Of all my personal decks, my green-white counters deck is the one that surprised me the most. I always thought counters would be boring, but nothing brings me more joy than defeating an opponent with a 120/120.

The commander at the helm of this deck is Sovereign Okinec Ahau, a four-mana green-white creature. Whenever it attacks, each creature you control with power greater than its base power gets a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the difference. In essence, it doubles the boost on each of your creatures every time it attacks.

Let’s break down what this ability means for the cards we want in the 99. First of all, the commander needs to attack as fast as possible. Secondly, ramp on either turn 1 or 2 helps us slam down the commander on turn 3. Lastly, we want to be able to increase the power of the commander (and other creatures in the deck) so that the difference between their base power and their current power becomes as large as possible.

This means that creatures with base power 0 are great inclusions, especially when they already enter the battlefield with counters on them. This way, the commander can grow them into large monstrosities that put fear into the hearts of your opponents. Great examples of this are Botanical Brawler, which has trample and grows itself even bigger when counters are put on your other creatures, and Dyadrine, Synthesis Amalgam, which can remove counters to draw cards and can come in as big as your mana allows.

As I said, ramp in the beginning of the game is important, so I would suggest including at least 12 ramp pieces in the deck. We are in green, so Rampant Growth, Farseek, and Three Visits are great inclusions, but also look at some mana dorks that want counters on them, like Gyre Sage and Incubation Druid.

Now that we can cast our commander as fast as possible, we need to give it haste so that it can attack immediately. Giving haste in green and white is a bit hard, but there are some possibilities. Lightning Greaves is great, as it often is, but you can also include the land Amonkhet Raceway.

Growing the team can be done by giving your creatures counters, but keep in mind that anthem effects also increase the base power of creatures. Furthermore, it is a much easier way to make sure that everyone gets involved. In the case of Thraben Watcher, giving them vigilance allows you to keep them up as blockers, which can save your life total in the long run.

The next thing that the deck needed was protection, since the commander is a juicy target for removal, and its ward 2 cost is gladly paid when they see how fast your team grew. I like protection effects that have multiple uses, such as Vigorbloom Charm, which also is a fight spell that fits in this deck perfectly.

Round out the deck with card draw like Terrasymbiosis, Return of the Wildspeaker, and Rishkar’s Expertise, which can draw you a ton of cards and keep your engine running.

Finally, don’t forget that enormous creatures don’t do much if they can be chump-blocked all day. Include a few trample enablers, such as Sphere Grid and Gnarlid Colony, or other forms of evasion, to close out the game.

Deck Downsides

The main downside I’ve run into with this deck is working out how many counters each creature receives in combat. You have to add up counters, anthem effects and other boosts to get each creature’s power, subtract its base power, and then put that many counters on it. Be prepared to train your math skills when you play this deck.

Recent removels & furture adds

A card I recently removed from the deck is Unnatural Growth, for a few reasons. First, it’s quite hard to cast: four green pips takes some work. Second, it felt like a win-more card. Hitting someone with three 40/40 tramplers is usually enough to win the game. Growing them even bigger is fun, but rarely necessary. Finally, it slows down every combat. Working out which creatures grow to what power, and then resolving the commander trigger on top of that, takes time. I often play in the evening, and by then I simply don’t feel like doing that much math.

A card I’m looking to add is Big Mother Mouser. It doubles the counters on itself, and when it dies, it creates a 1/1 token for each counter it had. Imagine it dying with 15 counters on it: you instantly get a whole new board, which you can then pump with anthem effects and your commander.

I hope I’ve inspired you to build a counters deck of your own. You can find the full decklist on Archidekt: https://archidekt.com/decks/13368931/sovereign_okinec_we_want_all_the_counters

See you in the next post!