Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Tawnos, the Toymaker!

Tawnos is a five mana 3/5 with whenever you cast a Beast or Bird creature spell, you may copy it, except the copy is an artifact in addition to its other types.

I do enjoy multi-typal Commanders, and it took a bit of time for one of the creature types to get some more support, but Tawnos now has some excellent ways to interact with his supported creature types.

Since we make token copies of the creatures that happen to be artifacts, we can play a go wide strategy that leverages the use of plenty of utility Beasts and Birds, all the while we build up our army of Beasts and Birds to unleash an all out attack to win us the game. We can also be a bit cheeky and use some artifact synergies to our benefit, making use of the tokens being artifacts.

The first thing we need to do is make sure we get as many utility Birds and Beasts in play to help us gain an advantage.

Krosan Warchief makes our Beast spells cheaper by one mana while also being able to regenerate a target Beast, which in and of itself is a useful creature to have in play, but if we manage to get two copies of it in play because of Tawnos, then we can make some of the more expensive Beast spells we want to play cost two mana, which means a lot.

While we don’t have a direct way to make our Birds explicitly cheaper, Warden of Evos Isle can help us by making creatures we control with flying cheaper, while they themselves are a Bird as well. Not only do many Birds have flying, there are also Beasts like Trygon Predator which have flying and when it deals combat damage to a player we destroy an artifact or enchantment that player controls.

We can leverage some more control aspects as well by using Manglehorn, which when it enters we destroy a target artifact while also having artifacts our opponents control enter tapped or something like Mist Raven which when it enters we bounce a creature to its owner’s hand.

Woodland Liege is also a great Beast to have in play because whenever a Beast we control enters we can draw a card, and even though it won’t have a copy made of it when we have Tawnos in play, we still get to draw two cards whenever a Beast we control enters and has a copy made.

In terms of other ways to draw cards, Curiosity Crafter also works well for us since it has whenever a token we control deals combat damage to a player we draw a card, and also gives us no maximum hand size. Getting two of these means we also double our draw power whenever our tokens get in to deal damage.

The next thing that we need to is find ways to protect our Birds and Beasts or gain a benefit from having a bunch of them.

Radagast, Wizard of Wilds is a solid way to keep our Birds and Beast protected from target spells by giving them ward 1 and whenever we cast a spell with mana value 5 or greater we can make either a 3/3 Beast or a 2/2 Bird with flying.

We can also use Bartz and Boko, which has affinity for Birds to make them cheaper while also having it so that when they enter, each other Bird we control deals damage equal to their power to a target creature, which can be helpful to remove a big creature an opponent controls.

There are also ways for us to make even more token copies of our Birds or Beast by using something like Reflections of Littjara, which lets us choose a creature type and whenever we cast a spell of the chosen type we can copy that spell.

In a similar vein, we can also use Kindred Discovery, which let’s us choose a creature type when it enters and whenever a creature we control of that type enters we can draw a card.

Among one of the better ways to make use of being a deck that is multi-typal, Descendants’ Path let’s us reveal the top card of our library and if it is a creature card that shares a type with a creature we control, then we may cast it without paying its mana cost, putting it to the bottom of our library if we didn’t cast it.

Since we are also a go wide tokens deck, ways we can benefit our tokens also help us be able to get some damage through like Combine Chrysalis, which gives creature tokens we control flying and for four mana, tap and sacrifice a token we can make a 4/4 Beast creature token.

Airborne Aid draws a card for each Bird we control, Dazzling Denial counters a spell unless an opponent pays two mana which becomes four mana if we control a Bird, Totem Speaker gains us 3 life whenever a Beast we control comes into play, and Berserk Murlodont gives Beasts we control +1/+1 for each creature blocking them.

Since we are choosing to go with a go wide strategy, any other way for us to go wide will serve as a benefit for us.

March of Progress would normally make a copy of an artifact creature we control, however if we decide to Overload it, then all of the artifact creature tokens that we made of our various Birds and Beats get copied, meaning more bodies for us to attack multiple opponents.

Sidequest: Raise a Chocobo is an interesting card for us because when it enter we make a 2/2 Bird creature token that gets +1/+0 whenever a land we control enters and at the beginning of the first main phase if we control four or more Birds we transform it into Black Chocobo, which gets a land from our deck onto the battlefield, and whenever a land we control enters, all Birds we control get +1/+0 until end of turn.

A sneaky Beast we can include in our medley of creatures is Broodstar, which has affinity for artifacts, flying, and has power and toughness equal to the number of artifacts we control, which with how we play can mean we get two massive Beasts in play.

We can even protect our creatures by using something like Plaxmanta, which has flash and when it enters it gives creatures we control shroud until end of turn or we can be a bit more selective by using Plumecreed Escort, which also has flash and when it enters we give a creature we control hexproof, and with Tawnos in play we can give two creature hexproof.

For more aggro creatures, we can use Ulvenwald Oddity which has trample and haste and we can transform it to Ulvenwald Behemoth, which gives other creatures we control +1/+1, trample and haste, or even an Craterhoof Behemoth, which is also a Beast that gives creatures we control trample and +X/+X when it enters with X being the number of creatures we control, which becomes game winning numbers with two of them in play.

Tawnos is a value Commander that cares about casting Birds and Beast spells, and while support for both of those creature types is a bit limited on their own, together we have a decent chance at a solid go wide double typal deck.

The issues come with Tawnos needing to be in play to get the benefit, and as with most go wide Commanders we are susceptible to board wipes. Since Tawnos triggers when we cast a Bird or Beast spell, any ways we can cheat either of them out become unusable in the deck, at least if we want to gain value from making token copies.

Still, we have a decent number of typal spells that give us an edge for playing both of these creature types, and we have a range of interesting creatures to include to provide some form of variety and options to customize the deck.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual