General +1/+1 counters in 2020

[japahn]

Counters is a theme that was super popular years back around these parts, but I haven't heard much about lately.

Do you support counters? In what colors and archetype shape? Is it focused around aggro, midrange, combo... control?

In my cube I have it currently as a triangle archetype in . I mix -1/-1 counters into it, which may or may not be wise.

The payoffs I have:

All counters


+1/+1 counters only (including two I'll add soon)


-1/-1 counters only


I'm actually having trouble to find creatures that have counters or put on them naturally, at the right power level. Counters have the inherent issue of using snowbally cards.

 

[shamizy]

I'd say for me it's more centered in Green with some stuff in other colors and real payoffs in U/G. All of the cards in my cube that currently have any interaction(s) with +1/+1 counters are:



At higher power levels I think it's more difficult to make this theme work explicitly, but it's kind of like a "themeless theme" that you just kind of end up integrating without a whole lot of work. Sort of like Aristocrat shells. The key for me is to put in cards that aren't overtly parasitic and only applicable to this theme.

What really got me thinking about this was Simic as a guild around 18 months back. Before we were met with the deluge of pushed cards in these colors, I just had issues coming up with a compelling theme or way to define the guild for years. Counters as a whole weren't all that compelling at that point and there weren't a whole lot of payoff cards or incidentally good cards that would slot in at my power level. There wasn't a whole lot of options for synergy, but once Ravnica 3 came along, we were approaching a critical mass that could enable this.

Zegana, Utopian Speaker immediately jumped out to me as a sizeable creature that could generate value on ETB and also serve as a lord effect. Hydroid Krasis was a scourge in Standard but I saw it as a sweet Mulldrifter variant that ramp decks would love in cube helping to mitigate the issue of ramping all your resources into a one-shot threat before being sent back to the stone age against interaction. Within the following year we got scaleable cards like Stonecoil Serpent and Voracious Hydra, incidental synergies with cards from Theros like Heliod or the Escape mechanic, and just a glut of decent cards that have to deal with counters.

Making a few swaps here and there and revisiting cards that I put on the sidelines like Vinelasher Kudzu or Rishkar, Peema Renegade and all of a sudden I have enough incidental support to make this deck a reality without it being draft on rails as an archetype. I think it's much easier to make work the lower powered your environment is by opening up avenues to include draft all-stars at lower rarities, but I also think there's just enough to get it going at a high power level. Just barely. I'm quite interested in seeing whether my drafters can pick up on it the next time we get to have a session.

I also really just want Centaur Vinecrasher to work. It might just be my goal as a cube designer to see this nature boy shine. Please god let this work.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Back when I still ran as a color pair, I had to dial down the +1/+1 counters theme twice, because it was so snowbally. Hardened Scales and Elite Scaleguard were the biggest offenders for me, with the first just exploding your creatures out of "I can still deal with this"-range for your opponents, and Elite Scaleguard completely shutting down the option of blocking.

 

[inscho]

varolz is a one card archetype that bridges sacrifice, dredge, and delirium themes

tying counters into the “creaturefall” theme is one of the more interesting selesnya archetypes to me..fabricate creatures are good here

The creature dumping nature of the creaturefall deck ties in pretty well with the counter ramp theme and I feel like the archetype almost has enough legs to it:


I’ve been exploring convoke as another bridge between the go wide and counter ramp deck as the mechanical operation is the same:



then you can toss in a cryptolith rite to further drive home the elfball type playstyle ramping out large creatures or sinking mana into things like Walking Ballista

 

[wackelbernd]

I run it in my cube as Simic Archetype. It normally plays as a grindy Midrange Deck that develops 2-3 giant threats on board (often with way above 10 power) and then giving them some form of evasion to close out the game. That being said, my cube is quite low powered (~3 Strix).

The main WinCons are:


The best creatures I run fpr the archetype, that give +1/+1-Counters and enable proliferate are:

 

[inscho]

Oh, and this card is nuts:

 

[japahn]

How strong it is? I'm testing it since it ticks a lot of boxes for me - I'm adding it as elves/flash/counters and as an anti-flier, which green always struggles with, but I'm wary of it warping the game around it.

 

[Brad]

This is a little stupid, but I think it's really cute to proliferate your Vivid lands.

 

[blacksmithy]

Taking the “cube occasionals” idea and this together, I am going to pilot a simple “counters aggro pack” as an occasional in an upcoming session:

Thalia’s Lieutenant and Basri’s Lieutenant probably won’t show in my CI tags but they’re both awesome in this theme imo.

I’m also looking at counters as a possible permanent theme for Boros, backed up by the cards above:


My thinking is this will pair nicely with anthems in white, wildfire effects in red, and double strike stuff like silver blade paladin in both colors.

 

[dbs]

Taking the “cube occasionals” idea and this together, I am going to pilot a simple “counters aggro pack” as an occasional in an upcoming session

Just glancing at this, I'm not sure this will work - although obviously you should try it anyway to gather more data yourself based on you and your playgroup! My main concern is that when counters are an archetype in a normal cube, they can be thoroughly integrated so the cards are good in many decks and theme can be taken in many directions in multiple colors. With this archetype pack I worry that realistically you'll just have one drafter who moves in on, say, GW Counters Aggro and Flux Channeler becomes a blank. On the other hand, if the cube is designed so that Flux Channeler is good regardless of what modules appear... why not have it be a permanent card instead? I worry that "the counters aggro module is included so there will be one counters aggro drafter" sounds like an uninteresting draft dynamic which in a normal design you could avoid with dense support.

In particular, I think japahn meant "Cube Occasionals" to be a way to try to fix problems they discovered with archetype packs:

The issue I found with modular cubes are mostly not present with a Cube Occasional module:

1. Archetypes being in modules is an advantage to the cube designer over players. When I had big modules with the same number of cards and no core, and combined those big modules, I knew, just from looking at the first boosters, which modules were present and which archetypes were available. My players knew even less than they would when the archetypes were static. This is not a problem with Cube Occasionals, as seeing an Occasional card gives me no information about whether the others are present, and all archetypes remain static because they are supported in the Core Module.
2. Archetypes in the same module showed up together every time, leading to less gameplay and drafting variety. This is not a problem with Cube Occasionals, since all archetypes appear in every draft.
3. Multiple large modules were a nightmare to manage. Balancing as-fans and mana curves of one cube and of its micro archetypes is difficult. Balancing four cubes at the same time where swapping cards between modules affects both is insanely hard. Cube occasionals are not supposed to be difficult to manage. The Occasionals are a small part of the draft pool, which can be considered almost negligible for as-fans and mana curve. Balancing the Core Module is like balancing a normal cube, except you feel less the itch to change it for variety.
4. Modules greatly diminish familiarity. A cube that puts archetypes in modules looks completely different depending on the modules included. This prevents players from getting familiar with the cube’s cards, its archetypes, at least at any normal rate of drafting, because it creates fundamental, systemic variety in the environment. The Core Module provides familiarity and dictates the environment, while Cube Occasionals introduce entropy within the familiar framework.

Anyway, looking forward to hearing your findings.

 

[blacksmithy]

that’s a good point about making sure these don’t drop in unannounced and dud. looking through my list, i have the following cards that can play into the archetype...

Spoiler

Surprisingly low numbers in white!

 

[James Stevenson]

Any experiences with these?

 

[LadyMapi]

If you run Generous Patron, why not include some cards that punish having counters?



And there's always this cycle:



Fertilid makes a sweet combo with Evolution Sage, and Shinewend and Festercreep can do some interesting things if you have enough ways to top up those +1/+1 counters.

 

[japahn]

Out of those I only have experience with Kulrath Knight, which is really powerful in this deck. If your power level is low enough, it can be generically playable, but in most cubes it'll be narrow. I put it in Occasionals after a long, long time out of the cube. I actually wrote about this card back in 2010!

By the way, Generous Patron is seriously an awesome card to play with. Lots of opportunity to do smart plays - sometimes upgrading opponent's 5/5 into a 6/6 does not do anything since you're chumping it anyways, or you put a counter on something that isn't supposed to attack or block anyways. And the most fun part is these plays are kind of risky too, and sometimes come back and bite you in the ass Regardless, it has the base case of just being a 1/4 Support 2 for 2G, which is already pretty decent by itself, and it's an Advisor! Oh, and an Elf.