Tidus, Yuna's Guardian "WTF is -1/-1 Counters Kindred?" - Plot Twist #32

Jeff Girten • March 17, 2025

Deckbuilding

Welcome back to Plot Twist, the series where we build a Commander deck that looks like it'll tell one kind of story only to throw out a twist for our opponents mid-game. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome! I'd encourage you to check out the previous articles in the series to get a sense of the types of stories we're looking to tell.

After a brief hiatus for MagicCon Chicago, my take on how to tweak your decks for the Upgraded Bracket (3), and my first satire article, we're finally back! You all raised some interesting points about how you're tweaking your own decks using the new Brackets System as a guideline, and it's got me thinking about how I could adapt my own decks for the other four brackets as well.

Last time on Plot Twist, we took a look at Hashaton, Scarab's Fist

and built a deck all around cycling, something near and dear to my heart. It was interesting exercise to take an archetype that I'm very familiar with and shift it into a (slightly) different piece of the color pie. I'd encourage you to try it out with one of your pet decks as it really opened my eyes to different synergies I might've otherwise missed.

This week, we're looking at one of the first commander's spoiled from the upcoming Final Fantasy Commander decks: Tidus, Yuna's Guardian

, and our first Universes Beyond commander since Plot Twist #25.

I definitely spent way too much time playing Final Fantasy X as a kid, but now Tidus and Blitzball are pretty much the only things I remember from it. While I've since fallen off the Final Fantasy franchise, the cards that have been spoiled from this set so far seem promising.

How Does Tidus, Yuna's Guardian Work?

As of the time of writing, the full decklist for the Counter Blitz precon helmed by Tidus, Yuna's Guardian

hasn't been spoiled yet, so there are certain to be some new cards that work well with Tidus that'll be revealed soon, but Tidus himself has two abilities that lean into moving counters around and reward us for doing so.

The first ability allows us to move a counter from one creature we control onto another creature we control. While we can't shift a ton of counters this way, you can still 'double up' on the counters with effects like Doubling Season

or Hardened Scales
.

Tidus' second ability allows us to draw a card and proliferate "whenever one or more creatures we control with counters on them deal combat damage to a player." Unfortunately, we're limited to doing this once a turn, but if you've ever played against an Atraxa, Praetors' Voice

deck, then you know just how busted getting a 'free' proliferate every turn can be.

In taking a look at the EDHREC data from the just over 500 Tidus decks brewers have built so far, we can see that the +1/+1 counters and proliferate themes are quite popular. Staples of these archetypes, like Thrummingbird

, Evolution Sage
, and Brokers Ascendancy
, are showing up in more than 60% of the Tidus decks so far, and that's before the precon decklist has even been spoiled!

But this is Plot Twist, where we try to do something unexpected with our decklists, so this week we're going to spin Tidus, Yuna's Guardian

on his head.

Doing the Twist

That's right, we're going to build a Tidus deck that's all about -1/-1 counters. In fact, this week's deck goes so far as to not play any cards that add +1/+1 counters at all. We're running persist creatures, like Kitchen Finks

and Grazing Kelpie
, alongside weird old cards, like Aboroth
 and Lichenthrope
, and Amonkhet block all-stars, like Crocodile of the Crossing
, to ensure we have plenty of -1/-1 counters.

Then, we'll make sure to proliferate the -1/-1 counters on our creatures before removing them for value with Falco Spara, Pactweaver

, Goldberry, River-Daughter
, Sanctuary Warden
, and friends to turn our -1/-1 counters into extra value.

Of course we're running plenty of weird tricks, like Gavel of the Righteous

, Flourishing Defenses
, and The Ozolith
, that will let us do everything from put -1/-1 counters on our opponents' creatures to creating tokens or making one gigantic attacker wielding an Equipment that's somehow getting stronger with 'bad' counters on it. Sounds like a Plot Twist deck to me!

Adding -1/-1 Counters to Our Creatures

This is the bread and butter of our deck, so suffice it to say there are plenty of creatures like Channeler Initiate

and Grim Poppet
 that can add -1/-1 counters to themselves and/or other creatures we control in return for a little value. There will be a tension in this deck of how many -1/-1 counters we can add or proliferate on to our creatures since we don't want them to die, but we do want to have plenty to remove or move around in the late game.

One of the weird twists in this week's deck is that we're running both Contagion Clasp

and Contagion Engine
, but some amount of the time we'll want to use them to add counters to our own creatures, and we have creatures like Defiant Greatmaw
 and Ornery Kudu
 that can place -1/-1 counters on any creature we control to start building back up our supply of counters.

Moving Counters Around for Fun and Profit

"But Jeff," you say, "how can we possibly win the game if all of our creatures are constantly having -1/-1 counters put on them?" Valid point. That was initially why I thought this might be one of the ever-elusive Exhibition Bracket (1) decks; though the deck gets in its own way so easily, I think it might be too synergistic to compete against "Ladies Looking Left" or "Chair Kindred."

Let me know your thoughts on what bracket this week's decklist belongs in in the comments below.

The engine that's going to make this deck hum is being able to move counters around or remove them for added effect. Falco Spara, Pactweaver

was originally going to be the commander until Tidus, Yuna's Guardian
 was spoiled because Falco lets us remove a -1/-1 counter to help us cast spells off the top of our library. Sanctuary Warden
 has a similar effect that allows us to draw a card and create a 1/1 citizen whenever it enters or attacks.

Both Metropolis Angel

and Rigo, Streetwise Mentor
 are going to reward us with extra cards for attacking with our creatures that are smaller thanks to the -1/-1 counters we've placed on them, and Goldberry, River-Daughter
 allows us to move -1/-1, shield, and other types of counters around to draw cards. Notably, Goldberry allows us to move -1/-1 counters onto ANY permanent we control.

We'll definitely want to use cards like Goldberry, Resourceful Defense

, Nesting Grounds
, and Aven Courier
 to shift our -1/-1 counters around so that we can abuse the untap effect of Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood
 as a niche Seedborn Muse
. We can also stack all sorts of counters on Gavel of the Righteous
 to make a single tall threat, or put them on creatures to trigger Flourishing Defenses
 a bunch of times.

Proliferating 'Bad' Counters

Since we're going to be shifting our counters around or removing them entirely, we'll still want to have a fair amount of proliferate effects like a more 'traditional' version of Tidus, Yuna's Guardian

. While we're skipping Thrummingbird
 and Grateful Apparition
, since they'll die when we put a -1/-1 counter on them, we're still running Evolution Sage
, Tezzeret's Gambit
, Unnatural Restoration
, and a few other proliferate all-stars.

It'll be important to time our proliferate effects well to get as many counters as we can without accidentally killing off a creature in the process. We'll probably want to make sure we have a way to take advantage of the moving/removing -1/-1 counters first so that we're not stuck with a board full of 0-power creatures.

Even having a Grim Poppet

, Sturdy Hatchling
, Heartmender
, or other creature that can remove -1/-1 counters from itself will often be enough for us to start proliferating provided we have a payoff like Flourishing Defenses
 or One with the Kami
 in play.

It's definitely worth pointing out cards like The Ozolith

, Vedalken Anatomist
, Contagion Clasp
, and Contagion Engine
 that can start putting -1/-1 counters on our opponents' creatures as well. These will be key to helping us turn the corner in the late game, and (surprise, surprise) The Ozolith
 seems like the best of the bunch here. Being able to put all the -1/-1 counters from our creatures onto The Ozolith
 and then onto ANY other creature is powerful.

Winning the Game with a Twist

Now the tricky part: how to win the game when we've spent most of the game trying to put -1/-1 counters on our own creatures. Ultimately, since we chose to eschew any sort of +1/+1 counters in this week's decklist, our options are rather limited. That's why this deck feels like it's squarely a Core Bracket (2) deck: it's got a lot of synergistic cards in it, but the gameplan is rather flimsy.

Boon of the Spirit Realm

and Call for Unity
 are two of our best ways to win the game since they buff our team using counters that aren't +1/+1 counters. Both will slowly gain counters over the course of the game as we play enchantments or creatures die and are great targets for our proliferate effects as well. We'll probably have to keep them out for multiple turns, though, so both are prime targets for our opponents' removal spells.

As I mentioned above, Gavel of the Righteous

is a fantastic place to dump our -1/-1 counters with effects like Goldberry, River-Daughter
, Resourceful Defense
, and Aven Courier
. Since Gavel of the Righteous
 only cares about the number of counters on it, not what type of counters they are, we'll almost always be correct to proliferate every type of counter we can on it.

We have a sneaky number of flying creatures  in this week's decklist that will wear Gavel of the Righteous

quite well.

Last but not least, Gutter Grime

will reward us with an ever-growing stream of Oozes as our other creatures die. We'll want to get it out as early as we can regardless, but it's one of the few reasons for us to purposefully kill our own creatures with -1/-1 counters as well. You know how much we love destroying our own permanents for extra value on Plot Twist.

A Few Additional Twists for Good Measure

Between -1/-1 counters, proliferate, modified creatures, cards that remove counters, and cards that just care about ANY type of counters, this week's decklist had a lot of weird mechanics that play together, which always yields fascinating results, like Danny Pink

and Denry Klin, Editor in Chief
 (neither of which made the list since they can add +1/+1 counters, but would've been amazing without our self-imposed restriction). Let's look at some others:

Wickerbough Elder

is maybe a little overcosted, but being able to put extra -1/-1 counters on it and turn them into a one-mana Naturalize
 should help shore us up against problematic artifacts and enchantments. I know Twilight Shepherd
 has sort of been power-crept by other mass-reanimate effects, but if we can shift the -1/-1 counter off of it and get it to persist multiple times, we'll really be cooking.

The ramp package in this week's deck is really interesting too. We're running a healthy number of basic lands (despite being a three-color deck) to power out with Kodama of the West Tree

. Given the number of counters we're making, just about all of our creatures should be modified by the mid-game. Twitching Doll
 acts as a mana dork early, but we can sacrifice it in the late game to make a bunch of 2/2 Spiders after we've proliferated a ton of counters onto it.

I always love finding interactive pieces, like Damning Verdict

and Mutational Advantage
, to run in Plot Twist decklists and these two are perfect. Being able to protect or even advance our board state while interacting with our opponents is just what this deck needs. Don't sleep on Biting Tether
 as a Control Magic
 effect with upside for us, too.

Here's the full decklist for you to peruse:

WTF is -1/-1 Counters Kindred?

View on Archidekt

Commander (1)

Buy this decklist from Card KingdomBuy this decklist on TCGplayer

Roll the Credits

I hope you enjoyed reading the latest edition of Plot Twist featuring Tidus, Yuna's Guardian

. Next time you sit down for a game of Commander, see what sort of plot twists you can add to take the game's narrative in a new direction. I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's deck and what cards could find a home in it in the comments below or on Archidekt. The Maybeboards of my decklists are always filled with cards I thought could work but didn't make the final decklist.

You can check out my other articles here or see what decks I'm currently playing here. I recently put together Kirri, Talented Sprout

deck from Plot Twist #21 and it has been an absolute blast to play in paper. I've also started dabbling in cEDH with a relatively stock Tymna & Thrasios list, let me know if the comments below if you'd like to see a Plot Twist deck that's designed for more competitive pods.

Stay tuned to see what other twists and turns are headed your way in the next edition of Plot Twist.