Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Marcus, Mutant Mayor!

Marcus is a five mana 4/4 with vigilance, trample, and whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, draw a card if it has a +1/+1 counter and if it doesn’t then you put a +1/+1 counter on that creature.

Marcus reads as a straightforward Commander in that he wants you to put counters on things and to draw cards whenever those creatures deal damage, and that is honestly not that bad of a strategy to build around.

The game plan is simple enough, we get a bunch of evasive creatures on the battlefield that can deal damage to our opponents to get +1/+1 counters on them and use that as our advantage engine.

First things first, we need to get evasive creatures onto the battlefield and find ways to help make sure that they can get through.

Herald of Secret Streams can act as a way to guarantee that our creatures with +1/+1 counters can get through to deal damage to draw us a bunch of cards, especially if we also include something like Bred for the Hunt, which draws a card whenever a creature we control with a +1/+1 counter deals damage.

There is also Suspicious Stowaway, which a two mana creature that can’t be blocked and whenever it deals combat damage to a player then we draw a card and then discard a card, but it also transforms into Seafaring Werewolf via Daybound/Nightbound which also can’t be blocked and we just draw a card when it deals combat damage to a player.

There are also creatures like Invisible Stalker which has hexproof and can’t be blocked and Elusive Krasis which also can’t be blocked but also has evolve, which means it can potentially get bigger.

Speaking of +1/+1 counters, we need reliable ways to get +1/+1 counters onto our creatures in order to get the draw engine going.

Railway Brawler is a little pricey, but it puts X +1/+1 counters on a creature when it enters where X is that creature’s power, while also having Plot for three mana a green, which means that we can cast it for free later and start getting counters quickly.

Not only that, but pair that with effects like Hardened Scales or Branching Evolution which gives our creatures even more counters, then we have a solid wall of creatures that can swing in if we get a trample effect like Garruk’s Uprising and block against a lot of other creatures.

There are also creatures that can take advantage of us drawing a ton of cards like Chasm Skulker, which gets bigger whenever we draw a card and when it dies it puts X 1/1 Squid tokens with islandwalk onto the battlefield where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on it when it died.

Forgotten Ancient is a sneaky card because it gets a +1/+1 counter whenever any player cast a spell, and we can move any number of counters onto other creatures at the beginning of our upkeep.

We can also use Kalonian Hydra which whenever it attacks it doubles the number of +1/+1 counters on creatures we control, Renata, Called to the Hunt to put +1/+1 counters on creatures we control when they enter the battlefield, and Loyal Guardian which puts a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control if we also control our Commander.

While our deck is going to be primarily an aggressive strategy, we should be prepared to affect the board in our favor.

Wave Goodbye is what we are going to be looking for because it is a board bounce against creatures that don’t have +1/+1 counters, and since our goal is to get a good number of creatures with +1/+1 counters on them, we should be the least effected by it.

There is also Ominous Seas, which puts foreshadow counters on itself whenever we draw a card and when remove eight counters we can make an 8/8 Kraken token on the battlefield. If we want a potential alternate win condition that won’t win too often, then we can use Jace’s Erasure, which mills an opponent whenever we draw a card.

Fangs of Kalonia is a way to get more counters on our creatures and doubles their counters which effects all our creatures if we Overload it, Inspiring Call to draw us even more cards and gives creatures we control indestructible, and Pridemalkin and Gnarlid Colony which gives our creatures with +1/+1 counters trample to help us close out the game.

Marcus serves its role as an value Commander fairly easily, and while it can be daunting or potentially even boring to track all the counters, there is always something so satisfying about swinging our creatures to win the game.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual