MTG Salvation

When Commander 2016 added Parting Thoughts and Thief of Blood as payoffs for opponents having +1/+1 counters as well as enablers like Evolutionary Escalation and Orzhov Advokist, I assumed they were seeding a new casual strategy of giving your opponents power for your own profit- something players have been trying to do since Sheltering Ancient. It looks pretty janky at first but when I looked for other people's takes on the strategy I couldn't find anyone who actually put together a list. This is my attempt.



Spike Cannibal and Aku Djinn are the forgotten old treasures that give the new toys a real shot. Vault Skirge and Devoted Druid are your happy recipients of counters from Evolutionary Escalation and Fate Transfer. Meanwhile Lightning Greaves, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, and Rogue's Passage work to convert enormous Spike Cannibals and Thief of Bloods into actual game wins.

I've been pleasantly surprised at how well it actually works, Parting Thoughts and Devoted Druid are very effective at supercharging you on cards and mana when supported, and you get to wield a lot of political influence through your "gifts". In particular, cards like Evolutionary Escalation give you the power to team up with other creature decks to crush more threatening control and combo decks early.

The weakness here is that the deck struggles to survive against repeated mass removal and can run out of gas if you don't draw your Parting Thoughts. More damning is the fact that it features minimal interaction, so if other decks bring a stronger and/or faster proactive plan they can simply outrace or overpower you and there are no answers.


I don't know if I'll actually build this with physical cards but I thought it was worth getting a list up on the site for reference, plus I'd love to see if it could get more competitive with some feedback! (Note: budget is a consideration)

Evolutionary Escalation heavily incentivizes you to jam a 1 drop on turn 1 and so I'd highly recommend fielding more than 3. I'm not entirely sure what the ideal options are (Skirge does seem great for example) but I'd probably test builds with things like Vampire Cutthroat/Mold Adder/Experiment One/etc. to see how they fare.

Have you considered Gyre Sage to go along with Devoted Druid?

Also, Kulrath Knight seems great with Aku Djinn.

Thanks for the good suggestions! Upon some Gatherer searching, it appears Vault Skirge really is the best one-drop for wearing somewhere between 3 and 30 +1/+1 counters. The reason I originally had only 3 in though is because they're quite useless in multiples, a 1/1 with no effect outside combat is embarrassing in multiplayer. I think the answer is to keep around 3 Skirges and add a few more one-drops that can make use of +1/+1 counters when needed but have independent value without them.

The best candidates:
Birds of Paradise is obviously strong for ramping and fixing and features evasion for delivering the beatdown when it must. It's slightly pricey though and there's an awkward tension between tapping for mana and actually attacking/blocking if it does get the counters.
Taunting Elf can act as pseudo-removal in the first few turns of the game if it has 3-6 counters, and a pseudo-board wipe if it collects a lot. Perhaps more importantly, it opens up opponents to be killed by your ginormous Spike Cannibal or Thief of Blood once it's counters get "borrowed".
Ulvenwald Tracker is slightly mana-intensive to use repeatedly, but offers repeated removal in a deck that could really use more interaction. It serves as a capable fighter itself if it's your Evolutionary Escalation receiver or will happily make critical utility creatures fight an oversized Cannibal. If you have a pumped Vault Skirge it even lets you activate the lifelink more often!

Honorable mentions include Experiment One, Mold Adder, and Scute Mob as big dumb beaters that add counters to the table, and Essence Warden and Thrull Parasite as generically useful one-drops if not great beaters.


I also love the idea of one or two Kulrath Knights! I hadn't remembered that they work on any counter and not just -1/-1!

At this point I'm actually looking for what cuts I can make to accommodate 3-5 new cards. I'm comfortable losing the Forgotten Ancient and probably shaving one Thief of Blood but not sure what else to cut. What do you guys think of the one drop choices? Potential cuts?

You mentioned you were having issues with board clears and the occasional lack of card draw. What about something like Inspiring Call? It too was introduced with Commander 2016. Then again you might not have enough +1/+1 counter distribution for your own creatures or if your game plan is usually just to buff a single creature for Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and Rogue's Passage, then Inspiring Call might not be as effective.

Quote from Decay57 »

You mentioned you were having issues with board clears and the occasional lack of card draw. What about something like Inspiring Call?

Normally I don't like cards that do nothing unless a specific board state exists, but, based upon the decks power level and goals, I could see it regularly being draw three and save your board or combat trick, which isn't terrible. Neat suggestion.