Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood +1/+1 Counters

Commander Overview

Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood, is a very interesting commander that has two very cool abilities. The first ability puts a flood counter on a land when it ETB’s or attacks, which is very interesting for the deck. The second ability, untapping everything with a counter on it at our end step, allows us to attack hard and keep our defenses up. Xolatoyac presents a very interesting gameplan, you can use their first ability in a more friendly way helping an opponent who is playing blue and making one of their lands an island in addition can be a strong piece of political play and help opponents not focus on us as much, but for the most part we are pretty selfish with our flood counters allowing us to untap our lands at our end step which can help us hold up protection/counterspells. Xolatoyac is a little pricey at six mana, but we are in Simic, so getting to six is something we can achieve very quickly.

How to Play the Deck

We have a very similar gameplan to a lot of +1/+1 counters decks with the added benefit that since we have Xolatoyac we can untap alot of our stuff allowing us to go to combat a lot more, we are pretty threatening in combat since we have cards like Bristly Bill, Spine Sower which can get very out of hand very quickly. Beyond that, we are just a typical +1/+1 counter deck. Being in Simic is strong because we have access to cards like Deepglow Skate, which can easily allow us to kill an opponent through combat damage. Playing the deck is extremely straightforward, dropping our creatures and buffing them up as much as we possibly can is the name of the game, since a lot of our cards are cheaper than Xolatoyac, we typically wait to bring them on the field.

Synergy’s in the deck

We have so many +1/+1 counter synergies in the deck like Cold-Eyed Selkie, which is not only a strong source of card draw for the deck, but because of Xolatoyac’s ability, islandwalk is very easy to get on our opponents. One of my favorite cards in the deck is Herald of Secret Streams. If we can resolve this on the battlefield, we become pretty much unstoppable in combat and can end the game extremely quickly if we have a built and buffed-up board, which is very common in the deck. Bristly Bill, Spine Sower is another card that has amazing synergies within the deck, n ot only is Bill a powerful attacker for the deck but the ability to double the counters on our creatures is just busted, since we can do it at instant speed we can easily take what looks like a normal combat to an opponent and straight up kill them. Lastly, I want to focus on some of the best counter synergies we have with cards like Branching Evolution, Doubling Season, and Court of Garenbrig. All of these let us buff our creatures a ridiculous amount. Still, a word of warning: if you drop any of these, many opponents will focus on you.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: Being in Simic allows us to have a powerful start, mana dorks are absolutely plentiful in this deck with cards like Birds of Paradise allowing us to accelerate our gameplan, our mana dorks also work very well with the +1/+1 counters gameplan with cards like Gyre Sage and Incubation Druid as well as Kami of Whispered Hopes allowing us to turn our +1/+1 counter into mana, this allows us to accelerate huge creatures and support pieces as well as get Xolatoyac out very early. The early game is all about mana for us. Keeping a good hand is important for our early game as well. We typically want two to three lands, some early creatures, and some strong support pieces.

Mid-Game: The mid-game is where things start to really happen with the deck, we usually have quite a bit of mana at this point so not only are we able to drop Xolatoyac but we can easily drop some of our powerful +1/+1 counter enablers like Kalonian Hydra and Ouroboroid, having either of these out can allow us to get scary very quickly and be a huge threat to our opponents. The mid-game is all about building up and dealing damage.

Late-Game: We do our best not to ever make it to the late-game, which is pretty easy to do in the deck, but if we do make it that far, that is when we utilize trample and going over the top to eliminate our opponents. This is very easy to do in this deck since we have cards like Overwhelming Stampede and Kodama of the West Tree. These are both game-enders for the deck. While we can be huge for a large majority of the game, the addition of trample truly spells disaster for our opponents.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

Our ramp is important to the deck, especially when we want to resolve strong spells like Curse of the Swine and devastate our opponents’ boards. Ramp is a key part of our deck and something we typically like to see at any stage of the game. Cards like Kami of Whispered Hopes not only provide additional support for our primary strategy of +1/+1 counters but also can provide a large amount of mana early. The same is true for Incubation Druid and Gyre Sage; both of these produce crazy mana and can help us drop massive bombs like Quilled Greatworm and Deepglow Skate.

Ramping is not only done through our creatures, but we also have format staples like Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach, and Explosive Vegetation. These are all great options for the early turns and can help us establish both of our colors and get the game plan rolling earlier. Ramp is significant to our deck and something we always look to do in our early turns.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

Card draw is not something we have a ton of in this deck, our main source of card draw in the deck is Fathom Mage we can draw a crazy amount of cards with Fathom mage, card draw is not something we care that much about in the deck, since we can become such a threat in combat and have a lot of ramp we are perfectly ok with the game going at any pace. Terrasymbiosis is essentially another copy of Fathom Mage and just like the mage can allow us to draw a ton of cards, just like Fathom Mage making sure we use our biggest burst of counter on a creature in a turn is key to maximize our card draw. Card draw isn’t something we have a lot of, but we don’t miss it much.

Removal

I love our removal package in this deck, even though it’s very small. We have a good combination of bouncing opponents’ things and removal. The core part of this package is clearing the way for our big creatures to hit hard. Our removal package synergizes very well with the entire deck, ramping a ton and then being able to cast cards like Curse of the Swine with X being huge can swing the game in our favor and just devastate an opponent’s board. We also have some awesome bounce cards like Wave Goodbye, which, as long as we are not playing the mirror, can essentially be a Cyclonic Rift in our deck. We do also have Cyclonic Rift but having an additional effect is strong. Our removal package is very small, but it can still be very strong for our deck.

Protection

Since our deck is a bit selfish and we care a lot more about our game plan compared to our opponents we have a lot of protection especially for creatures with counters on them with cards like Heroic Intervention and Silkguard are both very cheap ways for us to protect our board from board wipes or single-target removal. In all of my testing games, we typically become the target very quickly, especially when we drop big creatures and start getting out of hand, which happens a lot more than you think.

I also love Inspiring Call buffing our creatures and making them indestructible temporarily gives us a lot of options, whether we use them during a combat situation that turned bad or need our creatures to evade a board wipe. This card is powerful. Don’t forget we are in Simic, so we do have some counterspells that help the overall game plan, like Fuel for the Cause, which not only is a decent-priced counterspell but proliferates, which can be pretty wild in our deck. Fierce Guardianship is a game-changer for a reason, and this free counterspell has allowed me to survive many typically unsurvivable situations. Our protection package is powerful in our deck and allows our game plan to run smoothly.

Utility / Support

Our whole deck is truly a support piece. We have so many amazing cards I want to highlight, like Railway Brawler. While we don’t have a ton of creatures that enter with a ton of power, getting the ball rolling early is very important, especially with counter doublers in the deck. Speaking of counter doublers, we can’t ever have a +1/+1 counter-focused deck without including Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, which is just insane in this deck and gives us a true advantage if we play a +1/+1 counter mirror match. We also have both Doubling Season and Branching Evolution, both of which are insane counter doublers and allow us to be a true threat. One thing to note is that all of these cards will draw a lot of attention to you. I typically try not to drop these until I am ready to do something with them.

Champion of Lambholt is another card that is just perfect for our deck. It can trigger quite a bit on its own, but putting a lot of counters on it makes us truly unstoppable in combat. Herald of Secret Streams is another instance of this as well. I love having multiple of the same effect. If Lambholt gets exiled, it doesn’t mean that portion of our game plan is completely shut down. While we don’t have a duplicate of this effect, Ouroboroid is one of the strongest cards in our deck and allows us to grow so quickly. Our deck has so much support for the overall game plan; it interacts so well with each other.

Mana Base

My favorite land in our mana base is Minamo, School at Water’s Edge while we don’t use this on our commander at all we almost always use this on strong legendarys like Vorel of the Hull Clade, being able to double our counters twice in a turn for only five mana total is just insane for our deck. Whether we are super big or just getting started, this is extremely powerful. It has the same effect, but we love using Minamo on Zimone, Paradox Sculptor as well. Beyond that, we have a very efficient mana base that allows us to get our colors easily. Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth is a premier piece of mana fixing for our deck, and since a large portion of our deck is green, this is so helpful. Our landbase is very strong, and while it doesn’t do a ton extra, I never had any issues with it.

Win Conditions

Combat is our main win-con in the deck, it’s what the deck was built to do, buff them up and turn them sideways! We do have one alternate win-con with Simic Ascendancy. This is a easy way for us to close out the game, putting twenty counters on it is criminally easy to do in this deck. In testing, I was only able to pull off one Ascendancy win, but it is an option!

Strengths of the Deck

We are very good at combat, even at all stages of the game, we can grow our board very quickly and easily, creature decks can struggle attacking into us.

We have quite a few ways to go over the top of our opponents, whether it be our unblockable effects or cards like Overwhelming Stampede, we can one-shot opponents pretty easily.

Weaknesses of the Deck

Creature hate heavy or control strategies can be rough for us. We can beat these decks, but it can be tough to stick Xolatoyac or any of our other strong creatures.

We grow our board very quickly, because of that, we are often assessed as a threat pretty early on (sometimes correctly), but us being targeted so often is absolutely a weakness of our deck.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Isperia, Supreme Judge. Matchup Record: 1-4

This is a bad matchup for our deck, but not in the way you might think. The toughest part of this matchup is their emphasis on flying creatures. We don’t have many things that fly in our deck, and they can just kind of ignore us in combat and whittle us down.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Cyclonic Rift, Wave Goodbye and Curse of the Swine.

Game 2: Vs Ghoulcaller Gisa. Matchup Record: 4-0

This was a perfect matchup for our deck. No matter how many 2/2’s they produce, they oftentimes just can’t compete with us in combat; we get too big too quickly, and all of the zombies in the world can really struggle against a huge amount of counters on a creature with trample. I had no trouble with this matchup.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Champion of Lambholt,Deepglow Skate and Herald of Secret Streams.

Game 3: Vs Meren of Clan Nel Toth. Matchup Record: 2-2

This was a truly mixed bag of a matchup. They have a good deck and can recur pretty much anything we kill through combat. It can be quite tough for us since they know they can get their creatures back and don’t care about losing their creatures through chump blocking. This is a winnable matchup; unblockable, trample, or just keeping Meren off the field is very important. This is a true 50/50 matchup.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Wave Goodbye, Doubling Season and The Ozolith.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading to the end! This is an awesome deck that I have had a ton of fun with. Xolotl is a strong part of our deck, and the pseudo-vigilance they provide allows us to be aggressive and not have to worry about dying on a swing back. If Simic decks and +1/+1 counters are your jam, this is an amazing deck to run.