Baylen, the Haymaker Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on January 29, 2026

Baylen, the Haymaker | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

When I saw the first previews for Bloomburrow with their furry, friendly designs and Redwall vibes, I thought we might get a chill Magic set after Modern Horizons 3 demonstrated how strong power creep could be.

Then I saw the Bloomburrow commanders, like Maha, Its Feathers Night, which oppresses any creature deck; Mr. Foxglove, the alternate Bant commander from the Peace Offering EDH precon that undermines the mana system; and Baylen, the Haymaker, a rabbit with a delectable pun and incredibly powerful token-related abilities. I enjoy more exploration of Bloomburrow with Baylen.

Let’s see how much hay we can harvest!

The Deck

Pest Infestation | Illustration by Brian Valeza

Naya () token decks are well-supported, so you have plenty of tools to work with. Much of the token production and support comes from green cards and white cards. Red mostly lends you win conditions, and card advantage—though you still get some tokens.

This deck supports a grindy, midrange game. Many of the token creators make multiple tokens at once, so you can easily rebuild after a board wipe (though you have some protective spells to mitigate their impact). The commander gives you tons of card draw for even more staying power. The win conditions are Overrun effects in Jetmir, Nexus of Revels and Craterhoof Behemoth, or burn damage in Purphoros, God of the Forge and similar abilities. These cards give you inevitability in long games.

I built this as a casual EDH deck with minimal game changers, so there aren’t any flashy infinite combo or stax pieces to grind the game to a halt, though Baylen would work well with those elements if you wanted to move it above bracket 3.

The Commander: Baylen, the Haymaker

Most token commanders reward you for making tokens in one of two ways: They make your tokens bigger (Jetmir, Nexus of Revels) or they make more tokens (Cadira, Caller of the Small). Baylen, the Haymaker does neither; it rewards you in mana, damage, and card advantage.

The most important resources in Commander games are mana and card advantage. Any commander that gives you both has potential; and Nadu, Winged Wisdom was banned in Modern and Commander because of that combo. Baylen isn’t another Nadu, but these abilities are powerful.

It doesn’t take much to flood the board with tokens. Since this Naya commander doesn’t require creature tokens specifically, you can get Treasure tokens and Blood tokens in on the action.

Once you have that big board, Baylen, the Haymaker dominates. Even if you never attack with your rabbit commander, the card draw and mana win the game. You can draw two or three extra cards a turn (without a mana investment!) or dump a ton of mana into cards like March of the Multitudes, Forth Eorlingas!, and United Front to overwhelm your opponents. They simply can’t overcome such value.

Token Creation

This is the deck’s bread and butter. These cards give you the board state required to make Baylen, the Haymaker tick and provide the pressure you need to win the game.

X-spells that create tokens are vital to this deck’s success. They’re both a mana sink for Baylen’s mana generation and an enabler for its abilities.

Secure the Wastes is an archetype staple for its sheer efficiency. I have fond memories of March of the Multitudes from its time in Standard, and it’s great here because creating a bunch of lifelinking soldiers can tip the scale on close games. Jacked Rabbit can rattle off a couple of attacks to create a bundle of tokens.

Grand Crescendo builds a board while protecting it from the dreaded wrath, and White Sun's Twilight gets you out of many sticky situations by wrathing the board and leaving you with a Phyrexian Mite-y army.

Farmer Cotton literally pulls double duty by making twice X’s value in tokens. Only half of those are creatures, but Baylen taps creatures and Food just as happily.

Forth Eorlingas! takes the prize here as the best X-based token creator and likely the best token creator in the deck. Taking the monarchy gives you an incredible advantage, and this deck makes plenty of blockers to defend the crown with.

Steady token production also matters a lot; you don’t mind spending time building a massive board state. Slow and steady wins the race, after all. Skrelv's Hive embodies this concept perfectly. The toxic Phyrexian Mites represent an alternate win condition to handle that lifegain opponent.

Scute Swarm can win games single-handedly thanks to its exponential growth. Making tokens when lands enter is perfect to build up a board, so we play Springheart Nantuko. You don’t need to bestow this for it to work, but you have some juicy creatures to copy, like Selfless Spirit and Tendershoot Dryad.

Tireless Provisioner rounds out the landfall token creation with a powerful ramp spell. It’s like a thematic Lotus Cobra! Tendershoot Dryad makes up to four tokens a turn cycle, assuming the entire pod has survived—though it only takes a few turn cycles with this in play to start picking off players.

Most token creation focuses on creating lots of little tokens, so I appreciate Ghired, Conclave Exile for making a large Rhino token to copy. This is another creature that can snowball out of control; try dropping it after a wrath to rebuild.

I don’t know why more players don’t run Rabble Rousing. It’s on the expensive side, but hideaway gets you some extra mana from the spell, and those tokens are fierce! It practically doubles your board presence each turn.

I’ve included a few planeswalkers that create tokens: Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Elspeth, Storm Slayer, and Comet, Stellar Pup. These are helpful to rebuild after a wrath since most sweepers won’t hit planeswalkers.

Since Baylen doesn’t rely on creature tokens, we can utilize other kinds of tokens. The Cabbage Merchant creates a cartful of food tokens. Rocco, Street Chef combines token production with some zesty card advantage and +1/+1 counters. Treasure tokens work just as well, so Cavern-Hoard Dragon is a big flier that makes huge chunks of tokens.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is my favorite token maker. Making a token for each opponent fills the board faster than most of the other token creators and works well with many of your token payoffs.

Token Payoffs

So, how do you translate these tokens into a win? Making 30 1/1s is well and good, but you need something to give them a little extra oomph.

I consider Jetmir, Nexus of Revels one of the best token commanders thanks to its game-ending potential. It lends you that finishing power here as one of the cheapest, yet most impactful Overrun variants in the game. You also have Craterhoof Behemoth to push your tokens over the finish line.

But just attacking isn’t a perfect solution. After all, cards like Ghostly Prison exist. You should send damage directly at your opponents’ faces. Purphoros, God of the Forge does this explosively, plus it gives you a power buff. Warleader's Call deals direct damage and makes the team more impactful. Halo Fountain gives you ton of cool synergies for tapping and untapping tokens, along with a very achievable alternate way to win.

Bennie Bracks, Zoologist and Skullclamp give you some card draw in case Baylen gets tied up in court with Drannith Magistrate. Rite of Harmony fuels your most explosive turns.

A subsection of these token payoffs are cards that work well with Baylen, the Haymaker, and thus your tokens. Seedborn Muse and Drumbellower might be the best cards in this deck. Untapping all or most of your tokens lets you use Baylen over and over, likely to draw many cards in a turn cycle, or you can make Baylen into another Jacked Rabbit. Benefactor's Draught gives you this effect once; it’s basically a ritual in this deck.

Interaction

Despite popular opinions among Commander players, interaction is a very necessary element of playing the game, so I made sure to have plenty of it.

I already touched on White Sun's Twilight as a board wipe that leaves you with some board presence; Hour of Reckoning does the same thing since this won’t hit most of your board.

Synergistic interaction is always nice. Pest Infestation blows up a bunch of artifacts and/or enchantments while leaving a plague of Pests behind. Artifact Mutation and Aura Mutation are quite similar and work with Tendershoot Dryad.

Aura Shards is the final piece of the enchantment/artifact hate that works incredibly well with all these tokens hitting the board. This can be quite oppressive, especially against decks built around these card types.

Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile are among the best spot removal spells in the game.

Creature-based decks need to be concerned about opposing interaction, specifically board wipes, so I packed plenty of protection for those.

Heroic Intervention and Grand Crescendo provide decent protection against the average Wrath of God. Thanks to power creep, you need to fear exile-based wraths like Farewell and Sunfall, so there’s Teferi's Protection and Clever Concealment to phase your team out.

Akroma's Will can function as a protective piece; giving your creatures protection from each color protects against damage-based wraths like Brotherhood's End and Burn Down the House, but it’s more often a finisher that gives your team pseudo-unblockable and double strike.

The Mana Base

The Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty channel lands remain well-loved after they rotated out of Standard, and they’ll always be in my heart. And my EDH decks. Boseiju, Who Endures and Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire are arguably better than MDFCs because they serve the same purpose of being a land/spell split card while being nearly uncounterable since channeling is an activated ability. I rarely add Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance to my decks because it's low impact in Commander, but it fits right into this deck.

Though Baylen offers plenty of mana, I’ve loaded the deck with other ramp options to get the snowball rolling. Jaheira, Friend of the Forest is an auto-include in any green token deck with.

You also have many of the usual suspects. The on-color Talismans and Nature's Lore. Avacyn's Pilgrim and Birds of Paradise are key 1-drop mana accelerators over Llanowar Elves because you want as soon as possible, but if you can cast Llanowar Elves you really need access to or for a potential turn 2 Baylen. It’s a pretty standard ramp package to make sure you can establish a strong board state that allows you to go nuts with Baylen, the Haymaker.

The Strategy

You want to play a long game with this deck. You can turn the corner very quickly between burn damage from Purphoros, God of the Forge, Warleader's Call, and Skrelv's Hive. The buffs from Jetmir, Nexus of Revels and Craterhoof Behemoth, are strong, but you need to build up a board state before those cards make a game-winning impact.

Sequencing matters in this deck; the order you play spells can have a huge impact on how much mana and how many cards Baylen can give you. Something to keep in mind is how you use your X-spells. They curve into each other quite well; you can often use the first one to set up a big follow-up. For example, a small March of the Multitudes where X=6 gives you at least 3 additional mana from Baylen to make Farmer Cotton even bigger.

One of this deck’s strengths is its flexibility. It goes wide very well, but you can turn Baylen, the Haymaker into a massive threat with that last ability. Growing Baylen with Food and other noncreature tokens, plus a few creatures like Tireless Provisioner, can bait out a wrath before you drop a bunch of cards into play.

You also have a handful of cards that can take over the game with little to no additional help. Tendershoot Dryad and Scute Swarm can dominate within a few turn cycles. Ghired, Conclave Exile is sometimes more fragile, but just as capable of taking things over. This threat density helps you rebuild in the worst-case scenario: Farewell.

Combos and Interactions

I wanted to keep this deck casual, so it doesn’t have any infinite combos. It does have some cute interactions, however.

Play an early Curse of Opulence or Rocco, Street Chef to make Cavern-Hoard Dragon a much more impactful threat. Get the dragon down early and make a bunch of Treasure to help you coast to an easy victory.

One neat combo is any of your wrath protection with your board wipes. It’s pretty easy to cast Clever Concealment or Heroic Intervention before White Sun's Twilight, which leaves you even further ahead than you’d have been once you get those Phyrexian Mite tokens.

Halo Fountain includes untapping creatures in the cost of it's abilities which feeds into more tokens to tap with Baylen. Be sure you bulk up a bit on white mana to ensure you can activate these though.

Rule 0 Violations

This deck generally passes Rule 0 conversations. The only cards that some tables might take offense at are White Sun's Twilight and Skrelv's Hive since they introduce poison to the game. This is easily solved by swapping them for Martial Coup and Loyal Apprentice, respectively.

Some players might find Aura Shards unfun or stifling because of its repeated value; you could replace it with Witch Enchanter or a similar card.

Budget Options

The best place to make budget cuts will always be the mana base. Ditch fetch lands, shock lands, and utility lands like Boseiju, Who Endures and Field of the Dead in favor of Temples, gain lands, or Sheltering Landscape and the like to reduce costs.

I’ll forever love Modern Horizons 3 for adding MDFCs to the game. I’ve long considered them essential parts of my EDH and Brawl mana bases, and they’re better than ever. A solid portion of the interaction could include MDFC lands like Razorgrass Ambush or Stump Stomp.

Craterhoof Behemoth can be swapped for pretty much any Overrun variant; I favor End-Raze Forerunners, but there’s about 30 cards you can run here.

Purphoros, God of the Forge can be downgraded to the humble Impact Tremors.

Teferi's Protection and Clever Concealment are your most expensive protective spells. There are a variety of budget options, including Make a Stand and Unbreakable Formation, though these can’t protect you from exile-based wraths. These can also replace Heroic Intervention and Grand Crescendo.

Vitalize is a great replacement for Benefactor's Draught, though you lose out on some card advantage.

Other Builds

An alternative direction you could take Baylen, the Haymaker would be to lean into infinite combos. Things like Rosie Cotton of South Lane + Scurry Oak or Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista would help power the deck up and give Baylen something powerful to dig toward.

You can also push the deck into higher brackets with Smothering Tithe, Caretaker's Talent, Academy Manufactor, Parallel Lives, and Doubling Season.

You could also take it down a more thematic path. The rabbitfolk of Bloomburrow are primarily farmers and chefs, helping their communities by producing food. You could lean into the Food synergies already present from The Lord of the Rings cards and the rabbits in Bloomburrow to whip up a tasty beatdown deck that could even incorporate artifact synergies.

Commanding Conclusion

Jetmir, Nexus of Revels | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

Bloomburrow‘s Baylen, the Haymaker is a powerful tokens commander primed to mow through your opponents like, well, hay. The combination of mana production and card advantage without any kind of mana requirements is the recipe for a commander that’s outright powerful.

What do you think of Baylen? Are there any other angles you would take the deck? Let me know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thank you for reading!