Experience Counter Tribal

[Dunadain]

So Otharri, Suns' Glory getting spoiled got me thinking about a really old deck idea, which was to combine all the experience counter cards into one deck.

The pros are that, if you get a bunch of experience counters from one card, and it get's removed, you already have the counters built up for the next card.

Additionally, some cards are easier to make experience counters with and some have better payoffs. For example, you can get several experience counters off of Ezuri, Claw of Progress in a singe turn, but the payoff is just creating some big bodies, you take those experience counters, however, and you use them for Mizzix of the Izmagnus and you've "cheated" a high experience counter for a card that would normally be difficult to get counters for.

The downside, of course is that the cards are not very synergistic. Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas wants a deck full of expensive creatures, and Mizzix of the Izmagnus wants a spellslinger deck, and Daxos the Returned wants an enchantress deck. Some experience counter cards are more synergistic than others, the best way to build this deck would probably be to pick 3-4 experience cards that synergize and drop the rest, but I want a challenge, so I'm going to run all 8 experience cards, and I'm going to try to use both the ability that gives you experience counters, and the payoff ability for experience counters on each card.

For commander, I think the obvious choice is Sisay, Weatherlight Captain as she is 5 colors and can tutor up all of our experience cards.


Alright, so let's look at our lieutenants and see if we can get them to put there differences aside and come together to form a deck.

In alphabetical order:


Daxos the Returned: Probably going to be the second hardest to make work in the deck. The cowards way out would be to ignore the first ability, and just use him as a token generator once a different card gets the experience counters online, but we aren't doing that.

We do have the option to play cards like Flickering Ward to trigger XP over and over again, but Flickering Ward is only useful if we have Daxos out, I'd rather have cards that work when their lieutenant is not out, and get even better when their lieutenant is out.

One way to "sneak" enchantments in the deck is to use enchantments as our color fixing, This deck is going to be VERY colored mana intensive, our commander costs to activate, and all of our lieutenants our two or three colors. Green actually has some enchantment based color fixing and ramp:

Abundant Growth
Fertile Ground
Nylea's Presence
Lithoform Blight
Trace of Abundance
Urban Utopia

huh, that's kind of unimpressive, not gonna lie, and the two mana enchantments that don't ramp are also kinda sus. I suppose the other way to work a couple more enchantment spells in would be enchantment based removal (like Song of the Dryads). I really thought there were more land enchantments that ramp, but most of them are really bad. Oh well, we'll figure out exact numbers later. NEXT!


Minthara, Merciless Soul: Much easier, fetchlands alone should help keep her first ability going, and lookin ahead, it looks like this deck is going to predominantly be a token swarm deck, so we should get some solid use out of the anthem effect.


Mizzix of the Izmagnus: I was really worried about this one at first, then I remembered X spells exist, which will function as both the enabler for the first ability and the payoff for the second (Any experience counters we have will be added to the X cost, and then the mana we spend to pay for colored pips/any more mana we might want to sink in will make it expensive enough to trigger the first ability).

X spells are pretty versatile, they can be token producers (which will tie into the rest of the deck's strategy) card draw, removal, board wipes, and even win cons. It shouldn't be too difficult to find room for a decent number of these

I don't imagine Mizzix of the Izmagnus will generate too many experience counters in the course of a game, but I imagine the giant X spells she enables will be one of the most powerful things we could be doing.

Meren of Clan Nel Toth: this makes 2 lieutenants that like aristocrat strategies, which means we'll probably want to sneak some sacrifice outlets into the deck, not sure if we should put in cards like Bloodghast yet, as, hopefully, we'll have a lot of token fodder to sacrifice. Unlike Minthara, Merciless Soul, Meren of Clan Nel Toth is not once per turn, and it doesn't have to be on our turn, so she should also function as a boardwipe deterrent (or a way to pull ahead with our own board wipe) which is a big deal for a token swarm deck. The second ability is probably going to be used quite fairly in this deck, but a way to get back our other lieutenants when they get killed is very much appreciated.

Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas is hands down the hardest lieutenant to work into this deck. he wants expensive creatures, which doesn't synergize with tokens, spellslinging, or enchantments. Only one of our Lieutenants even cost 5+ so he's not going to grow from them showing up either (assuming Captain Sisay doesn't just directly grab the card)

The payoff is also rather underwhelming. he doesn't even have trample, so he's probably just going to get chump blocked for days. Oh well, I'm committed to making them all work, so let's see what I can do.

The first thing that came to mind was Avenger of Zendikar, Strong token maker that also costs more than 5. By extension, Hornet Queen is probably also worth considering.

However, I think this deck is already going to have a pretty high curve, so I don't want to go too overboard with that effect. The other option that comes to mind are creatures that you can cast for less than their listed mana value (eg. Thought Monitor thought obviously we won't have the artifact count for that specific card). Let me see if I can find any cards like that on scryfall...

Hm... not really, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of cards like Ghalta, Primal Hunger that we could reasonably cast for less than 5, but most of them are just big bodies. The only ones that I could find that are worth considering are:

Ethereal Forager to get back those X spells.

Tasigur, the Golden Fang to get back any card, even if it's not a good one, or to use politics to get back something relevant.

Sibsig Muckdraggers to get back a fallen lieutenant.

Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, just a big body, but it might tie in with the aristocrat package?

I'm not particularly excited by any of these options, so I think we'll stick to cards like Avenger of Zendikar and co. for now.

Otharri, Suns' Glory now we're talking! No need to put cards in the deck to make sure this one gives us XP, Otharri will give us 1 XP per turn, no further input required, I suppose you could argue we should but in some extra combat steps for the bird, but I think that might be taking things a bit too far. Payoff also requires no further input, Birdy will provide a increasing number of tokens every turn (now you see why I'm thinking of going the token route).

Otharri, Suns' Glory even has it's own built-in recursion, though we'll need some of the rebel tokens to stick around if we hope to use it.

These tokens will also play really nicely with Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Minthara, Merciless Soul, and the next lieutenant on the list, Ezuri, Claw of Progress.

If all the XP cards were like this, then this deck would be easy to make.

Ezuri, Claw of Progress should also be pretty easy to make work All of our token producers will allow him to give us a lot of XP (I'm expecting him to make more XP than any other lieutenant), and while any random creature can take the counters, i'm sure Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas and Otharri, Suns' Glory will be particularly intimidating when buffed up.

Kelsien, the Plague is pretty straight forward, in my experience (pun not intended). Kelsien can generate a decent amount of XP just by pinging x/1s and things that were going to die anyways, though I would like to try and sneak in a Basilisk Collar of some sort to really allow him to shine. He's also 3 mana, 3 colored card, so I imagine he'll be the first thing we grab with Sisay, Weatherlight Captain quite often.

And that's the team! Well, except for Sisay, Weatherlight Captain herself, she should be kept awfully busy just finding the lieutenants in a game, but we do need some <=2 mana legends to grab if her power is too low to grab the bigger ones, and since we have her, it be nice to include a tool box of legendaries. I'll try to keep it thin to make sure she doesn't overshadow the XP cards:

Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard can protect Sisay and all the lieutenants
Jenson Carthalion, Druid Exile should color fix quite nicely while also giving some top deck manipulation

Both of these are CMC=2 so can be tutored right away and have two colors so can get us on track for all of the lieutenants except Otharri, Suns' Glory right away.

and we'll want some interaction, the new Ertai Resurrected allows us to have spell and permanent interaction in one deck slot, I probably should go heavier, but again, I want the XP cards to be the stars of the show here

We'll probably want at least one of our creature token producers to be legendary so Sisay can grab it, the first one that comes to mind is Phylath, World Sculptor but their might be other options.


Alright, I have a gameplan, but now I'm exhausted XD, so I'll put an actual list together later.

[ISBPathfinder]

What if you just put Otharri, Suns' Glory at the helm and chalk it full of extra combat steps? You could even use the old Aggravated Assault + Phyrexian Altar to take infinite combat steps. Hellkite Charger + Phyrexian Altar also fits this mold as well.

Red also has Thermopod as a backup for this effect. This is assuming you want to go infinite. Even outside of going infinite red has so many extra combat steps at this point that even a fair deck on Otharri seems like it would be fine and very explosive.

I guess my point here is that I don't see the point in going to 5c for Sisay. You end up with a lot less consistency on building to any of the experience counter effects over just putting them at the helm.

[Dunadain]

What if you just put Otharri, Suns' Glory at the helm and chalk it full of extra combat steps? You could even use the old Aggravated Assault + Phyrexian Altar to take infinite combat steps. Hellkite Charger + Phyrexian Altar also fits this mold as well.

Red also has Thermopod as a backup for this effect. This is assuming you want to go infinite. Even outside of going infinite red has so many extra combat steps at this point that even a fair deck on Otharri seems like it would be fine and very explosive.

I guess my point here is that I don't see the point in going to 5c for Sisay. You end up with a lot less consistency on building to any of the experience counter effects over just putting them at the helm.

That's kinda the point, sorry if I didn't make that clear, it's an arbitrary deckbuilding constraint, lately my decks have become "too optimal" and I never enjoy intentionally hamstringing my decks. So I'm going to make the best deck I can out of a flawed deck concept.

For the record, Otharri, Suns' Glory is also just a sweet commander, so I might be building that as well.

[ISBPathfinder]

I think you can go down a lot of amusing but bad ideas with Sisay if you really want I was just pointing out that most of them are gimmicks. At one point I was considering a Norin the Wary Sisay deck because of the fact that you can use Sakashima of a Thousand Faces / Sakashima the Impostor to clone him and just start doing dumb Norin things in 5c lol. Not trying to derail your thread by any means just pointing out that there is a lot of things you could do with Sisay that are probably sub optimal. You could use the Adventurers' Guildhouse cycle to make a legendary band and roll at people just to have them ask wtf this mechanic is lol.

As for building less optimally, I would say I generally suggest resorting to mono color decks especially in white and red just because the landbase becomes cheaper and well there are some sweet mono color legends that get overlooked a lot.

[Dunadain]

I think you can go down a lot of amusing but bad ideas with Sisay if you really want I was just pointing out that most of them are gimmicks. At one point I was considering a Norin the Wary Sisay deck because of the fact that you can use Sakashima of a Thousand Faces / Sakashima the Impostor to clone him and just start doing dumb Norin things in 5c lol. Not trying to derail your thread by any means just pointing out that there is a lot of things you could do with Sisay that are probably sub optimal. You could use the Adventurers' Guildhouse cycle to make a legendary band and roll at people just to have them ask wtf this mechanic is lol.

As for building less optimally, I would say I generally suggest resorting to mono color decks especially in white and red just because the landbase becomes cheaper and well there are some sweet mono color legends that get overlooked a lot.

Sure... you can make nearly infinite different decks many of which are gimmicks, this is just the one I chose.

[Dunharrow]

Seems janky and fun.
I would avoid playing non-experience counter legends if possible since it makes Sisay into a toolbox commander and why would you tutor your experience counter guys instead of a legend that can win you the game?
Maybe just play a couple that really synergize with the deck.

I really hate tutors in the command zone, but it makes sense with your janky deck. It just worries me that you end up tutoring the best card and not the cards you want to build around.

[Dunadain]

Seems janky and fun.
I would avoid playing non-experience counter legends if possible since it makes Sisay into a toolbox commander and why would you tutor your experience counter guys instead of a legend that can win you the game?
Maybe just play a couple that really synergize with the deck.

I really hate tutors in the command zone, but it makes sense with your janky deck. It just worries me that you end up tutoring the best card and not the cards you want to build around.

Aye, thats my biggest concern at the moment, i do think ill need at least 1 2cmc legend to get off the ground, but maybe I should limit it to 1 or2 of those and nothing else, we'll see.

[Dunadain]

Small update: I forgot about the evoke mechanic when looking at ways to implement Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas.

cards like Mulldrifter should make him a lot more tolerable.

[duducrash]

You can run 5 of the 8 experience creatures in Mardu, with 3 of them getting big thanks to the counters and 2 of them creating tokens, there are 2 legendary matters commanders in the DU Mardu precons.

That being said you lose acess to green that has creature tutors and the other sisay that can fetch one experience counter a turn

[santiago1011]

I got this idea last night with Sisay, and I'm excited to see that others had gotten the idea already too! Do you have a list yet? I'd love to take inspiration from it.

Edit: how do you feel about legendaries like Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, or Jetmir, Nexus of Revels. They can help a lot towards the token strategy but it also means pulling focus away from some of the other XP Commanders because the aforementioned are also tutorable with Sisay. I feel like the deck already has such a high focus on Otharri, Suns' Glory and Ezuri, Claw of Progress interaction for the primary XP generation, with some support from Mizzix of the Izmagnus for utility and token X spells and Minthara, Merciless Soul to a lesser extent for creature buff.

Though, on that note, how do you feel about creature enhancers? Any kind of power buff will immediately turn off the interaction with Otharri and Ezuri.

[Dunadain]

I got this idea last night with Sisay, and I'm excited to see that others had gotten the idea already too! Do you have a list yet? I'd love to take inspiration from it.

Edit: how do you feel about legendaries like Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, or Jetmir, Nexus of Revels. They can help a lot towards the token strategy but it also means pulling focus away from some of the other XP Commanders because the aforementioned are also tutorable with Sisay. I feel like the deck already has such a high focus on Otharri, Suns' Glory and Ezuri, Claw of Progress interaction for the primary XP generation, with some support from Mizzix of the Izmagnus for utility and token X spells and Minthara, Merciless Soul to a lesser extent for creature buff.

Though, on that note, how do you feel about creature enhancers? Any kind of power buff will immediately turn off the interaction with Otharri and Ezuri.

Sorry, no list, I made a deck but never saved it digitally, it has since been taken apart. =/

[Zeldark]

Hi, I made an account just to join this conversation. I have loved xp deck since the commanders were first released. I call it EverQuest tributing the game where a party of players team up to... kill things and get experience. I too recently noticed the additional XP cards and am revising my previous deck. I was using Sliver Queen since it triggers Kalemne and Ezuri, but I think Kenrith may be better, given the easier to cast and diverse utility, including the counters.

You may want to check out the Winding Constrictor. It'll double your xp rate.
The other way to artificially inflate your xp is to use proliferate. There are some pretty killer recurring proliferate cards. But if you don't draw the xp cards, you can still fallback to brutally proliferating... infect, counters, planeswalkers, etc.