Growing Ranks

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, populate. (Create a token that's a copy of a creature token you control.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (47)

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

1 year ago

First a quick introduction. I've been playing magic off and on for years. When this site first started out, I was super active and then I stopped playing. I recently got back into it and plunged deep into the Commander format. I love building decks around interesting concepts and often trying to break cards.

My slightly ambitious goal is to create a series of threads that show my thought process as I build a commander deck. I figure it will serve two purposes: First, it will aid newer players who have some precon decks and perhaps are looking to upgrade them or they see a commander and want to build it, but aren't sure how. The second is purely self-motivated in that more experienced players can fine tune my own logic and make suggestions for my own improvement.

So with that, the first commander deck I'm going to build here is Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds. This is a card that begs to be broken and creates for interesting and powerful decks. There are also several different lines you can choose to go with. You can make it go infinite if you like degeneracy or don't like the people in your playgroup, or you can decide to go the way of building lots of tokens quickly and then turning them sideways and swinging. (Spoiler alert we are going infinite)

So first things first, we need to think about what the commander actually does and what it is going to need to do that effectively. First, it allows all nontoken creatures to tap and create tokens that I control that entered the battlefield this turn. So a couple things to point out: First is that it is tokens not creature tokens specifically, so treasures, clues, food, etc. are fair game. Secondly, it doesn't have to be my turn that the tokens came in, you can activate the ability at instant speed if you create a token on your opponent's turn. Now Ghired also is only 3 mana in Naya colors with Haste which means he's going to come down early in the game, so we'll want some other creatures out there when he comes down to start building up tokens right away.

With his abilities in mind, there are a couple things that we want to think about: Cards that create tokens, cards that double tokens, cards that untap things, and cards that do interesting things when they're tapped, example Wylie Duke, Atiin Hero, who comes down early as well, and when she is tapped I gain life and draw a card. We will obviously need to consider interaction, ramp, and card draw, but those are secondary in my thoughts. Every deck needs those, but what items you add often depends on what your deck is trying to do. In this case, we want to make tokens, tap creatures, make more tokens.

Token Generators

So a couple really good token generators here to start would be things that keep making them rather than one offs. In my playtesting Oltec Matterweaver is hard to beat. It comes in early (turn 2 if you can get a sol ring). When you cast a creature spell you can copy a target artifact or bring out a 1/1 gnome. Turn 1 you play a plains and a sol ring. Turn 2 you bring this out, turn 3 you bring out Ghired, creating a copy of sol ring, tap your Oltec Matterweaver and create another sol ring. You now have 3 sol rings on the field on turn 3... You are now the archenemy, congrats? EDIT: So as it was pointed out in the comments Oltec only creates copies of TOKEN artifacts. We could use Molten Duplication to create a copy of an artifact, but still Oltec still does great at producing consistent tokens.

Some other standouts are Emmara, Soul of the Accord who when tapped creates a 1/1 soldier with lifelink. So tapping will actually create two tokens. Also if you need a token for Sunstrike Legionnaire to go infinite you can tap her down (she's only 2 mana) create your 1/1 soldier, untap sunstrike, with Ghired on the field, tap Sunstrike to create infinite lifelink 1/1 soldiers. (actually happened in playtesting)

Generous Plunderer deserves a mention as you really need consistent tokens every turn and this does that. It gives you treasure tokens which is great and is likely to stick around since your opponents like the possibility of getting a treasure token as well. Dockside Extortionist can take the deck to new levels of degeneracy depending on when you play it/number of times you copy it with things like kiki jiki and jaxis.

Selvala, Eager Trailblazer is also great as you get 1/1 creatures every time you cast a creature spell. Her ramp also goes surprisingly well in the deck. I highly recommend it.

Thousand Moons Smithy  ^Flip is another beast of a card. It comes down turn 4, Ghired is already out along with any other low cost creatures. Let's say you have a Birds of Paradise and Ghired when this comes down and maybe a mana rock. You create a 5/5 Gnome (2 creatures, 2 artifacts, and the gnome itself). Now you tap the bird and Ghired and create two more Gnomes. You now have 3 7/7s, on turn 4...

Honorable mentions here are things like Smothering Tithe who will create treasures each opponent's turn, tap a creature and create another. Rain of Riches, create some treasures, copy them, cast something, and get cascade.

Also, populate is a thing, I like Growing Ranks and Nesting Dovehawk for that.

Doublers

Ok, so doublers is a pretty easy topic, there are quite a few out there, they are expensive and honestly for this deck you don't need much. I chose a couple that I particularly like for this and by like I mean I own them and didn't have to go out and spend $50-60. Examples are Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation  ^Flip, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Primal Vigor (careful as this one applies to everyone not just you).

I ended up starting out with 3 of these and then cut it down to just the two creatures mondrak and ojer taq. Both are still great and can quickly overwhelm the opponent. I found myself holding onto the enchantments in preference to playing token creators and creatures.

Untapping Abilities

Untapping abilites can make it even worse as time goes on. If you have a Seedborn Muse you untap each upkeep so they draw a card, Smothering Tithe creates a treasure, during their end step you tap your creatures creating more treasures. Untap on the next opponent's untap step, rinse and repeat.

This is also where infinite combos begin to happen. Sunstrike Legionnaire untaps everytime a creature enters the battlefield. Make a creature token, tap sunstrike legionnaire, create another creature token, sunstrike legionnaire untaps, rinse and repeat, gg. Midnight Guard works too for one more mana. Other options include making copies of your own creatures that untap creatures when they enter the battlefield like Hyrax Tower Scout, Zealous Conscripts, Sparring Mummy. Mix that with notable salty cards like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Molten Duplication, Splinter Twin, Jaxis, the Troublemaker and you're off to infinite again. (Jaxis uses his ability targeting sparring mummy, sparring mummy comes in untaps him, now Jaxis just taps to make a copy of the sparring mummy token (from Ghired) which has haste, it comes in untaps Jaxis, rinse and repeat, swing with a legion of sparring mummies)

Don't got too heavy on these or you won't have enough tokens to copy.

Cards that do cool things when tapped aren't super plentiful, but the two I've mentioned already are great for this deck. (Wylie and Emmara).

Interaction, ramp, card draw

Now for the ramp, interaction, and card draw. Ramp is fairly straightforward, since we have the Oltec Matterweaver, I opted to put in some signets, but left some other stones out. Normally when I'm in green I go heavy on green ramp. I opted for cheap ramp spells like Rampant Growth, Farseek, Three Visits and Birds of Paradise (could maybe use more mana dorks since having a body later will help in producing larger tokens).

Interaction is super important in this one. Board wipes are coming, targeted removal is coming, so need to prepare, but we also need to be flexible in taking out our opponents. So to save us from board wipes, we have Heroic Intervention, the ubiquitous and hopefully soon to be reprinted (one can dream) Teferi's Protection, Boros Charm, and Smuggler's Surprise (which is heroic intervention in disguise).

Getting rid of threats is crucial, so Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares are useful, but not as useful as Beast Within, Generous Gift, and Stroke of Midnight. These obviously target more than just creatures, but also produce tokens. There are situations where a well-timed beast within on your own treasure token to create a 3/3 beast that you can copy a bunch of times is the right play. That make it not just removal, but also a token generator.

Finally, we come to card draw. Since we are producing tokens (hopefully most turns) we can include things like Bennie Bracks, Zoologist and Idol of Oblivion. I also like Welcoming Vampire for this deck. It is creature heavy so Guardian Project is great, so is Beast Whisperer and Garruk's Uprising. Esper Sentinel is always good. We already have Wylie from earlier. Getting card draw is vital to the survival of any deck and particularly this one as we need to be producing tokens regularly and you need cards to produce them. I chose to run about 11 card draw engines in the deck to ensure I'm drawing regularly.

Lands... I mean... make sure you have dual lands in the deck and triomes if you can. One noteworthy utility land is Grove of the Guardian which can have a nice payoff when you create an 8/8 with a few creatures out along with Ghired.

I'll post the deck that I built from this thought process on my page in case you want to see the final product. And if you made it this far thanks for joining me on this, I hope it was helpful. Feel free to comment on how you would do it differently or cards that should have been mentioned. Also feel free to mention commanders you want to see built. I have a couple in mind to start but want to see suggestions as well.

Here is the final decklist: Ghired the infinite outlaw

SufferFromEDHD on Naya Slam

1 year ago

Harmonic Prodigy this card continues to put in work. Nice synergy with Atla.

Blades of Velis Vel egg tricks.

Utopia Sprawl another Wild Growth.

Far Wanderings cut one of your sorcery speed ramp spells.

Determined Iteration, Growing Ranks and/or Nesting Dovehawk those eggs aren't gonna populate themselves.

king-saproling on Copy & Paste - A Token Story

1 year ago

Cool deck! What do you think of these? Nacatl War-Pride, Three Blind Mice, Romana II, City of Death, Wake the Reflections, Sundering Growth, Rootborn Defenses, Growing Ranks, Nesting Dovehawk, Song of the Worldsoul, Second Harvest, Endless Evil, Vesuvan Duplimancy, Parallel Evolution, Ondu Spiritdancer, Yenna, Redtooth Regent

Rhadamanthus on How do the cards Anikthea, …

1 year ago

You can use double square brackets around a card's name to create a reference link: Anikthea, Hand of Erebos, Battle for Bretagard, Growing Ranks. It's the best way to help people understand what's going on in your question.

The copies of the tokens created in this example will also be 3/3 creatures. Copy effects take into account what's written on the original plus the results of any other copy effects that the original is subject to. This means if a copy effect makes a copy with some specific different characteristics from the original, those differences will carry over to any copies of that copy.

Yes, a Battle for Bretagard that also happens to be a creature token can make a copy of itself. A saga gets sacrificed when its last chapter ability fully resolves and leaves the stack, so it will be on the battlefield long enough for its effect to work on itself.

DemonDragonJ on All Creatures Great and Small

1 year ago

I have replaced Growing Ranks with Nesting Dovehawk, since the latter card is a creature, and this deck has a great emphasis on creatures.

thefiresoflurve on Naya Populate True

2 years ago

Welcome to big board state club! (I used to run G/W populate back in the day).

Disclaimer: not sure what your budget is for recommendations, so I'm going to go by what I see here (Dockside, Smothering Tithe, Parallel Lives level of cost for individual recommendations).

I think Ghired, Conclave Exile would make a better commander here than Palladia-Mors, unless you're tied to the latter for sentimentality/flavor/etc.

Next, land base. The single best thing I did for my Esper deck was upgrading my land base. You don't have to go super hard here to see results, but I would put together a list like: 1x Cabaretti Courtyard 1x Command Tower 1x Jungle Shrine 1x Sungrass Prairie 1x Rockfall Vale 1x Branchloft Pathway  ^Flip 1x Needleverge Pathway  ^Flip 1x Rogue's Passage 1x Kessig Wolf Run 1x Gavony Township. If you like this route, there are even more cheaper dual lands you can add in like the Temple of Triumph and friends.

There are a few cuts or substitutions that I think the main deck could make really easily:

Ultramarines Honour Guard -> Caller of the Pack. If Ghired attacks with a creature that has Myriad, he can populate the token that Myriad creates, but the Populated token forgets about the exile clause. Thus, you can end up with a theoretically infinite horde of creatures. It's fantastic. :D

Going off that last bit... Wayfaring Temple -> Treasure. Basically a great card in commander anyway, here it's a free win if you manage to clone it.

Growing Ranks is an easy cut. It's way too slow for EDH (compare it to Parallel Lives...) Could replace it with a Talisman of Conviction or friends to help you ramp faster.

I would replace Momentous Fall with Teferi's Protection or Akroma's Will or Grand Crescendo - some extra source of board wipe dodging. I don't think your creatures are really big enough to warrant a momentous fall.

I would also replace Druid's Deliverance with one of the aforementioned board wipe dodges. There are also some cheaper options like Your Temple is Under Attack, Unbreakable Formation, Make a Stand. Reasoning being: you should have enough board state to block things that want to hurt you, as long as you keep your board alive.

As far as making tokens sooner: well, if you want to do that, you're going to have to run some cheaper creatures.... or ramp faster. I'd probably opt for ramping faster, TBH, since your creatures are really cool. If you add the entire Gruul Signet and friends, along with the Talismans I mentioned earlier, that should get you to the minimum ramp package in tricolor EDH to make sure you can play quickly.

Naya Charm -> Artifact Mutation can help make some earlier tokens.

Brindle Shoat and Call of the Conclave are some decent options for turn 3 tokens you might consider, as well. But adding those would also require cutting other stuff.... horrible choice I don't envy you : P

Sorry for the wall of text...Hope that helps, and happy building!

Mr.Himer on Will this create token lands …

2 years ago

This might be really convoluted and stupid but that's what I like about Magic so bear with me. Thanks in advance for any help.

At the start of my turn, I have a Growing Ranks, a Helm of the Host, a Thornglint Bridge, and a Druid Class which is at level 2 on the battlefield. During my first Main Phase, I spend the mana to put Druid Class at level 3 and target Thornglint Bridge making it a creature that's power and toughness are each equal to the number of lands I control. If I then equip Helm of the Host to the Thornglint Bridge land creature and go to my combat phase, I get a token copy. Is that token just a copy of Thornglint Bridge or is it also a land creature that I could then target with Growing Ranks at the beginning of my next upkeep?

If it's not a creature, could I target that token copy of Thornglint Bridge with Living Terrain and make it available to be targeted by Growing Ranks?

I like the idea of getting myself a bunch of indestructible land tokens. Is there an easier way to do this and I'm just dumb? Probably. Thanks for any and all help!!!

SirArevacoso on A Big Box of Chocolates

2 years ago

Hi, thefiresoflurve

True that Growing Ranks seems too slow, I removed it earlier but forgot to save the edit XD

I'm not 100% on board with Runic Armasaur because I have mostly only creatures I would be "happy" to pull almost anytime. But Wolverine Riders seems certainly interesting, because while it doesn't make eggs, I have some mechanisms to turn everything into eggs, so it wouldn't be a bad pull. Plus, I have some cards that generate some value with creature sac. On a different note: an all the deck versions that I have tested and in around 15 games, card draw only served me if I was royally screwed with my commander, if I had egg game going on I almost never played things from hand, so not super worried about card draw for now.

Idol of Oblivion and Pyrohemia seem like fire suggestions, apart from the fact that I wanted to cut artifacts and enchantments to add more removal.

Thanks!