The Summer by Caspar David Friedrich (1807). Battle Screech by Anastasia Ovchinnikova.

In the past years it seems like Wizards of the Coast has been obsessed with copying things. Once upon a time we had Doubling Season and Primal Vigor and a few other ways to copy tokens and counters, but lately it feels like every year has a new influx of cards that copy triggers, activations, spells on the stack and even creature spells. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for innovation, but it does make me wonder when this game will expand to the point where everything you could ever want to do or be able to do has been encapsulated in some card somewhere.

Today's subject is a Simic Human Artificer from The Brothers War who will let me make artifact tokens of any Beast or Bird I cast. I'll be copying these creature spells as I cast them, so I'll be making artifact creature tokens. When I wrote about Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief a while back, I commented that we're all going to need to invest in dry-erase card tokens. This is another card that is going to require you to jump through a few hoops to accurately represent your boardstate.

Tawnos only lets me copy Beasts and Birds so these cards probably won't be too expensive. I could see picking up two of each possible copy target and using metallic paint or a silver Sharpie marker to give my artifact tokens a metallic border. I expect most players will just use a six-sided die with the 2 side facing up on the creature to show that they have two of them. It does get messy when you start removing tokens and removing the actual creature and you have to remember which ones are the actual card and which ones are artifact creature tokens but that's the world WotC has us living in now. It's not a huge deal but it is a minor headache if you don't have the supplies to accurately represent your board.

The Maskwood Nexus Question

My first thought with these types of tribe-focused builds is whether or not it would be fun to build around Maskwood Nexus. This card and a few others like it can give all of your creatures all creature types.

Both Maskwood Nexus and Arcane Adaptation can work with Tawnos to make any creature I cast trigger Tawnos so I get an extra copy. The former will give my creatures every creature type and the latter will have me choose a creature type and my creatures will get that type in addition to its other types. The third card shown above, Xenograft, will only affect creatures on the battlefield, so it does not work with Tawnos. The enchantment Conspiracy would work, but is in Black so it doesn't fit with Tawnos' color identity.

If I were in Black, I would probably give serious thought to building this as a Maskwood Nexus deck. I'd have access to the kinds of tutors that could let me reliably get one of these cards onto the battlefield. From there I could really dig deep to find cards that would give me a ton of value by letting me make token copies of them.

Since Tawnos is only in Green and Blue, playing a Maskwood Nexus game plan is a huge gamble. If the vast majority of my creatures are NOT Beasts or Birds, I'll get nothing extra out of my commander if I don't draw into those creature type enablers.

I won't deny that it's very tempting to play Maskwood Nexus in a list like this, but I'm not going to do it today. Tawnos still has a genuinely interesting and cool party trick. Let's make sure we can use it.

The Birds and the Beasts

Both Birds and Beasts are fun, viable tribes for low and mid power EDH and with the right cards I'm sure you could push a Bird tribal or Beast tribal deck up towards high-powered play. When I decided to have this deck dip a toe into each of those pools of creature cards, I did it with the full realization that I was making it a little harder on myself.

Most tribal support cards ask you to choose a tribe and then you'll see some benefit or cost reduction for as long as that permanent is on the battlefield. By playing both of Tawnos' two favorite tribes, I'm setting myself up to be unable to make the most out of cards like Vanquisher's Banner, Kindred Discovery, Door of Destinies, and many others.

That doesn't mean this can't be a fun deck with lots of good creatures you can run in the 99. There are a ton of great Birds and Beasts Tawnos can make into toys for us to play with!

Ledger Shredder is a new and very popular card out that lets me connive whenever a player casts their second spell each turn. Connive isn't card draw but it is card selection and with an extra artifact creature token Ledger Shredder on the field, that's twice the card selection. Curiosity Crafter not only gives me no maximum hand size, it also lets me draw a card whenever a creature token I control deals combat damage to a player. This deck should be able to produce enough creature tokens to have that work out pretty well.

I'm running Thieving Magpie, which lets me draw a card when it deals combat damage, and Owlbear, which lets me draw a card when it enters the battlefield. The most interesting bird for card draw might be Impaler Shrike, which can be sacrificed when it deals combat damage to a player to let me draw 3 cards. With two of them in play, I might be losing two 3/1 flyers but I'll be refilling my hand quite nicely.

I've got lots of other birds in this list, many of which have useful abilities tacked onto them. Some of them tap creatures down, some bounce creatures to their owners' hands, and Aven Fogbringer actually bounces a land to its owner's hand. Bouncing two lands isn't backbreaking but it can set someone back a few turns if they're way ahead and I can even bounce one of my own lands if I missed my land drop that turn.

Having flying blockers is essential, but this deck also has a decent ground game. There are lots of beasts in this list that round out my creature count.

While most of my birds fly, there are a few that do not. I'm looking at you, Owlbear. To make up for the flightless fowl I included in this build I've got a few beasts that can take to the sky. Trygon Predator and Hydroid Krasis both have wings. The former will let me destroy target artifact or enchantment a player controls if it deals damage to them. The latter scales nicely with a long game, letting me pay X when I cast it to have it enter the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters. I'll also gain half X life and draw half X cards (rounded down each time) when I cast the original, but I won't get lifegain or card draw for the artifact creature token Tawnos makes for me.

There are a lot of old standbys for the Beast tribe in this list. Rampaging Baloths will give me a 4/4 green Beast creature token whenever a land enters the battlefield under my control. Manglehorn will let me destroy target artifact when it shows up and will force my opponents' artifacts to enter the battlefield tapped. Elder Gargaroth will give me card draw whenever another creature with power 3 or greater enters the battlefield under my control.

Craterhoof Behemoth needs no introduction, but in this list I'm actually not pairing it with Tooth and Nail and Avenger of Zendikar. If you like powerful, game winning plays you probably should, but Avenger is neither a Bird nor a Beast. It's fair to point out that I'm running Beast Whisperer, which is also not a Beast. My hope is that a token artifact creature token of Craterhoof followed up by an actual Craterhoof in a list that is already very creature heavy should be enough to get the job done. You should be getting a double-Craterhoof and with any luck you'll be able to close out the game that turn.

Bird Beast Mutants

One of the things I didn't expect when launching into this build was that I'd be revisiting a set of creatures I've written about a lot already this year. That would be creatures with the Mutate ability. These creatures can be tacked onto a non-Human. While Tawnos, as a Human, is not a viable Mutate target, he will be able to make an artifact creature token of any Mutate creature I cast, giving me lots of extra value.

Most of our Mutate creatures are Beasts but there are a couple of Birds worth mentioning. Souvenir Snatcher will let me steal an artifact when it mutates. Dreamtail Heron will see me draw a card when it mutates. I'll likely try to stack up my mutate cards a lot, as there are a few that will give me a ton of extra value even if it does set me up to lose a ton of value from just a single removal spell.

The Beast Mutate creatures generally provide the same kind of value. Gemrazer will let me destroy target artifact or enchantment an opponent controls. Migratory Greathorn will let me seach for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Pouncing Shoreshark will let me bounce an opponent's creature to their hand. Sawtusk Demolisher gives me a Beast Within effect, destroying target noncreature permanent and its controller will get a 3/3 Beast. Trumpeting Gnarr will just give me a 3/3 green Beast creature token.

Those are all great, and if I'm able to stack up a single creature into a giant mutant monstrosity, I'll get more mutate triggers each time I mutate that creature. All that pales in comparison to what Auspicious Starrix can bring to this party. It will let me exile cards from the top of my library until I exile X permanents where X is the number of times this creature has mutated. Those permanents go right onto the battlefield.

Mutate is a very fun, but undeniably risky strategy. Losing a stack of a half dozen cards feels real bad but I should be able to get real value out of the process of playing out all of those mutate cards. I could spread them around and mutate multiple creatures, but I'll probably always be hoping for a crazy Auspicious Starrix turn where I cheat a bunch of permanents onto the battlefield. Even if I don't get a Tawnos copy trigger from any Birds or Beasts that hit the field that way, it'll still be fun.

Token Synergy

This deck is very creature-heavy but I decided that it was also worth leaning into the fact that Tawnos is going to be regularly making tokens. To be specific, he'll be making artifact creature tokens, but what I care about is that they are tokens.

*Author's Note*: The initial draft of this column and decklist included Doubling Season and Parallel Lives, but those cards do not actually work with Tawnos. A copy of a permanent spell becomes a token as it resolves. The token has the characteristics of the spell that became that token. The token is not created for the purposes of any replacement effects or triggered abilities that refer to creating a token.

If I can get Doubling Season or Parallel Lives onto the field, every token I create will get doubled. On a small scale, that could amount to something as minor as an extra Augury Owl. That 1/1 flying Bird will have me scry 3 when it enters the battlefield, but getting two copies and digging up to 9 cards into my deck is pretty nice. Magical Christmasland would be something like having both token doublers out, casting Craterhoof Behemoth, and getting five instances of +X/+X where X is the number of creatures I control. Each Craterhoof would see a different number of creatures so the math might get messy, but it would still be a fun, ridiculous way to try to close out a game.

Second Harvest will simply give me another token copy of each token I control. It's worth noting that any mutate creature I control will only be a token if the top card is a token and making a copy of it will not give me additional mutate triggers. There's every reason to think this deck will see games where I've got a nice assortment of tokens on the field and if I can save four mana for the end step of the player to my right, I'll be able to make a bunch more tokens and then swing with them on my turn. This isn't the kind of card that is likely to break a game wide open, but it does give me a chance at making a token copy of an artifact creature token Craterhoof Behemoth, and that sounds like fun.

I should note that token copies of creatures do have the mana value and all other characteristics of the original card so I was tempted to put some Devotion synergy into this list. Devotion is a keyword that relates to the number of mana symbols in the casting costs of all of the permanents you control. When you've got lots and lots of token copies of permanents on the field, it's reasonable to think you might have a lot of those colored mana pips.

The problem with that approach in Tawnos, the Toymaker is that he's a 2-color commander. I might be able to make twice the number of mana pips, but I'll also be spreading my permanents out across twice the number of colors: Green and Blue. I decided to run Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in this list, but I didn't throw in Karametra's Acolyte, Nyx Lotus or any other cards that care about my Devotion to a single color. Devotion is great in mono-colored decks, but it takes something extra to make it worth playing in decks with more than one color and this list wasn't focused enough on a single color to make it worthwhile.

Let's Make Some Toys

I think this list should be a lot of fun to play in mid-powered metas and might even be fine at a lower powered or precon level of play. You ought to be able to squeeze a lot of value out of Tawnos, so truly jank decks might not be able to keep up. I could see a higher-powered list focusing on having your main attack be through flyers and using green to ramp and support that strategy. I don't see Tawnos as having a particularly high ceiling in terms of power level.

Tawnos, the Toymaker | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Tawnos, the Toymaker

• Creatures (40)
• 1 Augury Owl
• 1 Auspicious Starrix
• 1 Aven Augur
• 1 Aven Fogbringer
• 1 Aven Surveyor
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Cloudfin Raptor
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Cultivator Colossus
• 1 Curiosity Crafter
• 1 Dreamtail Heron
• 1 Elder Gargaroth
• 1 Frost Trickster
• 1 Garruk's Packleader
• 1 Gemrazer
• 1 Hydroid Krasis
• 1 Impaler Shrike
• 1 Indrik Stomphowler
• 1 Krosan Warchief
• 1 Ledger Shredder
• 1 Manglehorn
• 1 Migratory Greathorn
• 1 Mist Raven
• 1 Mold Shambler
• 1 Owlbear
• 1 Owlbear Cub
• 1 Parcelbeast
• 1 Pouncing Shoreshark
• 1 Quandrix Cultivator
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Rhox
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Sawtusk Demolisher
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Souvenir Snatcher
• 1 Thieving Magpie
• 1 Trumpeting Gnarr
• 1 Trygon Predator
• 1 Warden of Evos Isle

• Instants (10)
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Curious Herd
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Return to Nature
• 1 Second Harvest
• 1 Swan Song

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Ezuri's Predation
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Rampant Growth

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Abundance
• 1 Zendikar Resurgent

• Artifacts (2)
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 The Great Henge

• Lands (40)
• 13 Forest
• 13 Island
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dreamroot Cascade
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber

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If you wanted to power this list down or drop the budget you could part with Great Henge and maybe drop out Craterhoof Behemoth, but beyond that I don't see this as an overly powerful deck. It does have the Cultivator Colossus / Abundance combo but that only puts lands onto the battlefield and doesn't outright win the game. Tuning this list up would involve streamlining your creature list and pivoting to a deck that aims to hit Tooth and Nail and land the dreaded Avenger of Zendikar / Craterhoof Behemoth win. I haven't done that very often, but I think of it as a little boring. You're in Blue so you can back up the push for a win with a robust stack interaction package if that's your style.

Final Thoughts

While I am drawn to combo, I very much like commanders that provide some sort of restriction that forces me into a build that ends up surprising me. With this list, the surprise was that I found so many Mutate creatures that happened to also be in the tribes that Tawnos cares about. I could easily see a game with this deck where you find yourself getting a lot of value out of a Birds of Paradise that ended up getting a half dozen Mutate cards and tokens stacked onto it.

I didn't force myself to only play Birds and Beasts. I'm running Solemn Simulacrum, Quandrix Cultivator, Beast Whisperer and Sakura-Tribe Elder, but that's about all. Those four creatures all provide value that I could have found in other cards, but they can all be Mutate targets and they're all staples for a reason.

I did think about running Lurking Predators, which is an enchantment that seems like an obvious card for a deck with 40 creatures. It would have me reveal the top card of my library whenever an opponent casts a spell and if it's a creature I'd put it onto the battlefield. It's great, and it could be great in this list but I want to be casting creatures and using my commander. Good cards are good, great cards are great, but just because a card is great doesn't mean it's going to go into my list. I play enough goodstuff and staples already and in this draft I want to be casting creatures and making those shiny artifact tokens.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!