Amonkhet came out with a couple of interesting new commanders. Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons was the one that drew my interest the most, and it turned out that it was quite an easy deck to put together; while -1/-1 counters is a mechanic that has been supported throughout a good portion of Magic's history, the actual amount of support for the mechanic, at least in Green and Black, is limited enough that the deck almost built itself.
How does the deck work?
The deck is, ultimately, a token deck that plays out as a sort of creature control setup, rewarding us for limiting the threat level of our opponents' creatures by filling our board with token threats.
Hapatra herself is a great engine for this, but she needs to be able to hit an opponent to start that engine rolling. Ideally, then, we want to be casting her on turn two, as most of the time our opponents will just be setting up their own boards, then poking an opponent with no blockers to start putting counters on things and making deathtouching snakes. To help her get through when the board becomes more cluttered, we have a few tools to make her unblockable, with Whispersilk Cloak, Rogue's Passage and Key to the City, which also doubles as a draw engine.
To help with our token production, Nest of Scarabs and Flourishing Defenses further rewards us for covering everything in -1/-1 counters, and Parallel Lives helps us fill the board quickly. Eventually we can just drop a Craterhoof Behemoth or Pathbreaker Ibex to turn all our tokens huge and swing for those last few points of damage. Triumph of the Hordes is an amazing wincon with Hapatra's deathtouching snake tokens, as it means each one has to be at least double-blocked to stop any infect damage getting through.
Aside from the all-out token assault, we have a couple of alternate wincons. Our strategy of poking in with Hapatra to get the token engine going can cause commander damage to accumulate surprisingly quickly. Beyond that, Vraska the Unseen, with all our token generation and creature control, can hit her ultimate with surprising regularity, and with the tools we have to provide unblockablity for our creatures, Vraska's assassins can get in for that game-ending point of damage to an opponent.
A seemingly random addition to the deck as another alt-wincon is Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon. The use of a single Infect creature might seem a little random, but this works in our favour as a surprise Infect threat can pull a win out of nowhere, and as surprise threats go, Skittles is quite a resilient one thanks to being able to both give himself haste and regenerate himself, dodging most removal and boardwipes.
Control elements
The deck is less of a full-on control deck in a traditional sense, but is more about controlling the power level of our opponents' creatures by using -1/-1 counters; if we can't kill their creatures with a buildup of counters, we can at least keep their creatures small enough to not be a big enough threat to us for us to worry about until we can build up a big enough board presence for us to win; with Hapatra, Nest of Scarabs and Flourishing Defenses, we can do both at the same time!
To help keep our opponents' board down, keep the counter engine going and build our board up, there are plenty of creatures and enchantments on our side that work in tandem with one another to make life difficult for our opponents.
The best tools for this are Crumbling Ashes and Blowfly Infestation, which if set up right can create a big chain of dead creatures - in fact, Blowfly Infestation on its own can be pretty disgusting if our opponents have multiple X/1 creatures and/or creatures that have already been weakened with -1/-1 counters. Vhati il-Dal can help with these chains by giving a big threat 1 toughness! Better yet, with Necroskitter on the field, all this mass-killing turns into board presence for us.
Should the board get to a point where our core tools aren't doing the job for us, we have a selection of boardwipes to panic-reset the board. Black Sun's Zenith is the obvious auto-include, and Damnation is a black commander staple. Gaze of Granite is a neat one - on the face of it, it behaves as a sorcery-speed Pernicious Deed, but the fact that it deals with Planeswalkers can help us a great deal. In Garruk's Wake is also good for this, while Decree of Pain is good for refilling our hand, and can also double as an instant speed -2/-2 to everything should we ever need that utility.
Contagion Clasp and Contagion Engine both put -1/-1 counters onto our opponents' things, then give us Proliferate tools to spam yet more counters, while also giving us more uses out of things like Serrated Arrows and Trigon of Corruption - in the latter case without having to take turns out to put new charge counters on it
One of the things I liked about this deck is that it made cards from a Planeswalker deck not only viable, but actually quite strong within the shell! Liliana's Influence not only puts a counter on each of our opponents' creatures, but also doubles up as a tutor for a Planeswalker that helps our token engine and can also outright kill anything we decide is too much of a threat.
Potential Upgrades and tweaks
Do you like combos? Do you like mass land destruction? Then you're a horrible person. But also there is the option within the deck to tweak it if that kind of thing appeals to you.
The list as I have it already runs Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, which makes all lands on the battlefield into Swamps. So if you can find space in the 99 for Kormus Bell, any one of our effects that puts a -1/-1 counter on each creature suddenly becomes a mass land-destruction effect - better yet, Contagion Engine and Liliana's Influence, while pricey, turn into land-wipes for opponents while protecting our own land base!
Outside of that, there is one big upgrade coming with Ixalan, and one that is sure to become a commander staple for any creature-heavy green deck; Growing Rites of Itlimoc
. With this being a token deck, it should be quite easy to flip the enchantment into our very own Gaea's Cradle, and it can still produce mana for us after a boardwipe!
Conclusion
This deck can catch opponents off guard, quite often not taking a 2/2 for 2 as too serious of a threat until the engine is already rolling and it's too late. It can reliably keep opponents' creatures weak and manageable while filling the board with snakes - sometimes with a backup of insects or elves - before going in for the alpha strike, with a few little tricks to help us win if that core strategy doesn't get us to where we need to be.
Any feedback or advice is always greatly appreciated!
