There’s no shame in calling for backup, especially when the full might of New Phyrexia is bearing down on you like a 2/2 with haste. This idea, of working together to defeat a common foe, is the core narrative subject of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering’s March of the Machine expansion, and it’s expressed me💖chanically via the backup k🐭eyword, which lets you grant both counters and temporary abilities to your other creatures in play.
It’s a neat evol❀ution of past mechanics, giving the humble +1/+1 counter a new lease of life on the Comman🎐der battlefield. The Call For Backup Commander deck, one of five new decks released for March of the Machine, is built around this mechanic, as well as +1/+1 counters in general. Here are some of its most powerful cards.
10 Death-Greeter’s Champio🥀n
While innocuous on the surface, this sneaky 2/1 Warrior can create some serious problems for unprepared opponents. Packing ꦿboth Backup 1 and Double Strike, the card can raise the power of a creature while simultaneously do꧙ubling its damage output: always a dangerous thing when you remember that Commander damage is a valid win condition.
The sheer power of this enter-the-battlefield effect meꦬans you’ll almost always want to dash the Champion out rather than cast it normally, a proposition that ma🦂kes even more sense when you consider the extra damage a 2/1 hasty double striker can deal on its own. Tarkir clearly brought its very best to the smackdown of the century.
9 𒊎 Conclav𒈔e Mentor
A classic counter card from Core Set 2021, Conclave Mentor makes every card in Call For Backup just a little bit b🥃etter. Not only does it give you an extra +1/+1 counter whenever one is placed, often doubling the impact of the effect that placed it, but it also makes a great host for counters itself, since it gives you their value back in life upon death.
𓆏Those powerful abilities are complemented by solid vanilla stats, and a low casting cost that ensures you can get the Mentor down under the gun of mos𓃲t Commander removal. Conclave Mentor works so well on every axis of the deck that it’s surprising it wasn’t designed for it.
8 Uncivil Unrest 🍸
Any time you see the word ‘Double’ on a Magic card you should check it twice, since there’s a very good chance the effect containing the word is broken beyond belief. Uncivil Unrest certainly has the potentia🔥l to reach those levels, since it doubles the damage output of every creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it: or, in the Call For Backup deck, essentially all of your creatures.
This is powerful enough on its own, especiꦆally for a persistent effect, but it gets even better when you consider the riot ability the card grants. This ensures that, in the rare case one of your creatures doesn’t come with its own +1/+1 counter, it can get one from Uncivil Unrest, guaranteeing double damage in the future.
7 ꦚ Guardian Scalelord ༒
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Repeatable reanimation effects tend to get Magic players excited, and with good reason: they can provide some of the best sources of value-over-time the game has to offer. Guardian Scalelord is a fine addition to these hallowed ranks, providing a reanimation effect that, unusuaꦆlly, encompasses all nonland permanents and not just creatures.
Said effect is tied to the Scalelord&rsquওo;s power, and requires it to attack before it can take effect - but these are very reasonable restrictions when you consider the huge range of cards you can dig up with it. Planeswalkers, artifacts, enchantments, battles: the sky truly is the limit for this whi👍te-winged wonder.
6 ﷽ Bright-Palm, Soul Awake꧃ner
The cover card of the deck, and very much the main event when it comes to the new additions it brings to the Commander table, Bright-Palm is a terrifyi♔ng force to be reckoned with. When it puts those illusory green hands to work and attacks, it can double t🔯he number of counters on another one of your creatures, granting it evasion in the process.
Thanks to backup, it can also pass this effect on to one of your other creatures in play, granting it pseudo-haste when it comes to snowballing a counter-based advantage. After a couple of turns, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:even the smallest Saproling caܫn be a𓄧 game-ending threat with Bright-Palm on the board.
5 Mirror-Style Masಞter ♛
A truly absurd card, Mirror-Style Master lets you duplicate your entire army in a counter-focused deck like Call For Backup. When she attacks, you get an attacking token copy of each of your attacking modified creatures, a force that can easily bꦆreak through your opponents’ ranks and deal massive damage.
You don’t even need to wait a turn to do so, either: Mirror-Style Master comes with backup, which lets another creature take on your Xerox jobs for the turn, causing a bit of preliminary mayh𝔍em before the Master herself makes a move. When it comes to ‘remove or die’ creatures in Commander, this may just be the new poster child.
4 🦹 Shalai And Halla😼r
Leaning hard into something the Call For Backup deck was planning to do anyway, Shalai and Hallar turn every +1/+1 counter you place into a burn spell for an unfortunate opponent’s face. This has plenty of fair applications, and can be used to gain a bit of extra advantage over the course of a grindy game - but where it truly shines is in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:degenerate Combo strategies.
If you can create a looping sequence of +1/+1 counter placement, something that’s easy enough to do given the ample blink effects available in white, then Shalai a𒀰nd Hallar can combine their powers to end the game on the spot. If that plan fails, then a 3/3 flying/vigilance body makes a great place to dump your counters and just swing for game.
3 Ion Storm
While most cards in the Call For Backup deck focus on building up +1/+1 counters on your creatures, Ion Storm gives you a way to cash them in for something else. This ‘something else’ is, of course, a repeatable Shock effect,🎀 and one that can hit any target, making it a flexible option in a range of scenarios.
The mana cost for doing so is high at two mana a pop, but the instant speed nature of it means you can use it reactively, whether that’s immediately dealing with 🧸a problematic creature or responding to removal by using up all the counters on the creature it’s aimed at.
2 Hamza, Guardian Of Arashin ♏
Cost reduction effects, from affinity to delve, have a long, proud history of causing problems across a range of Magic formats. Hamza brings a simil✤ar brand of broken to Commander, not only discounting his own cost based on your becountered creatures in play, but discounting the cost of all your future creatures, too.
This means that Hamza will typically be coming down as a 5/5 for 🅺two or three mana, before unleashing a terrifying monstrosity, such as an Elder Dragon or Eldrazi, on the very next turn. No matter the ethics, your opponents will want to hunt this Elephant down as soon as they see it.
1 🍷 Emergent Woodwurm
The latest in the line of &lsquoꦇ;Genesis Wave on a stick’ effects, slithering over the footsteps of Genesis Hydra, Emergent Woodwurm outperforms its powerful predecessor in nearly every way. Not only can it cheat a card out right away thanks to backup, but it can also unhinge its jaw and extend its reach through the stacking of +1/+1 counters, eventually turning its every attack into a universal🧸 tutor effect.
It is expensive at seven mana, but a backup value of three goes some way towards making up for this, turning any other creature in play into a serious threat. An ideal candidate for blink effects and those that grant haste, Emergent Woodwurm is the epitome of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:powerful green creature in Commander.