Guild · Color Identity
Simic (Green-Blue): History, Playstyle and Best Commanders
Green-blue makes the most mana and draws the most cards, which is a combination the format rewards more than any other. Simic's problem is not power: it is that the pairing cannot remove anything.
Simic is green and blue, the two-color identity. Biological research without limits: ramp, card draw, counters and enormous turns.
Also called GU, Simic Combine.
Where the Name Comes From
The Simic Combine, Ravnica's bio-research guild, named in Dissension (2006).
The Simic Combine is Ravnica's biomancy guild: originally the plane's environmental caretakers, later a research organisation that decided the sensible response to a crowded city was to grow better creatures. It arrived in Dissension in 2006 with Graft, then Evolve in Gatecrash and Adapt in Ravnica Allegiance, three keywords, all about +1/+1 counters, all about things getting bigger than they were designed to be.
Green-blue is the pairing Commander flatters most. Green's ramp and blue's card draw are the two resources the format is built around, and a deck that has both simply operates a turn or two ahead of everybody else. That is why "Simic" carries a specific connotation in Commander circles that it does not carry in other formats: it is shorthand for a deck doing a great deal and interacting with nobody, which is fair as a description and not always fair as a criticism.
All 32 color combinations and where each name came from →How Simic Plays
A Simic deck accelerates, draws, and deploys something the table cannot answer. That is the whole shape. Green supplies the mana a turn early, blue converts the extra mana into cards, and the deck reaches its expensive payoffs while everybody else is still playing lands. Whether the payoff is a giant creature, a landfall engine, or an infinite mana combo is largely a matter of taste.
Its most distinctive archetype is +1/+1 counters, which both colors support and no other pairing does as well. Proliferate, counter doublers and creatures that grow on their own turn a modest board into a lethal one, and blue's evasion means the resulting creatures actually connect.
The trade is interaction. Between them, green and blue have no way to destroy a creature outright (green fights, blue bounces), and no way to deal with a resolved artifact or enchantment other than green's, which is at least genuinely good. What Simic does have is counterspells, which means the pairing plays a preventative game: stop the problem being cast, because there is no plan for it afterwards.
What It Does Well, and What It Doesn't
Strengths
- The best ramp and the best card draw in the same identity, which is what the format rewards most.
- Counterspells backed by enough mana to hold them up while still developing the board.
- The deepest +1/+1 counter and proliferate support of any pairing.
- Green's artifact and enchantment removal, which patches blue's single biggest hole.
Weaknesses
- No unconditional creature removal at all. Fighting and bouncing are the entire toolkit.
- No lifegain worth the name and no way to stabilise against an aggressive board.
- Very few board wipes, so a wide board of opposing creatures is a real problem.
- Reads as the deck to stop, because a Simic player who is left alone usually wins.
Best Simic Commanders
The command zones that define the identity rather than the ones winning this week: the pips beside each name are its color identity, which is what it lets you play in the other 99.
Commander Spotlight
Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy ↗
Every nonland mana source produces an extra mana, and six of it digs a big creature out of your library. The strongest Simic commander in the format and a cEDH mainstay.
Tatyova, Benthic Druid ↗
A card and a life for every land you play. The friendliest good engine in the identity and the standard landfall starting point.
Prime Speaker Vannifar ↗
Sacrifices a creature to find one that costs one more, at instant speed and repeatably. A tutor chain that assembles a board out of a single token.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary ↗
Every green creature finds a creature and every blue creature stacks one on top. Two tutors per creature spell, which is as unfair as it sounds.
Ezuri, Claw of Progress ↗
Experience counters for every small creature that attacks, then that many +1/+1 counters each turn. Turns a token board into a real one.
Kruphix, God of Horizons ↗
No maximum hand size and mana never empties. Indestructible, and it makes every ramp spell permanently useful.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Simic mean in Magic?
Simic is the green-blue guild of Ravnica: the Simic Combine, a biological research guild that grows creatures beyond their natural limits. It was introduced in Dissension in 2006, and players use "Simic" to mean the green-blue color pair in any format.
Why do people complain about Simic in Commander?
Because ramp plus card draw is the strongest combination of resources in the format, and neither of them requires interacting with anybody. A Simic deck can spend eight turns visibly getting further ahead while nothing it does affects the other three players, and then win. That is a real dynamic and worth being aware of when you build: the fix is usually to make the deck's threats and interaction visible earlier, not to play worse cards.
How does Simic remove a creature?
By fighting it, bouncing it, tapping it down or countering it before it lands, and none of those is a clean answer. Green's fight effects lose to deathtouch and to anything bigger; bouncing is a delay. Most Simic decks lean on counterspells for the threats that matter and carry two or three colorless answers for the ones that resolve anyway.
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