It’s been a while, which means it’s probably time for Old Man Blue Mage to yell at the clouds over innocuous Magic-related matters. Today I want to talk about counters.
Throughout its existence Magic has, and will continue to have, an abundance of different counters. While some counters exist to create a new trackable resource (such as Energy) or to alter a player state (Poison), most counters exist as markers to modify permanents on the battlefield in some way. Sometimes counters are highly integrated with a specific mechanic or card form, including Suspend-based time counters or artifact-centric charge counters. Kamigawa’s original (though not repeated) divinity counters specifically bestowed Indestructibility. Age counters track Cumulative Upkeeps. Loyalty counters are quite literally what fuels planeswalker cards in their entirety.
Other times counters exist almost as much for flavor as they do practical reasons and only end up on a handful of cards at a time. The upside is that it provides a sense of originality and creativity to the cards asking for them while infusing a tactile means of interacting with the essence of what the card is trying to convey – even if most of us treat one trackable counter the same as the next from a gameplay perspective. Over the years we have seen these come and go, well, like tide counters. Or slumber counters. Or gold counters. Or bounty counters, egg counters, brick counters, doom counters, flood counters, spore counters, hoofprint counters…the list goes on. Typically found on noncreature permanents, these are a welcome respite from the basic uniformity of today’s counter economy in which sets largely limit themselves to a specific type of counter.
Throughout the game’s early years, there were also a series of different counters which modified a creature’s power and toughness. As one would expect, these were originally created as a means of permanently adjusting a creature’s stats without resorting to using Auras or some other method. Early Magic has numerous examples of what we’d now consider wonky and cumbersome counters to track, including -0/-1 counters, -0/-2 counters, +1/+0 counters, and -1/0 counters. One amazingly wacky card (Ebon Praetor) had the ability to put -2/-2 counters and +1/0 counters on itself. Several artifact creatures and the ever still-appreciable Baron Sengir could gain +2/+2 counters. Yet even if most of them didn’t show up in sizable numbers together in every game, the cumulative effect was that it was kind of a wild time for tracking purposes. It sometimes took an extra beat to calculate the stats of a creature on the board, especially if the card that gave the counter was no longer in play.
Eventually, in an effort to clean up and simplify the game state, Wizards did away with all of those and essentially uniformed power/toughness modifiers. On rare occasions sets and mechanics would dole out -1/-1 counters. Otherwise everything would now be +1/+1 counters. And even those two would remove one another if a card somehow gained both.
The side effect is that +1/+1 counters have now become the default for any type of card counters. So much so that they pretty much drown out all the others unless there’s a concerted effort to do something else. As in, if a creature is going to gain a counter there better be a worthwhile reason why it shouldn’t be +1/+1.
And through that process, a tiny bit of Magic’s, erm, magic, has gone away.
On the one hand, as much as I have a fondness for them from a nostalgic perspective and think that in the right sets something like a -0/-1 counter could work, I’m not wholly advocating for the return of the early game’s array of oddball p/t counters. They weren’t super plentiful and indeed did tend to cause confusion. On the other hand, I feel Magic design has swung a tad too far in the opposite direction with its adoration for +1/+1 counters. I understand that R&D loves these counters particularly because it’s an easy way to adjust a card’s potency during development and it makes it easy to overlap mechanics that utilize them across sets. But I’m beyond bored by the fact that they appear in practically every set and at every level.
There’s little mystery or luster to them anymore; it is purely a mechanical identity. Even if individual cards utilizing them are exciting, the propensity for a preponderance of positive counters makes the overall counter experience a bit less exciting. So much so that a couple years back I even abandoned an idea for a Commander deck because it revolved around doing silly things with +1/+1 counters and the game’s near constant reliance on them – especially when it comes to named mechanics – completely deflated my interest. The last sets that didn’t rely on them in some way were the Amonkhet block – more than 4 years ago. So anytime they’d like to give us another set like Amonkhet or Kaladesh would be none too soon. If only to breathe new life into this corner of the game experience. Because ironically for a game that likes to stretch boundaries, Magic’s use of +1/+1 counters feels very much like it’s in a deep rut of codependence.
That all being said, I also recognize there are a lot of players out there who absolutely adore the uniformity and default status that is +1/+1 counters. I’m not advocating against their use at all, just the ampleness of their appearance. And I admit I very well could be in the minority here. So by all means play with them if they suit your style and needs.
In fact, let’s look at a card this week where all sides can agree on its usefulness.
Today we have: Gavony Township
Name: Gavony Township
Edition: Innistrad / Commander 2020
Rarity: Rare
Focus: Creature Buffing
Highlights: For all the things the original Innistrad block became known for over the years, from its gothic horror setting to its abundance of vampires, werewolves, and spirits, one underappreciated facet came from its cycle of nonbasic lands. While two of them (Nephalia Drownyard and Stensia Bloodhall were better in duels and didn’t easily make the jump to EDH usefulness, the remaining three were able to find various degrees of success. Moorland Haunt is admittedly situational but can be effective in a pinch. Meanwhile, the other two quickly gained widespread fandom. Kessig Wolf Run for quite some time was the runaway favorite both competitively and casually. Gavony Township, on the other hand, started off solely as the casual fan’s runner up but has since gone on to be a perennial contender for inclusion in Green / White decks irrespective of whether or not you have a counter theme.
The reasons for this are pretty self-explanatory.
In addition to its basic generic mana production, Gavony Township has a second activated ability which states that for 4 mana plus tapping, you put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control. No restrictions, no limitations. Just gain a counter. Who doesn’t want larger creatures? Add in the fact that this is an activated ability that can be used round after round and isn’t easily stopped unless someone has access to land destruction, and it can be a pretty efficient Commander card with minimal effort.
This has applications on three fronts. First, if you go wide with lots of smaller token creatures, Gavony Township is a repeatable and moderately affordable way of boosting the size and dangerousness of your army. There is a notable tonal shift when you go from having ten 1/1 creatures to ten 2/2 creatures, for instance. Even more so if they go on to become 3/3s. Not only does it give them a better chance at survival but it suddenly gives you offensive as well as defensive capabilities that are worth noting.
Second is going vertically by having a smaller number of creatures but making them even larger and scarier. This is particularly effective in moving midsized creatures into the larger and more concerning bracket for opponents (going from 5/5 to 6/6 for instance), or if you can boost the size of your Green and White creatures with some kind of evasion (i.e. Trample or Flying). Even adding just a little power and toughness boost to the right creatures can be quite painful to someone on the other side of the battlefield.
Finally, yes, there is the abundance of creatures that care about and can benefit specifically from having +1/+1 counters on them, usually due to some kind of separate ability. The commonality of cards caring about this specific counter undoubtedly offers all manner of deck building synergy that can be worth exploring.
In all, there are only three minor limitations to Gavony Township. The first is that since it only produces generic mana, this can largely limit its inclusion in most decks to those of 2 or 3 colors. Second, while its activation is not impossible to use in the middle to later stages of a Commander game, it’s still effectively a 5 mana activation, which means you need to factor in having that mana open to use before your turn comes around again. Finally, and probably the most notable, is that with only a single reprint so far Gavony Township is well on its way to be priced out of being a cheap and affordable (sub $5) Commander card. While it’s still in that bracket for now, without another reprint it could rise above that threshold. And that would be unfortunate for all of those players who really enjoy tinkering with their +1/+1 counters.
Which, yes, even includes me from time to time.
Keep an eye out for us to be regularly featuring other more accessible-but-worth-it Commander cards going forward. In the meantime, we’ll keep the light on for you.
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