Generates fast +1/+1 counters to start fast and sustain big
--Updated May 3rd, 2018
The Nature of The Deck:
The deck focuses on generating +1/+1 counters early game with cheap 1/2 mana drops that quickly snowball into 3/3 or bigger by turn 2 and have inherent resistance to removal due to the ability to regenerate and or move counters off of it to another creature on death (thus the name of the deck).
This allows you to blow out your hand early game as fast as possible with big creatures and enchantments to help you sustain pressure late game.
This deck is not an A-tier deck by any means but it capable of holding its own in certain competitive match ups.
-----Pros:
Fun
This is what we're here for, right? A lot of different ways to abuse the counter mechanics (a lot more than the ones I have listed below) due to how you choose the counters resolve on the stack. Because of this it also has a learning curve. You can decide to play horizontally and make lots of medium sized creatures or play vertically with a 11/11 turn 5 (or something ridiculous like that). All is possible and viable in this deck.
Price
This deck is cheap aside from Collected Company and maybe Blooming Marsh. Both of which have much cheaper replacements. It performs very well for a deck at its price and doesn't rely on a niche gimmick and has interesting interactions.
-----Cons:
Exile
Current meta of removal has lots of exile. Path to Exile and other forms of removal are a great hinderance as our removal resistance is only against death. I've recently added Fatal Push that lets us remove our creatures before exile to triggers things such as Hangarback Walker or Servant of the Scale.
-1/-1 Counter Damage
Infect theoretically should be hard to play against (haven't tested it yet). The Winding Constrictor also just happens to double the -1/-1 counters for your creatures when attacking infect creatures. You would likely need to sideboard in Subtle Strike.
Control/Removal
Like a lot of fast decks it suffers against decks that run a lot of control (such as Fairies or Merfolk). We run cards like Savage Summoning to work around counter spells and Bioshift to save counters from cards that exile or return our creatures.
The Staples of the Deck
Hardened Scales
This enchantment allows you to generate +1/+1 counters faster by triggering on almost all counter generation methods. For example:
Turn 1 play Experiment One.
Then turn 2 play Hardened Scales and a Servant of the Scale and the Experiment One's Evolve mechanic triggers giving it a +1/+1, then another for Hardened Scales for another counter for a total of 3/3. This is because Servant of Scales also benefits from Hardened Scales making it come in with +2/+2.
A simple 3 card combo allows you to create a very fast an resilient threat that even if Servant of the Scale blocks and dies, those two counters can be moved to Experiment one for a very very hard to kill 6/6 (Hardened Scales triggers again after counters are moved to another creature). All the while keeping a Hardened Scales on the board makes so you can dish out a lot of counters next turn.
Winding Constrictor
This creature has a similar effect as Hardened Scales but combos slightly differently.
Turn 1 you play Experiment One.
Turn 2 play Winding Constrictor and Constrictor triggers Evolve which triggers Constrictor's counter boost which makes Experiment One a 3/3. Constrictor is a 2/3 so it has a similar early game threat as the aforementioned combo. This creature also makes it possible to sustain big creatures late game with only 1/2 drops.
Strangleroot Geist
This card pairs amazingly with Experiment one. It triggers evolve twice. One on the initial casting, and against once it dies. With haste, on turn 2 it lets you get a lot of early game damage.
Collected Company
The most expensive card but it gives this deck the flexibility it needs to stop itself from burning out end-game. This is a win-con and can easily can put 5/5(s) (decent chance at even bigger) onto the board depending on the board state before cast because of all the stacking counter effects.
Rishkar, Peema Renegade
Aside from being just a great method of counter generation as it triggers counters twice, it also lets us bridge into collected company in the event that we aren't able to hit our fourth land. Because every creature with +1/+1 gets to tap for 1 green. A turn four collected company can very easily seal you the game.
Hangarback Walker
Counter generation methods all work on Hangarback Walker which means that you can play it as a 2 mana and use other methods to boost its counters. Hangarback walker should be used as a means to end the game as you can move counters onto it from other creatures and when it dies you get flyers for each counter added to finish off the opponent.
Song of Freyalise
Probably one of the more underrated cards from the most recent set. This card gives this deck a large boost as setting this up turn 2/3 allows us to build our counters very fast then suddenly giving us one turn where we can swing as hard as possible putting our opponent in a losing position.
