We're four decks into my exploration of Simic () in Commander and I'm officially in love. If you'd asked me two months ago which was my least favorite color combination, I would've likely said Simic because I always equated it with +1/+1 counters and overwhelming card advantage. Every time I sat down across from someone playing a Vorel, the Hull Clade deck, I just wanted to flip the table and leave the building.

I've learned Simic is so much more than +1/+1 counters! Heck, even a look at the top Commanders in the color pair prove my experience is Limited: people have been doing a lot more with this guild than was immediately apparent.

With that in mind, I want to do one more non-counter-based Simic deck. It seemed to me it could be fun to make a truly irresponsible number of tokens... but without Doubling Season, because that card is a jerk.

Well, okay, maybe we can have a little Doubling Season, as a treat. It's stapled on to our Commander, so it's fair! Let's take a look at the deck's plan of action.

We start our usual way, laying out the mana base. Our 40 lands primarily help fix our colors, but we have a few that have other utility. Cards like Castle Vantress and Blighted Cataract can help if we mana flood, and Rogue's Passage will almost always have a use in our deck. Since we're copying tokens, we also have some lands which make creature tokens; Springjack Pasture may seem silly, but sometimes that little 0/1 is the difference between taking a boatload of damage and not.

In order to keep up or even get ahead on mana, we're running a suite of land-fetchers. Many of the card choices are fairly routine - Cultivate, Migration's Path - but one worth pointing out is Quandrix Cultivator, a nifty little 4-drop with a strange mana cost, a 3/4 body, and a land for our trouble. Our two exceptions are Awakening Zone, a massively underplayed card which will spit out two Eldrazi Spawn tokens every turn, and the brand-spanking-new Bootleggers' Stash, which turns each of our lands into a secret hordes of Treasure tokens.

We're only going to win the game if we attack, so we may as well tie our card draw to that. Bident of Thassa and Reconnaissance Mission both do excellent work here, encouraging us to attack often and force our opponents to make decisions rather than rest on their laurels. Curiosity Crafter is great for us, since most of our creatures will be tokens, and there's a good chance we'll wind up with a token of Curiosity Crafter, which is super fun. Mind's Eye is almost always better than Tamiyo's Journal, but in this case it's not, because the Journal will make two Clues per Upkeep. That means if we want to use the Demonic Tutor part of the Journal, we're a lot closer than usual. Elemental Bond will trigger and draw us a card for almost all of our creatures and most of the tokens we make. Commander's Insight is a great use of leftover mana, Eureka Moment gives us a boost and lets us drop an extra land, and Skullclamp is a shoo-in for any deck making this many tokens. Even if we don't have any 1/1s around, stick the 'clamp on something and send it in. Let someone else decide if you get the cards or not. Shamanic Revelation is always good in a deck like this one, and Golden Ratio is a pretty good deal; more often than not it'll draw us four or even five cards for our three mana. Don't count out Zimone, Quandrix Prodigy either, since she's useful from the moment she can tap.

The real fun comes in the way we'll win. We're going to leverage tokens so we always get more than we should. Take a look, for example, at Reef Worm. We're going to spend four mana for a 0/1. Let's say someone decides to attack us. We block and make a pair of 3/3s. Those two 3/3s turn into four 6/6s, and ultimately become eight 9/9s. See what I mean?

Rampaging Baloths spit out a pair of 4/4s with each land we play. Scute Swarm will become very difficult to track. Deep Forest Hermit makes eight Squirrels. Arasta of the Endless Web spits out two 1/2s every time one of our opponents casts an Instant or Sorcery. Koma, Cosmos Serpent makes two 3/3s every turn, each of which can be used to make Koma Indestructible. Even Tireless Tracker and Tireless Provisioner will make double their normal amount of Treasures, Clues, or Food.

But there's more! Zendikar's Roil, Fable of Wolf and Owl, and Sandwurm Convergence all spit out tokens just for playing the game, and in each case more than they should, making them earn their costs. I love the idea of playing out a Fable of Wolf and Owl, making a bunch of tokens, then having someone so excited because they manage to Disenchant it... just to play Sandwurm Convergence on the next turn.

We've got some Artifacts which matter here, too. Combine Chrysalis lets us turn one of those eight Squirrels into two much bigger Beasts, and giving them all flying doesn't hurt. Dollhouse of Horrors gives us a chance to reuse some of our fallen Creatures, and we get to duplicate them because they come back as tokens. Mimic Vat will make two tokens as well (though note they both will have to be sacrificed at the end of the turn, because it's still Mimic Vat making the tokens). Helm of the Host is the closest we get to an absolute must-include for this deck, since it'll spit out multiple copies of whatever we want. What's incredible is, we can copy our Commander with the Helm, which means the next time we make a token we'll make four instead of two, because we'll have three copies of our Commander, each making a copy. It can get really out of hand. Don't be surprised if your friends bring all their power to bear to kill the Equipment once they see how silly it can get.

Spell Swindle lets us counter a spell and make some Treasures for our trouble, and Sublime Epiphany can counter something, create a token of something, or even draw us a card in a pinch. Druid's Deliverance lets us take a hit and add a couple of creatures to our 'field, and Guardian Augmenter will make someone who paid the Ward for Path to Exile to hit our Commander very sad.

In many ways, our Wrath of God is Ezuri's Predation. It won't kill everything, but it'll wipe a lot of the board and leave us with a whole herd of Beasts, because it will make two Beasts for each creature our opponents control. Oversimplify is another great option, since it exiles everything, but will leave us with a token, and Perplexing Test will often leave us in a very strong position, since we'll get to keep most of our creatures down and they won't.

Rite of Replication and Second Harvest also make the cut, since they can make ridiculous amounts of tokens when Adrix and Nev are on the Battlefield. Garruk, Primal Hunter, as well, plus he draws us cards and sometimes makes a really ridiculous amount of Wurm tokens.

Not a Token Simic Deck | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Adrix and Nev, Twincasters

• Creatures (21)
• 1 Arasta of the Endless Web
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Curiosity Crafter
• 1 Deep Forest Hermit
• 1 Esix, Fractal Bloom
• 1 Gala Greeters
• 1 Giant Adephage
• 1 Guardian Augmenter
• 1 Hornet Queen
• 1 Koma, Cosmos Serpent
• 1 Progenitor Mimic
• 1 Quandrix Cultivator
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Reef Worm
• 1 Reservoir Kraken
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Tendershoot Dryad
• 1 Tireless Provisioner
• 1 Tireless Tracker
• 1 Toski, Bearer of Secrets
• 1 Zimone, Quandrix Prodigy

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Garruk, Primal Hunter

• Instants (7)
• 1 Commander's Insight
• 1 Druid's Deliverance
• 1 Eureka Moment
• 1 Perplexing Test
• 1 Second Harvest
• 1 Spell Swindle
• 1 Sublime Epiphany

• Sorceries (15)
• 1 Croaking Counterpart
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Ezuri's Predation
• 1 Golden Ratio
• 1 Growth Spasm
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Migration Path
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Oversimplify
• 1 Overwhelming Stampede
• 1 Pest Infestation
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Three Visits

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Awakening Zone
• 1 Elemental Bond
• 1 Fable of Wolf and Owl
• 1 Reconnaissance Mission
• 1 Sandwurm Convergence
• 1 Zendikar's Roil

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Bident of Thassa
• 1 Bootleggers' Stash
• 1 Combine Chrysalis
• 1 Dollhouse of Horrors
• 1 Helm of the Host
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Tamiyo's Journal

• Lands (41)
• 6 Island
• 8 Forest
• 1 Alchemist's Refuge
• 1 Blighted Cataract
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Botanical Sanctum
• 1 Cascading Cataracts
• 1 Castle Vantress
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Encroaching Wastes
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Flooded Grove
• 1 Foundry of the Consuls
• 1 Gargoyle Castle
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Khalni Garden
• 1 Memorial to Genius
• 1 Memorial to Unity
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Novijen, Heart of Progress
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Springjack Pasture
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Thornwood Falls
• 1 Warped Landscape
• 1 Witness Protection

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This deck should be a blast to play, both with and against. There's nothing like the threat of a bunch of giant monsters, represented by all sorts of random things since no one ever remembers to bring their tokens with them, constantly hanging over the table.

What's your favorite way to do tokens? And what would you do here? Please let us know in the comments.

Now get out there and double up on some stuff.

Thanks for reading.