Samwise Gamgee is one of the many main characters featured in Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond Set The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. With Samwise being one of the primary chefs in the Lord of the Rings adventure, fittingly, his Magic card is built around Food tokens.
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Thanks to Samwise Gamgee’s color identity of Selesnya (green/white), it has access to just about every popular token and Food support card. This allows for explosive turns, infinite combos, and a lot of sustainability with how much life you can gain. If you love Food tokens, Samwise Gamgee is the perfect commander for you.
Decklist
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Commander: Samwise Gamgee |
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Academy Manufactor |
Apothecary White |
Astrid Peth |
Avacyn’s Pilgrim |
Banquet Guests |
Basking Broodscale |
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Bennie Bracks, Zoologist |
Bill the Pony |
Cadira, Call of the Small |
Crested Sunmare |
Displaced Dinosaurs |
Elanor Gardner |
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Elvish Mystic |
Emiel the Blessed |
Essence Warden |
Farmer Cotton |
Feasting Hobbit |
Feasting Troll King |
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Gala Greeters |
Gilded Goose |
Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles |
Heliod, Sun-Crowned |
Jaheira, Friend of the Forest |
Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn |
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Merry, Warden of Isengard |
Motivated Pony |
Peregrin Took |
Prize Pig |
Prosperous Innkeeper |
Provisions Merchant |
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Rosie Cotton of South Lane |
Sam, Loyal Attendant |
Sarinth Steelseeker |
Scurry Oak |
Soul Warden |
Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender |
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Tireless Provisioner |
Tough Cookie |
Treebeard, Gracious Host |
Yotian Dissident |
Doomskar |
Farseek |
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Many Partings |
Nature’s Lore |
Rampant Growth |
Revive the Shire |
The Battle of Bywater |
Vanquish the Horde |
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Beast Within |
Generous Gift |
Path to Exile |
Second Harvest |
Swords to Plowshares |
Arcane Signet |
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Commander’s Sphere |
Idol of Oblivion |
Inspiring Statuary |
Nuka-Cola Vending Machine |
Selesnya Signet |
Sol Ring |
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Talisman of Unity |
Gourmand’s Talent |
Killer Service |
Night of the Sweets’ Revenge |
Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit |
Brushland |
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Canopy Vista |
Command Tower |
Exotic Orchard |
x11 Forest |
Fountainport |
Gavony Township |
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Gingerbread Cabin |
Horizon Canopy |
Minas Tirith |
Overgrown Farmland |
x10 Plains |
Rogue’s Passage |
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Sunpetal Grove |
The Shire |
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The decklist contains 40 creatures, eight sorceries, five instants, eight artifacts, four enchantments, and 34 lands. Most of the deck are either Food generators or a way to take advantage of how many tokens you make.
Key Cards
Samwise Gamgee
Samwise Gamgee turns all nontoken creatures to enter the battlefield alongside a Food token. If you have any historic cards in your graveyard, you can get them back at the cost of three Food, giving you some much-appreciated recursion for some of your best creatures.
Historic cards refer to cards that are either legendary, artifacts, or Sagas.
Samwise only costs two mana, so even if it gets removed you can easily pay its commander tax. You want to get Samwise Gamgee on the battlefield as soon as possible, as the deck wants to generate as many Food tokens as you can.
Peregrin Took
Another one of the main hobbits, Peregrin Took is one of the most important cards in the deck. It provides an extra Food for any token being made and turns all your Food tokens into draw power.
Peregrin Took has a decent statline to make it useful in combat. The most important thing that Peregrin Took offers is its infinite combo with the Nuka-Cola Vending Machine. This is how the combo works.
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Prerequisites: Peregrin Took and Nuka-Cola Vending Machine are on the battlefield. You control at least three Foods. |
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Step 1: Activate Peregrin Took to sacrifice three Food tokens and draw a card. |
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Step 2: Nuka-Cola Vending Machine triggers, making three tapped Treasure tokens. Peregrin Took will create three Food tokens along with them. |
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Step 3: Repeat steps 1-2 for infinite card draw and infinite tapped Treasure tokens. |
Jaheira, Friend of the Forest
Jaheira, Friend of the Forest is one of the main ways you’ll generate mana. Since you make such a high number of tokens, Jaheira allows these tokens to tap for a green mana. It is one of the best ways to use your Food tokens if you don’t want to use them to gain life.
Even if Jaheira is targeted for removal, you can tap all your tokens in response before Jaheira gets removed so you can still take advantage of Jaheira before it gets removed. Unless it gets exiled, Samwise Gamgee can bring Jaheira back from the graveyard to keep using it.
Scurry Oak
Scurry Oak doesn’t directly do anything for the Food token strategy, and yet it is arguably the best card in the deck. This is because Scurry Oak is the biggest combo enabler and the easiest way to reach a win condition.
There are two different ways for Scurry Oak to go infinite. One is with Scurry Oak and Rosie Cotton of South Lane, and the other is with Scurry Oak, Heliod, Sun-Crowned, and any way to gain a life when a creature enters the battlefield.
Here is the combo with Scurry Oak and Rosie Cotton.
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Prerequisite: Scurry Oak is on the battlefield. |
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Step 1: Cast Rosie Cotton of South Lane, creating a Food token. This triggers its effect to put a +1/+1 counter on a creature other than Rosie. |
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Step 2: Put the +1/+1 counter on Scurry Oak, triggering its effect to create a 1/1 Squirrel token. |
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Step 3: The token enters, triggering Rosie Cotton’s effect to put a +1/+1 counter on a creature. |
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Step 4: Repeat steps 2-3. |
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This creates an infinite number of Squirrel tokens and gives Scurry Oak an infinite number of +1/+1 counters. |
This is the combo with Heliod and Scurry Oak.
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Prerequisites: Heliod, Sun-Crowned and any permanent that can gain life when a creature enters the battlefield are on the battlefield. |
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Step 1: Cast Scurry Oak, triggering your permanent to gain one life. |
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Step 2: Heliod triggers, letting you put a +1/+1 counter on Scurry Oak. |
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Step 3: Scurry Oak triggers, creating a 1/1 Squirrel Token. |
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Step 4: The token triggers your lifegain effect, triggering Heliod. |
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Step 5: Repeat steps 2-4 for infinite lifegain, infinite Squirrel tokens, and an infinite number of +1/+1 counters on Scurry Oak. |
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How To Play The Deck
A Samwise Gamgee commander deck is all about making a ton of Food tokens to stay in the game while building up a large board state. There are a lot of ways to generate Food outside of Samwise Gamgee itself such as with Peregrin Took and Academy Manufactor (the latter of which also provides Treasures and Clues).
There are a ton of creatures, so you’ll always be good on defenses. One of the best creatures is Displaced Dinosaurs, which turns all of your historic permanents (including tokens) into 7/7 Dinosaurs while keeping their original typing to be used as intended. This is one of the easiest ways to close out games with how easy it is to make artifact tokens.
You don’t want to immediately use your Food tokens, and instead, save them for effects that care about them like Samwise Gamgee and Peregrin Took. They should only be used to gain life if you need that extra survivability if your life is looking low.
The primary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. This can be done through infinite Scurry Oak combos, or by just casting a ton of your creatures to amass a wide battlefield of threats your opponents won’t be able to block. These can be grown in stats by Yotian Dissident, Night of the Sweets’ Revenge, Motivated Pony, and Provisions Merchant.
The downside of the deck is how mana-intensive it can be. Your permanent can cost a lot of mana, and while you have access to ramp thanks to having access to green, it takes a while to fully set up. Your game plan will get going later than your opponents, so you might be taking a lot of damage early in the game, something the Food tokens can help stabilize.
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