Xavier Sal: Choose Your Own Adventure!

[Hawk]

Xavier Sal, Infested Captain is an oddity - a commander released in 2024 that doesn't tell you exactly what to do with him in big flaming neon letters. As a result, I find myself totally captivated by the possibilities with him. He's a bit like Ghave, Guru of Spores although he seems much more open-ended (works off any counters not just +1/+1) and simultaneously much safer (a sorcery speed tap instead of instant speed at 1 mana per pop). I've fleshed out this list, which is just one of many directions I think you could take Xavier. My thought process was:

- In general, as Atraxa, Praetors' Voice has shown, Proliferating is stronger than Populating here, both because finding fodder to sacrifice in is fairly cheap and easy to do and because that affects more overall cards. Planeswalkers, charge/oil artifacts, +1/+1 counters, Poison, Energy - all good stuff.
- That being said, I also looked at some of the tricks Chisei, Heart of Oceans pulls off as in many ways yanking a counter off of a card like a Saga or Persist creature is its own payoff for Xavier's second ability.
- One of the strongest things I can think of is populating out more Xavier Sals, so I made sure to include plenty of spells to enable that. It's tough to go infinite that way, and that's fine, but seems like it's a fun and powerful move to do. Populating out haymaker creatures we clone with those same spells or spells like Rite of Replication is also quite good.

Xavier's Bloomin' Pirate Adventure

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander: 1

1 Xavier Sal, Infested Captain

Creatures: 29

1 Arbor Elf

1 Benthic Biomancer

1 Birds of Paradise

1 Cankerbloom

1 Chasm Skulker

1 Danny Pink

1 Devoted Druid

1 Elves of Deep Shadow

1 Evolution Sage

1 Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres

1 Fathom Mage

1 Glen Elendra Archmage

1 Gyre Sage

1 Incubation Druid

1 Ivy Lane Denizen

1 Kami of Whispered Hopes

1 Master Biomancer

1 Mirkwood Bats

1 Puppeteer Clique

1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade

1 Sakura-Tribe Elder

1 Scurry Oak

1 Spark Double

1 Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus

1 Tendershoot Dryad

1 Viscera Seer

1 Voidwing Hybrid

1 Wall of Roots

1 Woodfall Primus

Artifacts: 12

1 Arcane Signet

1 Ashnod's Altar

1 Astral Cornucopia

1 Everflowing Chalice

1 Lightning Greaves

1 Midnight Clock

1 Power Conduit

1 Sol Ring

1 Strionic Resonator

1 Swiftfoot Boots

1 Thornbite Staff

1 Thousand-Year Elixir

Enchantments: 8

1 Binding the Old Gods

1 Doubling Season

1 Dreadhorde Invasion

1 Gadwick's First Duel

1 Mystic Remora

1 Phyrexian Scriptures

1 Scroll of Isildur

1 Song of Eärendil

Lands: 35

1 Bojuka Bog

1 Breeding Pool

1 Command Tower

1 Dreadship Reef

1 Dreamroot Cascade

1 Exotic Orchard

10 Forest

3 Island

1 Misty Rainforest

1 Morphic Pool

1 Novijen, Heart of Progress

1 Opal Palace

1 Opulent Palace

1 Overgrown Tomb

1 Polluted Delta

1 Rejuvenating Springs

1 Sunken Hollow

1 Swamp

1 Underground River

1 Undergrowth Stadium

1 Verdant Catacombs

1 Watery Grave

1 Yavimaya Coast

1 Zagoth Triome

Instants and Sorceries: 9

1 Cyclonic Rift

1 Heroic Intervention

1 Infernal Grasp

1 Farseek

1 Irenicus's Vile Duplication

1 Nature's Lore

1 Quantum Misalignment

1 Rite of Replication

1 Tezzeret's Gambit

Planeswalkers: 6

1 Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter

1 Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner

1 Lolth, Spider Queen

1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar

1 Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler

1 Vraska, Betrayal's Sting

Approximate Total Cost:

The strong interactions I've spotted (there's a a whole lotta Rube Golbergian 4 or 5 card infinites in here) are...

- Xavier Sal, Infested Captain with a Thornbite Staff can proliferate as much as you can afford to keep feeding him fodder, which can be infinitely with Scurry Oak and is bound only by your mana with Voidwing Hybrid.
- Xavier Sal, Infested Captain can start chaining off if you can clone him with Quantum Misalignment or Irenicus's Vile Duplication and have a Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler. Lightning Greaves, or Thousand-Year Elixir in play to make new copies able to work at hasty speed, especially if you have something like Master Biomancer or Ivy Lane Denizen or Devoted Druid that can continue to generate counters to eat to keep populating.

This deck had a long maybeboard, so interested to see what I missed as some powerful/strong interactions!

[void_nothing]

Fun list. I was excited and surprised to see this card's design when it was spoiled. Besides the fun of playing with a Fungus Pirate, Xavier looks remarkably like Ghave, except swapping white for blue is at least interesting sidegrade, and depending on the interactions you're looking for, maybe even an upgrade. I was even thinking I might eventually build him with a Superfriends shell with PWs who make tokens.

I see you've got a few Sagas, all of which look good in this deck. Have you considered Jugan Defends the Temple // Remnant of the Rising Star or any of the other NEO creature Sagas?

EDIT: Obligatory mention of Deepglow Skate in a deck including blue and counters

[Hawk]

Fun list. I was excited and surprised to see this card's design when it was spoiled. Besides the fun of playing with a Fungus Pirate, Xavier looks remarkably like Ghave, except swapping white for blue is at least interesting sidegrade, and depending on the interactions you're looking for, maybe even an upgrade. I was even thinking I might eventually build him with a Superfriends shell with PWs who make tokens.

I see you've got a few Sagas, all of which look good in this deck. Have you considered Jugan Defends the Temple // Remnant of the Rising Star or any of the other NEO creature Sagas?

EDIT: Obligatory mention of Deepglow Skate in a deck including blue and counters

Thanks!

I actually didn't realize until after I posted the list that removing a counter from a Saga doesn't re-trigger the prior chapter, it just keeps the Saga around longer. That cools me on Sagas significantly, but you're probably right that a saga like Jugan Defends the Temple // Remnant of the Rising Star that sorta does everything Xavier wants (makes both dudes and tokens!) is a good fit for the list. It's an easy replacement for Sagas I like a lot less now like Gadwick's First Duel (it's a lot more work to get repeated Cursed tokens which aren't even that great, and repeated Scry 2 isn't worth it) and Song of Earendil (a 2/2 flier and a treasure every turn is nice...but expensive at 5 mana).

Also looking at stuff like Cackling Counterpart to make more interesting tokens to populate.

[duducrash]

I've been thinking about him a lot, given populate I think this goes really well with Intruder Alarm.

The idea I had at first was arround Champion of Lambholt + Intruder Alarm , it would be prettty easy to get infinite tokens and etb


Edit : this has been a great year for creative sultai designs

[Hawk]

I've been thinking about him a lot, given populate I think this goes really well with Intruder Alarm.

The idea I had at first was arround Champion of Lambholt + Intruder Alarm , it would be prettty easy to get infinite tokens and etb


Edit : this has been a great year for creative sultai designs

I think it's my sheer stubbornness that I didn't include Intruder Alarm. It's such an easy "infinite" alongside any of the cards that generate counters right away (Denizen, Master Biomancer, Devoted Druid, sometimes Evolve creatures, Champion if I included them which I totally could). I should just bite the bullet - don't own one but it's the sorta card I can't imagine being sad to have in my arsenal.

[kirkusjones]

I've been thinking about him a lot, given populate I think this goes really well with Intruder Alarm.

The idea I had at first was arround Champion of Lambholt + Intruder Alarm , it would be prettty easy to get infinite tokens and etb


Edit : this has been a great year for creative sultai designs

I think it's my sheer stubbornness that I didn't include Intruder Alarm. It's such an easy "infinite" alongside any of the cards that generate counters right away (Denizen, Master Biomancer, Devoted Druid, sometimes Evolve creatures, Champion if I included them which I totally could). I should just bite the bullet - don't own one but it's the sorta card I can't imagine being sad to have in my arsenal.

It's also less than $2 thanks to WOE.

[duducrash]

Tyranid Prime - Just found out about this card! Seems pretty great here

[yeti1069]

I actually didn't realize until after I posted the list that removing a counter from a Saga doesn't re-trigger the prior chapter, it just keeps the Saga around longer. That cools me on Sagas significantly,

You mean you don't want to remove a counter to populate with one copy of Xavier, then sacrifice the creature to proliferate, retriggering the saga with another? You can't do this for the first or last chapter abilities (as far as I'm aware), but there are some middle chapters that could be fun to trigger multiple times per turn.