Last week I took you on an exploration of not one but two decklists built around Sin, Spira's Punishment. Apparently, I'm a fan of Sin because I've decided to take a look at another card from the Final Fantasy Universes Beyond set dedicated to this Leviathan Avatar. Sin is from Final Fantasy X, but I won't dive into its backstory. I only played a few of the Final Fantasy games and the tenth installment is one I somehow missed.

Whether you're a fan of the games or not, it's hard not to get your creative juices flowing when you take a look at this seven mana behemoth.

Sin, Unending Cataclysm costs seven mana in Simic colors, and is a 5/5 Leviathan Avatar with flying and trample. As it enters, I can remove all counters from any number of artifacts, creatures and enchantments. Sin enters with twice as many +1/+1 counters as I removed when it enters. When Sin dies, I'll put its counters on target creature I control and then shuffle Sin into my library.

The first thing to note is that Sin's ability to remove counters doesn't target. That's huge and will work really well against problematic threats that have ward, hexproof or shroud.

The next thing to note is that I can go in a lot of interesting directions with this commander, but I don't want to build around Planeswalkers. It's easy to get distracted by the idea of taking counters off of permanents, but Sin's ability only works with artifacts, creatures and enchantments. You could use Liquimetal Coating to turn a planeswalker into an artifact but I don't feel like that's a reliable enough plan to build around.

The last thing worth mentioning is that the death trigger isn't a problem. In commander any time your commander goes between zones, you can choose to put it into the command zone. That means it will die, I'll put its counters on a creature, and then I'll put it into the command zone rather than shuffling it into my library.

Paths Not Taken

It goes without saying that I'm not building a Superfriends (planeswalkers) deck with Sin, but there are a few other build paths that I considered but decided not to pursue.

Hydras! Kalonian Hydra is the biggest reason I might have considered building around Hydras. Kalonian Hydra has an attack trigger that will double the number of +1/+1 counters on each creature I control. Managorger Hydra is another fine specimen from that tribe which gets a +1/+1 counter each time a player casts a spell. The problem with Hydras is that Sin is an all-or-nothing counter stealer. I can either leave a Hydra alone, or I can pull all of the +1/+1 counters off of it. Hydras usually have 0/0 stat lines so I'd probably be killing any Hydra I pulled the counters from. That's great if it's an opponent's Hydra, but not so great if it's my own.

Sagas are enchantments, so it's definitely tempting to build around Sagas. They get lore counters, but they also get sacrificed when their last lore counter is put on them. That's not great, as my goal is to have as many possible counter sources in play as possible when I cast my commander. If I play an early-game Saga and sacrifice it before I'm able to play Sin, it won't do Sin much good. Sagas are certainly playable with Sin. You can reset them all back to zero lore counters every time Sin enters play, but I didn't build around sagas.

Another option that tempted me was to build around creatures with the graft keyword. Creatures with graft enter the battlefield with +1/+1 counters and when a creature enters the battlefield I can move a counter from the creature with graft over to it. There are a dozen creatures with graft in blue and/or green, so there are plenty of options. I think they'd be fine for a lower powered Sin deck, and some of them are decent, but I didn't build around creatures with graft..

The last major build path I could have looked at was a hug style Sin deck. Hug is a style of play where you go out of your way to give your tablemates stuff to help them out. Usually it's extra card draw and the ability to produce more mana. With Sin the logical thing would be to give their creatures +1/+1 counters. The problem is that it would feel like the most disingenuous hug deck ever built. Your commander tells them exactly what's going to happen with those +1/+1 counters, and it's scary enough that they will be incentivized to take your gifts and murder you with them before you can even get Sin on the field.

Counter Shenanigans

There may be plenty of things I didn't do with this build, but it's time to look at what I did put into today's decklist.

I'm playing a healthy 30 creatures, as I want lots of bodies on the field in case I hit a card that can put counters on all of my creatures. Defiler of Vigor will put a +1/+1 counter on each creature I control whenever I cast a green permanent spell. I'm also running Vigor, an Elemental Incarnation that will prevent any damage to creatures I control and will turn that damage into +1/+1 counters. Usually Vigor just keeps anyone from attacking you, and that's fine by me.

Bane of Progress is in the list as a way to clear the field of artifacts and enchantments, but in this list it won't always make sense to play it. When Bane enters play, I'll destroy all artifacts and enchantments and put a +1/+1 counter on it for each permanent it destroyed. That's fine if I don't have anything great under my control but there's a decent chance I'll have something I won't want to blow up.

A great example of this is The Ozolith, an artifact that gets +1/+1 counters put on it whenever a creature I control that had counters on it leaves play. This isn't a flicker deck, but flickering Sin with 5 +1/+1 counters would let me put those counters on The Ozolith and then get them back, but doubled to 10 +1/+1 counters when Sin enters play again. Deadeye Navigator and The Ozolith, could work wonders together.

Midnight Clock is the kind of artifact I might not want to blow up or strip the counters from. It's a mana rock that gets an hour counter at the beginning of each upkeep, and when it gets its twelfth counter I'll shuffle my hand and graveyard into my library, draw seven cards, and exile it. There may be times where I'd rather play Sin and grab all of those hour counters. Ten hour counters would turn into 20 +1/+1 counters, making Sin a very serious threat.

I'm also running Contagion Clasp, which will enter and put a -1/-1 counter on each creature target player controls. That's a great way to wipe out an army of 1/1 creatures, but if I can use it to nerf an army of 2/2 creatures, I'll be happy to play Sin on a later turn and remove all those -1/-1 counters. Clasp also has the ability to proliferate twice for four mana. A few activations in the right situation could set me up to have a really huge commander.

The best artifact for this build might be The Millenium Calendar. It will get a time counter for each permanent I untap during my untap step, and I can pay two mana and tap it to double those time counters. It's a wincon if I can get it up to 1,000, but a much smaller number of time counters can turn into a very lethal legendary Leviathan Avatar if I pull the counters off of it and turn them into +1/+1 counters.

I ended up leaving out Helix Pinnacle, an enchantment that has shroud and which can win me the game. I can put counters on Helix Pinnacle by paying mana, and Sin can take those counters because his ETB trigger doesn't target. It's good and might be worth looking at if you can make huge or even infinite amounts of mana in your Sin deck.

Death and Counters

Sin has a great ETB trigger, but it's also got a really interesting death trigger. When Sin dies I'll put its counters on target creature I control. That means the work I put in to get those counters isn't wasted effort.

Turning Sin's untimely demise into card draw seems like a pretty good plan, though it's definitely worth asking why I'd ever want to kill my sweet baby Leviathan Avatar. The bottom line is that you never know what's going to happen to your creatures. Sin has flying and trample, so it stands to reason that someone might deal with it before it kills them.

If I'm stuck under a Meekstone or there's an aura keeping Sin from attacking, I might look to a card like Life's Legacy to turn my lemons into lemonade. The +1/+1 counters on it will just go onto another creature I control and I'll draw cards equal to Sin's power. Sorcery speed answers aren't the best, but I've got a few instant speed options as well. Momentous Fall will have me draw cards equal to the sacrificed creature's power and gain life equal to its toughness.

I'm also running Greater Good, which is an enchantment that will let me sacrifice a creature to draw cards equal to its power and then discard three cards. I never like discarding cards, but it's highly unlikely Greater Good won't be worth using in a pinch. That pinch could come in the form of a boardwipe, a Mind Control aura on the stack, or even just a one mana Path to Exile. I'll almost always do better to draw a mess of cards before Sin gets removed.

When Sin dies, I'll put all those counters on another creature I control. I might not have anything more exciting than a Fertilid or Mulldrifter in play, but there's a chance I'll have something much better as an option.

Mindless Automaton is a construct that enters with two +1/+1 counters and has the ability to let me remove two +1/+1 counters to draw a card. With enough counters that could be a decent number of cards. If I've got a Fathom Mage in play, I can give it Sin's +1/+1 counters when Sin dies, and draw that many cards. I think this deck has the potential to be able to draw itself out if it were tuned up with that in mind. You'd want to run Laboratory Maniac and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, and it wouldn't be easy, but I think it's a decent plan.

In the right situation I might even turn a Sin death trigger into a dead tablemate. Blighted Agent has infect and is unblockable, so if Blighted Agent gets through for just 10 damage, that will mean 10 poison counters and a dead player. If I have Agent in play and can use Momentous Fall to put counters on it, I can swing for lethal. It doesn't have hexproof or ward, but it's still worth running if you're open to playing cards with infect.

Odds and Ends

This deck has a lot of random stuff that synergizes with my +1/+1 counter theme. I'm not going to go over every card in the deck but there are a few worth putting the spotlight on.

The Watcher in the Water is a legendary Kraken from the Lord of the Rings set that enters play with nine stun counters on it. Watcher is a 9/9 so pulling those stun counters off of it and putting twice as many +1/+1 counters on Sin is going to feel fantastic. If I can set myself up to draw a mess of cards during an opponent's turn, I'll make a mess of 1/1 Blue Tentacle creature tokens, though that isn't necessarily this deck's game plan.

Sheltering Ancient is an old Treefolk card with a cumulative upkeep that will have me put +1/+1 counters on an opponent's creature. If I don't pay that upkeep cost I'll have to sacrifice him. It's a bad card in many situations, but if I can get through four turns that will be 1+2+3+4 = 10 +1/+1 counters. If I can remove them all with a Sin ETB trigger, I'll put twenty +1/+1 counters on my commander. Not bad for a "bad" card, eh?

Sin, Unending Cacaclysm's death triggers represent so much potential for shenanigans. I already showed how they can be turned into card draw. If I put Sin's counters on Kami of Whispered Hopes or on Gyre Sage, either of those "big mana" mana dorks will now be able to tap for a ton of mana. Gyre Sage has evolve and Kami has the added ability to put an extra counter on a creature when I'm putting one or more counters on it. I'll probably be able to make enough mana to be able to play out Sin again, grabbing those counters back (and doubling them).

Unending Cataclysm

I don't love building around seven-mana commanders, but I've done it a lot lately and in Simic colors it's much easier to get that much mana in a reasonable number of turns. These expensive legendary creatures are often too costly to play in a fast, high powered meta, but also be too strong to play in a low powered meta where games go long enough to get to seven mana. This deck might feast on lower powered pods but it's also a great lesson in the value of playing countermagic and removal. It's scary and big, but it's got no built-in protection whatsoever.

The more I think about it, the more I suspect a Sin flicker deck could be a boatload of fun. A few flickers with a Fathom Mage in play and you could definitely find yourself drawing from an empty library. It all depends upon how much setup you've been able to do, but a Lab Man Sin brew could be a neat take on that style of deck. I don't love Lab Man in low-powered pods, even with a convoluted and challenging path to the wincon, but in mid powered (bracket 3?) pods I think it's not just fine, but fun and different enough to be worth trying.

Go-Sin, Unending Cataclysm | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Sin, Unending Cataclysm

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Ancient Bronze Dragon
• 1 Bane of Progress
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Blighted Agent
• 1 Defiler of Vigor
• 1 Druid of Purification
• 1 Evolution Sage
• 1 Fathom Mage
• 1 Fertilid
• 1 Forgotten Ancient
• 1 Generous Patron
• 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1 Gyre Sage
• 1 Heartwood Storyteller
• 1 Ivy Lane Denizen
• 1 Kami of Whispered Hopes
• 1 Mindless Automaton
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Pir, Imaginative Rascal
• 1 Renata, Called to the Hunt
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 1 Sheltering Ancient
• 1 Steelbane Hydra
• 1 The Watcher in the Water
• 1 Thrummingbird
• 1 Toothy, Imaginary Friend
• 1 Vigor
• 1 Vorel of the Hull Clade
• 1 Wall of Roots

• Spells (15)
• 1 AEtherize
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Harrow
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Momentous Fall
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Life's Legacy
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Rampant Growth

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Branching Evolution
• 1 Evolutionary Escalation
• 1 Greater Good
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Hardened Scales
• 1 Inexorable Tide
• 1 Simic Ascendancy

• Artifacts (11)
• 1 Anduril, Narsil Reforged
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Contagion Engine
• 1 Midnight Clock
• 1 Simic Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 The Great Henge
• 1 The Millennium Calendar
• 1 The Ozolith
• 1 Thought Vessel

• Lands (37)
• 13 Forest
• 13 Island
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dreamroot Cascade
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Flooded Grove
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Misty Rainforest
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Vineglimmer Snarl
• 1 Yavimaya Coast

Buy This Deck Export text

To power this list down I think you'd drop out the infect creature and you might even drop out Fathom Mage and a few of the better counter sources. I don't think there's a ton of room to weaken this deck, as it's lacking any "game changers" and is playing a generally fair game already.

A seven mana casting cost limits this commander's potential, but a higher powered build could absolutely be built around making tons of mana, flickering Sin and drawing tons of cards. You might even be able to reliably go for that Lab Man win, though flying and trample make Sin a legitimate commander damage threat as well. Even just loading in some free counterspells and a Cyclonic Rift would represent a meaningful upgrade from the starting point I'm sharing with you here.

Final Thoughts

While my dark side couldn't resist writing about Sin for a second straight week, I'm glad I did. This turned out to be a way more entertaining commander to brew around than I expected. I don't expect I'll be building either Sin in paper, asI hadn't planned on buying much Final Fantasy product. Plans can always change, but right now I'm probably going to mostly skip this set, aside from the occasional booster to help support the LGS I play at.

I recently took apart a mono-blue Dragons deck and I've been struggling to find a new commander for my pile of 37 Unglued Islands. After a few false starts I finally put together a partners deck built around Eligeth, Crossroads Augur and Siani, Eye of the Storm. I may write a column about it at some point in the coming weeks, as it's been a fun build and has exceeded my expectations.

For at least a few more weeks I'll be covering more Final Fantasy commanders. I've got no idea what will be next, but hopefully it will be as fun as the last two weeks have been.

That's all I've got for today - thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!