Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus

$2.09

Tekuthal is a 3/5 flier that doubles proliferate: whenever you would proliferate, you proliferate twice instead. Every proliferate card in the deck becomes two steps of growth on +1/+1 counters, charge counters, loyalty and poison. Its activated ability costs {1} plus two Phyrexian blue mana, payable with life, and removes three counters from your other artifacts, creatures and planeswalkers to put an indestructible counter on Tekuthal. The deck stacks counters everywhere and then cashes the surplus in to protect its commander.

In the recorded games, the deck played slowly and built up over many turns. Planeswalkers climbed in loyalty, creatures grew, and a few lists pushed poison counters onto every opponent as a ticking clock. The indestructible counter mattered: it kept Tekuthal around through removal and turned the commander into a sturdy blocker. Timing was the hard part, since spending counters for protection shrank the rest of the board. Only seven games were recorded, so expect a grindy, incremental deck rather than a fast one, with most of its strength showing up late.