For the Vicious Swarm - Ezuri Counter EDH

Commander / EDH Aggro Counters GU (Simic) Infect Infinite Combo Tokens

Austin_Smith_of_Cards

Creature (37)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Bane of Progress
• 1x Beast Whisperer
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Blighted Agent
• 1x Champion of Lambholt
• 1x Chasm Skulker
• 1x Coiling Oracle
• 1x Cultivator of Blades
• 1x Defiler of Vigor
• 1x Edric, Spymaster of Trest
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fathom Mage
• 1x Fertilid
• 1x Glistener Elf
• 1x Gyre Sage
• 1x Hangarback Walker
• 1x Herald of Secret Streams *f-pre*
• 1x Incubation Druid
• 1x Iridescent Hornbeetle
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Master Biomancer
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Mycoloth
• 1x Pir, Imaginative Rascal
• 1x Plague Myr
• 1x Prime Speaker Zegana
• 1x Rishkar, Peema Renegade
• 1x Sage of Hours
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Thrummingbird
• 1x Trygon Predator
• 1x Viral Drake
• 1x Viridian Corrupter

Land (33)

• 1x Bant Panorama
• 1x Botanical Sanctum
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 7x Forest
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 4x Island
• 1x Karn's Bastion
• 1x Lumbering Falls
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Simic Growth Chamber
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Thornwood Falls
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Artifact (7)

• 1x Animation Module
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Simic Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x The Great Henge
• 1x The Ozolith

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar

Commander (1)

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Neoform
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Tezzeret's Gambit
• 1x Triumph of the Hordes

Instant (8)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Negate
• 1x Swan Song

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Branching Evolution
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Guardian Project
• 1x Hardened Scales

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This is by far my favorite EDH deck I've built for all the reasons I love the Commander format. It allows me to make big, splashy Timmy plays while maintaining enough speed and power level to do reasonably well against slightly more competitive groups. There are three strategies that I can play to secure a win; I can overrun my opponents with hordes of gigantic +1/+1-counter fueled creatures, score dirty wins via evasive infect creatures, and of course there is the Sage of Hours + Ezuri, Claw of Progress combo that allows me to take infinite turns if I have five or more experience counters.

As I have a personal soft spot for +1/+1 counter strategies, I have made it my mission to eventually foil out the list, minus a few cards that I either can't get in foil (Bane of Progress, Thought Vessel) or are too damn expensive (Command Tower, Misty Rainforest).

There is an ongoing challenge in my playgroup to deal as much possible overkill damage without going infinite; this list currently holds the record at 119,754 INFECT damage (yes, I killed him approximately 12,000 times over). That was thanks to Mycoloth + Cultivator of Blades allowing to fester for a couple rounds and then dropping Triumph of the Hordes. Good times.

As you are about to see, there's a strategy attributed for every type of player. Except Spikes, because they're cancer to the format and can build their degenerate $5k cEDH decks elsewhere.

Stompy Strategy - The Traditional Timmy

Allowing the deck to pilot naturally lends itself to ramping, dropping Ezuri as quickly as possible, and then flooding the board with as many tiny creatures as possible. Voltron up a big dude who can make good use of the counters, such as Champion of Lambholt, Chasm Skulker, Cultivator of Blades, Hangarback Walker, Master Biomancer, and/or Mycoloth. Protect your board with a small suite of counterspells and protection spells, and just smash face until everyone's dead.

Note on Master Biomancer: Try to play him after getting at least a couple experience counters with Ezuri, or else he makes it difficult to accumulate any more experience counters. He's still strong enough to be worth including in this list (I'm also a sucker for multicolored foils with watermarks), but play him strategically.

Infect Strategy - The Vicious Vorthos

Probably also the most reliably viable strategy, there's the flavorful angle of piling up counters on an infect creature and filling your opponents with the glory of Phyrexian perfection. By dropping something like Glistener Elf, Blighted Agent, or Plague Myr early on, you can immediately start pressuring an opponent via aggressively stacking poison counters. There's a plethora of proliferate spells as well to eke out wins when your opponent has a really high poison count but killed your infect creature before you could swing for lethal.

Triumph of the Hordes, if drawn early, can burst out surprise wins out of nowhere. I had a game where I dropped Birds T1, Sol Ring into commander T2, Cultivator of Blades T3, and Triumph T4 with Counterspell backup. Needless to say someone was rather salty that day.

Infinite Combo Strategy - The Johnny

Pretty simple here; accumulate five experience counters (EZ), tutor for Sage of Hours with Ezuri on board (not as EZ), and getting them to stick to combo off (hard in removal-heavy/more competitive groups). From there opponents will typically concede, but if you have to play it out for some reason (Seedborn Muse + Vedalken Orrery, for instance) you can just default to one of the above strategies.

Thanks for checking out my list! Any suggestions/improvements appreciated.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 48 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.07
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Experience Token, Insect 1/1 G, Plant 0/1 G, Saproling 1/1 G, Servo 1/1 C, Squid 1/1 U, Thopter 1/1 C
Folders	EDH Decks, ideas, Copies, Counters Commander, EDH ideas, Commander, Interesting Decks to Study Better Later, Edh que me gustaria, Awesome