commander · Tidus, Yuna's Guardian
Counter Blitz (FIC).
A Bant +1/+1 counters deck from the Final Fantasy Commander set. Tidus, Yuna's Guardian shuffles counters around your team and turns every hit into cards and proliferate triggers.
The Commanders
Counter Blitz is the Bant +1/+1 counters deck from the Final Fantasy set. It piles counters onto creatures, then rewards you for having them: extra cards, bigger bodies, and proliferate effects that copy every counter already in play. The deck grinds a little, but once a few payoffs come online each attack refills your hand.
Tidus, Yuna's Guardian does two jobs. At the start of combat you may move a counter from one of your creatures onto another, which lets you build a single threat or spread counters wherever they matter most. Then his Cheer ability triggers once each turn: when your counter-bearing creatures deal combat damage to a player, you draw a card and proliferate. That proliferate grows every counter on the board at once, so a wide team of small creatures snowballs fast and Tidus keeps the cards flowing.
Key Cards
Hardened Scales
Hardened Scales is a one-mana engine that makes every counter placement bigger. Any time one or more +1/+1 counters would go on your creature, you add one more. It stacks with the deck's support and adapt effects, and it quietly doubles up on proliferate too. Land it early and every later payoff does more work.
Chocobo Knights
Whenever you attack, every creature you control with a counter on it gains double strike until end of turn. In a deck where most of the team carries +1/+1 counters, that is a board-wide damage doubler for free. It turns Tidus and a couple of pumped attackers into a lethal swing, and it makes the Cheer draw trigger fire off a much bigger hit.
Bred for the Hunt
Bred for the Hunt draws you a card whenever a counter-bearing creature deals combat damage to a player. With a wide board that is several cards per combat, all from one three-mana enchantment. It plays right alongside Tidus, since the same attacks that trigger his Cheer also draw off Bred for the Hunt, and the deck rarely runs low on gas once both are down.
Inexorable Tide
Every spell you cast triggers proliferate, so your counters climb just from playing the game. It grows +1/+1 counters, charge counters, loyalty, even the lore counters on the deck's Sagas. Combined with Hardened Scales and the deck's cheap spells, Inexorable Tide keeps the whole board inflating turn after turn without any attacks required.
Sphere Grid
Sphere Grid puts a +1/+1 counter on any of your creatures that deals combat damage to a player, so your attackers get bigger every turn on their own. Its unlock ability then gives all your counter-bearing creatures reach and trample, which fixes the deck's two weak spots at once: flying blockers and creatures too small to punch through. It rewards the same combat-damage plan Tidus is already built around.
Walking Ballista
Walking Ballista enters with a counter for each two mana you pay, and you can remove those counters to ping any target for one damage each. In a counters deck it is removal, a mana sink, and a backup win condition all in one. Proliferate and Hardened Scales load it up cheaply, and Tidus can shift counters onto it right before you fire it off.
Tromell, Seymour's Butler
Every other nontoken creature you control enters with an extra +1/+1 counter, so your whole team shows up a little bigger. His tap ability then proliferates once for each nontoken creature that entered this turn, which can be a huge stack of proliferate triggers on a busy turn. He is one of the strongest ways this deck turns a normal creature drop into a board-wide pump.
How to Play
Open with cheap creatures and an engine piece like Hardened Scales so your counters start compounding. Get Tidus down and use his combat step to consolidate counters onto whatever attacker matters, then let Cheer draw you cards and proliferate the rest of the board. The mid game is about stacking payoffs: Bred for the Hunt and Sphere Grid reward every hit, while Chocobo Knights turns a decent attack into a lethal one. Your fastest kills come from a wide board of double-striking, trampling creatures, but Walking Ballista is there when you need to close from behind or clear a blocker. Keep proliferating and the deck runs away with the game.
