MTG Salvation

Playstyle: Brimaz is an interesting commander. Anytime you attack or block with him, you're generating a 1/1 Cat soldier that can attack another target or block the same creature as Brimaz. Because of this, you'll always want to attack with him and find ways to make him strong.

Strengths: With Vigilance, Brimaz can attack one turn and block the next, guaranteeing at least two Cat Soldiers. An added bonus is that because those tokens come with vigilance, they don't tap to attack so they are able to block the next turn.

Weaknesses: Brimaz is only able to generate one token per turn, so he needs time to get an army up and going. One good boardwipe and he's gone.



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: Heliod is one of the new god subtype cards introduced in Theros and can be an interesting commander if you have the mana. Assuming you can get him out on turn 4 he could sit on your field and sit a few turns as an Enchantment while you pump out as many white clerics as you have mana for.

Strengths: Heliod has Indestructible going for him, so the only way to get rid of him is to either exile him, decrease him down to 0 toughness, or transform him into something that you can get rid of. He grants all of your other creatures vigilance, so when you create Cleric tokens, you're getting a 2/1 out of him.

Weaknesses: While he is indestructible, he is by no means invincible. Any ability that would send him to your hand is enough to end his reign.



Playstyle: Jazal doesn’t produce tokens, but he does benefit from them being on the field and attacking when he does. He is suited best in a deck that relies on beefing up creatures in order to overwhelm the foe.

Strengths: With a 4/4 base power and first strike, Jazal can pretty much swing through anything of similar power and toughness and survive on his own. His ability will count towards the overall number of creatures attacking and will apply to him if he attacks as well. Token decks can get out of hand quickly.

Weaknesses: He relies on having other attackers in order to benefit from his ability, so cards destroy all attackers will obliterate him from the field. He also dies from non-combat board wipes and can also be tucked, disrupting the primary plan of the deck relying on him.



Playstyle: Kemba is all about the equipment and sadly there isn't 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: Nahiri is a turn 5 commander that starts at 3 loyalty. She comes with a +2 ability that allows her to summon a Kor Soldier and equip it if you wish to. Her -2 ability allows you to bring forth an equipment card, which can be used in the next turn to equip to a Kor soldier Token. However, her big ability produces a colorless Equipment indestructible artifact token called Stoneforged Blade that doesn’t cost anything to equip, grants the equipped creature double strike and a +5/+5 bonus.

Strengths: Nahiri creates a token that can be immediately equipped. You can bring out a high cost equip card from your hand or bring an equip card back from the graveyard with her. You can even summon a non-legendary equipment with her.

Weaknesses: As a Planeswalker, Nahiri can be targeted with damaging spells, or attacked by creatures, though the fact that she produces her own protection lessens the chance that she will take a hit. Like all planeswalkers, she’s likely to be targeted before she can get you Stoneforged Blade.



Playstyle: Odric is sort of a cool commander because his power isn't as obvious. He has a much more subtle presence on the field and by himself isn't 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 doesn't matter because you pick how they block. He works great against 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 isn't excessively quick but it isn't 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 doesn't 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: 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: True to his role as a necromancer, Geralf uses whatever he can find scavenging the graveyards in order to produce a zombie. Essentially, this ability not only mills everyone, but also ensures that the controller of Geralf can keep his opponents from using their good cards, should they go into the graveyard.

Strengths: Geralf’s ability is able to mill everyone, exile 2 creatures and create a zombie in one big ability.

Weaknesses: Although Geralf’s ability is good, it is only good once per turn unless one has cards that can untap him to use his ability again. The power and toughness of the zombie token relies on there being at least one creature that gets exiled and because there is a chance that there will be either no creature cards sent to the graveyard, or a creature that may have 0 power and comes out with +1/+1 counters, the resulting zombie will be 0/0 and automatically disappear from the battlefield.



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 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: 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 aggro 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 aggro 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: Gisa is a turn 5 commander that for the price of 1 black mana, tapping her and sacrificing another creature, you can get a horde of zombies to call upon. Generally the larger the creature is, the better.

Strengths: Unlike her brother, Gisa’s effect only depends on the power of the creature you sacrifice. While you get 1 creature out that may or not be very powerful, and has the potential to be a bust if for some reason your opponent’s have no creatures in the cards that get exiled. With Gisa though, you’re guaranteed to get at least 1 2/2 zombie.

Weaknesses: Given that you have to tap her to use the ability, you need to have some way to untap her in order to use the ability again. There’s also the potential for your opponent to respond to the ability by countering it. Since the number of zombies is dependent on power, your opponents can also reduce the creature’s power to 0, meaning when the ability resolves, you’d end up with no zombies.


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 doesn't 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 isn't cheap and he requires a certain element of tribal to work at all. He is vulnerable to wraths due to his slow token massing.


Playstyle: Ob Nixilis is able to come out as early as turn 5 assuming you have the mana to cast him form the Commander Zone. His +2 ability allows you to siphon life from your opponents and add it to your own. His -2 ability is an interesting one. You get a 5/5 black Demon creature token with flying, but at the cost of 2 life. His final ability at -8 gives you an emblem that for the cost of 2 mana and a creature, you gain life and cards equal to the creature’s power that you sacrifice. Because of the fact that he’s a warlord, he’s not above taking a bit of your own life to summon a demon if it means he also gets protected.

Strengths: A planeswalker that is able to protect themselves is always a good thing. Unless your opponent is playing removal of some kind or is able to subdue the token, a strong flyer will be very difficult to deal with. They need to have something that can block it when its time to attack or have something stronger than it to remove it when it blocks. The card draw & life gain is nice when you can afford to get rid of a creature.

Weaknesses: As a Planeswalker,Ob Nixilis can be targeted with damaging spells, or attacked by creatures, though the fact that he produces her own protection lessens the chance that he will take a hit. Like all planeswalkers, he’s likely to be targeted before you can get to his ultimate. Also, as he is a planeswalker, there’s no way you’re going to be able to deal commander damage with him.

Playstyle: As an artificer, he plays well with a deck's theme of artifacts. His ability allows you to create a token of any creature card in your graveyard for a turn, so any ability that you wish use again can be returned to the field for one time use per turn (more if you can find a way to untap him). Works well for enter the battlefield effects.

Strengths: When played right, Feldon can change the game quickly by allowing you to get anything back for a turn. Cards that deal damage when they enter the battlefield or summon tokens when they enter the battlefield will work well with him. Plus, you also get the benefit of a free creature to attack with for a turn. Since it can be activated during opponent’s turn, it makes for a great blocker.

Weaknesses: The fact that he can only create the token for one turn means that at the end of the turn, the token has to be sacrificed. Since the token created is also an artifact, it can be removed with anything that can destroy artifacts. You’re also looking at a once per turn use out of him unless you can untap him.


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 available 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 get rid of 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 pinnacle 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 aggro 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: While Purphoros isn't a token generator commander, he still works well with token generation. Anytime you bring out any creature (token or nontoken), you're dealing 2 life to every opponent. Find a way to generate enough red tokens and he can win you the game just from his damage dealing effect alone.

Strengths: Like every god, Purphoros is not easy to get rid of thanks to being Indestructible. He also has the ability to pump every creature you (including Purphoros if he is a creature) have as many times as you have available mana for, so all of those tokens you generate, if they have haste on them, you're likely to win after a few swings.

Weaknesses: As with every god, Purphoros is susceptible to being sent back to your hand.


Playstyle: Rakka is sort of one of those creatures who was great in standard who just doesn't 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 haven't 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 doesn't spawn enough creatures fast enough and the tokens she can produce aren't 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: For 1 green mana, Ezuri offers the chance to regenerate any other Elf that is on the field, essentially allowing you to protect the Elves that matter the most to you. His other ability though ensures that when you attack, unless your opponent(s) double up on blockers, you’re guaranteed to hit their life through trample damage.

Strengths: At 3 mana, he will be able to come out around turn 3. As I said above, being able to keep other Elves alive is a big plus, and the Overrun ability to Elves means that he’ll be able to take full advantage of that when attacking.

Weaknesses: Ezuri’s abilities means that your opponents are likely to target him since he has no means to protect himself.


Playstyle: As a Planeswalker commander, Freyalise isn’t going to see combat like most commanders. Instead, she’ll be helping you when you need her help the most. Her +2 ability will allow her to summon an Elf Druid that will gladly donate a bit of mana to you whenever you need extra. If you need to destroy an enchantment or artifact that is causing you trouble, her -2 ability will enable you to do that. Finally with her -6 ability, she’ll bestow on you a wealth of cards for every green creature you have out.

Strengths: A planeswalker that produces tokens that add to the deck’s overall mana production is a big plus when you want to go for the big spells, or even use them as a chump block if you have to protect her. Being able to draw cards is always a plus since you might draw what you need to finish the game.

Weaknesses: Like all the Planeswalker commanders I’ve talked about already, Freyalise cannot deal commander damage. She’s also a target by opponents so you will need to keep her from being attacked if you want to use her big ability (though since she comes out with 3 loyalty, you just need to wait 2 turns to use it).



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 doesn't 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 aggro 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 challenge for those willing to play a bit more casually and or wanting a challenge 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 doesn't 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 doesn't have a direct ability that focuses him to be token based.


Playstyle: Nylea focuses in on allowing your creatures to deal direct damage to your opponents even if they block thanks to trample. Her Pump ability gives those a trampling creature extra bite.

Strengths: Being a god, she is immune to effects that would normally target enchantments or creatures. While she doesn't benefit from her ability that grants trample, she can be targeted by her own ability, turning her into an 8/8 or more. If you have a way to grant her trample, you're looking at some of that commander damage pouring through blocking creatures.

Weaknesses: As with all gods, she can be sent back to your hand, ending any trampling shenanigans you might have been pulling off. Indestructible doesn't stop effects that can cause her toughness to go to 0 either.


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: Titania is all about making sure the lands you lose are not lost in vain. When she comes out, she allows you to return one land of your choice from your graveyard back to the battlefield. While she can offer no protection towards your lands, should they go to the graveyard, she can summon an Elemental creature token in order to help you get revenge for the loss of land.

Strengths: Being able to reclaim destroyed lands or lands that got milled into your graveyard is nice, and with her being a 5/3, she won’t be easy to get by in combat. The creature token she creates if a land gets destroyed means that your opponents will be staring down a total of 10 power (or more) during your next turn unless they deal with her.

Weaknesses: The only way you will get a token out of her IS by getting land destroyed. Since she’s essentially the essence of nature, she only creates Elementals when something happens to nature.


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.

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 doesn't 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 receive 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 committed 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 aggro. 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 approaches.

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 plays differently in her second version from her first card. She is still control focused but more on the side of making sure that you will get the advantage for any creature you can't block.

Strengths: With her as a commander, your opponents are forced to think twice about attacking you with her out on the field. With Teysa having vigilance and protection from creatures, you're able to freely strike at your opponents while ensuring that they cannot block her and you have her to block the following turn. Her ability is able to get through creatures with Hexproof and Protection abilities. If the ability somehow doesn't end up destroying the attacking creature due to something like indestructible, you still end up with a token.

Weaknesses: At 5WB, Teysa comes out around 4 turns slower than Teysa, Orzhov Scion. Because her ability requires you to take damage, you have to have a way to recoup the lost life, which means playing her in a commander deck that ups your life total.


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 mana cost 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: While Anafenza doesn't make tokens, her first ability allows you to add a +1/+1 counter to any creature out on your field when she attacks, giving a token creature an added boost. You can combine this card with other cards like Abzan Battle Priest to grant creatures that have +1/+1 counters abilites like lifelink and flying. Add in Cathars' Crusade and any card that you can continually make tokens, and every card you own will benefit from these abilities, including Anafenza.

Strengths: Anafenza only costs 3 mana, so she can come out as soon as your third turn and at a 4/4, she's formidable as a commander. Her second ability makes it so that any creatures that are destroyed by your creatures or via spells you cast, excluding commanders, end up in the exile zone instead of the graveyard, potentially losing their best creatures in the process.

Weaknesses: Anafenza takes some time to set up, especially since she can only strengthen other creatures and not herself.


Playstyle: Gahiji is the kind of commander that pumps every creature, not just tokens. He can even pump himself up, becoming a 6/4 brute.

Strengths: For 2RGW, he's a nice commander that rewards you for swinging with your creatures.

Weaknesses: The only thing Gahiji has got going for him is that he can pump himself and other creatures up. Not a whole lot more he can do without additions.


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 don't 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 return to hand 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 before his tokens ever come in and it doesn't 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: Marath came into Commander as one of five commanders that cares about how many times it has been cast. The first time Marath comes out, Marath is a 3/3. From here, you can decide what you want to do with Marath since it has 3 abilities that you can use that for the price of any generic mana greater than zero, you can either do damage to anyone of your choosing, make a creature permanently stronger or create Elemental creature tokens. Cards like Primal Vigor, Doubling Season, and Cathars' Crusade are good cards to include in a deck with Marath.

Strenths: Marath's ability to grow stronger with each cast means you'll be able to do more with it. As long as you can keep adding +1/+1 counters to Marath, you can pump out a token (or more if you can double token production).

Weaknesses: There is so much removal out there that can force Marath off the field. Any card that removes counters off of another permanent can cause Marath to be taken off the field because its toughness has reached 0.


Playstyle: Prossh came into Commander as one of five commanders that care about how many times it has been cast. The first time it comes out, you get 6 0/1 Kobolds of Kher Keep. Should he find his way back to the Command Zone, your next cast of him, while expensive, will net your 8 tokens. From there, there's no telling what you'll do with those tokens.

Strengths: Prossh gets flying, so unless your opponent has creatures with flying or reach, you're going to be swinging in the air for 5 commander damage with him as your commander. The ability to bring in token fodder is nice too whenever you cast him from the Command Zone.

Weaknesses: Unlike most token generators, Prossh brings in creatures with 0 power, so unless you have a way to make those tokens stronger, the most you'll do with them is offer them as snacks to Prossh on your next turn to make him more powerful.


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.


Playstyle: Sidisi is a commander that produces a zombie token everytime a creature you control hits the graveyard directly form your library, producing a 2/2 Zombie token per trigger. To accomplish this, her ability triggers either when she comes out on the field or when she attacks. From there, you can activate delve effects or scavenge abilities.

Strengths: Sidisi is able to be cast as early as your fourth turn, so if a creature hits the graveyard from your library, you're looking at a total power of 5. As mentioned above, Sidisi is able to be more flexible besides being just a token generator, but you can apply somethinig like Sccavenge to power up those zombies you create.

Weaknesses: Sidisi's major flaw is that while she can create tokens, you lose out on creatures that might otherwise be helpful. Since you also end up tossing noncreatures in the graveyard, you may end up not creating a token that turn, so she's not always reliable.


Playstyle: Surrak is a pretty brutal commander out of the ones that are more token friendly in Khans. His colors mean that you can play some big creatures and as long as he's out, they can't be countered, meaning blue decks are shut down from countering your creatures from hitting the field. He also grants Trample to every creature, making him a true beast of a commander, especially with tokens.

Strengths: He is able to come out as early as your fifth turn and he prevents himself from being countered. He's a 6/6, so while he may not have haste, he's able to easily be one of the biggest creatures you have on the field in early game. It's worth playng Animar, Soul of Elements with him.

Weaknesses: Since he only grants other creatures Trample, if you want him to hit through your opponents defense and deal trample commander damage. Even though he can't be countered, he can still die to removal.

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.