Magmaw
Urabrask the Hidden
6 CC
Grip of Chaos
Warstorm Surge
7 CC +
Insurrection
Vicious Shadows
Warp World
Black
1 CC
Innocent Blood
Viscera Seer
2 CC
Blood Artist
Bloodthrone Vampire
Diabolic Intent
Gate to Phyrexia
3 CC
Attrition
Contamination
Fleshbag Marauder
Kuon, Ogre Ascendant
Mind Slash
Nantuko Husk
Stronghold Assassin
Victimize
4 CC
Barter in Blood
Braids, Cabal Minion
Corpse Traders
Death Match
Dimir House Guard
Grave Pact
Hecatomb
Hell's Caretaker
Minions' Murmurs
The Abyss
5 CC
Anowon, the Ruin Sage
Black market
Call to the Grave
Curse of Death's Hold
Death Pits of Rath
Descent into Madness
Larceny
Phyrexian Plaguelord
Sadistic Hypnotist
6 CC
Reaper from the Abyss
7 CC +
Sheoldred, Whispering One
Butcher of Malakir
Artifact
1 CC
Meekstone
Skullclamp
2 CC
Dolmen Gate
Nim Deathmantle
3 CC
Ashnod's Altar
Ensnaring Bridge
Gallows at Willow Hill
Jar of Eyeballs
Phyrexian Altar
Sword of Feast and Famine
Tangle Wire
4 CC
Helm of Possession
Slate of Ancestry
Smokestack
5 CC
Mirrorworks
6 CC
7 CC +
Multicolored
1 CC
2 CC
3 CC
Aura Shards
Dauntless Escort
4 CC
Glare of Subdual
Savra, Queen of the Golgari
5 CC
6 CC
7 CC +
Land
Gaea's Cradle
Grim Backwoods
Windbrisk Heights
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volrath the FallenB Empress GalinaU Oona, Queen of the FaeBUAgrus Kos, Wojek VeteranRW
***NOTICE*** I am not going to try to list any and every combo out there as I am covering 5 colors in this page however combos that are heavy in token friendly cards I will try to include here. By no means does a deck require combos however if you are looking for some of them I will list what I can here.
Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest = infinite tokens
(Aggravated Assault / Hellkite Charger) + (Bear Umbra / Nature's Will / Sword of Feast and Famine) = Infinite attacks
Intruder Alarm + (No Mana Token Spawner IE Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker) = infinite tokens (with this one you can also go to a 1 mana token spawner if you utilize something like Earthcraft in the mix to offset the cost.)
Volrath the FallenB Empress GalinaU Oona, Queen of the FaeBUAgrus Kos, Wojek VeteranRW
While we're on the subject of Ashnod's Altar, Grave Titan (who incidentally combos with Ashnod's and Nim Deathmantle for infinite tokens and colorless mana). Army of the Damned is obviously a solid black token producer as well.
Looks like a solid primer so far!
EDIT: Whoops, just saw Ashnod's Altar on your list. My bad. However, it costs 3 mana.
Sorry I talked about stax in the strategy section. I need to fill in a lot of the card options selections yet especially blue and black. Blue is going to be a pain in my ass as it is more about support spells for tokens as their token production is almost nill.
Still that is yet to come I will make sure to hit on Stacks and varients such as Braids etc.
EDIT: I will fix the alter issue.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
(if you didn't know about that)
--- Meren of Clan Nel Toth --- Jhoira of the Ghitu --- Prime Speaker Zegana ---
--- Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief --- Ghoulcaller Gisa --- Akroma, Angel of Fury --- Titania, Protector of Argoth ---
Thanks, I am assuming that we can link images from gatherer then? I will make sure to jump on that as soon as I can.
I have to step out for now though. I have to prepare a deck for standard tonight and I have like nothing together yet so I have to run off to do that. I will try to come back and do some editing by the end of the weekend or early next week.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
On a similar note, Riku of Two Reflections is another good token commander, as he lets you double your token producers (AEther Mutation, lots of creatures) and some of your token doublers (Parallel Evolution, etc).
For token buffs in U/, there's Novijen, Heart of Progress (similar to Oran-Rief, the Vastwood but without the colour restriction).
I see you have Earthcraft but not the token producer Squirrel Nest (with which Earthcraft = infinite combo).
A couple of not-so-obvious token producers are Wurmcoil Engine and Mitotic Slime. They're passive token generators, but useful since they "survive" wrath effects (the most common defense against token decks), and with Doubling Season and/or Parallel Lives in play, they can each produce a decent-sized army themselves.
Here's a link to my Edric list. You can find some more token-related cards for U/ there (see also my "change log" as you'll find obscure "OK but not great" cards that I took out... like Leafdrake Roost and Nut Collector.
G Pumped Elvish Warriors G
GW Infectious Slivers WG
WU Milling Allies UW
Legacy:
UB Hex-Depths BU (combo-control)
G NO/Aggro Elves G
Commander:
WUBRG Sliver Army GRBUW (multiplayer)
WUG Rafiq the Exalted GUW (1-on-1 voltron)
GU Edric's Circus UG (multiplayer tokens)
B Relentless Rats B (multiplayer combo)
UB Sygg, the Punisher (in progress)BU
UBR Nicol Bolas, Elder Dragon Highlander RBU (in progress)
And a few others I can remember right now.
Thank You Rivenor/Miraculous Recovery Studios!
GGGSKamahl's Band of Monstosities SGGG
RRRSFreaki-Kiki, The Goblin DoucheSRRR
BBGGNath, Raper of Hands and Spewer of Tokens!GGBB
BUGDamia, Sage of AnswersBUG
WIPs
BBBXiahou Dun, the Bitter Stax Enabling BastardBBB
On Break
BBBSKagemaro, First to RetireSBBB
BBBThe Walking DeadBBB
UUUSTeferi Combo PrimerSUUU
Jihad is an old school anthem effect, Meloku the Clouded Mirror for blue, Citanul Hierophants is a bad Earthcraft...I'll try to contribute more throughout next week.
Spawning Pitoops you have this alreadyAnyway, looks like you need some help in the blue category.
Meloku the Clouded Mirror is a legitimate general. Sunder, anyone? (GAHHHHH CURSE YOU DONALD)
Opposition is the ultimate in board control.
Spawners:
Chronozoa is funny.
Fable of Wolf and Owl is not so great but many players seem to love the card.
Followed Footsteps is a fun combo piece.
Homarid Spawning Bed is legit.
Notorious Throng is dopey with rogues and faeries. I'm sure you know how good it is in Edric (though someone brought him up already).
Rite of Replication makes tokens, technically
Thopter Foundry is pretty good in some decks, though admittedly it's combo...
Cultural Exchange, Peer Pressure, and Day of the Dragons all benefit a player with lots of creatures.
Omg I am totally making a Meloku token deck...
Someday...
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
Thada Adel Stax WIP
I think I covered most all of the cards mentioned earlier in this now. I need to do a few other things that I can think of offhand as well yet.
I am updating some of the commanders to the list yet but I got Meloku up. I will have the other 2 up in a bit.
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[Modern] Allies
Great post and definately needs to be placed in the "Commander Resources and Useful Threads (Updated 04/25/11)" Sticky Thread.
| B Erebos, God of VampiresB | GYeva SmashG | RBosh ArtifactsR | GURAnimar +1 BeatsGUR | RBVial's Secret Hot SauceRB | UBRNekusar, Draw if you DareUBR | RGBDarigaaz'z DragonsRGB | GBSlimeFEETGB | UBOn-Hit LazavUB | URBrudiclad's Artificer InventionsUR | GUBMuldrotha's ElementalsGUB | WUGKestia's EnchantmentsWUG | GUTatyova - Draw, Land, Go!GU | WGArahbo's EquipmentWG | BUWVarina's ZOMBIE HORDESBUW | WLyra's Angelic SalvationW | WBChurch of TeysaWB | UAzami...WizardsU
Two token generators--one a possible commander--I didn't see in your list:
Rakka Mar
Verdant Force
I realize they aren't the best at what they do, but they do make tokens.
Titanic Ultimatum is a buff you missed. It's restricted by casting cost and color intensity, but it will likely finish the game for you.
I run Rith, the Awakener as my token general, and I have several times gotten wins off Flame Fusillade or Furystoke Giant. Turning all my tokens into pingers--even temporarily--is just nasty.
Cheers,
rant
My Cube
CubeCobra: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5f5d0310ed602310515d4c32
Cube Tutor: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1963
Sry bout that fixed it. For some reason I saw Donald's response and somehow connected them with being a legend.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
I was going to comment on the Hierophants as well, but I heard you already fixed it.
Kresh has always been a great token general to me. His ability plus lots of little dudes has always seemed great to me!!
End of Line
EDH DECKS:
BGWKarador: Rock out with your **** out
RGBorBor Unragey: Lightning bolts for everyone
BGUMimeoplasm: +1/+1 counters
RWUZedruu- Free off the top forging
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicyMain Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
I think I covered everything you discussed now. I added Rakka to the commander options as well. Originally I sort of just left her off due to her being a bit underwhelming as a commander but someone more creative than I might come up with a really solid list for her so I guess it isnt my place to judge her. I do want to keep this list informative and open to ideas when possible.
As for Kresh, he just doesnt have much for a natural token strategy built in. There are so many commanders like him which can go in the direction of token but I am trying to keep the ones on the list to those that have a natural tendency to go to tokens. Kresh works with any old creatures and more often than not is just done as a non token agro commander.
I am not trying to dissuade anyone from building a Kresh token list however if I listed Kresh I would feel like I need to list almost every commander as I dont see how Kresh directly has any more token strategy naturally built into him than any goodstuff commander would.
Good call I will make sure to move it in a sec.
I actually have never looked into Ulasht enough to really see him as a combo commander. What sort of combos does he usually run??? Perhaps I should look into the matter further but I will try to note the ones that are more combo oriented.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Most lists run Mana Echoes combo, since the general facilitates it effortlessly, which can go near infinite with Doubling Season, Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, and a single creature or sources that generates a decent starting token amount to make general castable. Ulasht also works well with equipment ie death touch.
My list of Ulasht while flawed does mention some of them.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Elvish Aberration+ Jade Mage+ Intruder Alarm.
Hey ISB, why dont you also point out some good, resilient token making combos or ideas that may not be apparent to someone jumping into the wonderful world of squirrels, saprolings or Marit Lage's
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicyI could probably go into token combo... I will need to make up a new section for that though and it will take a little time to sculpt that up. However most anything + Intruder Alarm in tokens is stupid... Intruder Alarm + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + anything...
I will see if I can get that up and running by tomorrow.
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[Modern] Allies
Small correction. Centaur Glade is 4 mana for each 3/3 token. Which isn't horrible. In the OP it says it costs 5 for each token.
There's also bestial menace. It's not incredible but it does create tokens. There's one more but I can't remember the name exactly. 10 pairs of eyes or something like that.
Thank You Rivenor/Miraculous Recovery Studios!
GGGSKamahl's Band of Monstosities SGGG
RRRSFreaki-Kiki, The Goblin DoucheSRRR
BBGGNath, Raper of Hands and Spewer of Tokens!GGBB
BUGDamia, Sage of AnswersBUG
WIPs
BBBXiahou Dun, the Bitter Stax Enabling BastardBBB
On Break
BBBSKagemaro, First to RetireSBBB
BBBThe Walking DeadBBB
UUUSTeferi Combo PrimerSUUU