Upgrading Commander Precon: Counter Blitz (Tidus, Yuna's Guardian)

Now that we explored Terra, Herald of Hope (click here to see more) and Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER and his friends (click here to see more), it's time to see Tidus, Yuna's Guardian in Counter Blitz!

We named this the best precon of 2025 (click here to see more!) and it truly is a great option for anyone who wants to start playing Commander.

In this article, you'll see what cards you can add to upgrade this deck. We'll also show you an alternative list with Yuna, Grand Summoner as the commander.

In Final Fantasy X, Tidus is a rising blitzball player and the son of a great blitzball star, Jecht, Reluctant Guardian. After Sin, Unending Cataclysm attacked, Tidus ended up on Spira, a new world, where he met Yuna, a new summoner.

Together, Tidus and Yuna go on an adventure to defeat Sin and find a way for Tidus to return to his home.

In this precon, Tidus is Tidus, Yuna's Guardian, a Bant Human Warrior that interacts with the combat phase.

At the beginning of your combat phase, Tidus lets you move a counter from a creature to another under your control. After the damage step, if one or more creatures with counters dealt damage to a player, it draws a card for you and proliferates. This happens once every turn.

Tidus is very cheap and very powerful, but he doesn't have a way to protect himself or give himself evasion. The idea behind this list is to grow as many creatures as you can so that your commander is not the most powerful creature on your board. If you do this, you'll increase your odds of dealing damage to your opponents.

Obviously, Yuna, Grand Summoner is this list's sub-commander!

You may tap her to create mana, and, if you use this mana to cast a creature on the same turn, it enters play with two +1/+1 counters.

Then, when another permanent you control that has +1/+1 counters goes to the graveyard, Yuna lets you move those counters to a target creature.

This is what you get straight out of the box:

It is already pretty good, as it interacts really well with the two commanders.

This time, we'll show you how to make this deck more budget-friendly because it truly doesn't need expensive cards. There are many efficient, cheap cards for counter strategies in MTG.

An important replacement is swapping a basic Island for Karn's Bastion simply because this land will proliferate your counters.

Buffs

Trample, double strike, and flying are some abilities that you'll give to your creatures with cards included in the original precon.

Sphere Grid is an excellent card. It puts counters on your creatures when they deal damage to a player and also gives your creatures with counters reach and trample.

Chocobo Knights also stands out. It gives double strike to your attackers with counters.

Here are a few other spells that interact with counters:

Forgotten Ancient is a reprint that found a place in this list. Its ability, which lets you move counters around at the beginning of your upkeep, is an excellent way to grow your creatures. Other reprints that stand out are Resourceful Defense and Rampant Rejuvenator. Resourceful Defense lets you keep the counters attached to your permanents if they leave play, and Rampant Rejuvenator can grow enough to put all your basic lands in play.

This list also plays the villain of Tidus' story!

Sin, Unending Cataclysm is quite unique: when it enters, you may remove counters from your artifacts, creatures, and enchantments however you like. So, you can use it on your permanents and all your other cards.

Next, it gives them twice as many counters.

When Sin dies, you must put his counters on a target creature and shuffle him back into your deck.

The Main Combo

This is not the first precon that comes with a combo. Let's see how it works.

1. Cast Gatta and Luzzu.

2. Target Walking Ballista with Gatta and Luzzu's ability.

3. Activate Walking Ballista, remove a +1/+1 counter from it, and target it again.

4. Gatta and Luzzu will stop the damage, and you'll put two +1/+1 counters on Ballista because of Hardened Scales.

5. Activate Ballista again to deal 1 damage to any target and 1 damage to it.

6. Repeat this process.

Cards We Added

Garruk's Uprising is an accessible enchantment that practically all players have. It will give us trample and even draw cards.

Trample is already good, but unblockable is even better! So, we recommend Herald of Secret Streams.

The classic Wonder also got on our radar, and we definitely recommend it. While this Incarnation is in the graveyard and you control an Island, your creatures have flying.

Cards We Removed

This list already plays lots of cards that give us +1/+1 counters, and Generous Patron can only draw cards with a few cards in this list, like Lulu, Stern Guardian and Summon: Valefor.

This list might not play many artifacts, but it does play many enchantments, and Bane of Progress could delay you when it comes in. It could also destroy part of your board.

Card Draw

Card draw is always a delicate topic for precons, as they don't come with the best card draw tools.

Besides Generous Patron, which we removed, this list plays:

Yuna's Decision is a way to draw cards or get two permanents from your graveyard and put them in play.

Cards We Added

Besides drawing cards, Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar protects your spells, as it prevents the opponents from casting spells on your turn.

Terrasymbiosis will also draw cards, even if just once per turn.

Cards We Removed

Recursion

The recursion in the original list includes:

The Luminous Broodmoth reprint is wonderful. As Tidus can move any counter, you can move its flying counter to another creature.

Cards We Added

Cards We Removed

Ramp

Because this deck is green, it obviously plays spells to get lands from the deck and speed up the game.

Cards We Added

The precons we got when this set came out play just a few basic lands, but that doesn't mean Cultivate is useless. Just like Hardened Scales, Kami of Whispered Hopes will put multiple counters in play.

Cards We Removed

As cool as Scholar of New Horizons is, it only gets a Plains and needs at least one round to work.

Removals

The original removals in this list are:

Cards We Added

To get the most out of our proliferates, we used a few removal slots.

Thrummingbird is cheap, has evasion, proliferates when it deals combat damage, and supports other spells. It is quite useful in several moments of the game.

Cards We Removed

Collective Effort is cool when you cast it, but we had to replace it with cards that fit the rest of the list a bit better.

Adapting this deck to focus more on Yuna, Grand Summoner is not hard. This is how we did it:

If you want to start playing Commander with a powerful precon, Counter Blitz is a great choice. However, because it triggers abilities constantly, you'll need to practice a few times to understand how you should organize them.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time.