Hey everyone. It’s been a while since I posted a deck list but I had some free time at work a little while ago so I managed to power through looking at a bunch of cards to create this. As per usual, I'm going to use this thread to keep a log of the changes that I make to this deck, including when I get the chance to buy cards for it.

This deck was formerly known as the Chorus of Counters, as led by Chorus of the Conclave. Whilst a fun Commander, Chorus of the Conclave is expensive and doesn’t have a great board impact when she comes down on eight mana. When Fate Reforged was spoiled and I saw Daghatar the Adamant, I knew I had found myself a new Commander for my deck.

I’m very aware that Daghatar is essentially a lower powered Ghave, Guru of Spores but I have several reasons I want to run Daghatar over Ghave:

• Daghatar is cheaper so he can come out both earlier and more frequently if he eats removal,
• Due to Daghatar’s ability being hybrid mana in his text box, I could have kept the deck purely Green/White if I had wanted to, without changing anything in the deck at all. In the end, I decided to include Black because it gave me a lot more options, but I did have the choice to keep the deck GW,
• I reckoned that a deck led by Ghave would draw a lot of hate due to his reputation, even if my deck weren’t built that way,
• I’ll be less tempted to steer my deck towards the traditional Ghave “sacrifice” deck,
• Ghave is currently at a price that I’m not particularly fond of paying for a single card, and,
• I pulled a Daghatar from my Fate Reforged fat pack

Since the last time I updated my Chorus of Counters deck, we’ve had the release of Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, and Dragons of Tarkir, bringing with them a whole host of new +1/+1 counter goodies that I’ve more than liberally included in this deck.

The current, second, incarnation of the deck is very different from the first one as I essentially rebuilt it from the ground up, based on feedback here and on Reddit. I’ve had to remove a whole bunch of cards that I wanted to include for cards that I reckon I probably should include. Hopefully the deck will be better for it.

Let’s look at the deck as I go through it by cards’ functions rather than types. You might see the same card pop up in more than one category but you’ll be able to find the final deck list at the bottom of this post.

Adding Counters (19 cards)
Abzan Ascendancy
Ajani Steadfast
Anafenza, the Foremost
Bow of Nylea
Cathars' Crusade
Corpsejack Menace
Doubling Season
Forgotten Ancient
Gavony Township
Hardened Scales
Llanowar Reborn
Meadowboon
Mikaeus, the Lunarch
Opal Palace
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
Primal Vigor
Rustic Clachan
Scale Blessing
Solidarity of Heroes

Unlike the previous version of the deck, which favoured quantity of counters, mana efficiency of counter adders, and repeatable counter adding, this time I’ve mostly gone for things that add counters to every creature on my battlefield; I’ve decided to include a few token generators so hopefully I can go tall as well as wide.

Making use of Counters (14 cards)
Etched Oracle
Gyre Sage
Inspiring Call
Lifeblood Hydra
Mer-Ek Nightblade
Mindless Automaton
Necroplasm
Ooze Flux
Phantom Nishoba
Retribution of the Ancients
Shinewend
Spike Weaver
Triskelion
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter

The previous version of the deck had a large number of cards that were either +1/+1 counter “Lords” (I.e. gave an ability to all my creatures with a +1/+1 counter) or removed counters for various effects. I’ve since come to realise that the Lords are only effective on a large board (and thus are vulnerable to wraths) and that I often won’t have enough mana to use the other types of cards very well. These cards make varying uses of counters including ramp (Gyre Sage), card draw (Etched Oracle, Mindless Automaton, and Lifeblood Hydra), and removal (Necroplasm, Retribution of the Ancients, Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, and Shinewend (for Enchantments)). Spike Weaver is a card that has grown on me since it was first suggested, as a repeatable Fog seems like it could be very useful in the right situation.

Win Conditions (9 cards)
Bramblewood Paragon
Crowned Ceratok
Daghatar the Adamant
Mycoloth
Pentavus
Predator Ooze
Primordial Hydra
Tuskguard Captain
Twilight Drover

These are the cards that should hopefully win me the game. I feel that Trample is going to be the tool I win the game with, be that through my Commander or through other creatures. My strategy of picking cards that add counters across my whole team works really well with token producers (which also go really well with Doubling Season and Primal Vigor) so hopefully there will be situations where I go tall, others where I go wide, and others where I go tall AND wide. There are three Trample Lords here, 3 token producers, one Indestructible creature, and one creature that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Ramp (9 cards)
Burnished Hart
Frontier Siege
Gyre Sage
Knight of the White Orchid
Ondu Giant
Quirion Trailblazer
Solemn Simulacrum
Viridian Emissary
Yavimaya Dryad

The majority of the ramp in this deck is by tutoring lands to the battlefield and leaving behind a creature to hopefully gain +1/+1 counters on.

Card Advantage (12 cards)
Corpse Dance
Crime // Punishment
Den Protector
Etched Oracle
Grim Backwoods
Inspiring Call
Lifeblood Hydra
Mindless Automaton
Mosswort Bridge
Solemn Simulacrum
Teneb, the Harvester
Windbrisk Heights

There’s a little card draw and a little reanimation here. I figured that the Green and White Hideaway lands would be easier to pull off than the Black one (Howltooth Hollow). Corpse Dance can be combined with Burnished Hart in the later stages of the game to accelerate me to large amounts of mana.

Removal and Disruption (26 cards)
Ainok Survivalist (spot Artifact or Enchantment removal)
Anafenza, the Foremost (graveyard hate)
Arcane Lighthouse (Hexproof/Shroud prevention)
Bojuka Bog (graveyard hate)
Bow of Nylea (damages creatures with Flying, grants Deathtouch)
Crime // Punishment (artifact/creature/enchantment wrath)
Duneblast (semi one-sided creature wrath)
Ghost Quarter (land destruction)
Grim Backwoods (sacrifice outlet)
Homeward Path (anti-theft protection)
In Garruk's Wake (one-sided creature wrath)
Inspiring Call (anti-wrath protection)
Merciless Eviction (artifact or creature or enchantment or planeswalker wrath)
Mer-Ek Nightblade (grants Deathtouch)
Mortify (spot creature or enchantment removal)
Necroplasm (specific CMC creature wrath each turn)
Ooze Flux (saves resources against spot removal)
Putrefy (spot artifact or creature removal)
Retribution of the Ancients (repeatable spot creature removal)
Scavenging Ooze (graveyard hate)
Shinewend (spot enchantment removal)
Spike Weaver (repeatable Fog)
Teneb, the Harvester (graveyard hate)
Triskelion (direct damage)
Utter End (spot permanent removal)
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter (spot creature removal)

Everything Else (3 cards)
Illusionist's Bracers
Necravolver
Rings of Brighthearth

The Bracers and the Rings should allow me to get extra uses out of Daghatar’s ability as well as a reasonable amount of other cards. The Necravolver is there as I’m a firm believer of including cards in Commander decks that can only go in those decks, and Necravolver can only go in Abzan and WUBRG decks.

Lands
Karoos and ETB Lands (2 Karoos/10 ETB Lands)
Golgari Rot Farm
Selesnya Sanctuary

Blossoming Sands
Bojuka Bog
Jungle Hollow
Kabira Crossroads
Llanowar Reborn
Mosswort Bridge
New Benalia
Temple of Malady
Temple of Plenty
Windbrisk Heights

10 lands with enter the battlefield effects that can be reused thanks to self bounce via these “karoos”.

Colourless Utility Lands (9 cards)
Arcane Lighthouse
Deserted Temple
Gavony Township
Ghost Quarter
Grim Backwoods
Homeward Path
Reliquary Tower
Thespian's Stage
Vault of the Archangel

Dual/Triple colour Lands (13 cards)
Blossoming Sands
Command Tower
Golgari Rot Farm
Jungle Hollow
Opal Palace
Overgrown Tomb
Sandsteppe Citadel
Selesnya Sanctuary
Sunpetal Grove
Temple Garden
Temple of Malady
Temple of Plenty
Windswept Heath

Mono colour Lands (13 cards)
Bojuka Bog
5xForest
Kabira Crossroads
Llanowar Reborn
Mosswort Bridge
New Benalia
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
2xPlains
Rustic Clachan
2xSwamp
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth




Thoughts for future iterations of the deck:

- There are a load of cards that I want to put in the deck, some of which were in the first version, but are probably too weak to go in there. This includes all of the Khans of Tarkir “Lords”, other WBG cards (like Abzan Charm and Ivorytusk Fortress), and counter cards that add large amounts of counters to single targets (such as Increasing Savagery),
- If I can get my hands on a copy of each of them, I’d like to include Ajani, Mentor of Heroes and/or Yavimaya Elder,
- The deck plays really weirdly in playtesting. More often than not I’ve found myself with terrible opening hands than in the first version of the deck. I have no clue why this could be. Perhaps I messed with the low end of my curve too much or something, but I really can’t put my finger on what’s going wrong here,
- I think I have too many non-basic lands in the deck. Most of my land tutors target basic lands and I don’t know if I have enough of them,
- I’m still missing a number of Commander staples, such as Sol Ring, Temple of the False God, and the three Signets that would be appropriate for this deck. I’ve removed Bane of Progress from the deck, which was my main concern for fielding most of these, but I haven’t been able to find room for them anyway, and,
- There’s still too much Green in the deck right now. I’d prefer it to be an even 33%/33%/33% split, but it’s actually gone up from the first draft to around 50% Green, 25% Black and 25% White. I’m not sure what I can take out of Green that the other two colours can make up for overall.

Reserved for changes and for overflow, if necessary.

Changelog

10/4/15: Deck posted
19/4/15: Removed Abzan Battle Priest, Abzan Falconer, Ainok Bond-Kin, Aquastrand Spider, Avatar of the Resolute, Bane of Progress, Battlefront Krushok, Cruel Sadist, Daru Stinger, Dragonscale General ,Drakestown Forgotten ,Elite Scaleguard, Fertilid, Festercreep, Forcemage Advocate, Fungal Behemoth, Golgari Guildmage, High Sentinels of Arashin, Hunter of Eyeblights, Ivorytusk Fortress, Juniper Order Ranger, Korozda Gorgon, Longshot Squad, Mindwarper, Oona's Blackguard, Realm Seekers, Simic Basilisk, Soul of New Phyrexia, Sporeback Troll, Tuskguard Captain, Varolz, the Scar-Striped, Hunt the Weak, Increasing Savagery, Map the Wastes, Wrath of God, Leyline of the Void, Unspeakable Symbol, Abzan Charm, Feat of Resistance, Mutant's Prey, Relic of Progenitus, Ajani, Caller of the Pride, Caves of Koilos, Elfhame Palace, Godless Shrine, Golgari Guildgate, Graypelt Refuge, Grove of the Guardian, Isolated Chapel, Llanowar Wastes, Orzhov Guildgate, Scoured Barrens, Selesnya Guildgate, Temple of Silence, and, Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree.
Added Illusionist's Bracers, Rings of Brighthearth, Burnished Hart, Corpsejack Menace, Crowned Ceratok, Forgotten Ancient, Knight of the White Orchid, Meadowboon, Mikaeus, the Lunarch, Mycoloth, Necravolver, Necroplasm, Ondu Giant, Pentavus, Phantom Nishoba, Predator Ooze, Primordial Hydra, Quirion Trailblazer, Scavenging Ooze, Spike Weaver, Teneb, the Harvester, Triskelion, Twilight Drover, Viridian Emissary, Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, Yavimaya Dryad, Abzan Ascendancy, Frontier Siege, Hardened Scales, Ooze Flux, Primal Vigor, Inspiring Call, Mortify, Putrefy, Scale Blessing, Solidarity of Heroes, Arcane Lighthouse, Bokuka Bog, Deserted Temple, Golgari Rot Farm, Kabira Crossroads, Mosswort Bridge, New Benalia, 1xPlains, Reliquary Tower, Selesnya Sanctuary, 1xSwamp, Thespian's Stage,
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, and, Windbrisk Heights.

Ctrl+f finds a disturbing lack of Inspiring Call. I'm shocked. I would even suggest it if your deck didn't have any counters at all, because it's my favorite card from Dragons. It's totally worth running for the off chance one of your opponents puts a counter on one of your creatures, it's that good.

No Abzan Ascendancy?

I built daghatar with a lot of the same issues in mind. I wanted it to be a weaker version of ghave, which, i feel like is ok since ghave is overpowered and I want to have some decks of differing power levels. Thirdly, I think the big difference is in Daghatar you could have NO TOKENS where in ghave you're sort of split between token production (which is generally more powerful) and +1/+1 counters (which is more interesting).

Anyway, there's so many useful utility creatures I think its tempting to just use creatures for pretty much everything. It seems we're agreed there.

Also I wanted to build around daghatar's ability by including a lot of mana ramp and seedborn muse effects (of which there are 4, I think: awakening, seedborn muse, quest for renewal, ivorytusk fortress). This lead me to include some tapper-creatures.

Some problems I've found:

1) slow: doing something that requires something else is slow. Creatures that don't come with +1/+1 counters but require them to do something are bad. Also creatures that have to tap to do something are slow cause they need haste. So are creatures that require a huge mana investment to do something - like daghatar himself.

2) insufficient ramp: its tempting to use on-theme stuff like realm seekers and fertilid, but these are slow. Also with green its tempting to reduce reliance on mana rocks since you might run stuff like bane of progress, which is good cause the deck already is 90% creatures; and instead rely on creature mana producers like gyre sage (on theme), birds of paradise, deathrite shaman, etc. but these are super vulnerable.

3) insufficient card draw: there's like 3 cards that draw cards based on +1/+1's: thought gorger, mindless automaton, etched oracle. These are all pretty terrible unless you have doubling season or corpsejack menace in play.

4) huge reliance on doubling season / corpsejack menace. The difference between how the deck works with one of these in play and without it is profound. A lot of stuff doesn't really do anything w/o one of these (e.g., etched oracle); but other stuff is gigantically overpowered with it: like Daghatar himself, who becomes a 8/8 with vigilance for 4. OTOH, hardened scales is basically perfect for this deck.

5) lack of board wipes / vulnerability to board wipes. The deck's all creatures so you don't want to run a lot of board wipes, but SOMETIMES you need to be able to do that when you're behind. Also, other people board wiping becomes harder and harder to recover from when your infrastructure is creature-based.

Anyway, none of these problems are insurmountable. But the combination of them really limits the powerlevel of the deck. Some solutions I've thought of are :

a) run more tutors. I haven't tried this enough because I haven't bothered to collect a lot of these cards. But stuff like eladamri's call, demonic tutor, vampiric tutor get past gaddock teeg. And then other stuff is probably more powerful: green sun's zenith, tooth and nail, chord of calling.

b) try to make other people play fair: run torpor orb, gaddock teeg, rule of law, bane of progress, etc. These are ok if you get them in play. I haven't gone entirely to the hate-bear plan, but it's pretty hard to build around gaddock teeg and torpor orb.


Anyway, probably of more interest to you: A couple all-stars missing from your list: the best card for daghatar is necroplasm. Its super useful untargetted removal that you can control with daghatar's ability. Best card for adding counters to stuff is forgotten ancient. Also i've liked the siege enchantments. The green one is like 2 daghatar activations per turn! (frontier siege, citadel siege, maybe also palace siege?). Finally inspiring call seems good to try.

EDIT: also, there's a ton of activated abilities on creatures (including daghatar) so illusionist's bracers is a legit choice. Look how much better it makes mindless automaton!

EDIT2: re mike & trike. I think triskelion is required in this list: its one of the few on-theme removal options that isn't terrible. But mikaeus, the unhallowed has dyssynergy with a team of guys with +1/+1 counters on them. Cauldron of Souls and Mikaeus, the Lunarch are both better. Also if you want to combo I feel like archangel of thune is a better route to go. It goes infinite (if you want to) with lifelink enablers and stuff like spike feeder. Also spike weaver seems like its worth trying.

I've been thinking about this deck a lot, as you can see...

To be honest, I've not really looked through Dragons of Tarkir all that much with an eye for this deck, which is a huge failing on my part. Inspiring Call could certainly be a role player in this deck.


Originally I undervalued this card as a one-off counter adder. However, I've since realised that it also gives me wrath insurance, to some degree, which means that I can probably make some room for it.



That's a very good analysis of the deck. Thanks for that. Between you and the guys over at Reddit, I've been given a lot to think about.

To begin with, I think I've gone overboard regarding the deck's theme. I had originally intended to have 20 spells that added counters to other things, 20 spells that made use of counters (including Lords), and 20 off-theme "goodstuff" spells, but those numbers have been severely skewed in my deck list. There's also a huge preponderance of creatures which makes the deck very vulnerable to wraths and removal in general, as well as giving me very little to do from my hand (I.e. all of my tricks are on the board and visible to all of my opponents). I need to cut back on the on-theme cards and I really need to cut back on creatures.

In particular, I feel I need to drop most of the creatures that say "X, remove a counter: do something" - they give me versatility but are very expensive to do things with and, as mentioned, are on-board tricks that my opponents can play around.

I also need to refine my answers. My graveyard hate, for example, is incredibly narrow. Both Relic of Progenitus and Leyline of the Void are useless if I don't go up against an opponent with any kind of graveyard shenanigans. At least Anafenza, the Foremost is a beater that adds counters.

The Seedborn Muse effect is something that I might consider doing. I have a Muse and an Ivorytusk Fortress but not the other two (I also have a Prophet of Kruphix but that can't go in this deck). It's powerful, though, and I'm not sure I'd want the heat that cards like that can bring.

Slow: agreed. Daghatar's ability isn't very cost efficient and neither are most of the other "X, remove a counter: do something" creatures. I'll probably trim those away and replace them with more mana-efficient things like Ooze Flux and Retribution of the Ancients (already in the deck, but it illustrates what I mean when I say "more mana-efficient").

Insufficient ramp: agreed. The previous version of this deck, the Chorus of Counters deck, had at least 15 cards dedicated to ramp, mostly of the "tutor land onto the battlefield" type, because trying to cast an 8-mana Commander regularly meant you needed a lot of land. Mana dorks are very vulnerable in Commander so Gyre Sage is probably the only one I'd run, since it's on theme and if left alone can get pretty bonkers.

Insufficient card draw: agreed, to some degree. In all the games I've played it in, Mindless Automaton has been great. Incidental counters placed onto it give me extra draws and no-one has yet tried to remove it. That said, it's on a very vulnerable body so some redundancy in card draw and/or other forms of card advantage would probably be a good idea.

Reliance on doublers: unsure. I currently only have one doubler in the deck and whilst the deck does play remarkably better with Doubling Season in play, it still does reasonably well without it. I would like to put the other three in, but we'll see if I can find room for them.

Board wipes: agreed, to some degree. Cutting the number of creatures will help with this. Wrath protection, such as Soul of New Phyrexia and Abzan Ascendency might allay some of that danger, too. One sided board wipes, such as In Garruk's Wake or Plague Wind might also help as if I add enough ramp the 9 mana cost won't be too prohibitive.

Tutors: meh. I don't own that many tutors and I'm not a huge fan of running them in Commander.

Hate bears: also meh. Just not my style.

Necroplasm: Ooh, looks like a good card. I'll have to consider it. I have seen the card before but I never considered the possibility of using Daghatar to manipulate the number of counters on it to affect the board.

Forgotten Ancient: was in the previous version of the deck. Personally I thought it was a little boring to play with but I might have misevaluated it.

Sieges: I currently don't own any of the Sieges so I can't really make plans for them. Citadel Siege would easily be the first one included in the deck, though I'm not sure about the other two.

Inspiring Call: as mentioned earlier in this post, I need to go back through Dragons of Tarkir and check to see if there aren't any other cards I could do with. Cards that leap out at me include Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, Dromoka's Command (don't own any), Enduring Scalelord, Enduring Victory, Inspiring Call, Scale Blessing, Sunbringer's Touch, and Sunscorch Regent (pulled a foil Japanese one at the prerelease so this might be a very nice inclusion).

Illusionist's Bracers: good point. Rings of Brighthearth would also do well in this deck for the same reason.

Mike/Trike: fair points. Light Mike is something that was in the previous version of the deck (and goes great with Ajani, Caller of the Pride).

Spikes: I've looked at the Spikes and, for the most part, dismissed them. The only Spike I was interested in maybe playing was the Spike Cannibal, even though it's a total nonbo with Daghatar as it'll kill him.

Phantoms: I couldn't find room for them before but I've also considered the Phantoms. What are your thoughts on them?

The Spike that fogs is seriously worth considering. I have buddy in my regular group that's been running that one in Ghave since, like, the day the Ghave deck went on sale, and I gave him shit for it for like a year before I realized the damned thing was actually pretty effective. I actually groan whenever I see it. I don't even groan when I see a Consecrated Sphinx.

Concerning the Sieges:
Palace Siege also gives a measure of removal insurance (at least on the Kahns side of it).

The lack of Forgotten Ancient and Phantom Nishoba might need to be rectified. ... but then again "phantom" creatures are sorely under used.

Hmm, There's actually a lot of good card suggestions here, which I will consider or try out in my build. But, I think maybe a discussion of specific cards is worth it here.

slow /contingent cards:
retribution of the ancients (i want this to work, but its sooo conditional)
dromoka, the eternal (bolster is a lot worse than I thought it would be)
pretty sure i'd drop stuff like : cruel sadist, daru stinger, drakestown forgotten, festercreep, maybe korozda gorgon.
Outlast guys. Since outlast is sorcery-speed, it doesn't combo with seedborn muse effects. Although it does work with thousand-year elixir.

trickery:
dromoka's command: the FIGHT mechanic is really good in this list (particularly if we're running stuff like archangel of thune, phyrexian obliterator, and high priest of penance). Also it can give a counter; and the possibility of stopping a blasphemous act seems really relevant.
abzan charm: this is at best a one-for-one and at worse a spell that gives 2 counters for 3 mana... doesn't seem worth running.

wrath protection:
inspiring call : I haven't tried this yet but I have to imagine it'll be awesome
soul of new phyrexia : this seems legit, particularly as an activation out of the GY. Although since we have no recursion (I can't find any recursion that's remotely on-theme) I'm tempted to run rest in peace.
abzan ascendancy : a lot of mana for 1 counter and tokens I don't want.

phantoms:
phantom nishoba seems ok if there's a lifegain sub-theme. Otherwise its sort of too expensive for a guy that doesn't have haste and just attacks. But with a doubling season effect, then it's totally worth it.
phantom flock: I thought about this because there's so very little flying in the deck; but maybe its better to just run stuff like whirlwind.
phantom nantuko: maybe ok if you're running all the seedborn muse effects, but still, it's just a dumb beater w/o evasion.

planeswalkers:
ajani steadfast: better in a deck that wants to drop a ton of tokens or over-commit to the board.
ajani, caller of the pride: maybe I'm under-valuing this, but it seems like one +1/+1 counter isn't that great.
ajani, mentor of heroes: I think I'll try this if I can get one. That it puts 3 counters on one creature really makes this awesome. Also a fantastic spot on the curve to come down after daghatar, and the card advantage gets past draw hosers like spirit of the labyrinth.
new liliana flip card from the magic origins set: Looks awesome. Reanimator on a stick. Also, I'm not sure exactly, but I think Liliana flips after a wrath that kills her and something else.

temptations:
gleam of authority: I'm tempted to try this. It combos with illusionist's bracers (which I already want on daghatar) and seedborn muse effects. Also could land on high priest of penance and make it immediately dangerous.

I did recently play a game where I was up against a player with Constant Mists and it was really annoying. I can see how a repeatable Fog would be good. I'll see if I can make room for it.


A very good point. And, if necessary, could be used to get me out of a pinch. I'll have to try and get one.


Yeah, probably. Forgotten Ancient was in the previous version of the deck but I didn't prioritise it in this one. The Phantoms I'd love to run but, as with a lot of things, it's finding the room to do that. I'll see what I can do.


I do actually think that Retribution of the Ancients is worth running, because it's very mana efficient. The mistake I've made with my first draft of this list (the one you can currently see) is that I've got lots of creatures that go, "X, remove a counter: do one thing." That will get very expensive very quickly, especially with how many of them I have. But, if I run Retribution, I don't need any of them and can replicate their effect with ANY of my creatures with counters and all for the low, low cost of B.

I don't own a copy of Dromoka but, if I did, she probably wouldn't be in the deck anyway as her ability works best with more Dragons. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that my creature picks in this deck are going to have to be very specific, that I can't just bung any old creature in the deck because it has the words "+1/+1 counter" on it. And I don't think that Dromoka would make the cut.

Cruel Sadist, Daru Stinger, Drakestown Forgotten, and Korozda Gorgon are some of those creatures I was just talking about, the ones that let you do things with your counters but take a whole bunch of mana to do it. I'm going to cut them. Festercreep I'm still on the fence over as it's potentially a board wipe if I have enough counters and can generate enough mana.

The Outlast guys are to give extra abilities to all the creatures in the deck. The fact that they can Outlast themselves to give them extra counters is just a bonus side effect. Having said that, the Thousand-Year Elixir might be something to look into, especially if I include more Seedborn Muse effects other than just Ivorytusk Fortress.


I don't yet have a Dromoka's Command, but it's definitely one I want to add to this deck. I've had other advice that if I'm going to include Fight effects then I should have more cards that make them more efficient, such as things that grant Deathtouch or Indestructible, recurral, or cards like Vigor, Ring of Xathrid, Phytohydra, Protean Hydra, and Sekki, Seasons' Guide that all gain benefits like those cards you suggested. Most of those I don't own (and the ones I don't are somewhat pricey for me) so I don't know how well I can take that advice and use it.

Abzan Charm is there for flexibility more than anything else. Yes, all of the individual functions aren't anything terribly great, but overall it gives me an Exile spell, a draw spell, and extra counters in a single card.


I've been convinced to give Inspiring Call a go. Mostly because I first wrote up the cards I wanted for the deck before Fate Reforged came out and I didn't really have a good look at the Dragons of Tarkir ones after it was released.

I'm probably going to cut the Soul. It was an easy solution to a problem that I can find other solutions for. As for Rest in Peace, it doesn't help that I just traded my last two copies away. I'm not certain that it's worth running dedicated slots for graveyard hate, though. I'll be removing both the Relic of Progenitus and the Leylien of the Void when I revise this deck, and probably replace them with cards that have other functions too (such as Scavenging Ooze).

I initially dismissed Abzan Ascendency too, but I've been convinced that it might be worth running. To begin with, each creature on your side of the battlefield gets a counter when it enters play, not just a single one. Also, it gives you a measure of protection against wrath effects since you'll start up with a bunch of evasive creatures.


That's pretty much what I thought on the Phantoms. Until I opened up the deck to Black I was considering the Flock, simply to have something with Flying on-theme. Now, I'm not so sure. Having said that, the Phantoms are pretty much immune to damage in this deck, so it might be worth running them anyway.


The Ajanis are the only Planeswalkers that really deal with +1/+1 counters, so there's not a lot of choice to begin with. Caller of the Pride worked really well in the previous version of this deck in conjunction with Mikaeus the Lunarch (as between them they'd give a counter to everyone on my battlefield). Mentor of Heroes would go straight into the deck if I had a copy but for now I'll just have to make do with the other two. Ajani Goldmane might go in too, if I can get a copy, because that -1 ability seems pretty good.

Liliana, Heretical Healer will NOT flip after a wrath. Her ability will trigger and go on the stack but by the time it resolves her card'll be in the graveyard and will be a different object, so she won't exile then return transformed.

I might include Ugin, the Spirit Dragon simply because he's extremely versatile. Plus, with the improved ramp package I intend to use, I can probably make it up to 8 mana pretty easily. Garruk, Apex Predator is something else I'm considering for a similar reason.


Gleam of Authority has the problem of being an aura, which makes it very vulnerable to getting yourself 2-for-1ed by a removal spell. Plus, this deck is full of +1/+1 effects, so if I were to include an aura in the deck I'd want it to do something a lot more powerful than a bunch of Power and Toughness boosts and incidental counter adding. Though, I will admit that putting it on a High Priest does sound rather tasty. If I did that then I'd probably want to drop the Bane of Progress and add a few things to back it up like Umbra Mystic, Spectra Ward, and/or Greater Auramancy to make it harder to remove the aura and/or the creature it's attached to.


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You've all definitely given me a lot to think about. I'm already revising the deck in light of the suggestions made and will probably have to make some difficult decisions as a result. Thanks for the help everyone

gha, one more thing I forgot...

Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter. This is another on-theme removal option. He's good here, in my experience, but not as good as he is in Ghave or decks with stronger token or reanimator themes. But still worth doing, I think. Although it is a lot of mana. But, the card is SOOO good, its sort of upsetting that he's not better in this list.

Also, I agree, there's a lot to think about in this thread, and I can't wait to rebuild mine and get a chance to play it...

Okay, I've made some major changes to this deck thanks to the feedback I've received here and on Reddit. Please let me know what you guys think of this new version.