One Theme, Three Techs: +1/+1 Counters

Felisa, Fang of Silverquill

by Sara Winters

As we all know, the color pie is used to divide the colors and make them feel unique, but the nature of draft environments naturally lends itself towards mechanics being spread further and further over time. Some mechanics spread further than others, and end up having some play in all five colors. The problem with running a full five-color deck is that you have a few too many options and the cool cards specific to the theme can get squeezed out. (Also, we don't have a five-color commander for every possible theme!) 

In this series, I discuss a theme, what value each color adds to it, the core colors of the theme, and then suggest a pair of commanders which each use at least one of the core colors but bring other spices to the table.

Core colors, for the record, will be determined by total number of decks in a given color with that theme under EDHrec. There will be some consideration given to the mono-color, two-color, and three-color categories.

This entry? Counters!

Why Play Counters?

Creatures cool. Bigger creatures even cooler.

For real, the joy of crashing in with a 70/70 Hydra is like no other, except maybe sending an army of a dozen 15/15 Angels at everyone. Making creatures unspeakably huge is a fun and effective strategy! 

Alternatively, there are cards out there which can let you strategically turn counters into other resources or creatures with unique spell effects that trigger when you place counters on them. 

Whether you are looking to send behemoths into the red zone or fiddle with dice in interesting ways, counters are a great mechanic to dip into!

Core Colors of Counters

On its face, counters are a mechanic used by every color. Every color has access to it as a solid way to either make its creatures modal (via X-spell creatures that enter with X counters) or capable of growing into the late game. When you look closer, there's a different story at work. Green is undoubtedly the number one color for counters. It has the highest density of cards which can increase the number of counters you put on a creature, or ways to double them outright. (At time of writing, there are more mono-green counters than the other four colors and colorless combined.) 

White is no slouch either. It's undoubtedly second in counters. Mono-white is the single color combo with the second highest number of counters decks. Selesnya is the color pair most associated with counters. White has a pleasant slew of ways to put counters on a wide number of creatures, buff creatures with counters, and care about counters entering. 

This is a core color combination we talked about in the article about planeswalkers, and there's an overlap with that theme: proliferate. Green and white both have proliferate in spades. One issue that creature-based decks have is with board wipes, but white and green have on-theme ways to help with that in Semester's End

A core green-white counters deck would want Hamza, Guardian of Arashin

Green-White

1. Conclave Mentor
2. Good-Fortune Unicorn
3. Pledge of Unity

Green

1. Kami of Whispered Hopes
2. Ozolith, the Shattered Spire
3. Forgotten Ancient
4. Quilled Greatwurm
5. Rishkar, Peema Renegade

White

1. Brigone, Soldier of Meletis
2. Felidar Retreat
3. Generous Pup
4. Luminarch Aspirant
5. Reluctant Role Model

With those understood, what else is there?

What Does Each Color Offer?

Last year, I did a deep dive into about twelve years of draft archetypes. That knowledge proves to be relevant now, because I had an honest question as to which color could be deemed "tertiary" for counters. In that time span, there have been 11 green-black draft archetypes which featured +1/+1 counters and only 6 in blue-green. I think both have a lot to offer, but we'll talk about that more momentarily. 

Black's counter-making is occasionally tied to Vampires, but it has a plethora of ways to make its creatures bigger, often flavored as "draining" something from your opponent. A solid mix of these will lead to being able to grow your army to massive sizes. One thing we'll also be dipping in is black's ability to turn counters into other resources.

Blue has some individual powerhouse cards for "counters matter", able to gain card draw relating to counters or even give unique forms of evasion to your counter-wearing creatures. More of blue's strength relies in it having a uniquely high affinity for proliferate. It has a lot of the cheapest, most efficient sources of repeatable proliferate, not to mention the only proliferate-doubler in Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus

Red is tricky. I'm pretty sure the only reason mono-red has nearly as many +1/+1 counter decks as blue and black is because of Ashling the Pilgrim

With that, it's time to take note of the possibilities!

1. Azorius and Jund: Denry Klin, Editor in Chief
   and Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
   & Tana, the Bloodsower
2. Gruul and Esper: Thromok the Insatiable
   and Raffine, Scheming Seer
    
3. Orzhov and Temur: Felisa, Fang of Silverquill
   and Me, the Immortal
4. Golgari and Jeskai: Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
   and Cayth, Famed Mechanist
    
5. Boros and Sultai: Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon
   and Zaxara, the Exemplary
6. Simic and Mardu: Zimone, Paradox Sculptor
   and Olivia, Opulent Outlaw

First off, these six are the complementary sets with green and white on opposing sides. From there, we need to narrow down based on a few different possible criteria. It's important to decide if the theme's primary color should be in the two-color deck or the three-color. Putting it into the two-color deck allows the secondary color access to more options to even things out. Putting it into the three-color deck is advisable when the fourth and fifth colors of the theme are so undersupported that they need the help.

There's a real argument for Simic and Mardu, but Mardu is sorely lacking in a +1/+1 counter commander. Olivia, Opulent Outlaw

I think each of these could be fun, but ultimately I picked...

Overview of Felisa, Fang of Silverquill

Felisa, Fang of Silverquill

Invasion of New Capenna

To make those tokens, we need to put a lot of counters on a few of our nontoken creatures. Felisa can help put a few counters on things, but by using creatures who naturally grow or can save counters, we can really go to town. There are some solid Equipment in this department too, which can help our commander get big enough if we need to pivot to pure Voltron.

Two final notes. First, while commander is full of board wipes, we want to occasionally control when the Inklings pop out. Secondly, we'll want to juice up the +1/+1 counter synergies. We can occasionally tie the two together. There are enough legendary creatures that synergize with out theme that Colonel Autumn

I talked about the Orzhov aristocrats theme, and how it's basically a blend of tokens and sacrifice, because of how well those naturally pair together. Counters work just as well, while adding a more aggressive element to the deck.

Archidekt link here.

Overview of Me, the Immortal

I'll be honest, I had picked The Swarmlord

Good for people who want a "complete deck" out of the box, not so great for brewing. Magus Lucea Kane

Me, the Immortal

Since we're going more Voltrony, there's a high need for cards that can protect our commander. Yes, we can cast her from the graveyard, but saving her from removal is fantastic prevention. You'll want to save some of this for exile-based removal or bounce spells. If you have to get her off the field with a Greater Good

There are a lot of creatures with great abilities for +1/+1 counters, and we also just want back-up options in case casting our commander becomes difficult. Each of these represent solid win conditions in their own right, either because of the amount of counters they can stack or because of how much damage they can deal once they have counters stacked on them. Or just winning outright. 

Like previously mentioned, we want certain basic effects for our deck like ramp, haste, and card draw, but there are rewards for going in on our +1/+1 counter theme. Some of them see fairly wide use, like Rhythm of the Wild

Finally, we want some ways to really accelerate the +1/+1 counters being dished out and take advantage of Me holding onto all counters, including keyword counters. The various Hardened Scales

Now this is the fiddly counter manipulation! Generally, the problem with those decks can be that manipulating counters is not going to win the game by itself, but our Voltron commander is there to clean up.

Archidekt link here!

Conclusion

And there we have it! Our first complementary deck set that's built around something other than a card type. Counters are at a high enough ubiquity that a lot of color combinations are possible with it (although I'm not sure as to whether there is enough to make a satisfying Chromatic Collection), though I like the two I chose. What about you? What +1/+1 counter commander do you run?