Removed the now-banned Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis , 1x Channeler Initiate , and 1x Necroskitter .

Added 1x Deity of Scars , and 2x Dusk Urchins .

Put one Necroskitter back in, removed 1 Poison-Tip Archer.

Put PTA and Channeler Initiate back in, removed both Bankrupt in Blood to make room for Dusk Urchins . I think Urchins effectively replaces BiB, a little higher CMC but it's a body when I need it.

It seems to be running more smoothly and a bit more aggressively with Dusk Urchins . The incidental card draw makes up for losing Bankrupt in Blood .

I would like to reduce average mana cost, as 3.03 seems really high. But I have no idea what could make room for it, short of moving Necroskitter to sideboard... but then, what is removed from sideboard to accommodate the 'Skitter?

Deeply pondering... thoughts??

The upcoming Witch's Cottage looks like a possible 2x. It could replace at least one basic swamp, and possibly one Temple of Malady as well. This particular new land looks interesting.

The deck may not even need the Cottage, and I might be foolishly justifying its inclusion out of interest in the new card.

Ayara, First of Locthwain has tons of potential in this build, and may give it more focus.

I was half expecting one of the old Quillspike / Devoted Druid combo lists.

Hex Parasite and Vampire Hexmage are cute, and double as plainswalker answers.

Some cards like Woodland Champion and Young Wolf offset Blowfly Infestation risks if you want to be a more dedicated combo list.

Through all of this, cutting the curve will be best achieved by increasing draw power, so that you still see your key cards reliably while having less wasted mana/time in early turns. Dusk urchins is an amazing build-around for this, as is scarscale- I'd look at reliably casting the two of them, then running any of the dozen variants of 1 mana card filtering in green in place of beseech, running just one canker, one soul snuffers and only two archers to make space. That means a 1 drop which likes getting a -1-1 on it for scarscale if you want to reliably beat down, or a manadork to power out urchins t2 if you want a more value or combo-based list.

Still just throwing stuff at the wall, but have you considered Reaper of the Wilds over Poison-Tip Archer ? Got much better stats and a somewhat similar role.

How do you usually win with this deck? Just attacking in general, Poison-Tip pinging, swarming with snakes and scarabs? If the latter, maybe some plain ol' pump would be in order? Overrun or Gaea's Anthem or something.

Zakuzelo... Early game is all about getting token engine built and stalling the opponent. When it is time, generally I attack with Ammit Eternal and snake tokens (leaving a few defenders), both of which typically get through due to Afflict and Deathtouch... all while having tokens generating and getting Poison-Tip Archer into play. Once this board state is achieved, I play either Black Sun's Zenith or Soul Snuffers to place counters, kill 1/1s and generate more tokens, then deal direct damage (via Poison-Tip Archer) to player. At this point, I can usually swing board the following turn and win. I may move Blowfly Infestation back onto mainboard, as the combo for infinite tokens really makes this a more cheeky, but threatening build. As has always been the case, this build is either full-on, on-curve assault, or is frustratingly slow and non-effective. There doesn't seem to be much in-between. Normally it is fairly effective, and I am guessing I win about 50% of the time overall, give or take.

If that's the plan, then I'm even more baffled by Poison-Tip Archer over Obelisk Spider. Cheaper, generates it's own counters, causes more and better pings throughout the game, including when you wipe out your snakes. Is Poison-Tip Archer's deathtouch that relevant, even with all the deathtouch snakes? Are there a lot of sweepers he's helping with? Are people attacking into your snakes when he's around? I just don't get it.

How'd Yawgmoth, Thran Physician work out, by the way?

Zakuzelo... you raise good points with Obelisk Spider... I haven't had it in the deck for quite awhile, but I guess I leaned more toward Poison-Tip Archer because I was seeing a lot of sacrificing among my opponents, and liked the fact that PTA triggered on death, not counters. But now that I run so many cards with counters, Obelisk Spider may be the better choice, especially considering its CMC. (I have not tried Yawgmoth, Thran Physician yet as I don't have any copies.)

I wonder if The Ozolith would be good for this deck. Not sure what would be best to take out for it but the counters that get placed on it can be put on any creature.

sazhuy that could definitely work in this build. Thanks for the suggestion!

Removed 1 Blowfly Infestation, replaced with 1 The Ozolith.

Put Blowfly Infestation back in main board, removed one Ayara, First of Locthwain from sideboard, moved The Ozolith to sideboard.

A suggestion I could give would be Necroplasm for token decks.

Contagion Clasp would make a great card for your drop slot; Has the flavor as well.

What do you think? To slow?

tacolover25 I've seen Contagion Clasp used in similar builds, especially when they focus on Infect or are built around Necroskitter... in this build I think it may be too slow, and 2-drop is prioritized for Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons due to that card being targeted relentlessly by removal. Thanks for checking out the build, and also for the suggestion. Cheers!

Obelisk Spider , Fume Spitter , and Contagion Clasp could be worth testing

Hey, good to see another player building around -1/-1 counters!! I’ve got my own build here, which has gone done quite a different direction, but i’ve tried to detail the archtypes problems and solutions there.

For your deck, i have the following suggestions:

• Devoted Druid is better than Channeler Initiate , in that we are guaranteed to get two counter-triggers, and it can provide a lot of fast ramp for a big play on turn 3.

• Even with a mana dork, I think your land count looks a little too low. Your deck has a lot of 3 & 4 drops, so i’d expect 23-24 lands?

• Beseech the Queen feels super slow. This archtype is already one that struggles to keep up with the modern meta, I really don’t think we have time to be going off looking for a specific card for the entirety of a turn.

• I’m suprised you’re running Poison-Tip Archer and Might of the Masses , because they dilute the main plan of profitting from the counters.

• imo i’d run more Black Sun's Zenith instead of the Blowfly Infestation . The enchant is slow and can backfire, while Black Sun’s can pretty much win the game on the spot if a Nest or Hapatra is in play.

• I feels like you’ve got too much focus of managing counters on your own stuff, instead of inflicting misery on your opponent. The bug pull for this archtype is enacting our plan sets the opponents plan back - if we’re not actively disrupting we lose some of our benefits. I’m surprised to not see stuff like Fume Spitter , Grind , or Skinrender here.