The 34 Best Token Payoffs and Support Cards in Magic Ranked

Nesting Dovehawk | Illustration by Alessandra Pisano

So… you built a deck that generates a bunch of tokens. What now? Magic has plenty of cards that synergize with tokens, whether we’re talking about creatures that get their power and toughness from your board state or that do something when your creatures or artifacts enter the battlefield.

That’s all well and good, but what about the cards that mention tokens specifically? I’ve dug through every card that mentions tokens to highlight the best and brightest explicit token payoffs.

What Are Token Payoffs and Support Cards?

Insidious Roots | Illustration by Jeremy Wilson

Token payoffs and support cards are Magic cards that interact with tokens, including but not limited to granting them new abilities, pumping up their power or toughness, and giving you new ways to use your tokens.

I’m going with cards that specifically call out tokens for this ranking, but there are lots of mechanics and abilities that get better when you add tokens to the mix. Affinity cards, ascend cards, and alliance cards all improve when you use tokens. You can use creature tokens to help you cast convoke or improvise spells, populate abilities need tokens to function, and you must explicitly sacrifice a token to fulfill the requirement for a bargain spell. Creature sac outlets and artifact sac outlets love the sacrifice fodder that token generators give them. You aren’t wrong if you call them token payoffs. I’m just being stubbornly specific.

Not Ranked: Token Doublers, Adders, Replacers, and Copiers

Token doublers and adders are some of the best payoffs for running token generation, full stop. But rather than clog up this list with cards like Elspeth, Storm Slayer, Doubling Season, Peregrin Took, Xorn, Academy Manufactor, Worldwalker Helm, and others, I want to give other abilities the spotlight.

Let’s mention Divine Visitation, Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second, and Esix, Fractal Bloom here too, since they’re replacement effects. Token copiers like Rhys the Redeemed, Second Harvest, Renewed Solidarity, and Redoubled Stormsinger are basically just mass token generators. Great payoffs. Not quite the cards I’m looking for today.

If your favorite token payoff isn’t on this list and it only adds more tokens to the board, that’s why. And yes, it feels incredibly wrong to leave Ocelot Pride off a list like this, but my narrow parameters about being token specific and not a token generator in disguise don’t leave space for it.

Not Ranked: Board-Based and Type-Specific Payoffs

There are so many cards that don’t explicitly pay you off for having tokens, but tokens help you to leverage them.

Scion of the Wild has power and toughness based on your total creature count, while Horn of Valhalla gives its equipped creature a similar stat buff. Rally for the Throne gains a lot of life with if you have a lot of tokens in play.

I’ve also left off type specific payoffs unless it’s also token specific. Food. Clues. Treasure. Saprolings. Thopters. These are just some subtypes that you’ll find on tokens, but they aren’t always tokens. I have a hard time calling something that’s a Food– or Treasure-specific sac outlet or a Thopter-specific haste enabler a “token” payoff.

I’m leaving aside payoffs that care specifically about Blood tokens, Incubator tokens, and Zombie tokens for similar reasons. Besides, it gives us a reason to cover some of those topics separately and more granularly.

Not Ranked: Claire D’Loon, Joy Sculptor

The acorn means this card technically isn’t legal, but could I really leave this off completely?

Claire D'Loon, Joy Sculptor gets around one of the fundamental drawbacks of tokens: It turns your tokens into cards, which means that they exist in other zones now! Azorius colors () means you’re probably going to blink or bounce stuff, but what would you do with that kind of power?

#34. Bloodroot Apothecary

I struggled with whether I should include Bloodroot Apothecary in the first place. It’s a token payoff, yes, but it pays you off when your opponent uses tokens. There’s some group slug elements here, and it’s a card that actually appreciates Primal Vigor’s symmetry and Vazi, Keen Negotiator’s ability.

#33. Transmutation Font

Paging Academy Manufactor players. Transmutation Font lets you trade in surplus artifact tokens to tutor for other artifacts. Gimbal is the most obvious home, but you could slot it into any deck where you’re creating a bunch of utility tokens. You can also sacrifice Thopter tokens, Myr tokens, and plenty more to this ability.

#32. Elspeth Tirel

So many Elspeth planeswalker cards play well with tokens, including the token doubler from Tarkir: Dragonstorm. Elspeth Tirel goes one step further with an ultimate that acts as a one-sided sweeper. Two problems, though. First: You hit your own nontokens, but you can mitigate that with a well-timed protection spell. But second: It’s much less effective in a mirror match. It’s part of why Elspeth, Sun's Champion has been reprinted in a bunch of Commander precons while Elspeth Tirel has been printed three times total.

#31. Roxanne, Starfall Savant

Roxanne, Starfall Savant works as a neat Treasure and other artifact token commander, but it also has a surprising number of other homes. Meteorites are a great token to copy with Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds since they give you mana and they burn stuff when they enter. They’re another fairly unique artifact name for Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy, and Roxanne pairs so nicely with Svella, Ice Shaper’s Icy Manaliths.

#30. Securitron Squadron

Securitron Squadron is one of those solid 2-drops that’s good early, mid-game, and late. The sweet spot is probably around 5 mana so that you can have two creatures that give your tokens +1/+1 counters, but you can really sink as much mana as you want into that squad ability.

#29. Killer Service

Killer Service sees the most play in Food token decks, but you can use it alongside almost any kind of token. Its end step trigger acts as a token sac outlet that gives you back a 4/4 Rhino.

#28. Gothmog, Morgul Lieutenant

Outside of amass decks, Gothmog, Morgul Lieutenant’s utility is as a deathtouch enabler that’s easy on your wallet.

#27. Roar of Resistance

Roar of Resistance acts as a token-specific haste enabler, and I can see using this alongside an infinite combat engine that somehow also gives you mana. At the same time, red is a very haste enabling color, and most decks that can play this can also play better cards.

#26. The Master, Multiplied

Boy, do I feel silly for not picking up a copy before this card’s price spiked. The Master, Multiplied is the card for keeping around tokens that are usually ephemeral. Yeah, it helps you get around the legend rule, but it’s that last ability that goes absolutely wild. Tokens that you add to the board from mobilize and myriad are usually temporary, but The Master, Multiplied prevents you from having to sacrifice or exile them. At 6 mana, it’s definitely a curve topper, and it’s a nonbo with cards that actually want your tokens to leave the battlefield.

#25. Echoing Assault

Another temporary token provider that you can maximize with cards like The Master, Multiplied. Menace is a great keyword to add to the mix when you’re going wide: Your opponents need twice as many blockers, or they just take extra damage. I really like the art on Echoing Assault, too.

#24. Staff of the Storyteller

Staff of the Storyteller essentially gives you an extra card every turn if you’re making tokens at roughly that pace or higher. It’s slow and inefficient in some decks, while it’s a good stabilizer in others.

I’ll mention Cadric, Soul Kindler here since it works in a similar space. It leans a lot more into the legends matter aspect by letting you copy your legends as you cast them if you, uh, pay the .

#23. Chitterspitter

Chitterspitter would be a lot better if it weren’t a squirrel-specific anthem. As it is, it’s really good in squirrel decks like Chatterfang or Hazel, and you can even conjure it with Euru, Acorn Scrounger on MTG Arena.

#22. For the Common Good

Worst case scenario, For the Common Good is a card you use to recover after an opponent has decimated your life total.

#21. Nesting Dovehawk

Like many token payoffs, Nesting Dovehawk is disgusting if your token deck includes an infinite combo. You’re telling me I can get an infinitely tall flier? Yes, please! A populate trigger at the beginning of combat is just the cherry on top.

#20. Prava of the Steel Legion

Prava of the Steel Legion is a token lord that distributes a +1/+4 buff, but only on your turn. That extra toughness helps your armies survive when you attack, plus this white creature has a mana sink that’ll give you more tokens. It finds homes more often in type-specific token decks alongside soldiers and cats.

#19. Ainok Strike Leader + King Darien XLVIII

Ainok Strike Leader and King Darien XLVIII both offer your board protection with activated abilities that grant your tokens indestructible. You don’t need to tap them or pay mana into these abilities, so it’s harder to prevent you from using them as intended.

#18. Neyali, Suns’ Vanguard

Now here’s a card that punishes your opponents if they let you go wide. Attacking with an army of double strikers is twice as powerful, plus Neyali, Suns' Vanguard adds some extra impulse draw.

#17. Inspiring Leader

For Commander players only. Inspiring Leader gives your tokens a +2/+2 bump, but you need to control your commander to make it effective. There are better token anthems out there, but this background helps to keep your deck on-budget.

#16. Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer

Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer would have plenty of homes if it were just a token haste enabler. But its combat trigger is where the fun really starts. It can be mass artifact animation, turning a bunch of Treasure and Clue tokens into creatures, though it’s an all-or-nothing ability that affects all your tokens.

#15. Curiosity Crafter

Of course blue’s token payoffs do blue things. Curiosity Crafter’s saboteur trigger that draws cards and its infinite hand size effect belong in very specific Commander decks, but it’s such a good card in those ones. Think along the lines of Niko, Light of Hope, Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, and such.

#14. Insidious Roots

Murders at Karlov Manor is a weird set. There are so many cards in it that I just don’t want in my collection, but the good cards are really good.

Insidious Roots fits into decks like Teval, the Balanced Scale, The Necrobloom… basically anything that uses the graveyard for value.

#13. Fountainport

Fountainport is a pretty decent utility land with an ability that reminds me of Trading Post. Trading in 3 mana (2 to activate and the opportunity cost of tapping Fountainport for colorless) and a token for one card isn’t the most efficient sac-for-card trade that there is, but you’re paying a tax for the modality of all the other abilities and the fact that it’s a land, not a creature or something.

#12. Bennie Bracks, Zoologist

Card draw on your end step is great, but each end step? Woah, nelly!

Bennie Bracks, Zoologist also has convoke, which makes it easier to cast. All you need to do is generate a token to get card draw, and lots of token decks can do that in their sleep. A deck that uses Pitiless Plunderer only needs to sacrifice a token creature or use one as a chump blocker, and that’s just the first synergy that comes to mind.

#11. Kambal, Profiteering Mayor

Orzhov () token cards really love fiddling around with everyone’s life totals, don’t they? Keep your life counter apps handy!

Kambal, Profiteering Mayor also copies the first token that enters under your opponents’ control. Mirror matches are harder for other token players to navigate; someone who isn’t paying attention could give you your own Marit Lage, but you’re usually going to wind up with extra Treasure, Faerie, or Soldier tokens or something.

#10. Junk Winder

Junk Winder’s affinity for tokens gives it cost reduction, but what we care about is the triggered ability. Every token that enters under your control stuns an opponent’s permanent for a turn.

#9. Teysa Karlov

Vigilance and lifelink are really good keywords to grant your token creatures. You can go wide and attack your opponents and rest assured that any survivors will be available for you to use as blockers.

Teysa Karlov is a really popular Orzhov commander for aristocrat decks, but it’s a good support piece for those Mardu precons () that create and sacrifice tokens (Hail, Caesar! from Fallout and Mardu Surge from Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander).

Teysa’s trigger doubler is especially relevant for decks that also sacrifice a bunch of those creature tokens. Now your Pitiless Plunderer gives you two Treasure tokens, Zulaport Cutthroat drains opponents for 2 life, etc.

#8. Caretaker’s Talent

Class enchantments are lovely mana sinks, especially when their abilities all play into the same archetype. Caretaker's Talent starts off as a source of card draw, and tops out as an anthem. Neat and tidy, just how we like it.

#7. Baylen, the Haymaker

Tokens equal utility when Baylen, the Haymaker is on the field. Its first abilities give you mana and card advantage, then you can buff up your bunny for a big swing. As a Naya commander (), you’re in the perfect colors to run every good token doubler in the game. You can even get your token generation by way of spellslinging, if that tickles your fancy.

#6. Hour of Reckoning

Token decks can’t really beat a one-sided sweeper that you can convoke. Your ideal use case is to cast Hour of Reckoning during your first main phase, then you attack into disadvantageous board states with whichever creatures you didn’t tap to cast it. With a board and mana base that are already well-developed, you’ll sweep the board and have mana left over for mass pump effects.

Shoutout to Perplexing Test, which acts as a one-sided mass bounce spell for token decks.

#5. Nadier’s Nightblade

Zulaport Cutthroat, but make it token-specific. Nadier's Nightblade also has a 1/3 stat line that helps to keep it alive. It slots nicely into Treasure decks to take advantage of cashing those tokens in for mana, and its elf creature type helps it fit into Lathril, Blade of the Elves token decks.

#4. Rosie Cotton of South Lane

Oh, you lil heartbreaker.

Rosie Cotton of South Lane almost feels like a throwback, since it’s an uncommon with a triggered ability that isn’t limited to once per turn. It walks that line between tokens and +1/+1 counters that so many Selesnya cards () walk, and pumping up your creatures helps to keep them out of reach of sweepers that are used against token decks. I don’t really need to mention how valuable it is alongside infinite token combos, do I?

#3. Jaheira, Friend of the Forest

This is one of my favorite cards to find in my Baldur’s Gate boosters. Jaheira, Friend of the Forest turns all your tokens into Moss Diamonds and Llanowar Elves, at least in terms of mana generation.

#2. Intangible Virtue

Intangible Virtue, tangible benefits. A simple anthem that also grants your creatures vigilance makes them much better because you can keep any tokens that don’t survive combat to reuse later. Maybe you have spare blockers. Maybe you tap them in your second main phase to cast a convoke spell. A 2-mana enchantment like this fits into virtually any curve.

#1. Mirkwood Bats

Life drain when you create tokens, and life drain when you sacrifice them. There are so many decks that want a Mirkwood Bats. Heck, I’m using Mirkwood Bats in about 12 decks right now, between Food decks, Treasure decks, aristocrat decks, and even Mardu token decks like Zurgo and Caesar.

How Do Token Decks Win?

There are three primary ways to win with tokens:

• You attack with enough creature tokens that your opponent can’t possibly hope to block them all,
• You pair your token generation with Mirkwood Bats, Impact Tremors, Zulaport Cutthroat, and similar effects that drain your opponent’s life total as your tokens enter and leave the battlefield, or
• You have sacrifice outlets that let you cash in tokens to kill blockers and/or drain your opponents’ life, like Goblin Bombardment.

Token decks that use white mana also have access to Halo Fountain, while artifact decks can use Mechanized Production or Hellkite Tyrant. Treasure-specific decks have Revel in Riches.

Token decks can also leverage infinite loops, like the one that comes from pairing Chatterfang, Squirrel General and Pitiless Plunderer.

I guess Craterhoof Behemoth is a thing, too. Convoke your Chord of Calling to tutor for Craterhoof Behemoth, make all your tokens huge, then see where you’re at.

What Are the Best Ways to Use a Huge Amount of Tokens?

Win a game of Magic! Decks that are built around large numbers of tokens usually have a specific game plan. You don’t even have to go infinite, but it sure helps!

Goblin Bombardment and Impact Tremors are some of the most common, while creatures like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, Scion of the Wild, etc. have stats that change depending on the number of creatures you control. You can tap a huge board state of creatures to pull all the lands in your library onto the battlefield tapped with Harvest Season, and infinite token generation mills out all of your opponents thanks to Altar of the Brood.

Here’s a couple other interesting ways to use a large number of tokens.

Baylen, the Haymaker: 10 tokens combine with the first ability and Aggravated Assault for infinite combats. Infinite tokens lets you activate Baylen’s abilities as much as you want. You can make infinite, color-fixed mana, draw your entire deck, and make an god-sized bunny. AA can still mean infinite combats, but really you only need three. Oh look! Grand Abolisher is in your colors, too.

Warp World: With a lot of tokens, you can reset the board with all your creatures, artifacts, lands, and enchantments (minus your graveyard and exile zones) out on the battlefield.

Helix Pinnacle + Jaheira, Friend of the Forest or Enduring Vitality: If you can pump 100 mana into Helix Pinnacle thanks to a large number of tokens, you just need to keep this green enchantment around until your next upkeep to lock in a victory.

Hellkite Tyrant: Thopters, Treasures, Food in an Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar deck, Blood tokens… so many options.

Saproling Symbiosis: Got infinity tokens? How about double infinity tokens?

Armed with Proof, Arterial Alchemy, Dan Lewis, and Gemcutter Buccaneer: Each of these cards has an ability that turns some kinds of non-equipment artifacts into equipment. Why not equip an big army of creature tokens with a bag of Treasure tokens or something?

Wrap Up

For the Common Good | Illustration by Serena Malyon

These are just some of the cards that interact with tokens and reward you for playing them. There’s plenty of other payoffs that don’t mention tokens by name but that improve your token strategy.

Which are your favorite token support pieces? Would you want to read about payoffs for specific tokens, like Clue payoffs or Food payoffs? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

Until next time, have fun with your token decks!