There’s no shame in calling for backup, especially when the full might of New Phyrexia is bearing down on you like a 2/2 with haste. This idea, of working together to defeat a common foe, is the core narrative subject ofMagic: The Gathering’sMarch of the Machine expansion, and it’s expressed mechanically via the backup keyword, which lets you grant both counters and temporary abilities to your other creatures in play.
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It’s a neat evolution of past mechanics, giving the humble +1/+1 counter a new lease of life on the Commander battlefield. The Call For Backup Commander deck, one of five new decks released for March of the Machine, is built around this mechanic, as well as +1/+1 counters in general. Here are some of its most powerful cards.
10Death-Greeter’s Champion
While innocuous on the surface, this sneaky 2/1 Warrior can create some serious problems for unprepared opponents. Packing both Backup 1 and Double Strike, the card can raise the power of a creature while simultaneously doubling its damage output: always a dangerous thing when you remember that Commander damage is a valid win condition.
The sheer power of this enter-the-battlefield effect means you’ll almost always want to dash the Champion out rather than cast it normally, a proposition that makes even more sense when you consider the extra damage a 2/1 hasty double striker can deal on its own. Tarkir clearly brought its very best to the smackdown of the century.
9Conclave Mentor
A classic counter card from Core Set 2021, Conclave Mentor makes every card in Call For Backup just a little bit better. Not only does it give you an extra +1/+1 counter whenever one is placed, often doubling the impact of the effect that placed it, but it also makes a great host for counters itself, since it gives you their value back in life upon death.
Those powerful abilities are complemented by solid vanilla stats, and a low casting cost that ensures you’re able to get the Mentor down under the gun of most Commander removal. Conclave Mentor works so well on every axis of the deck that it’s surprising it wasn’t designed for it.
8Uncivil Unrest
Any time you see the word ‘Double’ on a Magic card you should check it twice, since there’s a very good chance the effect containing the word is broken beyond belief. Uncivil Unrest certainly has the potential to reach those levels, since it doubles the damage output of every creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it: or, in the Call For Backup deck, essentially all of your creatures.
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This is powerful enough on its own, especially for a persistent effect, but it gets even better when you consider the riot ability the card grants. This ensures that, in the rare case one of your creatures doesn’t come with its own +1/+1 counter, it can get one from Uncivil Unrest, guaranteeing double damage in the future.
7Guardian Scalelord
Repeatable reanimation effectstend to get Magic players excited, and with good reason: they can provide some of the best sources of value-over-time the game has to offer. Guardian Scalelord is a fine addition to these hallowed ranks, providing a reanimation effect that, unusually, encompasses all nonland permanents and not just creatures.
Said effect is tied to the Scalelord’s power, and requires it to attack before it can take effect - but these are very reasonable restrictions when you consider the huge range of cards you’re able to dig up with it. Planeswalkers, artifacts, enchantments, battles: the sky truly is the limit for this white-winged wonder.
6Bright-Palm, Soul Awakener
The cover card of the deck, and very much the main event when it comes to the new additions it brings to the Commander table, Bright-Palm is a terrifying force to be reckoned with. When it puts those illusory green hands to work and attacks, it can double the number of counters on another one of your creatures, granting it evasion in the process.
Thanks to backup, it can also pass this effect on to one of your other creatures in play, granting it pseudo-haste when it comes to snowballing a counter-based advantage. After a couple of turns,even the smallest Saprolingcan be a game-ending threat with Bright-Palm on the board.
5Mirror-Style Master
A truly absurd card, Mirror-Style Master lets you duplicate your entire army in a counter-focused deck like Call For Backup. When she attacks, you get an attacking token copy of each of your attacking modified creatures, a force that can easily break through your opponents’ ranks and deal massive damage.
You don’t even need to wait a turn to do so, either: Mirror-Style Master comes with backup, which lets another creature take on your Xerox jobs for the turn, causing a bit of preliminary mayhem before the Master herself makes a move. When it comes to ‘remove or die’ creatures in Commander, this may just be the new poster child.
4Shalai And Hallar
Leaning hard into something the Call For Backup deck was planning to do anyway, Shalai and Hallar turn every +1/+1 counter you place into a burn spell for an unfortunate opponent’s face. This has plenty of fair applications, and can be used to gain a bit of extra advantage over the course of a grindy game - but where it truly shines is indegenerate Combo strategies.
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If you can create a looping sequence of +1/+1 counter placement, something that’s easy enough to do given the ample blink effects available in white, then Shalai and Hallar can combine their powers to end the game on the spot. If that plan fails, then a 3/3 flying/vigilance body makes a great place to dump your counters and just swing for game.
3Ion Storm
While most cards in the Call For Backup deck focus on building up +1/+1 counters on your creatures, Ion Storm gives you a way to cash them in for something else. This ‘something else’ is, of course, a repeatable Shock effect, and one that can hit any target, making it a flexible option in a range of scenarios.
The mana cost for doing so is high at two mana a pop, but the instant speed nature of it means you can use it reactively, whether that’s immediately dealing with a problematic creature or responding to removal by using up all the counters on the creature it’s aimed at.
2Hamza, Guardian Of Arashin
Cost reduction effects, from affinity to delve, have a long, proud history of causing problems across a range of Magic formats. Hamza brings a similar brand of broken to Commander, not only discounting his own cost based on your becountered creatures in play, but discounting the cost of all your future creatures, too.
This means that Hamza will typically be coming down as a 5/5 for two or three mana, before unleashing a terrifying monstrosity, such as an Elder Dragon or Eldrazi, on the very next turn. No matter the ethics, your opponents will want to hunt this Elephant down as soon as they see it.
1Emergent Woodwurm
The latest in the line of ‘Genesis Wave on a stick’ effects, slithering over the footsteps of Genesis Hydra, Emergent Woodwurm outperforms its powerful predecessor in nearly every way. Not only can it cheat a card out right away thanks to backup, but it can also unhinge its jaw and extend its reach through the stacking of +1/+1 counters, eventually turning its every attack into a universal tutor effect.
It is expensive at seven mana, but a backup value of three goes some way towards making up for this, turning any other creature in play into a serious threat. An ideal candidate for blink effects and those that grant haste, Emergent Woodwurm is the epitome of thepowerful green creature in Commander.
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