Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes +1/+1 Counters

Commander Overview

Minsc & Boo are truly an amazing duo, a true Gruul powerhouse! Being able to have a creature that is not only easy to buff up and attack but is a wonderful candidate for sacrifice or Fling effects is a powerful asset for the deck to have. While that is helpful for the deck since we are in Gruul, we can easily use our commander’s ability to buff up a ton of our creatures. Being able to do this allows us to be a true threat in combat. Minsc & Boo’s last ability is strong as well, being able to use our creatures effectively as single target removal allows us to be very strong against a variety of decks and remove threats quickly, but using it to sacrifice Boo and draw cards is great as well. We aren’t terrible at drawing cards since we have red in the deck, but it is an amazing option for the deck. Minsc & Boo fall firmly into a support role in the deck, but push the game plan forward and are a great asset.

This deck falls firmly into bracket 3. While it doesn’t play three game-changers, this deck absolutely plays as a three and can totally hang with decks that are also bracket 3. I tested against quite a few. While we aren’t going to combo off we can assemble an insane board very easily and one-shots are common within the deck.

How to Play the Deck

If you have played a variety of +1/+1 counter strategies you should be pretty comfortable with this one, almost all of the cards in the deck are focused on counters and work off of our creatures having counters, being able to use Minsc & Boo strategically is key to the gameplan and does take some getting used to, its not super hard to use them just being mindful of Boo and drawing cards when we need is essential.

Synergy’s in the deck

The deck synergizes extremely well within itself. Minsc & Boo are great pieces of synergy for the deck, being able to buff up Boo or our other creatures with trample. Trample is very easy for our deck to get since we have cards like Kodama of the West Tree. This card works very well with our commander and the rest of the deck. I also want to highlight Railway Brawler and Ouroboroid, which allow us to put a crazy amount of counters on our creatures. The deck works very well together.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: This is a perfect point for us to ramp and establish, Since we do have a four mana commander turn one Sol Ring is crazy strong in this deck and playing Minsc & Boo on turn two is amazing and allows us to be very far ahead, not something that always happens but getting out our commander is very strong.

Beyond Sol Ring and early commanders, we typically spend our early turns ramping as much as we can; we are a Gruul deck after all. Cards like Birds of Paradise can accelerate our game plan a lot. Kami of Whispered Hopes and Rishkar, Peema Renegade are two other early sources of ramp that are helpful in the early game and get a lot stronger as we transition to the mid-game.

Mid-Game: We do a lot in the mid-game and it is very interesting, there are a ton of different ways we can go, the primary gameplan is always counters as much as we can, as often as we can but Minsc & Boo open up some exciting plays with some mid-game creatures like Anger, being able to get this into our graveyard without our opponents can make us a lot more threatening in combat.

We are always trying to get our counter game plan going, and cards like Grumgully, the Generous are powerful in the deck. While they don’t hit all of our creatures, they do hit quite a bit, and being able to start with a counter makes us a lot more threatening. Since by this point we have a decent amount of mana, being able to drop cards like Kalonian Hydra or Quilled Greatwurm can not only hurt our opponents a lot but also make our board very threatening. Attacking is a big part of our mid-game as well, and we are typically bigger than our opponents.

Late-Game: The late-game is all about finshing off our opponents, whether we do it through cards like Overwhelming Stampede or Champion of Lambholt it is very easy for us to do. One of the best strengths of the deck is the ability to make our creatures huge very quickly, even just having a lot of creatures on the board unbuffed can allow us to get scary in combat very fast. We are typically big enough by the late-game that i just turn our creatures sideways and end the game.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

Ramping is very easy to do in Gruul, but it’s not something we go extremely overboard with. We are perfectly fine with cards like Birds of Paradise and Rishkar, Peema Renegade as well as some spell ramp like Cultivate. Ramping is obviously good for the deck, but we can play on curve if we need to. We don’t have a very high overall cost within the deck, and a lot of our best creatures only cost four or five, so we can play lean on mana if we need to. Ramp is an asset in the deck, but we don’t need it.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

Having built-in card draw from Minsc & Boo is perfect for our deck; it’s not card draw we rely on, but having it is a great option. Sacrificing Boo for four cards is always good. Terrasymbiosis is a good way for us to draw cards as well and is quite cheap. We do need to be mindful of this card since it only happens once a turn, and we want to make sure we draw as many cards as we can. Rishkar’s Expertise is another powerful draw source for the deck, with the bonus of getting a free cast of six or less. This can allow for some crazy plays, dropping a card like Doubling Season, but dropping anything for free is quite strong. We have a decent amount of card draw, even though we are in Gruul.

Removal

We are good at removing stuff, but not with typical single-target removal. We are much better at using our strengths to our advantage and using our creatures to fight opponents with cards like Signature Slam or Stump Stomp. Chandra’s Ignition is a interesting card, while it is technically removal, we mostly use it as a way to wipe the board or end the game, and if it doesn’t do either, it can at least dish out a ton of damage to our opponents. Minsc & Boo can also be removal if we need them, the -2 is very powerful and with big creatures can easily take out an opponent (and draw a ton of cards on top of it). Our removal package is very atypical but works well with the deck.

Protection

Because of how big our creatures get and we are a huge threat in combat, it is natural that our opponents want to stop us at all costs. Truthfully, I don’t blame them, but we do need to be ready for it. Because of that, we have some protection against en masse and single-target attacks. Silkguard is a strong protection spell for only one green. We can give all of our stuff hexproof, which can be very valuable, especially during combat. The X cost on Silkguard can be helpful to help us buff up, but having the option to cast it for only one green is great. We also have Snakeskin Veil, which is cheap and gives a counter in addition to the protection, which is always handy. If all else fails and an opponent is about to remove our huge creature, we can always use Fling to throw it back in our opponent’s face!

Utility / Support

There are so many awesome ways to support our overall game plan. This deck is filled to the brim with ways to buff up our creatures and hit hard. One of my favorites is Invigorating Surge, which is a great way to double our counters before damage (I have used this to one-shot an opponent before!) We also have Ruinous Intrusion, which combines removal and extra counters for us, perfect if you run into any Darksteel Forges out there.

We have so many incredible creatures like Akki Battle Squad, even with a medium-sized one, we can put a ton of pressure on our opponents, especially if they made the mistake of not leaving a lot of blockers. If our creatures are already big, we have quite a few ways to make them even bigger! Whether it be Ouroboroid, Arwen, Weaver of Hope, or Kalonian Hydra, if our creatures have counters, they can get huge so quickly.

Mana Base

Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth is pretty much our only interesting non-basic, a great piece of mana fixing for the deck. Beyond that, we have some great fast access to colors like Spire Garden or Stomping Ground. I tested a bunch of games and had no issues with our mana base.

Win Conditions

While our primary win condition is combat, we can end the game through non-combat means with either Minsc & Boo or cards like Chandra’s Ignition, Minsc & Boo kills are actually very easy to do. However, we typically only kill one player this way, while we do have multiple ways, combat is still the primary game plan.

Strengths of the Deck

We can establish a board very quickly. If it gets to the late game, we can easily dump our hand and become a threat in just a couple of turns.

Our commander not only provides constant creature generation, but is a counters machine and a damage/card machine; they provide a lot for the deck for only four mana.

Weaknesses of the Deck

Since our deck is so focused on attacking, we can have trouble against Propaganda effects or really anything that prevents us from turning all of our cards sideways.

We have next to no recursion in the deck; stuff that dies typically stays dead.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Krenko, Mob Boss. Matchup Record: 3-2

This was a pretty good matchup for the deck. Our trample can truly bully them, and as long as they don’t have a crazy start, I didn’t have a lot of trouble with this one. Removing Krenko will ruin their game plan.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Fling, Stump Stomp and Champion of Lambholt

Game 2: Vs Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow. Matchup Record: 0-3

I struggled a lot with this one. We can be pretty quick, but we can’t drop crazy stuff like they can; they start fast and consistently, and they have counter-magic to back it up. This is a very rough matchup; our only real hope is that their commander is removed immediately and they can’t execute their primary game plan.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Decimate, Stump Stomp and Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider

Game 3: Vs Giada, Font of Hope. Matchup Record: 4-0

I had no trouble with this matchup. Angels can be good, and if we stumble, we can have a rough time since we don’t have a lot of flyers (Without Kodama of the West Tree as one of our few reach creatures). Still, if we execute our game plan normally, we can deal so much more damage than they can. This was not a tough one.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Ghalta, Primal Hunger, Doubling Season and Unnatural Growth

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end! I had a blast building this one. I was a little unsure about Minsc & Boo at first, but after playing them, they are a wonderful support piece that is great for Gruul and works flawlessly with a Gruul/+1/+1 counters game plan. This deck can truly hold its own and is a force to be reckoned with.