Commander Deck Tech - Sovereign Okinec Ahau

Lost Caverns of Ixalan has brought us several legendary creatures that have a lot of potential as commanders. Today, we decided to build a deck around Sovereign Okinec Ahau as our commander, with many +1/+1 counters and buffs!

Sovereign Okinec Ahau's mechanic is fascinating, as it grows our creatures more and more while the match goes on. To put it simply: if a creature's base power is 1/1, and it gets a +1/+1 counter, for instance, as soon as Okinec Ahau attacks, this creature gets another +1/+1 counter and becomes a 3/3. It will grow like this any time you attack with him.

The Selesnya color combination is practically perfect for this mechanic, considering how many cards in it interact with +1/+1 counters or buff creatures through a static effect. As we also depend a lot on our commander, we'll play as much protection as we can to keep our board and punish our opponents with our creatures.

This deck mostly wins through combat damage, but it also is quite aggressive and fast, so relying on that isn't an issue. We balance it out with protection, ramp, and mainly buffs to make our creatures huge and consequently slay our opponents as a result, one by one.

Accelerators

We use mana rocks, mana dorks, and ramp to accelerate our mana. Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Selesnya Signet are our mana rocks, which is very basic, as we also compensate with mana dorks and ramp. Namely, we use Avacyn's Pilgrim, Gyre Sage, Rishkar, Peema Renegade, Incubation Druid, and Kami of Whispered Hopes.

All of these cards, except for Avacyn's Pilgrim, interact with counters in some way. I'll highlight Kami of Whispered Hopes, which puts extra counters on our creatures and creates mana equal to its power. Incubation Druid, with only one counter, creates 3 mana of a color, and is also quite efficient. As for Rishkar, Peema Renegade, it turns all our creatures into mana dorks thanks to its ability.

To complete our section of creatures, we use Kodama of the West Tree, which, besides giving evasion to all our modified creatures, ramps a basic land for us when one of our modified creatures deals combat damage (which is basically all our creatures). Now, as sorceries, we use Farseek, Rampant Growth, Three Visits, and Nature's Lore, which all cost 2 mana, and Kodama's Reach and Cultivate, which cost 3 mana.

+1/+1 Counters and Interactions with Them

Starting with our interactions with +1/+1 counters, we have Abzan Battle Priest, to sustain us throughout the game through its lifelink, Abzan Falconer, to access evasion through flying, and Duskshell Crawler to access trample. All of these cards buff creatures with +1/+1 counters as well. Clamavus also interacts with counters and is one of the main cards in this deck, as it gives our creatures +1/+1 for each +1/+1 counters on them, which makes them huge.

To give counters to our creatures directly, we play Defiler of Vigor, which also reduces the amount of we have to pay on our cards, and Mikaeus, the Lunarch, which gives us counters when we tap him through his ability. We also use Arwen, Weaver of Hope, which gives us counters equal to her toughness just by being in play, and Forgotten Ancient, which grows as our opponents play spells. You can also move the counters on Forgotten Ancient to your other creatures in any way you like during your upkeep.

As for noncreatures, we use the following cards: Felidar Retreat, which, besides counters, also gives us 2/2 Cat Beast tokens, and Court of Garenbrig, which draws us cards thanks to its Monarch effect. If you trigger it as the Monarch, you'll also double the number of +1/+1 counters on your creatures, and make them big enough to scare off your opponents.

Tribute to the World Tree was also essential, as it gives us counters as well as cards.

We also added Ozolith, the Shattered Spire to our build, as its effect gives us extra counters, similar to Hardened Scales, which is also in this deck. Conclave Mentor's effect does the same, so, naturally, we included it. Then we added Gavony Township, to put counters on all our creatures at once, and Karn's Bastion, to proliferate our counters.

We also added more effects that double our counters (similar to Court of Garenbrig), namely Branching Evolution and Kalonian Hydra, which do the same. Alongside our commander, we'll be able to choose the order of our attacks with Kalonian Hydra - choose your order wisely to make the most out of the counters you have.

Finally, we have a few other creatures: Managorger Hydra, which already has evasion and grows as our opponents play their spells; Champion of Lambholt, to make our creatures basically unblockable as she grows, Hamza, Guardian of Arashin; to discount the cost of our creatures (we'll even cast it for 2 mana most of the time); and Botanical Brawler, which has evasion and might grow considerably, both because of its 0/0 base power and because it grows according to the counters on all your permanents.

Other Buffers and Card Draw

Our deck needs more than just counters: we need consistent buffs to make Okinec work. So, cards like Always Watching and Flowering of the White Tree are perfect, even more if the card in question has a secondary effect, like Vigilance and Ward.

Mirari's Wake also stands out in this deck because of its incredible second effect.

Unnatural Growth and Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus also create mana for us, and double the power of our creatures by giving them counters thanks to Okinec. With these cards, our creatures will be quite problematic for our opponents.

Overwhelming Stampede and Return of the Wildspeaker do the same.

To draw cards and get more resources, we have Garruk's Uprising, which also gives our creatures evasion through trample. Hunter's Insight draws us cards according to the damage we deal, and Rishkar's Expertise draws us cards according to a creature's power, besides also letting us cast another spell that costs 5 or less for free. Considering how big our creatures can become, these cards will draw us many other cards.

Answers, Protection, and Other Cards

As we mentioned before, because this deck relies a lot on its commander, we use a lot of protection. Namely, Teferi's Protection, Clever Concealment, Unbreakable Formation, Flawless Maneuver, Inspiring Call, Silkguard, and Heroic Intervention will protect our permanents. Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar can also serve as protection, besides drawing cards.

Our other defensive measures are Settle the Wreckage, to catch a few opponents off guard, and Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist, to limit the number of creatures attacking us. But we also have more than just defensive resources: we have answers and removals for any eventual threats our opponents play.

Our target removals are Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares for creatures. Generous Gift and Beast Within will deal with a wider array of permanents.

Then, we also play Damning Verdict and Vanquish the Horde as our global removals for creatures, and Austere Command for any other card that becomes problematic.

Finally, Akroma's Will will be our finisher, and we also play the latest Commander favorite, Roaming Throne. We can name it as Cat to grow our creatures even more, Phyrexian to buff them again with Zopandrel, Hydra to double our counters with Kalonian Hydra, and so on and so forth. The sky is the limit as long as you're creative.

This is a budget version with the same game plan as the deck above: hit your opponents as fast and as hard as possible. We kept cards like Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus and Unnatural Growth, and added others, like Starlight Spectacular and Dictate of Heliod. Our goal was to keep its original essence and as many resources as the original list had.

I was quite surprised to see this deck is indeed as aggressive as it wants to be, and its cards truly do boost its potential in general. Selesnya isn't my favorite color combination if I'm honest, but building this list made me quite interested in this deck. I might even build it for real and test it on my tables!

Do you like this deck? Would you add any other cards? Do you prefer the budget version? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below!

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!