Token commanders are pretty common in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering; tokens are the backbone of go-wide decks, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Treasure decks, and a stream of other decks that just want to put as much material on board as possible. Magic's rendition of Dungeons & Dragons' Halsin puts tokens to good use, turning them into Bears and mauling your opponents.

Token support isn't very hard to find, which makes the deckbuilding challenge for Halsin, Emerald Archdruid more about the Background you choose to pair them with. Whether your version of Halsin plays the role of a villain or an illustrious benefactor, you have a lot of control over how this commander plays out.

The Background you choose determines your deck's color identity. All suggestions here will assume you're pairing Halsin with a Background of the corresponding color.

10 🅰 🐬 Your Background Of Choice

Who's Halsin Going To Be For You?

You'll want to pair Halsin with a Background that creates tokens, giving you access to a self-contained engine in your command zone. Cloakwood Hermit locks you into monogreen, but pairs well with self-sacrificing tokens like Clues and Treasure. There's also Guild Artisan, which pays you out in Treasure if Halsin's able to attack consistently.

Feywild Visitor makes tokens that'll eventually become flying bears, though it doesn't trigger when your tokens deal combat damage. You might consider Inspiring Leader too, which doesn't actually make any tokens, but gives your Bears a formidable boost while it's in play.

9 Shamanic Revelation 𒈔

Supercharged Card Draw And Lifegain

Halsin incentivizes playing four-power matters cards, specifically ferocious and formidable cards from the Khans of Tarkir block. Some of these don't quite fit the mold, since Halsin's Bears don't enter the battlefield as 4/4s, but Shamanic Revelation certainly works.

This is a go-to draw spell for decks with larger creatures. It's a little mana-intensive, since you'll also have to pay to activate Halsin's ability a few times, but the investment's well worth it when you're drawing a new hand and gaining 20+ life at the same time.

8 Parallel Lives 🃏

Twice As Much Fun As Normal

Parallel Lives is the quintessential green token payoff. If you're playing white, you can run Anointed Procession for redundancy, but Parallel Lives fits every possible build for Halsin. There are other token-doubling options like Primal Vigor and Doubling Season, which can be problematic due to their symmetrical effect or expensive pricetag, respectively.

Parallel Lives won't let you double up on Halsin activations; no matter how many token you control, you still need to invest mana into 'animating' each one. You can still create a metric ton of tokens though, giving you more fodder to feed Halsin's ability.

7 💞 Academy Manufactor

A Little Bit Of Everything For No Extra Cost

Academy Manufactor asks that you create a specific subset of artifact tokens, some of the most commonly created tokens to begin with. A single Treasure, Clue or Food turns into all three at once with no extra effort, w꧟hich of course is three 4/4 Bears♏ in disguise.

Even if you're not planning on animating these tokens, each instance of Manufactor's replacement effect is worth some amount of mana, card draw, and lifegain in a prolonged game. The Treasure is the most important of the three, so focus Halsin's efforts on sending the Food and Clue tokens into grizzly combat.

6 ꦫ Rootborn Defenses 🐬

A True Budgeteer's Protection Spell

Teferi's Protection is a top-tier protection spell, but not every deck needs it, nor can every player afford a copy. Rootborn Defenses won't save you from Farewell or Torment of Hailfire, but it'll do a nice impression of Teferi's Protection at the same mana cost, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:for roughly the price of a quarter.

Populate is excellent for token decks, but there aren't that many useful populate cards in Magic. If you can fire this off against a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:damage-based sweeper, or perhaps in the midst of combat, your creatures will emerge unscathed, and you'll net an extra token for your troubles.

You can populate one of Halsin's Bear tokens while it's a creature, but the resulting token you create will enter as the base noncreature version of whatever you copied.

5 🌞 Rosie Cotton Of South Lane

Keeps Your Army Well-Fed

Rosie Cotton looks a little unassuming; after all, how much can a Food token and a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:+1/+1 counter really do for you? Well that's just the initial effect, after which Rosie throws around +1/+1 counters for every single token you create regardless of type or purpose.

Rosie's a great way to make sure your repeated token generation affects your board state, even if that's just pumping up Halsin to make it more formidable in combat. You could also run Scurry Oak, which is already a good role-player alongside Halsin, and have access to a two-card Rosie-Oak infinite combo.

4 Idol Of 𝔍Oblivion 🌼

Idol Hands Are A Token-Player's Workshop

A 2-mana artifact that simply said 'tap, draw a card' would be borderline broken, but that's exactly what Idol of Oblivion is in dedicated token decks. It'll only ever net you a single extra card per turn cycle, but you can't ask much more than that anyway.

The extra ability's almost always a dud, even moreso in a deck whose sole purpose is to upgrade tokens into 4/4s, which seems like a drastic downgrade for a 10/10. Still, Halsin runs all the usual token-doubling support cards, and the sound of two 10/10s is a bit more enticing.

3 Perplexing Test ♐

No Cheat-Sheet Required

Blue won't be the most popular color pairing for Halsin, since most of the blue Backgrounds don't synergize well with the commander. However, if you've chosen to make Halsin a Feywild Visitor, you'll unlock a few support pieces that token decks don't often get to play with.

Perplexing Test is one of the best. It's a blue board wipe that gives you the option to keep all tokens or non-tokens intact, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:bouncing all the rest. That means you can prep the 4/4 Bear army, then resolve Perplexing🦹 Test and clear the way of any nontok💧en opposition.

Perplexing Test will bounce Halsin to your hand, so make sure you've used his ability as much as you need to before casting the board wipe.

2 Audience With Tros❀tani

Pardon Us, Trostani, We'd Like To Draw Cards

Halsin's animation ability changes your tokens while maintaining their names and abilities. That makes Audience with Trostani a perfect fit for this commander. It creates another token and easily draw upwards of four to five cards for just three mana with the right set-up.

The requires 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:diversifying the types of tokens you're playing. You'll want to animate at least one of each noncreature token that you can to capitalize on Audience with Trostani's card draw. It basically rewards you for doing what you already want to be doing anyway.

1 🔯 🦋 Jaheira, Friend Of The Forest

And Friend Of The Bears

Jaheira, Friend of the Forest is coincidentally another token-matters Background legend, though significantly stronger than Halsin. There's no need for competition though, since they play exceptionally well together. If you're already mass-producing tokens, Jaheira's your best friend too.

It can be slightly awkward to tap tokens you're planning on turning into 4/4s with Halsin, but you just have to be a bit judicious with how you go about it. Use some of your mana from tokens to animate the others, leaving your lands free to cast spells that create more tokens.