commander · The Swarmlord
Tyranid Swarm (40K).
A Temur +1/+1 counter and creature ramp deck led by The Swarmlord — add X counters to creatures whenever you cast them and win through an unstoppable hive of ever-growing Tyranid monsters.
The Commanders
Tyranid Swarm is a Temur Commander deck themed around the Tyranid alien hive of Warhammer 40,000. The deck's core mechanic is "ravenous" — a keyword that gives Tyranid creatures additional +1/+1 counters when cast with excess mana. The more mana you invest in casting Tyranid spells, the bigger they enter. Pair that with +1/+1 counter synergies and you get a deck that grows faster than opponents can block.
The Swarmlord has a ravenous-enabling triggered ability: whenever a creature with a +1/+1 counter on it enters the battlefield under your control, put a +1/+1 counter on another target creature. Every ravenous creature entering fires The Swarmlord's trigger — each creature that enters big makes another creature bigger. The effect compounds: five creatures entering with counters puts five extra counters on five other creatures, turning the board into a massive power spiral.
Magus Lucea Kane is the mana-multiplication alternative. She lets you double the X in X spells — paying just X produces 2X. She also provides a mana ability that taps for colorless and, when she untaps, puts a +1/+1 counter on each creature with a counter on it. Against pods where raw creature power wins, Magus Lucea Kane's mana doubling lets you cast ravenous creatures with far more excess mana than normal, entering dramatically bigger.
Key Cards
Hierophant Bio-Titan
A 10-mana 10/10 Tyranid Insect with trample and hexproof. It has ravenous: when you pay more than its base cost, it enters with +1/+1 counters for each excess mana paid. Pay twelve mana instead of ten and it's a 12/12 hexproof trampler. It attacks as an essentially unanswerable threat that deals twelve or more trample damage through any number of blockers. With Magus Lucea Kane's mana doubling, reach this size much earlier than turn ten.
Tervigon
A legendary Tyranid that creates 1/1 Tyranid Termagant tokens equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on it when it enters the battlefield. If you cast it with excess mana thanks to ravenous, it enters with five or six counters and immediately creates five or six tokens. Those tokens each trigger The Swarmlord — each one entering fires a counter distribution. Tervigon plus The Swarmlord turns one big mana investment into twelve or more power spread across the board.
Branching Evolution
Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on a creature you control, double that amount instead. Every ravenous trigger, every Swarmlord distribution, every proliferate effect — all doubled. A creature entering with five ravenous counters enters with ten. The Swarmlord distributing five counters distributes ten. Branching Evolution is the card that takes the deck from "big creatures" to "comically oversized creatures" and is the highest-priority target for opponents to answer.
Garruk's Uprising
Gives all your creatures with power four or greater trample, and draws a card whenever a creature with power four or greater enters under your control. In a deck where ravenous creatures enter with five, six, or eight power, Garruk's Uprising turns every creature you cast into a card draw trigger and gives your entire board trample. Opponents can't chump block a board of trampling 8/8s and 10/10s effectively — damage bleeds through to players.
Winged Hive Tyrant
A 5/5 flying Tyranid with ravenous. When it enters, if it has counters, put a counter on each other creature you control. It distributes its ravenous counters across your entire board on entry. With Branching Evolution doubling counters and The Swarmlord triggering off each counter placement, the Winged Hive Tyrant entering can add five counters to thirty creatures across several triggers. It's the deck's most explosive single-entry event.
How to Play
Ramp hard in the first three or four turns to enable large ravenous investments. Get The Swarmlord in play before casting ravenous creatures — every entry fires a counter distribution that grows your whole board. Deploy Branching Evolution before a big turn and watch every ravenous creature enter twice as large.
Win through combat damage with creatures that are too large to block profitably and hit through trample. Garruk's Uprising gives the whole team trample and draws cards as they enter. Hierophant Bio-Titan is hexproof and essentially unanswerable by spot removal. The deck closes games fast once the counter doubling is online — opponents have a very small window to interact with the engine before the board state becomes unrecoverable.