Edge of Eternities released two months ago now - almost three, even. Can you believe it's already been so long? In that time, we've already seen the release of Marvel's Spider-Man, early release info and previews for Lorwyn Eclipsed and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and now Avatar: the Last Airbender is right around the corner. Seriously, previews start next week! It feels like there hasn't been nearly enough time to breathe and talk about this awesome space opera-themed set.

My own content is an excellent example of this! Back in August, after wrapping up a large chunk of my content for Final Fantasy, I wrote my usual Commander precon upgrade articles for the set. As it happens, I only got around to writing one of them, with a far more interesting and timely topic taking priority for me. Several months later and in the wake of Spider-Man's failure, I think it's now time I finally got around to covering that second deck: Counter Intelligence!

Last time I talked about the World Shaper deck, a list that focused heavily on sacrificing lands for value. This time we're leaning into something a bit more straightforward than that: playing artifacts and artifact creatures, then putting counters onto them! Best of all is that not only does the commander fuel this strategy - it can also make all of your artifacts indestructible as well!

Additionally, this deck continues the trend of being helmed by a legendary spacecraft: Inspirit, Flagship Vessel. This was meant to showcase the latest update to the Commander rules which enables both legendary spacecrafts and vehicles to be your commander going forward. As such, Inspirit helms the deck as a spacecraft, though you can always go the more traditional method with the creature backup commander of Kilo, Apogee Mind.

So, with the basics out of the way, let's have a look at the list and get to upgrading!

Counter Intelligence Precon | Commander

• Commander (1)
• 1 Inspirit, Flagship Vessel

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Alibou, Ancient Witness
• 1 Angel of the Ruins
• 1 Chrome Host Seedshark
• 1 Coretapper
• 1 Crystalline Crawler
• 1 Cyberdrive Awakener
• 1 Deepglow Skate
• 1 Depthshaker Titan
• 1 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
• 1 Enthusiastic Mechanaut
• 1 Etched Oracle
• 1 Etherium Sculptor
• 1 Hangarback Walker
• 1 Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain
• 1 Kappa Cannoneer
• 1 Kilo, Apogee Mind
• 1 Mindless Automaton
• 1 Patrolling Peacemaker
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Steel Overseer
• 1 Surge Conductor
• 1 Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus
• 1 Thought Monitor
• 1 Threefold Thunderhulk
• 1 Thrummingbird

• Instants (8)
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Dispatch
• 1 Experimental Augury
• 1 Pull from Tomorrow
• 1 Ripples of Potential
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Thirst for Knowledge

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Chain Reaction
• 1 Fumigate
• 1 Organic Extinction
• 1 Tezzeret's Gambit
• 1 Universal Surveillance
• 1 Wake the Past

• Enchantments (1)
• 1 Resourceful Defense

• Artifacts (19)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Astral Cornucopia
• 1 Cloud Key
• 1 Darksteel Reactor
• 1 Empowered Autogenerator
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Gavel of the Righteous
• 1 Golem Foundry
• 1 Insight Engine
• 1 Long-Range Sensor
• 1 Lux Artillery
• 1 Lux Cannon
• 1 Moxite Refinery
• 1 Pentad Prism
• 1 Solar Array
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Soul-Guide Lantern
• 1 Titan Forge
• 1 Uthros Research Craft

• Lands (40)
• 3 Island
• 3 Mountain
• 3 Plains
• 1 Adarkar Wastes
• 1 Ancient Den
• 1 Battlefield Forge
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cascade Bluffs
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Glittering Massif
• 1 Great Furnace
• 1 Irrigated Farmland
• 1 Karn's Bastion
• 1 Lonely Sandbar
• 1 Mystic Monastery
• 1 Radiant Summit
• 1 Razortide Bridge
• 1 Rugged Prairie
• 1 Rustvale Bridge
• 1 Seat of the Synod
• 1 Secluded Steppe
• 1 Shivan Reef
• 1 Silverbluff Bridge
• 1 Skycloud Expanse
• 1 Spire of Industry
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Temple of Epiphany
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 1 The Mycosynth Gardens

Buy This Deck Export text

I really love getting up to some nonsense with the versatility of +1/+1 counters and charge counters on artifacts. Back when I first started playing Commander in the early 2010s, I was building Sharuum the Hegemon. This was helped tremendously by my recent pickup of Duel Decks: Elspeth vs. Tezzeret which included cards like Steel Overseer, Triskelion, Pentavus, and Energy Chamber that fueled the deck tremendously.

Of those four cards, only Steel Overseer is here, but I think each works well in a deck like this - far more than Sharuum. Energy Chamber in particular is an excellent card that isn't in the precon but fuels both sides of the strategy, making it a solid place to start as far as upgrades go. Both Triskelion and Pentavus are great as well because they grow even more useful the more counters you have access to. With +1/+1 counter granters and various proliferate cards, each makes for an easy addition to a deck like this.

This is just me waxing a bit of nostalgia, though, in thinking back on how I myself would utilize this sort of strategy back in the day. If anything, that makes it all the more fun to try finding new ways to play around with a deck like this. So how about we lean into a little more nostalgia because the next spot I want to touch is very much a blast from the past.

We're talking about +1/+1 counters after all, so let's talk about the Arcbound creatures. These came to mind because, naturally, they're the type of artifact creature that benefits the most from these kinds of counters. If they die, then their counters simply move to another artifact creature, thereby continuing to power up your creatures. Obviously, the classic example here is Arcbound Ravager - a Constructed powerhouse that does pretty well here too if you have some artifacts you're willing to sacrifice.

What about the rest of them, though? Are any really worth a damn? Well, to be blunt, most of them kind of suck. They largely amount to things like Arcbound Worker, Arcbound Stinger, Arcbound Prototype, and so on. Cards that work well for Limited and maybe Constructed but don't lend themselves well to a format like Commander. There are a couple standouts, though.

Arcbound Reclaimer is probably the most obvious one of these. It provides a way to continually buy back and replay your artifacts after they die (perhaps to a Ravager sacrifice). Naturally, it was originally meant to only give you two shots at it, but in a deck like this it's a no brainer to get multiple activations. Arcbound Shikari also works great as a means to pump your board and still benefit from the modular ability. You could also perhaps lean into cards like Arcbound Tracker, Arcbound Crusher, and Arcbound Fiend if you want a threat that gets massive, but I think you can find cooler things than those one-note offerings.

So, beyond the Arcbound cards, Triskelion, and Pentavus - how many other artifact creatures really care about +1/+1 counters? By my searching on Scryfall, there are only 92 others in the Jeskai color identity. Most of them are pretty mediocre. Do you really want a card like Clockwork Beetle or Clockwork Condor in your Commander deck? I thought not.

Triskelion and Pentavus have a few variants to work off if you'd like some redundancy. Monoskelion is a miniature version of Triskelion that still loves having more +1/+1 counters on it for pinging. If you like turning your counters into pingers, Triskelavus works great as a Pentavus variant. Or, if you have the money to spend on it, you could simply shell out for a Walking Ballista and call it a day. I also really like Hexavus as a different take on the Pentavus (or more accurately Tetravus) that instead of making small creatures, it gives your other creatures flying - a solid move!

If you want to turn your +1/+1 counters into value, there's some really sweet options as well. Want to make extra mana? Give the Exodus classic Workhorse a try. Want to draw some cards? Walking Atlas gets extremely goofy really fast, or just shove all your counters onto a Marketback Walker. You can even stick it onto Rust Harvester to deal damage or Spinal Parasite to chip away at your opponents' counters.

There just so happens to be a couple options on the Universes Beyond front, should you be willing to go that route in your upgrades. Jetfire, Ingenious Scientist // Jetfire, Air Guardian plays quite a bit like the aforementioned Workhorse. Similarly, Arcee, Sharpshooter // Arcee, Acrobatic Coupe also provides a means of mowing down creatures left and right as well. Mister Gutsy has minimal ways to boost it with auras and equipment, but the counters from Inspirit and your deck's other cards make it very easy to make tons of Junk tokens. Oh, and the newest addition would easily be SP//dr, Piloted by Peni, which doesn't really take advantage of counters on its own, but generates tons of value from your other creatures with counters on them.

Having looked at the cards that care about +1/+1 counters, what about the ones that care about charge counters? Several awesome options are here already, like Pentad Prism, Everflowing Chalice, Astral Cornucopia, Lux Cannon, and even the mighty Darksteel Reactor saw a reprint here! With so many sweet options already present in this deck, are there any worth looking into from the roughly 90 cards that care about charge counters in Jeskai? Turns out there's quite a few!

One of my favorite types of these cards are the ones that come in with a set number of counters and lack ways to put more on them. With the help of Inspirit and various proliferate effects, it's easy to ramp them up and generate even more value! I'm talking about cards like Orochi Hatchery and Clearwater Goblet. Each is clearly only meant to reach low numbers, but they can get out of control really fast in a deck like this. Similarly, Transmogrifying Wand only comes in with three counters. Here, however, it can get many more, thereby allowing you to repeatedly blow up problematic creatures.

Another set are ones the cards that take time to build up, but are often slow to do so. Take something like Magistrate's Scepter, Otherworldly Atlas, Adaptive Training Post, and Grindclock. Each does powerful things, but can only be done so often. This is also true of one-shot cards like Shrine of Burning Rage and Shrine of Loyal Legions. With Inspirit, you can get activations off quickly for massive effects, leading to massive swings in gameplay. This is also true of something like Door of Destinies, which gets out of control even for creature types you're only running a small number of. Call golems or constructs and watch your opponents weep.

The other classic that I noticed in my search were a certain pair of Jitte cards. That's right - I'm talking Umezawa's Jitte and Lost Jitte. Umezawa's Jitte is often cited as the more powerful one, and rightly so, but that holds less water in Commander. Lost Jitte excels by comparison, giving you more versatile options that might not be as good in a format like Standard. Both are awesome when you can put counters on them without relying on damage, though, making for excellent options to include in this deck.

I could talk about things like proliferate all day, but most of the good ones are already here. Maybe look into cards like Filigree Vector or Inexorable Tide if you really want to push the envelope, but you've already got some great options here. That's especially true when the deck's alternate commander - Kilo, Apogee Mind - does if for you and the awesome reprint of Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus takes your proliferation even further.

The one other thing that I wanted to touch on, though, was finding ways to protect Inspirit itself. After all, Inspirit gives all of your other artifacts hexproof and indestructible. However, that doesn't include itself, thereby making it quite vulnerable to removal. In fact, it rather surprised me how few means of offering protection are in this deck in the first place!

Naturally, you can give it indestructible in a few different ways. These are fairly obvious with the likes of Darksteel Plate, Mithril Coat, and Shield of Kaldra. You can even go further if you want and run Darksteel Forge. That way even if your Inspirit isn't on the battlefield, it becomes hard for your opponents to interact with your board.

The other means is to give hexproof or shroud. It's honestly surprising that there isn't a copy of Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots in this deck. Perhaps it's because the designers wanted to leave Inspirit with a bit of vulnerability for newer players to deal with, but let's be real: they're the easiest inclusions in the world here. Similarly to the Darksteel Forge route, you can also go a bit more extreme and go for a mass shroud effect. Indomitable Archangel is a great choice here, and is very affordable. If you want something a little harder to interact with, though, might I suggest Hanna's Custody?

This is but a taste of the innumerable options you can put into a deck like this. I merely looked into the ones that could best suit the counters Inspirit provides, but I barely scratched the surface on the kinds of cards you could include in this regardless! Artifact decks are always absolute treasure troves of fantastic options, meaning there's no shortage of ways for you to make this deck the most fun for your next Commander night.

Edge of Eternities ruled and both of these Commander decks are great examples of why. Be sure to check them out and find cool new cards to make them even better!

Paige Smith

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/themaverickgirl.bsky.social

Twitch: twitch.tv/themaverickgirl

YouTube: TheMaverickGal