Akim, the Soaring Wind

Is is a bird? Is it a dinosaur? It’s Akim, the Soaring Wing our Jeskai legendary 3/4 bird dinosaur for 5 mana. This is a completely token focussed commander there’s no round about way to see it otherwise. It generates a 1/1 flying bird token the first time you make a token each turn and it’s ability is similar to Flying Crane Technique giving double strike to all your token creatures. This was the hardest of the Commander 2020 decks to balance and it ended up going for a artifact support core for Akim and the tokens.

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1 Akim, the Soaring Wind||1 Island||1 Mountain||1 Plains||1 Snow-Covered Island||1 Snow-Covered Mountain||1 Snow-Covered Plains||1 Arid Mesa||1 Bloodstained Mire||1 Cascade Bluffs||1 Castle Ardenvale||1 Cavern of Souls||1 Celestial Colonnade||1 Clifftop Retreat||1 Command Tower||1 Field of the Dead||1 Flooded Strand||1 Glacial Fortress||1 Marsh Flats||1 Misty Rainforest||1 Mystic Gate||1 Mystic Monastery||1 Path of Ancestry||1 Polluted Delta||1 Rugged Prairie||1 Scalding Tarn||1 Windswept Heath||1 Wooded Foothills||1 Steam Vents||1 Volcanic Island||1 Raugrin Triome||1 Plateau||1 Sacred Foundry||1 Hallowed Fountain||1 Tundra||1 Kher Keep||1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge||1 Arcane Signet||1 Azorius Signet||1 Boros Signet||1 Chromatic Lantern||1 Coalition Relic||1 Commander’s Sphere||1 Expedition Map||1 Idol of Oblivion||1 Izzet Signet||1 Mana Crypt||1 Mana Vault||1 Midnight Clock||1 Retrofitter Foundry||1 Sensei’s Divining Top||1 Sol Ring||1 Talisman of Conviction||1 Talisman of Creativity||1 Talisman of Progress||1 Batterskull||1 Lightning Greaves||1 Skullclamp||1 Sword of Feast and Famine||1 Anointed Procession||1 Blind Obedience||1 Detention Sphere||1 Goblin Bombardment||1 Smothering Tithe||1 Whirlwind of Thought||1 Legion’s Landing||1 Brainstorm||1 Commence the Endgame||1 Cyclonic Rift||1 Enlightened Tutor||1 Mana Drain||1 Mystic Confluence||1 Pull from Tomorrow||1 Ponder||1 Preordain||1 Supreme Verdict||1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance||1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant||1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion||1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar||1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor||1 Karn, Scion of Urza||1 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer||1 Serra the Benevolent||1 Tezzeret the Seeker||1 Tezzeret, Artifice Master||1 Ugin, the Ineffable||1 Solemn Simulacrum||1 Faerie Formation||1 Sun Titan||1 Dockside Extortionist||1 Serra Ascendant||1 Trinket Mage||1 Stoneforge Mystic||1 Kykar, Wind’s Fury||1 Sai, Master Thopterist||1 Urza, Lord High Artificer||1 Geist of Saint Traft||1 Ephara, God of the Polis||1 Purphoros, God of the Forge

Synergies

Serra the Benevolent: Serra fits nicely with her angel token creation and flying creature boost. A direct synergy that can curve into Akim and help start some 5/5 flying double strike angels when they work together.

Smothering Tithe: Nothing in Akim that says it has to be a creature token. With both on board if your opponents aren’t paying then get yourself a nice bird to go with the treasure.

Ephara, God of the Polis: Turn your token generation into card draw with an indestructible enchantment. We’re just tacking on value onto value in this deck so that every trigger leads into more resources and Ephara is part of the draw power.

Card Name: Serra the Benevolent. Mana Cost: {2}{W}{W}. Card Oracle Text: +2: Creatures you control with flying get +1/+1 until end of turn.−3: Create a 4/4 white Angel creature token with flying and vigilance.−6: You get an emblem with

Card Name: Smothering Tithe. Mana Cost: {3}{W}. Card Oracle Text: Whenever an opponent draws a card, that player may pay {2}. If the player doesn't, you create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with — $9.46*

Card Name: Ephara, God of the Polis. Mana Cost: {2}{W}{U}. Card Oracle Text: IndestructibleAs long as your devotion to white and blue is less than seven, Ephara isn't a creature.At the beginning of each upkeep, if you had another creature enter the battlefield under your control last turn, draw a card.. Power/Toughness: 6/5 — $3.60*

Token Generation

Lands: Kher Keep is simplest land can be the most effective. This is the least mana intensive land with no additional requirements needed that generates a token creature. Create a kobold, get your bird, and do what you will with them. Legion’s Landing when it flips into Adanto, the First Fort is stronger but requires you to trigger it to flip first. These legendary lands can also be untapped with Minamo, School at Water’s Edge for additional use. Castle Ardenvale is the other land but needs a plains in play to not come into play tapped and tapes 4 mana to use.

Artifacts: I’d like to point out Sai, Master Thopterist and Urza, Lord High Artificer as high synergy and support cards for the artifacts. Both of them use Retrofitter Foundry incredibly well. The odd artifact synergy in Akim though is Batterskull. As a common target for Stoneforge Mystic it’s the best living weapon equipment there is and the germ token does indeed trigger Akim.

Planeswalkers: Most of the planeswalkers in the deck generate tokens and the few that don’t are there for support. We make angels, soldiers, constructs, thopters, spirits and knight ally tokens. It’s a design question when analysing a planeswalker if it can protect themselves as a spell and token generation is the primary way they do that.

Card Name: Kher Keep. Mana Cost: . Card Oracle Text: {T}: Add {C}.{1}{R}, {T}: Create a 0/1 red Kobold creature token named Kobolds of Kher Keep.

Card Name: Sai, Master Thopterist. Mana Cost: {2}{U}. Card Oracle Text: Whenever you cast an artifact spell, create a 1/1 colorless Thopter artifact creature token with flying.{1}{U}, Sacrifice two artifacts: Draw a card.. Power/Toughness: 1/4

Card Name: Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. Mana Cost: {1}{U/R}{U/R}. Card Oracle Text: Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, create a 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature token.−2: Target artifact you control becomes a copy of another target artifact or creature you control until end of turn, except it's an artifact in addition to its other types.

Support

Anointed Procession: The white version of Parallel Lives showing its use in this non-green deck. Doubling tokens is non normally an effect in this colour combination so when this enchantment was released it opened up a lot of options for white token strategies.

Whirlwind of Thought: The Jeskai enchantment from Ikoria is a wonderful draw engine. The deck focuses on a lot of non-creature spells so being able to refuel your hand as you play is great. It works especially well with Sensei’s Divining Top.

Idol of Oblivion: This 2 cost artifact is unbelievably strong in token generation decks. Like Akim it doesn’t care about what kind of token you’ve made whether treasure or creature it’ll give you your card. If it comes down to it you can sacrifice it late game for a 10/10 eldrazi threat.

Card Name: Anointed Procession. Mana Cost: {3}{W}. Card Oracle Text: If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead.

Card Name: Whirlwind of Thought. Mana Cost: {1}{U}{R}{W}. Card Oracle Text: Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, draw a card.

Card Name: Idol of Oblivion. Mana Cost: {2}. Card Oracle Text: {T}: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you created a token this turn.{8}, {T}, Sacrifice Idol of Oblivion: Create a 10/10 colorless Eldrazi creature token.

Summary

Our bird dinosaur Commander is an interesting build. While token strategies are not uncommon the interactions with Akim are less explosive than some strategies but more potent in the end. It’s not exactly constant to be able to give your creature tokens double strike but it is a looming threat for your opponents if you leave the mana up to do so.

There are some staples to this strategy such as Skullclamp, Purphoros, God of the Forge, and Goblin Bombardment but many other options didn’t make the cut. The artifact and planeswalker focus seemed to be the best support option to make Akim work but I would like to try an enchantment variant at some point. We’ll see how it shuffles more with some play testing and tuning but what route would you go? Are there any staples that you think should be in that I missed? I think it’s just fun to have a bird dinosaur as a Commander so let’s see how it runs and take it from there.

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