MTG Salvation

The partner mechanic is super interesting, and out of those Reyhan seems the most unique and interesting to me right now. Kraum has an interesting ability that isn't easy to build around, but he makes a great support commander for late-game CA and the potential to burst people out with commander damage, especially with Reyhan to potentially dump counters onto him.

Most of the deck is focused on +1/+1 counter synergy, getting benefits from sacking creatures and moving the counters around. I should probably include more removal/counterspells, plus all the obvious tutors and other goodstuff that ought to be in there. But it's a 4-color deck, which is really hard to keep focused, so I want to try it out with as many synergistic parts as possible so I can figure out which ones are the most useful.

I like where you're going with this. Since you've included Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest, you can easily add Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar to get more mileage out of creatures with +1/+1 counters on them - especially with Reyhan in play. Running U means you can also add Deepglow Skate in order to double the +1/+1 counters all around. Since you also have a couple of proliferate cards, you could probably consider Contagion Engine.

I think Reyhan as support to basically transform Kraum into a broken Skullbriar is an amazing concept. But it definitely has room to grow and become more streamlined.

While Ashnod's and Phyrexian are generally staple sac outlets, I'm not sure if they warrant a spot here - My other sac outlets generate counters, except for greater good (which is insane in the membrane), altar of dementia (which is also pretty strong since it can kill people instantly) and falkenrath aristocrat, who can hold the counters through boardwipes or just kill people. By comparison, I'm not sure mana is going to be as useful, especially since they share a cmc with reyhan, and frequently I'll be wanting to sac during combat or on their turn, when mana isn't super useful to me.

I'm not sure if deepglow skate is worth it in this deck or not. It's definitely synergistic, but it feels like sorta win-more to me, and I don't have a lot of ways to get value out of it being a creature (i.e. blink, recursion, etc). It's sweet with Marchesa, for sure. Might make it in later, but for now I want to see how hard it is to get the counter synergy off the ground. Same kinda goes for contagion engine. Both cards are definitely more impressive with planeswalkers than +1/+1s, where I feel like there's cheaper options to do the same thing.

Quote from DirkGently »

While Ashnod's and Phyrexian are generally staple sac outlets, I'm not sure if they warrant a spot here - My other sac outlets generate counters, except for greater good (which is insane in the membrane), altar of dementia (which is also pretty strong since it can kill people instantly) and falkenrath aristocrat, who can hold the counters through boardwipes or just kill people. By comparison, I'm not sure mana is going to be as useful, especially since they share a cmc with reyhan, and frequently I'll be wanting to sac during combat or on their turn, when mana isn't super useful to me.

I'm not sure if deepglow skate is worth it in this deck or not. It's definitely synergistic, but it feels like sorta win-more to me, and I don't have a lot of ways to get value out of it being a creature (i.e. blink, recursion, etc). It's sweet with Marchesa, for sure. Might make it in later, but for now I want to see how hard it is to get the counter synergy off the ground. Same kinda goes for contagion engine. Both cards are definitely more impressive with planeswalkers than +1/+1s, where I feel like there's cheaper options to do the same thing.

That's true. I was suggesting the altar's because being 4-colors and having so many cards of different colors, it (Phyrexian Altar) simultaneously helps prevent color screw while also providing free sac outlets.

Yeah, Deepglow Skate is just winmore but it's just too amazing to not suggest, lol.

It was interesting to see where you went with the red, as opposed to having access while building a similar type deck with Atraxa.

Suggestions/comments:
1) I love the inclusion of the legendaries with red (Kresh, Animar, Marchesa).
2) Putrefy in place of Pongify or its twin. I know you said most of the goodstuff isnt in the deck yet, but I dont recall seeing any artifact/enchantment hate.
3) Saved the best for last: Champion of Lambholt. She is 100% on theme, gets large fast, and allows your modular creatures to beat face unhindered.

I ran putrefy on accident anyway, amusingly. I think I screwed up the deck a bit when I was actually putting it together.

Overall the deck seems pretty strong with a good draw, I got a turn 6 and 7 kill last night with reyhan into primordial hydra into kalonian hydra, then swing out, double counters, sac hydra to put them on reyhan for commander damage, then (since the other guy had a spike weaver in play) go for a lethal murderous redcap.

On the other hand, with a bad draw I got stuck on lands, had a bunch of sac outlets and removal and very few ways to get counters, and was playing against a bunch of all-threats-and-no-answers decks, stopping a few "win the game immediately" combos before losing to DEN + palinchron, such fun.

Ultimately this deck is a pretty fun aggro/midrange deck, and it can be pretty strong, but I think I'd need to rebuild it to have more answers to enjoy it, at which point the synergy might be too sparse to work correctly. The game that I won I felt like people were annoyed that my deck was too competitive, and the game I lost I felt annoyed because I couldn't do anything. Lack of interaction really kills my enjoyment of a deck. Decks like this are basically the opposite of my "omni-deck" ideal, where they feel fair in any meta - this deck can either win very quickly and feel overpowered, or do nothing of interest and suck to play, the margin of games where it's good but not OP is pretty narrow.

Rating: 3/5 for both commanders. Reyhan has a cool ability that isn't quite my thing, and Kraum is a quality support commander that fits comfortably alongside anything else.

I was thinking about building a similar deck and discovered Vigor. This could be the MVP of the deck if It works the way I think it does... am I right? It makes your creatures essentially indestructible and gains +1/+1 counters with blocking damage and nukes like blasphemous act. So it does double duty by preventing a board wipe of your creatures and +1/+1 counter generation.