Ever since Doubling Season's original printing back in Ravnica: City of Guilds, its ability to double all tokens and counters has been a Bonafide hit on every level. This Green enchantment is a Casual all-star. As such, it has been one of the most financially valuable cards consistently for years now. Even with several reprints under its belt, Doubling Season (DS) is currently sitting at around the $35 mark here at CoolStuffInc (depending on the printing it's even more).

What does Doubling Season do?

Just so we're all on the same page, Doubling Season does a lot more than you'd think at first glance. The effect on this card doubles all tokens generated by your effects (spells, abilities, or otherwise). That includes all Creature tokens, from 1/1 Soldiers to 4/4 Angels with Flying, and all Artifact and Enchantment tokens like Clues, Food, and the Mask tokens produced by Estrid, the Masked. All of them.

Speaking of Estrid, Doubling Season's second ability doesn't just double your standard +1/+1 counters. It doubles all counters, including the Loyalty counters on Planeswalkers, Charge counters, Lore counters, Page counters... you get the idea.

The Top Five Commanders for Doubling Season

Now, let's say you've managed to open, trade for, or purchase a Doubling Season, and want to find the best home for your investment in Commander. Which Commanders will help you make the most of this massively popular and powerful Enchantment?

• 5. Mutagen Man, Living Ooze
• 4. Jared Carthalion
• 3. Adrix and Nev, Twincasters
• 2. Ghave, Guru of Spores
• 1. Atraxa, Praetors' Voice

Ideally, your Commander will make good use of both the token and counter effects. So, let's dive in to the most powerful and fun options available for maximizing your Doubling Season.

5. Mutagen Man, Living Ooze

I happen to have some experience building a deck around Mutagen Man, Living Ooze. He is absolutely broken with a Doubling Season in play. Let's break down why.

Mutagen Man costs to cast. He has a 2/3 body with Trample and Creates Mutagen tokens when he Enters. Now, double that thanks to Doubling Season!

Each of those Mutagen tokens can be cracked for free (thanks to the discount on activating abilities of Artifact tokens from Mutagen Man). Activating a Mutagen token allows you to put a +1/+1 counter on one of your Creatures, which means you get to put two counters on that Creature thanks to Doubling Season.

To illustrate the point, if you cast Mutagen Man so X=5 ( for the total cost) and you have Doubling Season online, you get 10 Mutagen tokens. That translates to 20 +1/+1 counters for no additional mana thanks to Mutagen Man's ability.

You could spread those counters around on any number of spicy Creatures that benefit from the buff in power, or having counters placed on them. However, if all those counters go on Mutagen Man, you'll have enough power to take someone out with Commander Damage (21 combat damage from a single Commander will take a player out of a game of Commander).

Having that kind of threat locked and loaded in the Command Zone, as long as you have Doubling Season in play, is hard to overlook.

4. Jared Carthalion

Jared Carthalion has mad synergy with Doubling Season. He's a five-color five-drop Planeswalker that can be your Commander. Usually he Enters with five loyalty counters, but Doubling Season will make that an impressive 10.

His first ability adds one loyalty counter to him (Planeswalkers' abilities put Loyalty counters on themselves as a cost rather than an effect, so that number isn't doubled). Should you do so, he Creates one (now two with Doubling Season) 3/3 Kavu Creature tokens with Trample that are all colors.

Removing three loyalty counters from him will let you place a number of +1/+1 counters on up to two Creatures equal to the number of colors they are. Once again, those counters are doubled. So, if you happened to choose the two recently created five-color Kavu tokens, each of them would receive 10 (five doubled) +1/+1 counters, making them 13/13 Creatures with Trample. That's a lot of evasive power!

Jared's Ultimate ability asks you to remove six Loyalty counters in order to Raise Dead (return from your Graveyard to your hanb) a multicolored card. If that card was all colors, you get to draw a card and make two (now four) Treasures.

Every part of Jared works incredibly well with Doubling Season. Not only does he protect himself extremely well by making sizeable blockers, he can also turn those Creatures into massive threats in their own right. Not to mention you can use his Ultimate ability the turn you play him thanks to him entering with 10 Loyalty counters.

I'd like to give a brief shoutout to some other Planeswalker Commanders that work well with Doubling Season (but not enough to be honorable mentions). Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes and Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury either create tokens or put counters on Creatures, and are worth considering.

3. Adrix and Nev, Twincasters

This is where things start to get out of control. Adrix and Nev, Twincasters are a four-mana Legendary Simic () 2/2 with a small amount of protection in the form of Ward . The Twincasters feature some familiar text, "If one or more tokens would be created under your control, twice that many of those tokens are created instead."

So, if you have both the Twincasters and Doubling Season in play, you'll double the number of tokens you're creating and then double it again. That's quadruple the tokens! Ward just pushes Adrix and Nev over the edge, making it that much harder to disrupt the tidal wave of tokens you're about to unleash on your opponents.

2. Ghave, Guru of Spores

Ghave, Guru of spores costs five mana and normally Enters with five +1/+1 counters (10 with DS). He can sacrifice a Creature for to toss a +1/+1 counter on a Creature, and that's doubled with Season out. Alternatively, you can spend to pull a +1/+1 counter off of a Creature to make a 1/1 Saproling token, and make that two with Season out.

Doubling Season turns Ghave into it's own self-sustaining engine as long as you have the mana to keep it going. Pair it with Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar for infinite +1/+1 counters, Saproling tokens, and sacrifice/death triggers.

1. Atraxa, Praetors' Voice

If you're interested in a massively powerful four mana, four-color 4/4 with truly too many keywords, look no further than Atraxa, Praetors' Voice. Atraxa has Flying and Vigilance like Serra Angel and then Deathtouch and Lifelink like Vampire Nighthawk - both classics!

But the stats and keywords aren't why Atraxa makes the top of the list (though they certainly help). No, Atraxa's main trick is that she gives you a free Proliferate at the end of your turn. Proliferate allows you to choose any number of permanents or players and place another counter of each kind already on those permanents or players. So, with Doubling Season involved, you'll get to add two of each of those counters instead.

If you're building around Atraxa, you will have no shortage of counters you'd love to be Proliferating, and Doubling Season will cause things to spiral out of control fast. She's one of the most popular Commanders for a reason (top three according to EDHREC), and her power level is taken to the next level thanks to our titular Green Enchantment.

Honorable Mentions

Just outside of this powerhouse top five, there are plenty of other Legendary Creatures worth mentioning. Each of these Honorable Mentions pair excellently with the doubling power of Doubling Season, so don't overlook them for your next Commander brew.

Kibo, Uktabi Prince

Kibo, Uktabi Prince is a lovable Gray Ogre that taps for no mana to hand out Bananas to all. Banana tokens are kind of a cross between a Treasure and a Food, adding either a or and gaining 2 life.

That's not all. Whenever an Artifact our foes' control is put into the graveyard from the battlefield, we get to toss a +1/+1 counter on each of our Apes and Monkeys. Finally, when Kibo attacks, the defending player has to sacrifice an Artifact (thus triggering Kibo).

With Doubling Season out, we'll get two Bananas when everyone else gets one, and we'll get twice the counters when their Artifacts are destroyed.

Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch

Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch is a three-drop 2/2 Colorless Artifact Creature with a bit of a Myr Kindred schtick. Whenever you cast a Myr spell, you get to create a 1/1 Colorless Myr Artifact Creature token. Then, at the beginning of combat on your turn, you untap all of your Myrs. We're already benefiting from Doubling Season thanks to that token production, but there's more.

Urtet can tap for to put three +1/+1 counters on each Myr you control, but only on our turn (though not at Sorcery speed). That's double the tokens and double the counters with Season in play.

A lot of Myr tap for mana, so you can use them to activate Urtet to put counters on your Myrs, and then untap and swing. Ideally, you could add in some Vigilance to keep the shields up after attacking, but the growing threat your army of Myr presents is going to be hard to fight against.

Thelon of Havenwood

Thelon of Havenwood is a two-drop Green 2/2 Creature that gives each of our Fungus Creatures +1/+1 for each Spore counter on them. You can also spend to exile a Fungus from any graveyard to put a spore counter on each Fungus on the battlefield.

This is the Thallid Commander. Every Thallid is a Fungus Creature, and they all get free spore counters during your upkeep that can then be removed in groups of three to do something. With Thelon and a Doubling Season out that's two Spore Counters per upkeep (and +2/+2 from Thelon), an additional two counters if you activate Thelon's ability, and some Thallids will let you use those counters to make tokens (doubled). The fungal menace will spread very quickly (which would be a huge boon for Ghave, Guru of Spores).

Finneas, Ace Archer

Finneas, Ace Archer is a two-drop 2/2 Creature with Vigilance and Reach. When Finneas attacks, you get to put a +1/+1 counter on each other Creature you control that's a token or Rabbit. Then, if you have at least 10 power in play, you get to draw a card.

There's tons of power here with a Doubling Season out. Finneas works spectacularly in a token deck since the +1/+1 counters don't care if the tokens are Rabbits. That's double the tokens and double the counters, which spells fast, furry doom for your opponents.

Jolene, the Plunder Queen

Jolene, the Plunder Queen is a four-drop Gruul () 2/2 that gives each player that attacks one of your opponents a Treasure token, but just once per combat. With Doubling Season, we'll get double the Treasures, of course. Not to mention that Jolene herself gives you an extra Treasure token whenever you Create one or more.

She can sacrifice five Treasures to give herself five +1/+1 counters. It won't be hard to get five Treasures with Doubling Season in play, and then Jolene will get 10 +1/+1 counters instead of five. She's a mana-making and face-beating machine that will very quickly be big enough to take people out with Commander damage.

Zaxara, the Exemplary

Zaxara, the Exemplary is a four-drop Sultai () Creature with Deathtouch. It has a 2/3 body and can tap to make two mana of any one color. Then, when you cast a spell with in their cost, you get to create an X/X Hydra token, where you place X +1/+1 counters on the token.

Both the token and the counters will double up with Doubling Season. That's two X/X Hydras that are both now twice as big as before. That's four times the power and toughness for the same mana investment, which is just nasty.

Chatterfang, Squirrel General

Chatterfang, Squirrel General is a three-mana 3/3 with Forestwalk. When Chatterfang is in play, whenever we create tokens we also get to make that many 1/1 Squirrel Creature tokens. That's not bad. What's better is that the tokens don't have to be Creature tokens in order for Chatterfang to trigger.

Chatterfang also has an ability to spend and sacrifice X Squirrels to give target Creature +X/-X until the end of the turn. With Doubling Season in play, you'll get double the original tokens and double the Squirrel tokens from Chatterfang. All of those Squirrels will prove potent ammunition for Chatterfang's activated ability when the time comes.

Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm

Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm is six-drop 6/6 Dragon with Flying and Ward . As any other Dragon Enters, if it's a not token you get to create a non-Legendary token copy of it.

With the Season out that's two Dragon tokens every time. If you thought Miirym was a problem before, getting double the value and potential triggers with every Dragon you play is going to put the game out of reach in short order.

Wrapping Up

There you have it. Doubling Season works incredibly well with each of the Commanders in this list, but there are any number of cards that benefit from this Casual all-star. I encourage you to go out and find your own wild combos with Doubling Season and see what the hype is about.

Until next time!