Mind Your Angles-Dimir +1/+1 Counters

+1/+1 counters decks are powerful decks that get out of hand quickly. Can we make an equally powerful +1/+1 counters deck by leaving green and white behind and swapping them for blue and black?

The Ozolith: Sam Burley

Welcome back to “Mind Your Angles” the deck tech series inspired by Lego and its unique ability to turn ordinary shapes into something unique and beautiful. Mind Your Angles brings that idea to MTG and asks, “How can we transform “square” Magic cards into equally exciting new and unique shapes?”, or more simply put, “How can we take classic and established archetypes and do something new and inventive with them?” 

In previous entries into the series, we have tackled lands and aristocrats strategies in colors that they likely shouldn't be in! You can check them both out here:

Mind Your Angles: Boros Landfall

Mind Your Angles: Selesnya Aristocrats

This week we are branching out of my comfort color in MTG, white. If you have listened to any of our podcasts, read any of my articles, or played any games with me, you likely know that white is my favorite color in Magic. Both from a philosophical level and a gameplay level, white really resonates with me. Working for the benefit of the collective, rules and laws to keep everything under control, and protecting what you value most, all make up what I love so much about white.

But recently on the Out of the Box MTG Podcast, we had an episode where Jake, our resident Esper mage, pitched us on commanders in colors that we don’t typically like with the challenge to build one of the options to stretch our deckbuilding muscles. For me it was Dimir. Something about the color pairing just doesn't do it for me. But by the end of the episode I was sold on building a funky one, Ukkima, Stalking Shadow +1/+1 Counters. 

You read that correctly, a Dimir +1/+1 counters deck headed by Ukkima, Stalking Shadow. But this time Ukkima is a whale wolf without a partner. Cazur has been devoured and Ukkima is talking the +1/+1 counters into his own hands, or paws, or fins…Ikoria is a strange place. 

One +1/+1 Counter at a Time

In order to effectively build a +1/+1 counters deck in Dimir we need to understand the three main components that make these decks work in the more traditional colors.

1. Flood the board with +1/+1 counters

+1/+1 counter decks are inherently creature decks so the first major pillar of these decks is to play a bunch of creatures that enter the battlefield with counters. Some of the most iconic are cards like Forgotten Ancient, Managorger Hydra, Genesis Hydra, and Mikaeus, the Lunarch. The other side of this is creatures that put counters on the creatures that don’t inherently enter with counters themselves. Good Fortune Unicorn, Jumper Order Ranger, Renata, Called to the Hunt, and Defiler of Vigor (a personal favorite of mine) all help to get those counters onto your creatures whether they enter with one or not. These tend to be the essentials in the deck because they really make the whole deck tick. All the other synergies are great but without being able to get counters on there in the first place +1/+1 counters decks can get stuck.

2. Double up the counters

The next category is what makes these decks easily get out of hand. There are a TON of effects that essentially double up on the counters placed on creatures. That usually takes the form of if one or more counters are placed on a creature place an additional one on the creature as well. Constructed icon Hardened Scales is the poster child of this effect, but others like Kami of Whispered Hopes, Conclave Mentor, and Winding Constrictor give you access to tons of copies of this effect. The other side is the actual doubling up of counters, not just adding a single additional one (even though functionally they often do the same thing since most counters are put on one at a time). Everyone knows it, and love it or hate it, Doubling Season is the king of these effects. There are others though like Branching Evolution that do the same thing but focus only on the counters. Cards like Kalonian Hydra, Solidarity of Heroes, and the new Court of Garenbrig can double counters in a more one-off style which can be just as devastating. 

3. Get extra use out of  the counters

This last category is all about making the counters matter. I mean, granted, having a board full of creatures buffed up by tons of counters may be all you need to make the counters matter, but we are commander players, we are greedy. We live by the motto “If it's worth doing it's worth overdoing!” Some of the creatures that take these counters to the next level are Abzan Falconer, Akki Battle Squad, Kodama of the West Tree, and Abzan Battle Priest. All these make combat infinitely more scary when our board is full of counters. There are also big card draw payoffs for having a bunch of counters like Armorcraft Judge and Inspiring Call. Anything that rewards us for having counters fits in this category and rounds out the core pillars that makeup counter decks.

Ukkima, Stalking Shadow: Daarken

Whale Wolf on Patrol

Typically this is the section where we would evaluate commander options for an off-color +1/+1 counter build, but since we already have our commander selected thanks to Jake, I wanted to dissect the card a little bit and use that to inform where we take the deck.

I am the type of commander player who really likes to build around the commander itself and will rely heavily on the commander being in play for the deck to do its thing. I recognize that that opens me up to potential blowouts or non-games, but I find the upside of the deck getting to do its thing worth the risk.

With Ukkima you get to mitigate that risk to a certain extent. Part of this deck is wanting Ukkima to die. That is because the second major line of text on Ukkima says:

When Ukkima leaves the battlefield, it deals X damage to target player and you gain X life, where X is its power. 

The core strategy behind the deck is to utilize +1/+1 counters to buff Ukkima up into a very scary threat, get an attack or two off and deal big damage, and then get Ukkima killed to be able to deal the finishing blow.

The other aspect of the deck, as mentioned above, is getting Ukkima in for commander damage. The other line of text relevant to this deck is:

Ukkima, Stalking Shadow can’t be blocked

There are a handful of sneaky cards in the deck that can one-shot players out of the game if we have enough life or enough +1/+1 counters floating around. I say this just to note that commander damage is a real possibility in this deck and to not get too caught up in the counters when you may just be able to attack through for 21 commander damage.

Dimir Guildgate: Cliff Childs

+1/+1 Counters…from the Shadows

With the key elements of Ukkima’s card outlined let's dig into the three main strategies of +1/+1 counters decks and see how this whale wolf handles them!

1. Flood the board with +1/+ counters

There are some really fun cards that we get access to in black that allow us to just spill counters onto the board. Necropolis Regent stacks tons of counters onto our creatures when they deal combat damage. Drana, Liberator of Malakir allows us to put a single counter on all of our attacking creatures. Feast on the Fallen steadily adds a counter at the beginning of each upkeep because let's be honest, if players aren’t regularly losing life each turn something is going wrong in your commander game! Unexpected Fangs, Essence Infusion, and Gix’s Command are spells that can stack some quick counters on Ukkima for more damage.

One of my personal favorites is a card that feels tailor-made for this deck, Astarion’s Thirst. A four mana instant speed exile effect in black is already playable and then getting the big bonus of adding counters directly onto Ukkima is awesome! This might be thinking too optimistically, but I can imagine a situation where you swing in with Ukkima, exile a huge threat at the table, get 10+ counters on Ukkima, and then take someone out of the game with commander damage! The allure is too strong to not run it in the deck! The last one to call out is Unspeakable Symbol. It's a steep cost, 3 life for a single counter, but being able to do it any number of times you want is huge! And with Ukkima gaining life every time it dies means that you will be able to get that life back over the course of a game.

2. Double up the counters

While we aren’t in green and don’t get access to some of the most heavy-hitting of these effects, there are some clever ways around it. The only true counter doubler in the deck is Deepglow Skate. Because Ukkima wants to enter and leave the battlefield we have a number of ways to flicker creatures with cards like Planar Incision and Teferi’s Time Twist or “scam” creatures with cards like Feign Death and Undying Malice, and we can use those on Deepglow Skate as well. That allows us to get some repeatability out of the doubling effect of the card that we otherwise wouldn't be able to.

The other way to “double up” on counters that traditional green/white counters decks don't get as much access to is proliferate. We are leveraging that to big effect in this deck as a replacement to Hardened Scales Style effects. Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus allows us to double up on each separate instance of proliferate. Tezzeret’s Gambit, Experimental Augury, and Contentious Plan draw cards alongside their proliferation. Drown in Ichor is a decent removal spell that also proliferates making it worth the slot. Flux Channeler and Thrumming Bird are repeatable sources of proliferation which are really key to the deck. The last one to call out here is Karn’s Bastion which is a land that for four mana can proliferate which is awesome! It is basically free to run in our deck because we are only two colors and the colorless mana from the card is not likely to ever really hinder us. 

3. Get extra use out of the counters

We put counters to really good use in this deck because Ukkima can very easily turn them into damage through both combat and via his likely demise, but the additional creatures in the deck that want counters also provide us the same level of flexibility. Chasm Skulker and Hangarback Walker can be good beaters as they grow and when they inevitably die can provide a very threatening board state! Thought Sponge, Toothy Imaginary Friend, and Bloodtracker all get big quickly and can draw a ton of cards upon their deaths. Mer-Ek Nightblade, Skatewing Spy, and Hagra Constrictor all make blocking our creatures very difficult (outside of Ukkima because he is already unblockable). To round out this section we even get a potential tutor on a creature in Ayara’s Oathsworn. Is it the most effective tutor?  Absolutely not. Is it pretty cool? Definitely, therefore we run it!

There is one more card that I want to call out that I think is really cool, and can be very sneaky. I present Fate Transfer:

This means if you have a giant Sengir, the Dark Baron, or Necropolis Regent or something like that, you can attack in with Ukkima, move all the counters over to him, and just take out a player! 

The really sneaky mode on this card though is it makes no reference to ownership of the creature so you can steal counters from one of your opponent's creatures and put those counters on any creature you want! It can be Ukkima, it can be one of your other creatures, or it can even be on one of your other opponent's creatures! The possibilities with card are huge and I love that it has a home in this deck!

If you are interested, you can find the complete decklist pictured below or linked here.

Thanks for joining for another edition of “Mind Your Angles”! Hopefully, I inspired you to think about more interesting ways you can use your counters or more colors that you can make counters decks really work in! This series is all about trying something new, so if you have any cool ideas please share them in the comments below. I would love to see any wacky off-color brew you have got cooking! If you don’t I would encourage you to give it a try! Magic, like Lego the toy that inspired this series, is all about trying something new to see if it works. Sometimes your ideas will fail and thats okay! It's all part of the learning process. So get out there and get creative. See what wacky deck you can come up with. Make your friends laugh. Make yourself laugh. Make yourself think “Outside the Box”.