-1/-1 COUNTERS deck (ft. Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons)

>Introduction

I think it's crucial to briefly clarify the goals of my deck building to better understand what are the choices that led me to choose a certain type of cards, instead of others. My MTG experience started back in 2003 when I bought my very first deck and since then I slowly improved my knowledge in the game mechanics and decks building. I always played for fun against friends and so my ultimate goal is having good time together. This viewpoint drasticaly limits my Magic deck building experience to non-tournament only, but it definitely has its own benefits in money saved and a much wider card choice I can pick from.

Said so, these non-written rules apply to all my decks and lead to good games more often than not.
The cards must:

• contain an unique game mechanics
• have a good sinergy,
• avoid infinite combos.

Devour and Landfall are two examples of good game mechanics, +1/+1 Counters and Tribal are too: sinergy improves the overall deck gameplan and focus more on the play and less on the single cards. Perfect sinergy means that no matter what card I draw this turn, I'm sure it will fit my strategy. A deck based on a crazy-powerful card naturally shrinks the strategy to focus on that card only, worsening the overall deck mechanics and enjoyment. Infinite combos are the nemesi of good games: play them to win, or lose otherwise. I don't like them, there's no point in having one into my for-fun decks.

Deck Mechanics

Most of the decks I’ve seen that are based on -1/-1 counters work by placing the counters on the opponents’ creatures to gain a board advantage. While this mechanics can be well supported by amazing cards like Necroskitter and Blowfly Infestation, it requires valid targets to place the counters on. I can think of control decks without creatures and other situations where we’re unable to place the counters because of hexproof, protection or counter spells. So even if these -1/-1 counters decks can work on paper, there's no guarantee they will work 100% of the time, and often they won't.

A more reliable strategy may be to place the -1/-1 counters on our own creatures as a tradeoff to play cards with better than average abilities, like the Baleful Ammit, and compensate this downside with cards that take an advantage from those counters. In fact, this deck exploits the effects of Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons, Nest of Scarabs and Obelisk Spider to create a board advantage and a life gain/drain source thanks to the -1/-1 counters. In this way, we’re gaining a lasting advantage by placing the counters and so they become a resource rather than a downside. At this point, we can extract value from any card that places a counter: so, sorceries like Scarscale Ritual and Lethal Sting triggers additional effects that improve our strategy and become surprisingly powerful compared to similar cards. To avoid any downside due to the -1/-1 counters, we may put them on the tokens itself or remove them with cards like Hapatra's Mark, Shed Weakness and the Decimator Beetle that ensure we always have a valid target to place our counters on.

This mechanics proved to be very consistent and often pulls out impressive performances against a good variety of aggro and control decks. The deck has good defensive capabilities thanks to the Snake Tokens with deathtouch and offers different winning options that make the strategy really enjoyable.