Reyhan, Last of the Abzan
and
Ravos, Soultender
Reyhan lets you effectively move +1/+1 counters between creatures when they die. We take advantage of that in several ways. Ravos is mostly there to provide access to white color identity and allow us to slowly recur sac targets.
Cards like
Triskelion
,
Fertilid
,
Bloodtracker
,
Bloodspore Thrinax
, and
Mycoloth
have payoffs for +1/+1 counters, but are limited by only getting a set number of them and/or have a high cost for each counter. Reyhan lets us bypass those limits by dumping counters from other creatures onto them. From what I can tell, Devour notably triggers the sacrifice after the creature enters the battlefield. That means that we can sacrifice creatures to Mycoloth or Bloodspore Thrinax's Devour trigger to get counters, then they will be a valid target to 'transfer' the sacrificed creatures counters to.
A handful of creatures with persist provide potential infinite sacrifice recursion with two of them and anything that provides +1/+1 counters to creatures entering the battlefield, or when another creature leaves (such as the aforementioned Bloodspore Thrinax, or
Cathars' Crusade
). Depending on what we have on the field that benefits from those repeated sacrifices, we can win in a variety of ways.
If our sac outlet is
Altar of Dementia
, then merely executing the combo will let us mill out all of our opponents.
If our free sacrifice outlet is
Carrion Feeder
,
Defiant Salvager
, etc, we can then sac that creature to themselves to put however many counters we want onto another creature. If we're using another sac outlet, but have enough +1/+1 counter generation, executing the combo alone can let us put unlimited +1/+1 counters on our other creatures without a second step. Triskelion lets us do infinite damage, or either of our commanders could swing for lethal commander damage (especially with flying and/or trample, which can be provided through several "+1/+1 lords").
Cultivator of Blades
can let us swing for unlimited damage with all of our creatures at once even if we can only max out the counters on one creature.
With any effect that puts 1 or more charge counters onto a creature when one comes into play or leaves play, such as Bloodspore Thrinax or
Good-Fortune Unicorn
,
Crystalline Crawler
and
Spawning Pit
can produce unlimited sacrifices, by using counters on the Crawler to pay for Spawning Pit to create a token, then saccing the token to the pit. If the token comes in with counters, we move the counters to the Crawler when we sac it, giving the Crawler more juice to repeat the process. If the token entering or leaving the battlefield gives the Crawler tokens automatically, things are even simpler. If we get more than 1 counter on the Crawler per iteration, this gives us infinite mana, and will also let us put counters on other targets as well to fuel other combos.
Even without an infinite combo, once we get enough counters an alpha strike can quickly become lethal. Sacrificing blocked creatures to pump an unblocked attacker (especially with extra counters from
Death's Presence
or other effects) can turn an attack lethal, especially if one of our commanders can attack and be unblocked (Ravos's flying can come in handy here). With trample and enough counters, moving counters might not even be necessary.
With a large number of creatures, and with a huge stack of counters to be lost, board sweepers are obviously a huge risk.
Bontu the Glorified
and
Oketra the True
let us move all of our counters to an indestructible creature if needed so that they aren't totally wasted (and Oketra's double strike can make for a very dangerous attacker with a lot of counters), as well as providing somewhat useful other abilities. Several ways to give your whole board indestructible are in the list as well, though there's really nothing that can be done about bounce-, sacrifice- or exile-based wipes.
Sigarda, Host of Herons
can block sacrifice wipes, if you include her, while
Cauldron Haze
and
Cauldron of Souls
can, by providing persist, at least save your creatures, though they won't save your counter.
Lands are WIP, and I could use any feedback. This is meant to be relatively budget (hopefully around $100); the more expensive cards that aren't core to the decks function are ones I already own, such as
Asceticism
and
Demonic Tutor
.
