Attempting to form a budget Glissa, Herald of Predation deck around counter multiplication through proliferate and additional counter effects. Aiming to have a strong casual deck that won't break the bank, at <~$80. I consider the current iteration close to a final draft of the deck, but might playtest a bit more before "finalizing" it.
Deck Strategy and Construction
This deck focuses on getting a bunch of the incubator tokens strengthened with proliferate effects before stomping your opponents with big, first strike, deathtouch, trample Phyrexians. It supplements this strategy with land-fetch/mana ramp, phyrexian typal boosts, and trample keyword donating green cards. I am trying to avoid using cards/strategies from the two closest pre-cons from the contemporary sets (MOM and ONE).
While working on this deck, I started with the idea of working with a Golgari commander, but the ones that were both fun and cheap seemed limited up until I saw Glissa, Herald of Predation. A quick look at EDHREC resulted in a lot of toxic/infect deck examples. I like toxic/infect fine, but the lack of removal makes it a bit of an archenemy magnet, so I decided to not include poison counters.
That left me a problem of trying to figure out another win condition. Having to crack the incubator tokens meant this deck was going to fall behind a lot of token decks for speed. Likewise having them as non-creature artifacts means that they would be behind counter decks. So I had to split the difference and try a new route, and so I turned to Glissa's third ability: All phyrexians get deathtouch and first strike. That is a pretty devastating set of keywords, and the only thing that could make it better would be trample. A quick card search showed Duskshell Crawler, Crowned Ceratok, Gnarlid Colony, and Tuskguard Captain were all good fits for getting that keyword in. So, in an ideal win state, you have a handful of higher-powered incubators boosted by Glissa and proliferate effects that are first strike deathtouch trample tokens. Even if the other player has a mass of tokens, the first strike deathtouch will mean a wave of them will go down before they deal damage to your creatures. And a couple of responses for both removal (e.g. Annihilating Glare & Putrefy) and combat damage (e.g. Fog & Hindervines) mean you can mitigate similar strategy decks.
How does this compare to the other Incubate pre-con?
I have done a few playtests between the two, now that the current iteration of the deck is price-comparable to the pre-con. Trying them out, I found that this deck tended to out-pace the pre-con in terms of incubator token generation, and that often led to victory for this deck. The control aspect of the pre-con made it a challenge to keep Glissa out, which is a key component of victory, but I think the amount of draw in the deck and being able to, ultimately, get more, stronger phyrexian tokens out tips the scales towards this deck. I haven't done too many playtests, but so far it seems to be tilting in favor of this one. I will try and update if I find more differences.
My top 5 favorite cards in the deck
It's hard to beat Nissa, Voice of Zendikar for top card in the deck. Getting cheap blockers for early game or popping the secondary ability for a board-wide +1/+1 counter drop fits great, and can be supplemented with the proliferate effects for great synergy. Plenty of value even if it is a bit higher cost.
Wilderness Reclamation is also a favorite of mine. Being able to drop this after getting Glissa, Herald of Predation out means you won't ever need to use Glissa's second ability option, giving you more gas and less brakes.
As a Vraska fan, Vraska, Golgari Queen is another favorite. While the $ cost is relatively high to the rest of the deck, Vraska supplements the deck well. Queen Vraska gives draw at the cost of a single incubator token, some removal, and the terrifying emblem that I will probably never have a chance to activate in a game (but really hope to). However, due to the higher cost, I might replace Vraska with Vraska, Swarm's Eminence. While not the best Vraska, it does fit for mana and would give +1/+1 counters with Glissa’s Deathtouch/first strike ability. The additional deathtouch 1/1 with planeswalker deathtouch token isn't the worst, either. It's a reasonable budget alternative, I guess. Alternatively, I would swap Vraska for another cheaper card-draw machine--maybe a tome?
Surprising even to me, Thirsting Roots has saved me more than I thought it would. Either for just getting that third land so I can get Commander's Sphere out or pick up a Swamp, or giving me a proliferate when I really needed it, this is an efficient card for the deck.
And my fifth favorite has to be Find / Finality. While constructing the deck, I found that the options for budget boardwipes weren't necessarily super bountiful. Since the incubator tokens resist boardwipes well, including more of them was an avenue I wanted to follow up on. Having the option to have a (softer) boardwipe while getting +1/+1's in the process is a great fit. The added benefit of being able to get creatures from the graveyard is an added bonus option since the creature count in the deck is maybe a little light.
Cards to cut
Death's Presence is a personal favorite, but takes a while to set up. Likewise, it doesn’t allow you to put tokens on the incubator tokens, just the transformed phyrexians, so it’s not at perfect synergy. And as soon as you drop it you either win or watch 6 mana vanish. It's a good fit, but it might be better to replace it with something faster.
Peregrin Took is also a bit of a weaker card to include. If the "incubate 2 twice" effect from Glissa, Herald of Predation is a twice-triggering effect (as I am currently interpreting it to be), you would get two food tokens per instance, meaning that next turn you could sacrifice 3 for a card draw after two instances of "incubate 2 twice". From what I have read online: "Multiple instances of incubate on the same card would both go off seperately, not cumulatively." And from the wording ("twice") it seems like it's two instances. But knowing other cards make 2x tokens simultaneously I am a bit skeptical. If it ends up being that the "Incubate 2 twice" only gives one food token with Peregrin Took I will probably immediately cut it. I think sideboard is okay in the meantime. Peregrin Took is meant to be a bit of a health contingency/card draw route, but might not be the best fit.
Some of the nonbasic lands, e.g. Slippery Karst, Polluted Mire, The Hunter Maze, and The Dross Pits might be unnecessary, but I wanted to have contingencies to get some draw effect into play. Plus, with cards like Expand the Sphere and Contagious Vorrac, you can acquire nonbasics to drop (or cycle) for cards easier. That being said, you can shave off a bit if you don't include them and just work with basic lands. From playtesting I don't see a speed decrease with their ETB tapped effects, but that might just be me.
Necrosquito uses oil counters instead of +1/+1's, so while it's still coherent with proliferate it does miss out on the +1/+1 boosts. I plan on holding onto it for a few reasons: 1) It has fly so you can stop flyers or get over defenses. 2) It gets boosted on Incubator/Phyrexian deaths, and 3) If you CAN get a +1/+1 on it, proliferate effects get to add both tokens, doubling your value.
Cards to improve the deck
There's a lot of other cards that would be great additions here. I regret that Ozolith, the Shattered Spire is so expensive. Otherwise it would be an obvious addition and one of my first replacements. Assassin's Trophy would be a great removal addition--I see it in a lot of Golgari decks but, again, it cost-restrictive for a budget deck. Likewise, Arachnogenesis would be a great combat damage mitigator AND to get defender tokens in the exchange--which would help you build up. I also thought about Lobelia, Defender of Bag End to be tossed in, since it would give you some cards to work with, but just put it in the "Maybe" board. There's plenty of other obvious improvements, but these are some first picks.
