I always enjoyed playing Sword of Light and Shadow and Sword of Fire and Ice in the 75 (one in main and one in the sideboard) so I'll have to look at if it's worthwhile to go back and add them with Stoneforge Mystic. Sword of Sinew and Steel also may be promising for dealing with Planeswalkers and Artifacts, but it's entirely dependent on how my local meta shapes up post ban.
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Semi on-topic, is there somewhere where we can migrate to? This is one of my favorite decks, so I'd be keen to know of another place to discuss after the 8th July.
Thanks for the comments. Happy to provide it so we can dissect various cards. If it turns out that counters isn't as viable as other archetypes then that is a good outcome in itself!
@Rendroc: I did see the Scavenge cards and that Varolz combo was what came to mind when I started seeing those cards. Walking Ballista definitely makes that deck a lot stronger, however only being able to Scavenge at Sorcery speed is a real bummer. That's why I didn't see to include those cards. Deadbridge Goliath might be the exception though, as you stated it's an under-costed body that can help in the late game.
@CurdBros: Glad you liked that interaction! Best thing is that it's not just limited to running Counters Devotion. Bow of Nylea can easily be a singleton in the 75 and help our overall game-plan. If the deck has 4 Walking Ballista then I would highly suggest just running a single copy. As we've seen in E Tron, the ability to wipe all creatures for very little cost can be back-breaking.
@Gruul_Me_Harder: As I said earlier, perfectly happy for people to come to the conclusion that the cards aren't good. Means we help drive Devotion towards being the best it can be. Who know's maybe the card that will make everything work in a heavy counter focused deck will get printed in the future!
Hey Guys,
Finally got around to sorting the cards I found for a counters based devotion deck. There are quite a number of cards that could work and there’s plenty of brew space to work out which cards work, and which don’t.
It aims to play creatures that build upon each other and attack through damage. Also run's a one-off Alchemist's Refuge which this deck may not benefit the most from, but it is super super undervalued. I'll proxy this up and jam it for a little bit to see if it meshes as well as I hope it does.
For the list of cards, there are a number of options, however the majority of the synergies come from splashing a second colour. This leads to either Green/Blue decks or Green/White decks. I’ve broken up the cards into some categories to try and sort the cards.
Cards that Generate +1/+1 Counters
Avatar of the Resolute – Great card that can be played early for Devotion or later to benefit from other creatures with +1/+1 Counters. Good Keywords.
Bow of Nylea – Decent devotion, can add a +1/+1 counter along with other nice abilities. Provides attacking creatures with Deathtouch which is nice. Can pair with an attacking Walking Ballista to machinegun a boardstate.
Corpsejack Menace – 4/4 for 4 if splashing Black. Doubles all +1/+1 counters placed on creatures. Could get out of control quickly if unresolved.
Doubling Season – Obvious choice for counters. Works well with the Planeswalkers we would likely play and then does double duty doubling our +1/+1 counters.
Fangren Firstborn – If the deck has an aggro focus, then this might be worth it. 3 devotion towards Green and pumps the team when attacking. The 2 toughness might make it a bit weak though.
Gavony Township – Powerful land that can pump the team. Definitely consider if you’re running Green and White.
Genesis Hydra – Seems like an auto-include. Creature is nothing but +1/+1 counters and gives us a cast trigger to dig for a permanent if it gets countered.
Gyre Sage – Evolve creature that could help ramp if drawn early. A very build around me creature but could pay off well if it can get untapped a number of times in a turn (Kiora).
Hardened Scales – Early devotion and can quickly get out of control if played early.
Narnam Renegade – Early revolt creature for aggressive builds. Deathtouch is nice and if paired with Trample providers it can push through damage.
Oath of Ajani – Dumps a +1/+1 on the team and can help ramp out Planeswalkers. Good if splashing into White.
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood – Most of our creatures will be Green. This might be a helpful land to generate counters. It is a single shot though unlike Gavony Township.
Polukranos, World Eater – Solid card already played in a number of builds. Gets +1/+1 counters when Monstrous is triggered.
Predator Ooze – Difficult to remove creature outside of exile, bounce, edicts and toughness reducing effects. Slow to start but steadily grows and gets +1/+1 counters. Perfect mana to devotion ratio giving us 3 to Green.
Raging Ravine – Powerful manland that grows with +1/+1 counters. If you have effects that grant additional counters, it can get out of control fast.
Renegade Krasis – Evolve creature that can “Evolve” creatures that already have +1/+1 counters.
Reverent Hunter – Allows us to use devotion to pump out a big creature with +1/+1 counters. Could get sniped as the +1/+1 counters are on an ETB effect.
Scavenging Ooze – Green creature all-star and just happens to get +1/+1 counters.
Tireless Tracker – Good creature that can grow and provides an outlet for mana to draw cards. Clues can help fuel Ascend mechanics.
Vorel of the Hull Clade – Possible finisher in +1/+1 decks. Doubles the counters on a creature. If we have a Walking Ballista out then the activation would likely end the game.
Zameck Guildmage – Interesting two drop with two interesting abilities. First one allows creatures to enter in with an extra counter. Note it works even if the creature would enter with no counters. Can also be activated multiple times and each stack, i.e: 2 activations is enter with +2 counters. Note that it’s not an ETB effect, as such a flipped or tutored Walking Ballista will not immediately die. Second ability is nice card draw.
Cards that Recognise +1/+1 Counters
Battlefront Krushok – Creature that provides inverse Menace to all of our creatures with +1/+1 counters. As a 5 drop there may be better options.
Bramblewood Paragon – Powerful 2 drop that can pump other Warriors (possibly just other Bramblewood Paragon) and gives our +1/+1 creatures Trample.
Crowned Ceratok – Bramblewood Paragon’s big Rhino brother. Bigger creature as a 4 drop and gives our +1/+1 creatures Trample.
Longshot Squad – Outlast creature that gives our +1/+1 creatures Reach. Could be a nice addition if facing a Lingering Souls meta.
Plaxcaster Frogling – Fun card that helps protect our +1/+1 creatures for any type of mana. Graft 3 creature means we can convert it’s counters onto more important creatures later in the game.
Rishkar, Peema Renegade – Recent creature that’s seen play in Standard previously. Can distribute +1/+1 counters to two creatures when it enters the battlefield and then turns our +1/+1 creatures into Llanowar Elves. Could help ramp out some bigger plays in following turns.
Sporeback Troll – Card that is similar to Plaxcaster Frogling, but doesn’t seem as powerful. A Graft 2 creature for 4 mana that can Regenerate our +1/+1 creatures for 1G.
Card Draw
Armorcraft Judge – 4 drop 3/3 with ETB card draw equal to the number of creatures we control with +1/+1 counters on them. Decent if you’re wanting to add a body to the battlefield while resupplying your hand.
Inspiring Call – The spell version of Armorcraft Judge but at Instant speed. Also makes our +1/+1 creatures Indestructible until end of turn which can be pretty powerful.
Prime Speaker Zegana – EDH favorite can also be useful for us as well. Enters with a number of counters equal to our strongest creature then draws a bunch of cards. A decent rate for 6 mana.
Tezzeret's Gambit – In the already big list of good cards with Phyrexian Mana comes this one. 4 CMC Sorcery that draws two cards, but more importantly has Proliferate. We can generate so much value out of this adding +1/+1 counters on our creatures and even adding more Loyalty counters on our Planeswalkers. Can go down to 3 mana if we want to Shock ourselves.
Potential Finishers
Enduring Scalelord – 4/4 flyer for 6 that can grow when you dump +1/+1 counters on other creatures. Decent option if you’re in Green and White.
Experiment Kraj – A spicy one for people feeling adventurous. Gains all activated abilities of creatures that have +1/+1 counters on them. Can allow for doubling up on infinite combos.
Vigor – A card I want to slip into Mono Green Devotion. If unanswered it can run away with the game. Can allow the transfer of counters by using Walking Ballista to ping other creatures, which will then transfer the +1/+1 counter.
Walking Ballista – Don’t have to say much about this card. Already a finisher in some decks, but we may be able to push it further if building a +1/+1 counter deck.
Possible Tricks
Bioshift – Transfer counters from a creature onto another creature at instant speed. Works well with Walking Ballista.
Dromoka's Command – A bunch of useful effects. The instant speed +1/+1 counter can combo with other cards that grant additional counters and then works well with the fight mechanic.
Solidarity of Heroes – Flexible combat trick. Doubles the +1/+1 counters on any number of target creatures.
Hey there! Wanted to send you a quick update on the deck given your interest...I've played it on my time off and went a slightly different route recently:
One thing I can say...Tireless Tracker is an extremely powerful card. So much card advantage AND it gets bigger. I am very likely going to end up with a full set here (but I have liked Nissa and Jadelight Ranger at 3-CMC too).
Interesting deck there! I've finally gone through the cards and will do a post of the cards I found noteworthy later tonight but here's a first draft of the deck I made using the cards.
Sideboard is very rough and I'd likely tweak it further when I proxy it up and test it with friends.
Jadelight Ranger is a card I'd like to pop into the deck as double green with nice card filtering and possibility of getting a +1/+1 counter is very appealing, but I'd have to work out what to take out.
The Elder Combo list now plays Pact instead of Chord (as the combo requires a mana-sink and the more you can save in the tutor the better).
I’ve also tried a few different cards in the counters matter deck (funnily enough...Herald of Secret Streams may actually be the best “counters payoff” card :). Still have a lot to test. Want to play Nissa, Voice of Zendikar so the list looks a little different then before. I’ll post it tonight after some more games.
The cards I've looked at so far that might work have been in Bant colours. Herald is one of the cards I saw that was decent for evasion with the other being Abzan Falconer.
I have a few lists and a "counters matter cards" folder...but thus far I don't think there is enough payoff for generating lots of counters (outside of having larger creatures.
You might be able to get away with pulling off a combo like Fate Transfer a creature with counters (your favorite Reverent Hunter or an Avatar) onto a Walking Ballista, but I see most of the damage would be just beating down with big creatures.
If you're looking at counters matters, then I think the deck would likely have a more aggro focus with some late game viability.
Experiment One and/or Avatar of the Resolute would probably be cards I'd put in a counters matters deck. Avatar is good for early devotion and can become huge if there's a decent number of creatures with +1/+1 Counters.
I see a lot of good interactions with Wild Pair as cheating cards based on Power/Toughness rather than CMC is immensely powerful, but I don't see how we would reliably draw into it. I'd see this card as a 2-of at most as 6 mana is a fair investment where a lot of the top end creatures sit.
The only ways I see it coming into play easily is via Hydra X => 6 or Genesis Wave X >= 6. My pick would be Genesis Hydra so we at least get the cast trigger and then the possibility to fetch another creature when Hydra resolves.
I always enjoyed playing Sword of Light and Shadow and Sword of Fire and Ice in the 75 (one in main and one in the sideboard) so I'll have to look at if it's worthwhile to go back and add them with Stoneforge Mystic. Sword of Sinew and Steel also may be promising for dealing with Planeswalkers and Artifacts, but it's entirely dependent on how my local meta shapes up post ban.
Semi on-topic, is there somewhere where we can migrate to? This is one of my favorite decks, so I'd be keen to know of another place to discuss after the 8th July.
Hahahaha, I just saw that myself and immediately came here.
If there ever was a card that fits into our deck, it'd be this card.
@Rendroc: I did see the Scavenge cards and that Varolz combo was what came to mind when I started seeing those cards. Walking Ballista definitely makes that deck a lot stronger, however only being able to Scavenge at Sorcery speed is a real bummer. That's why I didn't see to include those cards. Deadbridge Goliath might be the exception though, as you stated it's an under-costed body that can help in the late game.
@CurdBros: Glad you liked that interaction! Best thing is that it's not just limited to running Counters Devotion. Bow of Nylea can easily be a singleton in the 75 and help our overall game-plan. If the deck has 4 Walking Ballista then I would highly suggest just running a single copy. As we've seen in E Tron, the ability to wipe all creatures for very little cost can be back-breaking.
@Gruul_Me_Harder: As I said earlier, perfectly happy for people to come to the conclusion that the cards aren't good. Means we help drive Devotion towards being the best it can be. Who know's maybe the card that will make everything work in a heavy counter focused deck will get printed in the future!
Finally got around to sorting the cards I found for a counters based devotion deck. There are quite a number of cards that could work and there’s plenty of brew space to work out which cards work, and which don’t.
Firstly the first draft of a deck:
4 Genesis Hydra
1 Plaxcaster Frogling
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Arbor Elf
2 Bramblewood Paragon
1 Zameck Guildmage
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Herald of Secret Streams
2 Avatar of the Resolute
Enchantment
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Hardened Scales
1 Hadana's Climb
1 Alchemist's Refuge
2 Breeding Pool
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
6 Forest
Artifact
1 Bow of Nylea
2 Walking Ballista
Instant
2 Chord of Calling
Sorcery
2 Tezzeret's Gambit
Planeswalker
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Acidic Slime
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Carnage Tyrant
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Hangarback Walker
1 Fracturing Gust
2 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
3 Primal Command
It aims to play creatures that build upon each other and attack through damage. Also run's a one-off Alchemist's Refuge which this deck may not benefit the most from, but it is super super undervalued. I'll proxy this up and jam it for a little bit to see if it meshes as well as I hope it does.
Cards that Generate +1/+1 Counters
Aggressive as you can freely swing with it (given you can regenerate it), provides 3 power towards Ghalta and two devotion towards Green.
I just love the idea of attacking for more than half their life-total then flinging them to death!
How quickly can you get Ghalta out?
Slamming Ghalta with Surrac/Xenagos would make me laugh maniacally.
Interesting deck there! I've finally gone through the cards and will do a post of the cards I found noteworthy later tonight but here's a first draft of the deck I made using the cards.
4 Genesis Hydra
1 Plaxcaster Frogling
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Arbor Elf
2 Bramblewood Paragon
1 Zameck Guildmage
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Herald of Secret Streams
2 Avatar of the Resolute
Enchantment
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Hardened Scales
1 Hadana's Climb
1 Alchemist's Refuge
2 Breeding Pool
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
6 Forest
Artifact
1 Bow of Nylea
2 Walking Ballista
Instant
2 Chord of Calling
Sorcery
2 Tezzeret's Gambit
Planeswalker
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Acidic Slime
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Carnage Tyrant
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Hangarback Walker
1 Fracturing Gust
2 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
3 Primal Command
Sideboard is very rough and I'd likely tweak it further when I proxy it up and test it with friends.
Jadelight Ranger is a card I'd like to pop into the deck as double green with nice card filtering and possibility of getting a +1/+1 counter is very appealing, but I'd have to work out what to take out.
The cards I've looked at so far that might work have been in Bant colours. Herald is one of the cards I saw that was decent for evasion with the other being Abzan Falconer.
Protection wise, Plaxcaster Frogling seemed interesting.
I'll continue trawling through the cards and will make my post when I'm done.
Yeah I had that issue last time cards were spoiled. You can still refer to the card because it's been added to the MTGSalvation website.
Zacama, Primal Calamity
I'd be keen to compile a list of cards that would be interesting in a "Counters Matter" deck, I think I'll start on that later tonight.
You might be able to get away with pulling off a combo like Fate Transfer a creature with counters (your favorite Reverent Hunter or an Avatar) onto a Walking Ballista, but I see most of the damage would be just beating down with big creatures.
Experiment One and/or Avatar of the Resolute would probably be cards I'd put in a counters matters deck. Avatar is good for early devotion and can become huge if there's a decent number of creatures with +1/+1 Counters.
If only we had access to Aether Flash.
The only ways I see it coming into play easily is via Hydra X => 6 or Genesis Wave X >= 6. My pick would be Genesis Hydra so we at least get the cast trigger and then the possibility to fetch another creature when Hydra resolves.