Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Halsin, Emerald Archdruid!

Halsin is a four mana 2/4 that for one mana can until the end of turn have a target token you control become a green Bear creature with base power and toughness 4/4 in addition to its other colors and types while letting us also choose a Background.

Halsin presents an interesting take on a tokens strategy because he wants us to turn any token into a Bear that can deal a decent amount of damage, provided we have the mana for it. The question then comes well we have a tokens strategy, what Background do we take?

There is an easy choice for the background because it let’s us turn our tokens into bigger creatures that can go in and deal a massive amount of damage for us, and we can play other cards that can help facilitate that.

With us playing into a tokens strategy, we do have a color combination that works best for us and a Background that works perfectly.

Inspiring Leader is a simple enough Background in that it gives Commander creatures we control the ability to give creature tokens we control +2/+2. This works exceptionally well for us because Halsin turns our tokens into 4/4 Bears, which means that we end up with 6/6 Bears that are ready to rumble.

This means we can play a myriad of other ways to buff our tokens like Intangible Virtue which gives creature tokens we control +1/+1 and vigilance, Prava of the Steel Legion to give our creature tokens +1/+4 on our turn while also being able to make a 1/1 Soldier token, and King Darien XLVIII to buff our creatures by +1/+1, put a counter on itself and make a 1/1, and can sacrifice himself to give our creature tokens hexproof and indestructible until the end of turn.

Ainok Strike Leader can also serve us really well since whenever it and/or our Commander attacks we make a 1/1 Goblin that’s tapped and attacking, but we can also sacrifice it to give our tokens indestructible until the end of turn.

Finneas, Ace Archer is also a sneaky good pick for us because whenever they attack we put a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control that’s a Rabbit or more importantly a token, and then if creatures we control have a total power of 10 or greater then we can draw a card, which with just two Bears we can have that happen consistently.

The next important thing that we need are ways to generate a lot of tokens, as well as having the mana to turn our creatures into Bears.

Return from the Wilds is a great modal way for us to get either a 1/1 Human token, a Food token, or if we are in a pinch a basic land and put onto the battlefield tapped. The best part is that we get two options out of the three, which means that if we have enough mana we can just get the tokens or if we need the land, we can still get it and a token.

Sami’s Curiosity gains us 2 life and we make a Lander token, Many Partings puts a basic land into our hands and makes a Food token, and Aura Mutation destroys an enchantment and we make X 1/1 Saproling tokens where X is the mana value of the destroyed enchantment.

Tireless Provisioner also comes into great use in this deck because whenever we play a land we make a Treasure token or a Food token, which we can use the Treasures to turn our other tokens into Bears or the Food to become Bears, which also means that Academy Manufactor gets us triple the benefits since if we would make a Clue, Food, or Treasure we make one of each instead.

To help us make sure we have the mana for all the Bears we want to make, then A Realm Reborn is a solid start because it gives all other permanents we control the ability to tap for a mana of any color, meaning our anthem enchantments can tap for mana as well.

Since we are making a bunch of tokens, we can also make use of Jaheira, Friend of the Forest to give our tokens the ability to tap for a green mana, which also means that turns any artifact token we control into what amounts to a Mox Emerald.

We can also pull double duty in making our tokens stronger and being able to get more mana by using Mirari’s Wake, which gives creatures we control +1/+1 and whenever we tap a land for mana we add one mana of any type that land produced, which means one land becomes two Bears that become 5/5’s with just Mirari’s Wake, and 7/7’s when Inspiring Leader comes into play.

The last thing we need is a way to make sure that we can have our Bears get their damage through to win us the game.

The Crowd Goes Wild can be a great way for us to not only buff our Bears because it has Support X, but it makes sure that each creature with a +1/+1 counter on it has trample until end of turn. While having a symmetrical effect would normally not be ideal, giving our opponents creatures trample for a turn does nothing for them and makes it easier for us to deal damage.

On Wings of Gold is helpful because it gives creatures we control that are Zombies and/or tokens +1/+1 and flying and whenever one or more cards leave our graveyard we can make a 1/1 Zombie token, and while we normally wouldn’t get much use out of it, if we wanted to lean a bit more into the Bear theme then we can use Bearscape, which for two mana and exile two cards from our graveyard we can make a 2/2 Bear token, which with On Wings of Gold also makes us a Zombie token.

Glorious Sunrise is a great modal way for us to have a variety of benefits at the beginning of combat on our turn, whether that is to give creatures we control +1/+1 and trample until end of turn, gives a land the ability to tap for three green mana until end of turn, draw us a card if we control a creature with power 3 or greater, or gain us 3 life.

If we want all combats to benefit us then we can use Unnatural Growth to double the power and toughness of each creature we control, Beastmaster Ascension to get quest counters whenever a creature we control attacks and when it has seven or more quest counters we give our creatures a +5/+5 bonus, or For the Common Good to create X tokens that are copies of a token we control and gives tokens we control indestructible until end of turn and gain us 1 life for each token we control.

Halsin is a solid value Commander where we generate a ton of additional value from not just having a bunch of tokens, but by being able to turn those tokens into creatures that can attack and win us the game.

As with every token deck, board wipes do become a concern, especially when we turn our tokens into creatures. What’s more, bounce effects can also hose us pretty hard since if there was say an Overloaded Cyclonic Rift when we have a bunch of tokens in play, we just lose everything and have to rebuild our board from scratch.

Still, with the amount of ways we can make tokens in our deck, plus the fact that we are in green means we can still rebuild pretty quickly if the need calls for it. Halsin makes our tokens into beefier creatures than expected and with Inspiring Leader it turns them into even more lethal threats, and gives us access to the colors that give a bunch of buffs that makes our Bears even more threatening.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual