(Lulu, Stern GuardianLulu, Stern Guardian | Art by Arou)

Number Go Up

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 Energy VortexEnergy Vortex is the only blue card that can deal damage based on the amount of counters it has?)

Lulu, Stern GuardianLulu, Stern Guardian is a great rattlesnake. She punishes anyone who would attack you, slowing combat damage you might take down to a crawl.

But I'm actually more interested in her activated ability. Viral DrakeViral Drake in the command zone seems like a hot ticket, to put it mildly.

Why so? Well, because there are a ton of cards you can stack counters on that make mana based on the amount of counters they have.

Top 10 Blue Cards That Make Mana Based in Some Way on the Amount of Counters Something Has

1. Everflowing ChaliceEverflowing Chalice
2. Replicating RingReplicating Ring
3. Astral CornucopiaAstral Cornucopia
4. Glistening SphereGlistening Sphere
5. Coalition RelicCoalition Relic
6. Mage-Ring NetworkMage-Ring Network
7. The AethersparkThe Aetherspark
8. Component PouchComponent Pouch
9. Elementalist's PaletteElementalist's Palette
10. Séance BoardSéance Board

In other words, you can get yourself into a bit of a repetition where you put counters on a whole bunch of things by tapping them for mana, and then when you untap them, they make more mana, so you can put more counters on them.

Only, what's the end-game with all those counters?

Top 10 Blue Permanents That Care About Having a Lot of Counters on Them

Criteria: Permanents within the blue color identity that check for having counters on them or something else, said check looking for at least five counters, and resulting in something other than just mana or multiple permanents that make mana (get outta here, Replicating RingReplicating Ring!). As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

10. Archmage AscensionArchmage Ascension

(10,366 Inclusions, 0.33% of 3,096,362 Decks)

Repeatedly tutoring is the end-game state of a Competitive EDH game, but it turns out that in casual, it's pretty good as well.

In other words, if you can manage to stack six quest counters on Archmage AscensionArchmage Ascension, you're probably either getting your Archmage Ascension removed or winning the game.

The only problem? There's gonna be a lot of shuffling before actually winning said game. In other words? You decide whether or not you want to run this card.

9. Darksteel ReactorDarksteel Reactor

(11,135 Inclusions, 0.18% of 6,276,789 Decks)

Can you count to 20? Well, to do it with Lulu, Stern GuardianLulu, Stern Guardian, you first need to count to 80. Why? Well, because you're going to pay four mana every time you put a counter on Darksteel ReactorDarksteel Reactor.

Is that doable? That all depends on how many counters you're stacking on other things that make mana. For my money? I think you can probably actually get there fairly quickly.

8. Lost Isle CallingLost Isle Calling

(11,481 Inclusions, 0.37% of 3,096,362 Decks)

I like Lost Isle CallingLost Isle Calling a lot, but there's an issue: it's not actually very good outside of scry decks. Even in Lulu, Lost Isle probably won't do very much most of the time, as you'll have to do an initial scry to get an initial counter on it.

Without that initial scry? Congratulations, you've put down a two-mana enchantment with essentially no rules text on it.

7. Weatherlight CompleatedWeatherlight Compleated

(Helms 51 Decks, Rank #3,018; 11,639 Inclusions, 0.19% of 6,276,789 Decks)

I feel similarly about Weatherlight CompleatedWeatherlight Compleated. In an Aristocrats deck (which it can now helm), this thing is amazing. If you're not killing creatures left and right, though? Then this doesn't do much.

Sure, it will eventually be able to attack, after happenstance gets one of your creatures killed, but even then, you won't get anything for stacking more counters on it through Lulu or other proliferate shenanigans.

6. Lux ArtilleryLux Artillery

(14,501 Inclusions, 0.23% of 6,276,789 Decks)

Lux ArtilleryLux Artillery, on the other hand, is ludicrously easy to turn on in any deck dedicated to counters. It's also a bit do-nothing, given that the 10 damage a turn doesn't do anything to the board state.

That said, 10 damage a turn is a heck of a clock to put a table on, to say nothing of how that clock gets quicker if you do have a focus on artifact creatures.

5. Idol of False GodsIdol of False Gods

(18,074 Inclusions, 0.40% of 4,465,589 Decks)

I'm torn on Idol of False GodsIdol of False Gods. On the one hand, it's cheap to get out, and is also a fairly cheap token-maker. On the other hand, what we're really talking about is a card that you have to pump four mana into before it does anything, and at that point, you have a 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn to show for it.

Even in a counter deck like Lulu, you're talking about paying that four mana and then proliferating eight times before this becomes a creature. The creature it becomes is more than relevant, however. An 8/8 with Annihilator 2 will absolutely affect a table.

Still, that seems more like letting the payoff of a planeswalker ult make your judgment on how good a planeswalker is, and that's not what you should do.

Evaluating a planeswalker is about the abilities that you'll get to use all the time, and if we apply that same thinking to Idol of False GodsIdol of False Gods, it just comes up lacking.

4. Strixhaven StadiumStrixhaven Stadium

(26,707 Inclusions, 0.43% of 6,276,789 Decks)

One of the first three-mana rocks to ask "is this enough upside that you'll play me?", Strixhaven StadiumStrixhaven Stadium hasn't gotten an overwhelming "yes" in that area, but it hasn't gotten a unanimous "no", either. Which... it probably should have.

In the same vein as Idol of False GodsIdol of False Gods, this rock just doesn't do much until it really does the thing. That said, the thing here is so impactful, and so fun, that I'm inclined to go against my logical half and say we should be playing this anyhow.

I would imagine that sentiment is true of the other 26,000 folks who have said something similar in playing this.

3. The Millennium CalendarThe Millennium Calendar

(29,773 Inclusions, 0.52% of 5,682,781 Decks)

It's been a while since I dived deep into a plan to make infinite tokens to turn on The Millennium CalendarThe Millennium Calendar, but I still think it's pretty much the only reasonable way to use the card.

Well, at least it was, until I ran into a commander that can infinitely proliferate. Lulu, Stern GuardianLulu, Stern Guardian's repeatably activated ability can turn infinite mana into an easy win with the Calendar, and it's not even something you really have to dedicate a deck to.

It turns that it's good to play a bunch of things that make more mana when you proliferate them with your commander that can proliferate, and that there are multiple board states you can get yourself into where when you pay four mana to proliferate, the counters you just distributed can add up to four more mana.

Top 10 Mono-Blue Permanents That Can Remove a Counter Without Tapping to Add Mana

1. Coalition RelicCoalition Relic
2. Crystalline CrawlerCrystalline Crawler
3. Cryptic TrilobiteCryptic Trilobite
4. Pentad PrismPentad Prism
5. Jetfire, Ingenious ScientistJetfire, Ingenious Scientist
6. WorkhorseWorkhorse
7. Gemstone ArrayGemstone Array
8. IcebergIceberg
9. ...

Now, are many of these cards bad, especially in mono-blue? Absolutely. But put four of them on the battlefield, and you're now taking counters off of four permanents to pay for an ability that will put those counters right back on them. Bing, bang, boom: 1,000 counters on The Millennium CalendarThe Millennium Calendar.

2. Vexing PuzzleboxVexing Puzzlebox

(33,539 Inclusions, 0.53% of 6,276,789 Decks)

We just did 1,000 counters, so what do we care for a measly 100? Of course, our payoff of "go grab any artifact to the battlefield" is a lot less than The Millennium CalendarThe Millennium Calendar's "you win the game", right?

Well, except if we were infinite we could go grab Calendar, so it ends up the same. That said, Lulu isn't going to be going infinite most of the time, she's just going to be going a lot.

Which is more than good enough for Vexing PuzzleboxVexing Puzzlebox, especially in a deck that will likely be running all of the Voltaic KeyVoltaic Keys to untap huge Empowered AutogeneratorEmpowered Autogenerators and the like. In other words, we love Vexing Puzzlebox, both as a finisher and as just a toolbox.

1. Twenty-Toed ToadTwenty-Toed Toad

(Helms 2177 Decks, Rank #63; 26255 Inclusions, 15% of 172410 Decks)

Twenty-Toed ToadTwenty-Toed Toad looks like a second copy of Darksteel ReactorDarksteel Reactor, and that would be good enough for our purposes if that's all it was.

Turns out, however, when you're playing mono-blue and stacking counters on things, it's also pretty easy to draw a bunch of cards.

That means that our twenty-focused Toad's second win condition can be even more achievable than his first, depending on what board he's wandered into. Either way, though, our number one card is our number one card in the deck!

Honorable Mentions

What deck? Hang on, let's talk about a few more cards that go into it first.

While we'll probably be more winning with the likes of Darksteel ReactorDarksteel Reactor or Twenty-Toed ToadTwenty-Toed Toad, let's not forget that the likes of Lux ArtilleryLux Artillery uses damage, and in that world, there's a card that can speed up that clock by quite a bit: Lightning CoilsLightning Coils. Each counter removed gets you a mini-Ball LightningBall Lightning, which adds up quick.

If it's not quick enough, however, there's always plopping down a Sage of HoursSage of Hours next to it to give you some more time.

Unfortunately, it'll probably be all too easy to make that "extra time" into "infinite turns" in this deck, however, so if you're trying to keep things in the lower brackets, I'd advise against it.

And with that, we've got a good idea of which cards are providing our wins, so let's take a look at the deck and see how easy it is to find them and get them turned on:

If you were looking for a deck that didn't have the danger of 20-minute turns, I suggest you look elsewhere. If you are hopelessly addicted to a deck that will make you be efficient and come up with systems to deal with triggers and what have you, however, then this is the deck for you.

With a third of the deck being dedicated to ramp, even if it's slow ramp, things get going at a good clip by turn four or five.

After that, even folks removing Lulu repeatedly doesn't do much, as you tend to just be drowning in so much mana that you can just recast her and immediately begin handing out counters again.

It's a blast to play, although it's definitely a deck you'll have to practice with so you're not boring your opponents.

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?

It's rare that I find a bracket two deck that can have a fairly routine combo plan, so I have to know:

And finally, what is your favorite counter-based win condition? Do you currently play it in any decks? If you built Lulu, is that how you'd try to win, or would you stick with the more common +1/+1 counter stuff?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the table that appears to have gone vertically with dice. Oh, dear.