Are you a fan of unusual Commander decks? Do you enjoy the Jeskai (white-blue-red) color combination? In that case, you’re going to love the Counter Intelligence precon.
In this article you’ll find everything concerning this deck: decklist, new cards, commander overviews, and even some early upgrade ideas. Let’s start by examining what this deck is all about.
Boosting Artifacts & Proliferating Counters
Counter Intelligence actually features two themes and combines them into a unique experience. When playing this deck, you’ll be casting a lot of artifacts, and also proliferate some counters.
Artifacts are a fairly common theme in Commander, and there are plenty of ways to use them. Counters are also often present, but the vast majority of them are +1/+1 counters. While some of those are be present, that won’t be the main direction of the deck. Charge counters are making a comeback instead.
This way proliferating might be even more exciting than usual, even though it’s already a popular mechanic. The color combination assures that Counter Intelligence plays out much differently than Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice deck would. (For newer players: that’s one of the most popular commanders in the last decade.)
Anyhow, shall we check more specifics about this precon?
Counter Intelligence Decklist
The new cards’ hover images might not be working, but you can find all of them in the next section.
Counter Intelligence Spoilers
First, we’ll do a quick overview of the both commanders. Below them you can find the other 10 new cards included in this deck.
Main Commander: Inspirit, Flagship Vessel
The main commander is a spacecraft. That’s a new card type, kinda similar to the vehicles. You can tap your creatures to put charge counters on it, and when it has enough, it unlocks new abilities and eventually becomes a creature. For more details about how exactly that works, check our Spacecraft Rules article.
Getting to that first level is pretty easy. You only need to tap a creature with at least 1 power. Then you can start putting +1/+1 counters on your creatures or charge counters on other artifacts. Especially strong with proliferate cards in the deck.
Even better reward is unlocked at eight charge counters. Inspirit becomes a 5/5 flyer that grants your other artifacts hexproof and indestructible. If you can manage to protect Inspirit, you’re opponents will have a hard time removing your board.
Secondary Commander: Kilo, Apogee Mind
The second commander features a really clean design. Three mana for a hasty 3/3 that proliferates when it becomes tapped. Proliferate is a popular mechanic, and there’s no doubt that this commander will also end up being the crowd’s favorite.
If you want to build around it, there are a bunch of ways to abuse it, as you’ll see in the next section. On the other hand, you could also build a more fair deck, that just generates value over the course of a longer game.
Withing the Counter Intelligence precon, it’ll probably be pretty solid, as it does a ton of work, although it’s a clean design.
Other 10 New Cards
Counter Intelligence Upgrade Ideas
Before we wrap up, here are a just a few upgrade ideas. Lately, cards that worked well with precon commanders have been known to raise in price even before the set’s release. Thus, these three cards might be solid pickups, especially since they are very budget friendly right now.
Cayth, Famed Mechanist
First up, here’s a card that’s strong on its own, but also plays well with both of the deck’s themes. Cayth can create a bunch of artifact tokens, plus she proliferates. Potentially, you could even swap her for the main commander to spice things up with a slightly different game plan.
Magistrate’s Scepter
Paying a total of fifteen mana is obviously too much for an extra turn. However, your main commander, Inspirit, can put two charge counters on it for free. Then you need just a single proliferate trigger to get to three counters and an extra turn.
If you manage to do that, you can probably repeat that on the next turn. And the next turn. And — okay, you get the gist. You can essentially take infinite turns with this artifact and some support. Sometimes you’ll only be able to take one or two, but for a three mana investment, that’s more than enough.
Keep in mind, that if your play group doesn’t support infinite extra turns, then this obviously isn’t an ideal addition.
Aura of Dominion
Finally, this enchantment is a niche card . However, imagine a scenario, where it enchants your secondary commander Kilo, Apogee Mind, and you also control Pentad Prism. (That one is already included in the deck.) This allows you to proliferate as many times as you want:
- You pay 1 mana and tap Kilo to untap Kilo.
- Since Kilo was tapped you can now proliferate. You put an additional charge counter on Pentad Prism, plus additional counters on whatever else benefits you.
- You remove a charge counter from Pirsm and get 1 mana.
Now you just repeat those steps, and keep proliferating. Now this doesn’t win the game by itself, but it can get your planeswalkers to their ultimate abilities or grow your creatures with +1/+1 counters to an arbitrary size.
Of course, if you managed to cast Prologue to Phyresis at some point, it does actually win on the spot, as you can just proliferate poison counters on your opponents.
Now again, this is a very specific card, best suited if you use Kile as your main commander. So if you don’t like this combo, you shouldn’t get it. On the other hand, it’s a pretty old card, so if you want it, now is probably a good time to pick it up, as its price could spike. Plus, it’s a weird card, so it’s unlikely it sees a reprint anytime soon.
Want more suggestions? Check our full Counter Intelligence Upgrade Guide.
Intelligent Moves
With that, we’re wrapping out Counter Intelligence overview. Do you want to know about other Edge of Eternities Commander Precons? Check out our article about World Shaper deck.
Oh, and there are also some good news for players who like to pimp their mana bases. 45 iconic lands are getting a reprint with Stellar Sights bonus sheet. As befits this set, they are all space-themed.
Until next time, may you always have enough counters to gain maximum value from proliferating.