Magic: the Gathering is a fantasy card game centered around wizards, monsters, swords, and more. There's no wrong way to play and comprises many formats, from Legacy to Commander to Cube draw in the crowds. Some strategies have proven popular across many formats in the game, and among them are "tokens." Creature tokens are a beloved part of this game, and many of them are based on powerful tribes, from Elves to Vampires to Goblins, and even Eldrazi.
Some token-generating cards can take over a game, or even make an infinite combo possible! So, which are ten particularly powerful token-creating cards that can give you the edge in a game? Many of them are creatures, but some are artifacts or even sorcery cards. These cards are listed in no particular order. Let's make an army!
Updated January 21st, 2021 by Gene Cole: Tokens are quickly becoming as valuable to collect as certain Magic: The Gathering cards themselves. Many new types of tokens are always being printed in sets like Ikoria and the upcoming Kaldheim, and other classic ones are constantly being reprinted in digital forms Arena, giving many more options for those looking to try some new tokens in nearly any format.
15 Shark Typhoon
Shark Typhoon is one of the more confusing spells, but it functions just as well as you think it does. As an enchantment, it’ll let you create flying tokens with power and toughness equal to the CMC of noncreature spells you cast, but you can also cycle it and put in any amount of mana to create a sky shark with the strength of your choosing.
The main idea of this card is to cycle it early if you don’t have enough mana to put it down, making it essentially a Flash creature that reads “Draw a card this creature enters the battlefield.” Once you have enough mana to put it down and cast another spell in the same turn, you’ll have a factory of death sharks that your opponent will struggle to come back from.
14 Anax, Hardened In The Forge
Opposite to Shark Typhoon, Anax is a card that creates tokens in a much more limited situation. In this case, the death of your creatures as you swing them all into a deadly board. Any non-token creature that dies will create a non-blocking Satyr, meaning you can safely attack into any boardstate and come out ahead on creatures.
You can potentially wait for Anax to swing as well, since losing your other Red creatures will lower your devotion and Anax’s power, but it’s just as good to drop Anax down right before a wide attack. So long as you’re swinging with everything you can, you’re likely using Anax perfectly.
13 Cryptbreaker
Recently reprinted in the Historic Anthology on Arena, Cryptbreaker is undoubtedly one of the most underrated Zombie cards in recent history. The main strategy is to start by using its tap ability to make Zombie Tokens if you don’t have any in your hand, and once you have at least two more alongside Cryptbreaker you can create an efficient card draw engine.
Having other Zombies certainly helps, but this also means that later in the game you can ditch your lands for tokens if you’ve already got a full stack of cards in your hand. So long as you can activate at least one ability each turn, or just cast another Zombie to get closer to drawing cards, you’re probably going to get some value out of Cryptbreaker.
12 Young Pyromancer
Another recent Arena reprint is Young Pyromancer, a scourge of Modern for its easy token generation. It might only make weak 1/1 Elementals, but triggering off of any instant or sorcery spell means it’s incredibly easy to get a quick army using low-cost draw spells like Opt and burn spells like Shock.
Much like Shark Typhoon, you’re really going to want to have enough mana to put down Young Pyromancer and cast another spell immediately afterwards for full value. It’s easy to kill this 2/1 Spellcaster, so you’ll want at least one token out of it to ensure you get a minimal amount of value from it.
11 Scute Swarm
One of the greatest banes of Standard currently is Scute Mob, a strange new insect from Zendikar Rising with the ability to make two types of tokens depending on your land count. With under six lands, it’ll simply make a vanilla 1/1 Insect, but with six lands in play it’ll create a clone of itself that still has the same Landfall ability.
Ideally, you never want to play this without creating a Scute Mob clone in the same turn, because this will result in you getting an exponentially growing number astoundingly fast. Cast it right before your sixth land drop, or right before you play a spell that lets you put lands from your deck or graveyard into play, and you’ll have a scuttling army in no time.
10 Lingering Souls
Many of the cards on this list are best used in the Commander format, a slow and diverse format that has many ways to support tokens. But first, let's mention this Modern powerhouse. Lingering Souls makes two separate 1/1 flying creature tokens, and if you've got black mana, you can flash it back.
Paying a total of 3WB for four 1/1 fliers is solid, and best of all, you're spreading out that power, so a Lightning Bolt or Terminate won't ruin your fun. This card is common in Abzan Midrange or Hatebears builds, and it works well against Liliana of the Veil, since it makes more than one body. But be careful of anti-graveyard cards such as Scavenging Ooze, and play around them. Don't be afraid to hit that flashback button right away!
9 Bitterblossom
Back in the 2000s, the Faeries deck was a Standard monster, enabled with the powerful blue and black fairie cards of Lorwun and Morningtide. With cards like Bitterblossom running around, we can see why! It's great in both Commander and Modern, to say the least, and it's been reprinted a few times (thank goodness).
This is black mana at its best: cheap, aggressive power at the cost of life, and the pressure this card can exert is formidable. Should your life total run low, feel free to zap your own Bitterblossom with Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse and switch to a plan B. Don't drain yourself dry for one more faerie token!
8 Dragon Broodmother
Hailing from the all-gold Alara Reborn set, this dragon truly lives up to its name. Paying all that mana for a 4/4 flier isn't much, but boy is that ability scary.
Look closely at that lovely text: you get a 1/1 dragon token on every upkeep, not just yours! That translates to a whole swarm of angry dragon hatchlings in a four-player Commander game, and those dragons are all hungry. Each one comes with devour 2, and they can even eat each other if need be to become a 3/3, 5/5, or even a 7/7. Be sure to slot this into any dragon Commander deck that supports these colors (which should be most of them), and dominate the skies with flame and talon.
7 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
For years, the cat tribe was on the fringes of Magic, since there were too few good cat cards, and they really didn't come together. But tribes such as cat, spider, and centaur have gotten a lot more support lately, and there's even a green-white Commander deck based entirely on these felines!
Brimaz fits those colors, and he will lead the charge in any Arahbo, Roar of the World deck. Such a deck is bound to have a lot of cards to boost your entire kitty army, and Brimaz and his attendant cat soldiers will be like vicious tigers on the battlefield. You don't even have to pay mana to get those tokens. Just attack and block with Brimaz, which you were probably going to do anyway!
6 Krenko, Mob Boss
The cat tribe finally got some much-needed support, but we've had good goblin creatures since the mid-1990s. This is one of the iconic tribes of Magic, and Krenko, who rules the mean streets of Ravnica, is pushing it to 11.
Do you like having a few goblins around? Don't be silly! You've got an entire battalion of them, ready to swarm your unsuspecting opponents. Wait, that's not enough... how about millions of them? In the right Commander deck, Krenko's goblin recruitment power is exponential, and it will fly right off the charts. Trust us!
5 Myr Battlesphere
Time for the robot apocalypse to begin! This globe of myrs is one of the largest myr cards to ever exist, and it isn't here to play games. It's a beefy 4/7, and upon entering the battlefield, you get a quartet of 1/1 myr tokens.
Not only that, but the Sphere can tap your myrs to get a power boost to your opponent and deal some damage from afar. In the right Commander deck, that's going to get nasty fast, and you can abuse the Sphere's ETB effect in all kinds of ways to make a myr army to make Karn proud.
4 Splinter Twin
Alas, this Rise of the Eldrazi enchantment was banned in the Modern format a few years ago, since its combo with Deceiver Exarch was too dominant in red-blue control shells. But fear not: you can harness the power in Commander instead.
Splinter Twin can spit out a fully-formed copy of any creature you choose to enchant it with, and you can do this on huge beaters to create disposable attackers. Or, you can slap this onto a creature with a great ETB effect, and get it over and over. Finally, this thing combos nicely with the likes of Pestermite, Sky Hussar, Zealous Conscripts, and the aforementioned Splinter Twin to make infinite combos!
3 Bloodline Keeper
It's time for another classic tribe: vampires. These bloodsuckers, dominant in black mana and splashed in red and white, can totally take over a game and reign supreme if no one can drive a wooden stake through them first. Bloodline Keeper easily integrates into any vampire Commander deck with black mana. Which is to say, all of them!
Edgar Markov is a fine commander, but there are other options too, and all of them will want Bloodline Keeper. This 3/3 flier can tap to make some 2/2 vampires with flying, and that's not half bad. But wait, you can also easily transform this thing into a scary 5/5 flier that can still make tokens, and gives all of your vampires +2/+2! It's a flying beater, a token generator, and an anthem effect all at once, which is remarkable.
2 Thopter Assembly
Hang on, what's so special about this thing? Thopter Assembly is a 5/5 with flying for six generic mana, and if it's your only Thopter on your upkeep, you bounce it to your hand and get five 1/1 thopter tokens. Big deal.
But in the right deck, this is a big deal. Think back to Alara Reborn, and an innocent little artifact called Time Sieve. As long as your Commander deck supports blue and black mana, you're ready for a combo. Have this and Time Sieve on the battlefield, and on your upkeep, the Assembly's ability triggers to make those tokens. Sacrifice all five of them to Time Sieve, and you're set to take another turn. But before this current turn ends, cast Thopter Assembly again to prepare that triggered ability for your next upkeep. Enjoy all those free turns!
1 Blade of Selves
Many of the token generators on this list are best used in the Commander format, and Blade of Selves was specifically designed for it since it has the "myriad" ability. Any equipped creature will make token copies of itself that will attack other players whenever the equipped creature attacks.
This is just as good as it looks. Some Commander decks have very powerful commander creatures that can easily trample all over an opponent's board state, or have powerful ETB effects. Such creatures can only attack one player at a time, though... unless they've got this!