Sometimes, an MTG card isn’t defined by its intended use, but instead by the exceptions that lay in the dark, unexplored corners of its design. Replacement effects commonly offer these unintuitive exceptions, like Doubling Season doubling Loyalty counters on Planeswalkers that enter play. Today, another bizarre replacement effect interaction has shown up in Final Fantasy Limited that could seriously buff your Commander creature token decks. Notably, it’s not unique to the new set.
Replacement Effects In Action
Replacement effects are incredibly popular in Commander formats. Because games of casual Commander are so long, cards that create exponential value instead of flat, immediate value generally perform better. Since replacement effects can, essentially, power up every single other card that interacts with it, you can create a lot of value over time. Doubling Season is a great example of this.
When replacement effects appear within Limited formats, they can also have some powerful interactions, especially if designed as a payoff to a certain archetype. That does not appear to be the case for Quina, Qu Gourmet, but there still exists an incredibly powerful interaction with her in Final Fantasy Limited. Even outside of this interaction, however, Quina, Qu Gourmet can create a lot of value thanks to the Job Selection mechanic, creating an additional Frog alongside your Hero token.
While I haven’t played much Final Fantasy Limited, like many other players, I’ve been impressed with Zanarkand, Ancient Metropolis. Doubling as both a ramp payoff and a Town, this is a great piece for Simic Town Ramp decks. Essentially offering an overstatted token attached to a land, this is probably the most powerful Adventure land in Final Fantasy Limited.
One X user, however, took Zanarkand to a whole different level. @Darkest_MAJ was shocked to find that, when casting Zanarkand with Quina in play, they got a result far more impressive than expected. Instead of creating just a 1/1 Frog that many may expect, the Frog and the Hero both gained the +1/+1 counter buff from the Adventure spell. Even with just six lands in play to cast your six-mana spell, you’ll create two 7/7 tokens with Lasting Fayth and Quina, Qu Gourmet. A similar trick can be used with other Token replacement effects like Chatterfang, Squirrel General.
While this certainly makes Zanarkand, Ancient Metropolis a much more interesting addition to Chatterfang decks, it has a lot more far-reaching implications for Commander, many of which are seeing play already.
Chatterfang and Slime Against Humanity
Zanarkand, Ancient Metropolis and Quina, Qu Gourmet are not an isolated interaction. This impacts other cards as well, some of which are very popular in Commander. Slime Against Humanity decks, in particular, heavily benefit from this.
Similar to Zanarkand, Slime Against Humanity creates a token and puts counters on it. This means tokens added to the spell via replacement effects will also get the +1/+1 counters generated by Slime Against Humanity. Considering that Slime Against Humanity is one of the many ‘any number of cards in deck’ Commander archetypes, this interaction is rather significant.
This means that Chatterfang, Squirrel General and Quina, Qu Gourmet are fantastic additions to a Slime Against Humanity Commander deck, as is Zanarkand, Ancient Metropolis. Those who are looking for even more effects like this can use Queen Allenal of Ruadach as yet another way to create more token bodies.
While not quite as beneficial, you could use an effect like Case of the Pilfered Proof or Peregrin Took to create a Clue/Food Token with tons of +1/+1 counters on it. Of course, unless you can turn the Clue/Food into a creature, or otherwise move the counters, the buff is rather pointless. That said, if you can find a use for them, creating a Clue/Food can cause you to create a lot more tokens with replacement effects from Academy Manufactor and Stridehangar Automaton. If you can find a way to move +1/+1 counters en-masse from noncreature tokens, this could prove to be a unique and powerful Commander strategy.
Of course, Zanarkand, Ancient Metropolis, and Slime Against Humanity aren’t the only token-creation effects that can take advantage of replacement effects like this. If you’re looking for more cards to use this way, anything that Incubates will do the trick.
Back from March of the Machine, Incubating creates a token with +1/+1 counters on it that can transform for two mana into a 0/0 creature. The number of counters you create will also go on the extra tokens from replacement effects. Incubating may not be templated the same way as Slime Against Humanity, but the interaction works the same.
Consider using this neat interaction when you next build a Commander deck with some connecting themes. Chrome Host Seedshark, in particular, could wreak massive havoc with the right setup.
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