Hello readers old and new! After a long hiatus away from writing about Magic: The Gathering, I’ve been drawn back in by the siren song of the Egyptian Nile… um I mean the Amonkhet Luxa. That’s right, after months and months away, the mummies have dragged me back in. I’ve never been a huge fan of ancient Egypt, I was more of a classical Greece person. However, the mechanics of Amonkhet have really intrigued me. I’ve always been a fan of Cycling and the versatility it provides. Embalm looks like a great mechanic for long battles of attrition. And Aftermath is the exact twist on Flashback that I’ve personally wanted for years now.

Yet, my article today is not on any of those mechanics. While each of those mechanics are cool, self-contained bits of value, I find far greater joy in cheating on costs. I love nothing more than manipulating my deck to exploit potential cost inefficiencies. Maybe it’s because I came up when Affinity for Artifacts roamed the land unchallenged; but, whenever I see a cost that seems misaligned with what you get, my ears perk up. With that in mind, today I want to talk about the -1/-1 counter mechanic in Amonkhet and demonstrate just how potentially busted it can be.

Amonkhet actually diverges pretty far from Magic’s previous -1/-1 counter sets, Shadowmoore and New Phyrexia. In Shadowmoore, -1/-1 counters were central to various value based strategies, what with persist creatures constantly coming back and with wither cards weakening everything in sight. Shadowmoore’s -1/-1 counters were an emblem of a harsh world and the relentless creatures that lived in it. In New Phyrexia, Infect played similarly to Wither, except it made opponents play with 10 life instead of 20. New Phyrexia was about an inexorable march of disease driven by Infect and Proliferate. In Amonkhet however, -1/-1 counters have the opportunity to get downright explosive. The -1/-1 counters of Amonkhet represent two mechanical metaphors. On the one hand, they can represent a trial. They are some hardship that, once overcome, leaves you stronger. But they can also represent the zero-sum ambition of the people of Amonhket. Why suffer weakness at all if you can foist it on someone else instead? It is this element of -1/-1 counters that I want to explore.

Thanks to a change in the Standard rotation schedule last year, Amonkhet and Battle for Zendikar are in in Standard at the same time. Neither set was designed with the other in mind thanks to the abruptness of the Standard rotation change. That likely means there is a greater than usual chance of there being a broken interaction between the two sets. A lack of testing and forethought tends to lead to mistakes (though apparently the Sheeli Rai + Felidar Guardian combo fell through the cracks despite being in the same block, so what do I know?). The interaction I’m interested in is between the cheap -1/-1 counter creatures of Amonkhet and the sacrifice fodder of Battle for Zendikhar. Amonkhet has a ton of under-costed creatures that have the drawback of placing -1/-1 counters onto a creature you control when they enter the battlefield, but BFZ has a few of cheap creatures that love to die for value. Let’s see what happens when we put them together:

4 x Blisterpod

4 x Dread Wanderer

4 x Exemplar of Strength

4 x Channeler Initiate

3 x Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons

3 x Plague Belcher

4 x Scrapheap Scrounger

2 x Baleful Ammit

3 x Rhonas, the Indomitable

4 x Grasp of Darkness

2 x Fatal Push

3 x Exquisite Agony

4 x Blooming Marsh

7 x Forest

9 x Swamp

This deck does one thing and one thing only, turn dudes sideways. Thanks to all of the cheap fodder creatures you can do things like this: turn 1 play Blisterpod. Turn 2 attack, then play Exemplar of Strength putting the counters on Blisterpod (making an Eldrazi Scion). Turn 3 attack, then play Exemplar of Strength and with the counters on the stack sacrifice the Scion to float a mana to play a Scrapheap Scrounger. Turn 4 attack with everyone and put your opponent at 3 life. That is pretty fast and almost all of the creatures involved come in under counter magic and have natural resistance to damage-based removal with their high toughness. Unlike the premier BG strategy, BG Winding Constrictor, this deck has almost no late game plan outside of Rhonas. It makes up for that lack in the form of pure aggression. On the upside, this deck does have a funny bit of hate against BG snake since cards like Hapatra and Exquisite Agony have their -1/-1 counters doubled when they are put on an opposing creature with Winding Constrictor in play.

In testing the card that stood out the most was Hapatra. She can get out of hand very quickly and once she does, she makes combat a mess for the rest of the game (barring a mass removal spell). If she can get a hit in early thanks to a well-placed removal spell or an opposing Scrapheap Scrounger, she can quickly fill the board with venomous snakes and -1/-1 counters, making almost every attack and block disadvantageous for the opponent. Rhonas was also very impressive, but more obviously so. He just beats your opponent to death and forces through damage. I mean, he’s great but there’s nothing clever about bludgeoning your opponent with an obviously overpowered card. I’m here for the marginal cost cheating, not the “winning” that people seem to like so much.

On the whole the deck is fun and plays unlike any aggressive deck I’ve played before. I’m not used to a low to the ground aggressive deck getting to have 4/4s and 3/4s without playing mass pump spells. I don’t think this deck is devastating as currently constructed, but with a few more cards from Hour of Devestation it could be a real contender. What do you think?

Next up: making Second Sunrise work!