I know I'm a little late to the party, but have you seen The Ozolith? I get that it doesn't say "+1/+1 counters" on it, so we are all supposed to be excited about trample and flying tokens getting moved to different creatures. But have you really considered The Ozolith?

Limitations

I am going to say a lot of things about this card as the article goes on, but this is not broken. It is only for your creatures, no one else's creatures. This isn't for your planeswalkers or artifacts with charge counters. These are counters from your creatures that you can put on your creatures. It is legendary, so for those of us with 60-card casual decks, getting two of them out at the same time is going to involve copying and getting around the Legend rule, just like any Commander game.

Most importantly though, you only get the counters at the beginning of combat on your turn, and they only go on a single target creature. Your opponents can respond to you targeting a creature. Your creatures tend to die during combat and on opponents' turns, so The Ozolith has to survive until the start of your combat to put the counters elsewhere.

This card is not super broken. This card is just great fun!

Ability counters (flying, etc.)

I've mentioned ability counters already, and this will be fun with them. Creatures that have no business having Menace or Flying will suddenly get it. Perhaps you or one of your friends is that player that loves to turn a planewalker into a creature so that somehow with The Ozolith you will be able to give another creature loyalty or charge counters or tide counters or other bizarre things I haven't imagined. To those players, Wizards has given you an amazing gift! I hope you enjoy it and use it to bring only the most bizarre board states imaginable.

Proliferate

Yes, Atraxa did just get better. You can proliferate the counters on The Ozolith. The extra counters that you proliferated on a creature didn't leave when the creature died, they were just saved for the next creature.

Singles

Doubling Season. This is the most obvious interaction. Your creature with one counter dies and you put two counters on The Ozolith. When you move the counters from The Ozolith to another creature, you double it again. One counter to four counters just that fast.

Cathars' Crusade. When you blink the four creatures you have on the battlefield with Cathars' Crusade out, they each see each other and get four +1/+1 counters. Suddenly your opponents perk up and that mass removal comes crashing down. With The Ozolith around, your next creature is getting sixteen +1/+1 counters at the start of your next combat! That Wrath is probably still worth it, but you'll bounce back that much faster.

Simic Ascendancy. You put a couple of counters on one of your creatures, then the creature is killed. The Simic Ascendancy gets a couple of growth counters and does nothing. Now The Ozolith takes those counters and gives them to another creature, giving Simic Ascendancy two more counters. Getting to twenty just got a whole lot easier and makes it harder for your opponents to stop taking damage since they won't want to kill your creatures, knowing they are getting you that much closer that much faster. Add in a Doubling Season to the last scenario and you have twenty Growth counters that easily.

Death's Presence. I know this isn't exactly a crushing, high speed combo, but it seems like fun. With Death's Presence, eventually creatures with +1/+1 counters on them will die, giving those counters to creatures on the battlefield, while adding counters to The Ozolith. The number of counters will just multiply!

Toothy, Imaginary Friend. Toothy with The Ozolith will be crazy! If Toothy dies with four +1/+1 counters on it, you draw four cards. The four counters go on The Ozolith. You recast Toothy from the Command Zone, then before combat, put the four counters from The Ozolith back on Toothy! And if Pir is already out, you'll be putting five counters onto Toothy!

Another interesting option is to just blink Toothy. Toothy would be leaving the battlefield, so you would get to draw the cards, and the counters would still go on The Ozolith. You could then put them right back on Toothy. Admittedly, you couldn't then attack with Toothy, but you aren't really looking to do that anyway!

And for my 60-card friends, playing a second Toothy is amazing! You choose the first one to die, letting you draw four cards, and putting four +1/+1 counters on The Ozolith. Since you drew four cards you get four counters on the new Toothy! Then before combat, put the four counters from The Ozolith on Toothy for eight counters. And if you have Pir on the battlefield, your new Toothy would have 14 counters on it!

The Black Rose

The deck that first came to mind when I saw The Ozolith was my Marchesa, the Black Rose deck. This deck churns value through graveyard recursion. It casts out creatures that, with Marchesa around, tend to come back again and again because they have a +1/+1 counter on them. Marchesa helps this along by giving all the creatures Dethrone, but sometimes that just isn't good enough. I have several other ways to give the creatures +1/+1 counters. Many of the creatures enter the battlefield with +1/+1 counters. All of this tends to result in a lot of creatures dying with +1/+1 counters on them, then returning on the end step because of Marchesa's ability.

Marchesa, the Black Rose | Commander | Bruce Richard

• Commander (1)
• 1 Marchesa, the Black Rose

• Creatures (36)
• 1 Barrin, Master Wizard
• 1 Blood Artist
• 1 Butcher of Malakir
• 1 Carrion Feeder
• 1 Conquering Manticore
• 1 Cytoplast Manipulator
• 1 Dark Impostor
• 1 Deathbringer Thoctar
• 1 Dragonlord Silumgar
• 1 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
• 1 Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1 Flayer of the Hatebound
• 1 Garza Zol, Plague Queen
• 1 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
• 1 Harvester of Souls
• 1 Hell's Caretaker
• 1 Hoard-Smelter Dragon
• 1 Keldon Vandals
• 1 Mindless Automaton
• 1 Molten Primordial
• 1 Mortician Beetle
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Necropolis Regent
• 1 Nightscape Familiar
• 1 Olivia Voldaren
• 1 Oona's Blackguard
• 1 Puppeteer Clique
• 1 River Kelpie
• 1 Sage of Fables
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Stingmoggie
• 1 Stronghold Assassin
• 1 Taurean Mauler
• 1 Thraximundar
• 1 Triskelion

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath

• Instants (5)
• 1 Crosis's Charm
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Fury Charm
• 1 Shattering Pulse
• 1 Word of Seizing

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Beacon of Unrest
• 1 Damnable Pact
• 1 Toxic Deluge
• 1 Vandalblast
• 1 Attrition
• 1 Black Market
• 1 Dictate of Erebos
• 1 Infernal Tribute
• 1 Unspeakable Symbol

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Dragon Blood
• 1 Gem of Becoming
• 1 Mask of Memory
• 1 Obelisk of Grixis
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 The Ozolith
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Whip of Erebos

• Lands (39)
• 2 Island
• 4 Mountain
• 4 Swamp
• 1 Badlands
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Creeping Tar Pit
• 1 Crosis's Catacombs
• 1 Crumbling Necropolis
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 Grixis Panorama
• 1 Lavaclaw Reaches
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Morphic Pool
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Opal Palace
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Sunken Ruins
• 1 Swiftwater Cliffs
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Underground Sea
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Vivid Crag
• 1 Vivid Creek
• 1 Vivid Marsh
• 1 Volcanic Island
• 1 Watery Grave

Buy This Deck Export text format

The downside to this has always been the loss of the counters. Sure, if a creature died with a +1/+1 counter on it, then it could come back. The loss of that counter would be a small price to pay for getting the creature back. But what about the creatures that died with two or more counters on them? What about the Taurean Mauler? The shapeshifting bull attacks with ten counters on it and my opponent destroys it before it can fulfill its destiny and gore them for 22 damage! Yes, the Mauler will come back at the end of the turn, but all the value of those ten counters would be lost! This is where The Ozolith shines! The Mauler leaves the battlefield, depositing the ten counters it has accumulated during its hard life, with The Ozolith. At the end of the turn, the Taurean Mauler returns, and the value of its past life sits on The Ozolith until the start of your next combat step, waiting to return to the Taurean Mauler, or perhaps a different creature. Perhaps Barrin, Master Wizard is in need of a counter to ensure he returns if an opponent attempts to visit some dastardly act of violence upon him? Perhaps the Puppeteer Clique with a -1/-1 counter on it needs the counters to get rid of the unfortunate limitation. Perhaps your Mindless Automaton would like to provide you with more cards, if only it had a way to get ten +1/+1 counters on it!

The Ozolith works just as well with smaller creatures too. If a creature only has one +1/+1 counter, The Ozolith will take that and happily give it back at the start of your next combat step, or give it to another creature that doesn't have a counter at all.

It works well with Dragon Blood or Unspeakable Symbol. If you block with a creature that has no +1/+1 counters on it because you don't want to pay the three life. You don't know if the creature will need the counters to kill the attacking creature. Perhaps you are concerned that you'll pay the life and discover that they don't want to attack any longer, since it is now obvious their creature will die. In any event, if you block, give the creature a counter, and it still dies, you aren't just paying three life to get the creature back. You are paying three life to get the creature back and that +1/+1 counter sits on The Ozolith until the start of your combat when you can return it to that same creature, but this time it won't cost you three life!

This deck is remarkably resilient to mass removal for obvious reasons. In fact, there are times when players simply won't use it since they know it will be ineffective. However, there are still times when a Wrath against you makes sense. They are getting rid of a creature loaded with +1/+1 counters. Perhaps they have removed Marchesa and the coast is now clear for that Day of Judgement. With The Ozolith in play, your opponents will have to think twice. If Marchesa is around, not only will all the creatures come back, but one of them will be getting all of the counters that are currently spread amongst all of the creature on your battlefield. Do they really want to face a Triskelion with all those counters on it?

The Ozolith is a powerful artifact that I can't wait to get my hands on. I would love to hear how you intend to use and abuse this powerful relic in your decks!

Bruce Richard

@manaburned