Counters? What Counters?

Commander / EDH Counters Mono-Blue

Punisheris

Land (35)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Blighted Cataract
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Dark Depths
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Desert of the Mindful
• 1x Glacial Chasm
• 1x Halls of Mist
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 15x Island
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Mage-Ring Network
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Memorial to Genius
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Remote Isle
• 1x Saprazzan Skerry
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Tolaria West

Instant (13)

• 1x Aetherspouts
• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Capsize
• 1x Clockspinning
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Fuel for the Cause
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Whir of Invention

Artifact (20)

• 1x Animation Module
• 1x Astral Cornucopia
• 1x Cauldron of Souls
• 1x Coalition Relic
• 1x Contagion Clasp
• 1x Contagion Engine
• 1x Darksteel Reactor
• 1x Energy Chamber
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Lux Cannon
• 1x Magistrate's Scepter
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Power Conduit
• 1x Quicksilver Fountain
• 1x Ratchet Bomb
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sky Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Titan Forge

Enchantment (7)

• 1x As Foretold
• 1x Decree of Silence
• 1x Future Sight
• 1x Inexorable Tide
• 1x Mesmeric Trance
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x The Antiquities War

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Tezzeret's Gambit
• 1x Wash Out

Commander (1)

Creature (19)

• 1x Chronozoa
• 1x Coretapper
• 1x Deepglow Skate
• 1x Ferropede
• 1x Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1x Grand Architect
• 1x Hangarback Walker
• 1x Leech Bonder
• 1x Musician
• 1x Novijen Sages
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Survivor of the Unseen
• 1x Thing in the Ice  ^Flip
• 1x Thrummingbird
• 1x Toothy, Imaginary Friend
• 1x Trinket Mage
• 1x Viral Drake
• 1x Walking Ballista

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

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Introduction

So one day I was looking around Edh rec for the available commanders and this weird spirit caught my eye. I thought about cards that don't want to have counters on them and one thought came to my mind Cumulative Upkeep. With that thought i went on scryfall, looked at all the cards that can have/generate counters and came up with this monstrocity.

So only 6 Cumulative Upkeep cards?

The reason that the Cumuative Upkeep cards are so little is that they are well... cumulative. Firstly i chose the better ones, because most of them are not good and secondly I omited the ones that have a very high Upkeep Cost. What you need to remember is that these cards are not free since you still have to pay the cost for at least one counter even if you commander is on the Battlefield. Addiotionally you need to remember that you are not always going to have your commander on the battlefield and that your commander can only get rid off one counter at a time, so if you have a lot of cumulative upkeep cards on the battlefiled at the same time you will end up taxing yourself a lot to keep them around. Finally with all these condsidered i chose to minimize the cumulative upkeep cards to the most usefull ones and increasing the number of cards that don't want counters on them and they are not taxing.

So What then?

As mentioned I focused on including cards that don't want counters on them or can manipulate those unwanted counters over underperfoming cards with Cumulative Upkeep. Those cards work really well with our commander and I tried to include many of them without disrupting costistency.

But What is the alternative plan?

Of course it is good to have alternatives because we won't always have on commander on the battlefield. So then the next idea kicked in Counters, but positive counters cards that want counters on them and what powers this plan is Proliferate. These cards have a dual use a) We can feed the counters to our commander(we don't want to but we might have to) and b) can be proliferated to get the bonuses earlier that we were supposed to

Also seeing as most of the cards that want to have counters are artifacts, an artifact focused theme was included, in order to get our combo pieces or wincons in the most opportune time

Combos:

Infite Counterspells,well almost infinite,actually not quite infite but enough to make your opponets' life miserable

-Decree of Silence + Power Conduit

-Glen Elendra Archmage + Power Conduit

With this combo you can remove the -1/-1 counter or the depletion counter and turn it into something usefull. It is not easily repeatable, but it is already annoyin enough to get rid of these cards, so imagine if they require more spells.

-Chisei, Heart of Oceans + Decree of Silence

-Chisei, Heart of Oceans + Glen Elendra Archmage

Same as before, but in this case you are limited to your upkeep and the cards need to have the required counters on them, so this is a little bit harder.

-Clockspinning + Decree of Silence

-Clockspinning + Glen Elendra Archmage

This combo can get close to infinite saw Clockspinning has buyback so as long as you have mana you can contiously remove counters from the mentioned permanents.

-Decree of Silence + Ferropede

-Ferropede + Glen Elendra Archmage

This is the slower of the combo and requires that Ferropede both survives and deals damage to an opponent, even though it can't be blocked, to remove one counter.

-Glen Elendra Archmage + Novijen Sages

At first it seems that this combo can "only" be done 4 times, which is quite good , but if you can proliferate or add counters to Novijen Sages you can keep negating everything.

-Glen Elendra Archmage + Leech Bonder

Again this is a little slow and situational, but many people don't see it coming. So you need Glen Elendra Archmage to have a -1/-1 counter and the Leech Bonder to be tapped and then you can move the counter from Glen Elendra Archmage to any creature you want.

more coming soon....

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Key combos	Decree of Silence + Power Conduit Decree of Silence + Ferropede Glen Elendra Archmage + Power Conduit Chisei, Heart of Oceans + Decree of Silence Chisei, Heart of Oceans + Glen Elendra Archmage Clockspinning + Decree of Silence Clockspinning + Glen Elendra Archmage Ferropede + Glen Elendra Archmage Glen Elendra Archmage + Novijen Sages Glen Elendra Archmage + Leech Bonder
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 42 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.98
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Boar 2/2 G, Golem 9/9 C, Manifest 2/2 C, Marit Lage, Servo 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 C