(Danny Pink | Art by Daniel Correia)

Pink's Petitioners

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Hypnotic Grifter is the only one-mana blue Human that can put +1/+1 counters on itself once it enter the battlefield?)

Rejoice, Petitioners fans! Doctor Who has brought us four new Advisor commanders!

And while there's probably a spicy The Twelfth Doctor brew with notable Advisor Clara Oswald allowing you to play Petitioners that you then copy twice and give opponents copies of, there was another option that caught my eye.

Most Persistent Petitioners builds are built around mill, but do they have to be? Those that have played with or against these little 1/3 Advisors are very aware of just how much of a force to be reckoned with they are on an en masse defense, and that's just as base 1/3s. What if instead we're attacking with them and they're getting bigger while we do it? That's just a force to be reckoned with, period.

Top 10 Mono-Blue Typal/Tap Effects That Give Creatures +1/+1 Counters

When you boil right down to what makes a Persistent Petitioners deck a Persistent Petitioners deck, two things are pretty much the core: Advisors and untapping. What a lot of folks that are brewing this deck forget, however, is that our little bureaucrats have more than one creature type.

That's right, in addition to the rather rare Advisor type, Persistent Petitioners are also the most common creature type, Humans. This means that we have a much easier choice to make when it comes to relying on "choose a creature type" cards that we can still engineer to work well with our support creatures.

As for the other half of things, untapping, surely there's tons of effects that can put down +1/+1 counters that also care about untapping, right?

Criteria: Nonland cards within the mono-blue color identity that either are Humans or Advisors and can put counters on themselves once on the battlefield, can put counters on Humans or Advisors based on creature types once they're on the battlefield, or can tap to put counters on other non-artifact creatures (thanks, Steel Overseer and Modular) once they're on the battlefield. We will not be counting Proliferate effects, as they cannot add an initial counter. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

I'm sure some of you are wondering why we're not hitting Proliferate effects, and it's a fair question. Put simply, there are now a ton of Proliferate cards, and most of them are fairly well known if you've ever built a deck that even tangentially cares about counters. In fact, in my personal opinion, we've hit the point where people are putting too many Proliferate effects in their decks, and are running into the issue of having Proliferate stuff but no actual counters down on the field to do anything with it. With that in mind, let's look for our initial effects that will place the first counters, and we'll fill in the Proliferate later.

10. Knights of Dol Amroth

(1,368 Inclusions, 0% of 399,052 Decks)

There's no doubt that Knights of Dol Amroth can get huge, even in a normal blue deck. Throw in a commander that makes it say "whenever you draw your second card each turn, make this bigger and draw a card" only makes it even better. My only concern with it is that there is a much better option for a lot less mana.

Two mana for a 2/1 Human that gets bigger, draws you cards, and also gives you a 1/1 flier in a +1/+1 counter deck when it dies is just in the running for best card in the deck. I like Knights of Dol Amroth, and it might make the running, but considering it's already outclassed...

9. Geology Enthusiast

(1,589 Inclusions, 0% of 952,673 Decks)

Five mana feels like it's getting to be more and more as every new weekly set enters Commander, making Geology Enthusiast feel like it needs to be really good in the deck to warrant a slot. At first glance, that appears to be the case, as Persistent Petitioners are going to be a quarter or more of the deck and they have an ability that could be fueled by Powerstones.

The problem is that's not the good ability, and it's also not what we're trying to make our game plan here. Don't get me wrong, if we go nuts and draw all the ramp and all the Petitioners, there is a very real possibility that we'll go nuts enough to be casting four Petitioners a turn and start milling ourselves or someone else before we even get to swinging, but in any scenario where we're having to use their normal one mana for one milled card ability, we're in a kind of trouble Powerstones aren't gonna help with.

8. Wingspan Mentor

(2,285 Inclusions, 0% of 1,539,741 Decks)

This is so close to being exactly what we need, and yet so far. Wingspan Mentor giving our entire team evasion that would also draw us cards as it happened would be about the biggest win ever, but alas, that designator says "non-Human", not "Human".

7. Littjara Kinseekers

(2,417 Inclusions, 0% of 1,539,741 Decks)

I must admit, I'm at a bit of a loss as to why this four mana "3/5" that might scry 1 is anywhere near 2,500 inclusions. Changeling is good, don't get me wrong, and I love to take advantage of it, but this card just seems bad from every angle. And that's coming from a guy who likes to force Graveshifter.

6. Cytoplast Manipulator

(2,865 Inclusions, 0% of 1,539,741 Decks)

Finally, a card we want! I was a bit worried we were having a bust there, for a minute. Cytoplast Manipulator's Graft 2 is exactly what this deck wants to be doing, and with Proliferate effects we're gonna have no problem throwing some counters around, whether it be on our Advisors to draw some cards, or on opponent's creatures to bring them over to the side of bureaucracy.

5. Drillworks Mole

(3,247 Inclusions, 0% of 2,565,736 Decks)

I'm less enthusiastic about Drillworks Mole, but not entirely out on it. It being a 1/1 for one is very good in our aggro strategy, even if it's not a Human or an Advisor. What really has me wondering if this isn't just outside the 99 looking in is that it only puts counters on our commander. We do definitely want some effects that can be making Danny Pink huge, and this will draw two counters when it does it, but this is just going to feel so bad in an already bad situation when Danny gets removed.

4. Zephyr Singer

(3,837 Inclusions, 1% of 571,431 Decks)

Another slam dunk! Zephyr Singer would usually be expensive at four mana, but in a deck that likes to untap things you're going to have no issue tapping down four Petitioners to play this down, draw four cards, and then hopefully untap them and swing in for a bunch of damage.

3. Power Conduit

(11,421 Inclusions, 0% of 3,126,108 Decks)

Experienced "Weird Counter Typal" players will be more than familiar with Power Conduit, but for those that haven't played around with Charge counters before, welcome! This would be in the 99 no matter what, but the best use of this will be Mentoring a counter onto a Petitioner to then immediately boomerang it around and put it back on Danny, letting him make bigger creatures bigger and drawing you two cards for your trouble. And if you think that's good, just wait until you have an Everflowing Chalice in play.

2. Bloodline Pretender

(38,814 Inclusions, 1% of 3,126,108 Decks)

We didn't go over our corner cases here, but some of you may have been expecting Metallic Mimic in this number two slot. Unfortunately, it's not actually that great in the deck (although it may still be good enough for the 99), because it puts counters on as creatures enter the battlefield, rather than waiting until they enter and then triggering Danny. This is true for a whole slough of cards that would otherwise be here, but alas.

Luckily, Bloodline Pretender is here to save the day. It's an Advisor, it's a Human, and it's going to draw cards and get huge. Everything we want in our bizarre bureaucratic aggro brew is right here, in a single package.

1. Ledger Shredder

(52,747 Inclusions, 4% of 1,330,899 Decks)

If you'd paid me $1000, I never could have told you that Ledger Shredder was an Advisor. In the running for best blue two-drop of all time, sure, but an Advisor? Get outta town. As for how it will play in this deck, I think it will average drawing you five cards a turn cycle when your commander is in play and be swinging in for three or more by the time it loses summoning sickness. In short, it will be the best card in the deck, the same as it's the best card in this list.

Honorable Mentions

First off, we've gotta get some of those Proliferate cards out there, because they are going to be what pushes this deck over the top:

Top 10 Non-land, Mono-Blue Proliferate Effects

There are some immediate wins here, with Thrummingbird probably being the MVP of the aggro build that wants to focus on +1/+1 counters. Flux Channeler also lives up to the "I am a creature you can put +1/+1 counters on that will also have you repeatedly proliferating" bill, although it is slightly worse than it is in most decks, given the crazy amount of creatures we'll be playing. Staff of Compleation ticks too many boxes for us not to be stoked about it in a deck that wants proliferate and is starving for ramp to keep laying down Petitioners.

Honestly though, I think this list misses some of the best Proliferate effects out there, the simple "thing I already want to do, but with Proliferate tacked on" demographic. Contentious Plan and Tezzeret's Gambit fit this bill, but there are a ton more of these effects that we'll be able to make room for:

I've talked before about how I'm not the biggest fan of Fuel for the Cause, and I stand by that. For one mana less and Reject Imperfection, however? Sign me up! The card I'm surprised to not be seeing windmill slammed into every deck that cares about counters, however, is Serum Snare. Two-mana instants that can return nonland permanents are something every deck with access to blue should be playing, and proliferate is a hell of a boondoggle to attach to that for the same price. Lastly, Experimental Augury is better than Contentious Plan. Let's start letting the numbers reflect that.

All right, we've got our initial +1/+1 counters, our Proliferate effects for them, and we've acquired 20 loud folks who Danny's convinced to get rowdy in a whole new way. Let's see the deck!

To be clear about this nonsense pile, I do not believe that this is actually better than most Danny Pink brews you'll see out there. It will be much easier to just copy paste in every cheap blue creature that cares about +1/+1 counters and forget about the typal element. With that said, I do think this brew is a blast, and will be able to win both through aggro and self-mill as you excavate through the top of your library with both Petitioners and Pink, resulting in ever more Petitioners.

Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

What Do You Think?

As a big fan of Persistent Petitioners, the hatred of mill has always kind of made me chuckle. I would say more than half the time, by trying to mill out my opponents, I'm actually helping them as they get key pieces (or just masses of creatures) in their graveyards. With that in mind, and with the amount of card draw in this deck, I went with self-mill this time instead, slotting in a Thassa's Oracle on the off chance it was easier to win that way than push through someone's pillow fort.

Only, surely that's not actually the preferred option?

And finally, what's your Persistent Petitioners commander of choice? Are you brewing up Danny Pink or any of the other Doctor Who commanders?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the table that appears to be being actively sanded down to nothing on a nightly basis in between our games? I'm sure it's fine.

cytoplast manipulator

Too-Specific Top 10 - Aggro Advisors