Servant of the ScaleServant of the Scale | Art by Winona Nelson

Get Out Your Dice!

Hello, and welcome back to Singleton Shmingleton, where I bend the singleton rules of Commander by building decks with as many functional reprints of a certain card as possible. This week, I'll be talking about a design that has started to come up more in recent years: Servant of the ScaleServant of the Scale. This original take came out in Fate Reforged, and it was several years before we got our second: Star PupilStar Pupil in Strixhaven: School of Mages. Just in the last year, we've received two more one-drops that move around their counters when they die, plus a couple of other cards with similar text.

Now, four cards is not usually enough to build a 100-card deck centered on consistency, especially when they appear so low-impact at first glance. But I've had a love of +1/+1 counter decks since I started playing Commander, and I've always wanted to make these little guys into an efficient engine that's hard to deal with, so I'm going to try to make it work. Enduring BondwardenEnduring Bondwarden was the card I was most excited for during March of the Machine previews, and it wasn't even close.

Here's a list of creatures that can move their counters to any of your other creatures when they die:

That's not a lot, but it's not nothing either. The most-played in the ninety-nine of 8,632 decks and co-piloting many others is Reyhan, Last of the AbzanReyhan, Last of the Abzan. It grants the counter-moving ability to your whole team, and was printed in a preconstructed deck, so it's not surprising to see it doing well. What did surprise me was seeing Iron ApprenticeIron Apprentice catching up with it at 6,727 decks. Way to go, little Construct! The originaloriginal has found its way into 1,435 decks, and Enduring BondwardenEnduring Bondwarden is lagging behind the rest at only 331 decks. One thing that disappointed me when I saw this list was that there were only these four one-drops that I already knew about. What excites me the most about this mechanic? Its ability to go under other decks and start snowballing +1/+1 counter synergies early.

Yet there's hope for our list, because there's another mechanic very similar to this one. It also moves +1/+1 counters when creatures die, but it's a little more restricted in how that works. I'm talking about Modular, a mechanic from the original Mirrodin block that has received more support with Modern Horizons 2. Here's a list of cards with Modular:

Now that's more like it! Not only are we getting more cards to build an engine around, but there are also four Modular one-drops. Modular centers around red and white, but we can be flexible on colors since most of the the original cards were colorless. The best +1/+1 counter payoffs are in green, and three of our one-drops are in white, so we should plan on being green and white at the very least.

How Do We Make Them Big?

If we want to make little creatures with counters on them good, we'll want to add a bunch of cards like Hardened ScalesHardened Scales that help to stack on extra counters. This is another design space that's received a lot of love since we started seeing more cards designed for Commander, and we've got a lot of options. There were two new versions of this effect just in the last set!

Since we're trying to go low to the ground with our creatures, the cheaper versions of this effect are better than the higher-end ones in this deck. Funnily enough, I think this deck would rather have Conclave MentorConclave Mentor than Doubling SeasonDoubling Season, despite the notoriety and price tag of the latter. We want to get our counter multipliers down early and abuse them by moving counters around multiple times.

Hardened ScalesHardened Scales effects work particularly well with Servant of the ScaleServant of the Scale because these creatures "place" counters on creatures multiple times. Together, they combine to make a 2/2, but when ServantServant dies it gets to put three +1/+1 counters on another creature. That won't make our opponents shake in their boots, but it will continue to snowball, which is why we need to start stacking early.

To fill out the deck more, we need some sacrifice outlets and a lot more artifacts. Modular can only put counters onto other artifact creatures, and we don't want to let any counters go to waste when our creatures die. Luckily, there are plenty of cheap artifact creatures that care about counters.

Walking BallistaWalking Ballista is even better than usual in a deck that can move counters onto it repeatedly, and Steel OverseerSteel Overseer is straight-up busted. It can easily represent four or five counters per turn, twice that with a Hardened ScalesHardened Scales effect out. Beyond these cards, Patchwork AutomatonPatchwork Automaton also grows quickly, and TriskelionTriskelion tops off the curve as a worse Walking BallistaWalking Ballista.

Once we're into the realm of artifact synergies, the rabbit hole goes deeper. Throne of GethThrone of Geth really ties the room together, acting as both sacrifice outlet and counter stacker. Scrap TrawlerScrap Trawler is a perfect way to bring back all of our creatures that we've binned to move around their counters. For the top end, I've added some spicy card advantage creatures that don't have many other homes in other decks like Etched OracleEtched Oracle and Mindless AutomatonMindless Automaton. With only their own counters applied these creatures are unimpressive, but when they can pick up some others off Modular triggers they get downright scary.

But What About the Nonbos?

I'll admit that Modular creatures don't work perfectly with Servant of the ScaleServant of the Scale and their friends. We can't target non-artifact creatures with Modular triggers, and that will limit our options fairly often. But I wouldn't go so far to say that this is a "nonbo", or an anti-combo. The cards still work well together. Servant of the ScaleServant of the Scale can put its counters onto a Modular creature, and we just need to make sure we have another artifact creature in play to avoid a blowout afterwards. There is, however, one cheeky card that can help us if this does become a problem.

TorqueTorque is my favorite two-mana mana rock in almost any deck, but in this deck it really pulls some weight. From the obvious use cases to more obscure ones (did you know Modular can target opponents' creatures?), I am always happy to draw it.

In general, cards that care about counters work better together than you'd expect. It's no big deal if Arcbound SlithArcbound Slith can't put counters onto Managorger HydraManagorger Hydra, since the Hydra is already going to be huge. And it also doesn't make much difference that it can't put counters on Armorcraft JudgeArmorcraft Judge, since the Judge already fulfilled its purpose. My final decklist has twenty-one artifact creatures, and that's been enough to support the Modular mechanic without feeling like I need to play any real stinkers like Arcbound FiendArcbound Fiend. Here it is!

The Decklist

This deck is great at creating a huge board of threats quickly. Single-target removal just doesn't stack up well against a deck that can move counters this easily, but board wipes are still a potential liability. Our top end of card advantage pieces and TriskelionTriskelion scale with the game state, and we can grind value respectably. This is my favorite deck that has come out of the Shmingleton experiment so far. There's just a wonderful feeling that comes from attacking with a 28/28 Iron ApprenticeIron Apprentice or sacrificing three artifact lands to Arcbound RavagerArcbound Ravager. There are always tons of options, the starts are fast, and stacking counters never gets old.

Until Next Time

Who needs an expensive ExplorationExploration when you can play fifty cent 1/1s? This card and its friends definitely have potential, but we're going to need to do something more than just play all our lands if we want to make them shine. Stay tuned for the next edition of Singleton Shmingleton, where you'll find out what that is!

Jesse Barker Plotkin

Jesse Barker Plotkin started playing Magic with Innistrad. He was disqualified from his first Commander game after he played his second copy of Goblins of the Flarg, and it's all been uphill from there. Outside of Magic, he enjoys writing and running.