In space, no one can hear you count. Thankfully, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering's Counter Intelligence precon has enough counters that you don’t need to worry about keeping track, because you’ll be too busy powering up your creatures and artifacts for the big pla🍨y.

The Counter Intelligence deck shows off the new Spacecraft artifact type and station mechanic by giving you a huge flagship as your commander, then charges you with booting up a small army of artifact creatures to blast your opponents off the table. St𒁏rap in: it’s time for your briefing on the deck.

Counter Intelligence Decklist

Counter Intelligence Commander Deck Themes

Counter Intelligence would be a good name for a mono-blue deck, with the heavy presence of Counterspells and draw effects in that color. But there are blessedly few counter effects in this deck, which instead focuses on the types of counters you put on permanents to keep track of persistent effects.

As the name suggests, these counters, particularly +1/+1 counters and charge counters, are the primary theme of the deck, whi✤ch has multiple permanents that enter with them, as well as plenty of ways to add and spend them.

The commander, Inspirit, Flagship Vessel, uses counters to power up from a useless hull to a powerful 5/5 flier that makes the rest of your artifacts hexproof𓂃 and indestructible. You need to tap eight power worth of creatures to get there, but it also puts +1/+1 counters on your creatures, making that a muཧch easier task.

The alternative commander, Kilo, Apogee Mind, can make stationing Inspirit, Flagship Vessel a breeze, since every time you tap Kilo you can propagate, adding a counter to each permanent that already has one. The only thing keeping Kilo from being the better pick for the commander is the lack of wayཧs to tap it in the deck.

That isn’t to say there are no non-combat ways to tap Kilo, Apogee Mind. A couple spells with improvise, like Kappa Cannoneer, allow you to tap Kilo, and you can always attack.

However, the lack of both methods to tap it and other permanents withꩵ similar payoffs, like Duskmourn’s survivor abilities, makes Kilo a better commander for its own deck than for this one.

Artifacts are another clear theme, with a whopping 45 artifacts in the deck, including six artifact lands. The heavy artifact🌸 focus allows you to take advantage of synerg⛎istic effects like affinity, improvise, and metalcraft, each of which makes at least one appearance in the deck.

Counter Intelligence Deck Analysis

The Counter Intelligence deck relies on accumulating counters to build up an advantage over time. While it’s great to be able to buff your creatures and keep the benefits into other turns, it does make the deck especially vulnerable to board wipes, which will force you to start from scratch.

The deck does have a single card that allows you to retain counters: Resourceful Defense, which moves them from one permanent to another when the first permanent leaves the graveyard. While this is a powerful effect, a single copy makes it unreliable.

The deck includes seven cards that proliferate, which is about the right number, but somehow it feels low unless you have Surge Conductor in play. This probably sꦰtems from the fact that so many permanents have abilities that include removin💜g their own counters, which can make the game feel clunky if you don’t have a regular way to add more.

Counter Intelligence also runs a little slower than other decks, both because of the mana curve with several spells sitting at seven mana and one at ten (with improvise), and because the counter theme leans into building up for a big push. The problem is that some of the best mana acceleration requires multiple counters, furt⛎her reducing the pace of play.

Underperforming Cards

The deck is reasonably concise, but a handful of cards really miss t♓he mark.

Depthshaker Titan is at the top end of the mana curve, with no cost reduction or alternate costs to make it easier to get into play. It gives a fantastic buff to your artifact creatures, with melee, haste, and trample, but part of the mana cost is for the ability to turn your regular artifacts into creatures. The problem is that you need to sacrifice them afterward. It's a good closer, but it's too risky for most situations.

Etched Oracle offers decent card draw, but at the cost of four +1/+1 counters. It needs five to survive using its ability, and doesn't have a built-in way to get more counters. It's okay, at best, but it would be a better fit if the deck had more ways to produce a fourth color of mana.

Hangarback Walker does have a way to add +1/+1 counters to itself, but at the cost of tapping itself, taking it out of a combat role. That makes it a dedicated blocker and a decent b💎ank for +1/+1 counters, but that's only applicable if you have Resourceful Defense in play.

The only affinity Thought Monitor has for this deck is affinity for artifacts, potentially making it a 2/2 flier for one blue mana that draws you two cards. It feels out of place, since it lacks any synergy with the deck, except that there are a lot of artifacts.

Chain Reaction is extremely situational, dealing damage to each creature equal to the number of creatures in play for four mana. When you want to use this as a boardwipe, it will also🌄 wipe out your own creatures (unless Inspirit, Flagship Vessel is fully crewed), and for that, there are better options.

Darksteel Reactor is a welcome reprint, since the last time it saw a physical release was in 2004's Darksteel, but it isn't a great fit for this deck. Alternate win conditions are nice, but there isn't quite enough support to make it efficient, and you're unlikely to ever win with it.

Golem Foundry would be much better if the Golem tokens came in smaller, with +1/+1 counters on them. There are already enough token generators without Golem Foundry, so it's an easy cut.

Mono-colored cycling lands are a great addition to mono-colored decks and any deck that cares about discarding cards or having lands in your graveyard. Counter Intelligence is none of those things, so these are just basic lands that come into play tapped and don't have basic land 🐓types that synergize with other cards.

Counter Intelligence Budget Upgrades

Other Upgrade Options

• If you can put a +1/+1 counter on it, Esper Sentinel can become a major draw engine. Even without it, it's an excellent first-turn play that can fill your hand before your opponents can respond to it.
• Filigree Vector does everything this deck wants to do in one convenient package: It gives all of your creatures +1/+1 counters, all of your artifacts charge counters, and it proliferates for one mana and a sacrificial artifact.
• It's a little odd to see an artifact counter deck without any modular creatures. Arcbound Ravager is a perfect receptacle for +1/+1 counters, and can act as a sac outlet for your artifacts.