-1/-1 Counters - Failed MtG Mechanics 

Still had more success then +0/+2 counters

Manalogs: “Wizard tries to avoid dimes on pennies design” March of the Machine: *exists*

The thing you missed with wither is that it bypasses indestructible.

now you take that back. my scorpion god deck that ive been working on for years can hear you

Actually the first card that mentioned -1/-1 counters was the blue Unstable Mutation from Arabian Nights, which was reprinted in Revised, Fourth and Fifth editions. Consuming Fervor from Amonkhet was red and otherwise identical.

I do like the "Failed MTG Mechanics" series, but I want to see the opposite, like "why +1/+1 counters are successful as" as example

Having been raised into MTG through Amonkhet, I'm a strong supporter of the -1/-1 gameplan. It was the first deck I ever played, trying to get board presence from cards like Nest of Scarabs and Hapatra and then running an artistocrats strategy to churn them into big plays with cards like Voldaren Pariah. Of all it's incarnations, I tend to like placing them as a sort of resource. Cards like Channeler Initiate ask whether you'd prefer an above curve body or a mana-dork for 3 turns. Having a card like Quillspike can turn said counters into potential value. Spinning them around enables cards like Hapatra. I certainly understand that it's basically a Rube Goldberg version of a strategy that would be much better without the mechanic, but that just makes for peak Commander shenanigans.

I actually miss Wither. It was a cool, unique, and flavorful ability that didn't have the design balance issues around Poison Counters like Infect did.

This is not a failed mechanic

The new massacre girl was just printed with wither. Not the best timing imo.

Meanwhile, The Scorpion God: (just got a bunch of really neat cards in Murders)

My Scorpion God deck begs to differ. Though, I would enjoy even more support.

Everlasting Torment + Kulrath Knight = opponent doesn't get to have fun "It's better to just destroy a creature." Indestructible creatures exist. There is definitely a place for -1/-1 counters, and I'm glad they exist. I like having those options available to deal with certain threats. Also, Devoted Druid + Immaculate Magistrate + Flourishing Defenses + Umbral Mantle = infinite elves + infinite G. This combo was available within the Lorwyn to Eventide block. It's how I used to overwhelm my opponents with millions of elves.

I remember Serrated Arrows from Homelands is a powerful card, using -1/-1 counters to remove many annoying small creatures with banding, regenerate, or first strike. The winning deck 'Ernhageddon' uses some of Serrated Arrows cards.

I designed a planescwalker based around the -1/-1 counters. It was pretty good and well balance for what standard was at the time. I even had a bit of lore for him. He was an alchemist, but I never really came up with an event that awoke his spark. I did challenge a "friend" to make 1 and play against me, but all he was willing to do was make a 0 mana planeswalker with the +1 effect "You win"

I find videos like this interesting partially because of how the high level play differed from my own casual play as a teen. I remember -1/-1 counters being quite strong because they could take out indestructible creatures. Nothing quite like getting walled by a 0/1 with indestructible. Sure, -X/-X effects worked too, but we didn't always have access to cards that did that and fit within the deck we wanted to build.

For -1/-1s to make sense in a set, your need lots of creatures with low power, and high toughness or indestructible.

I had a very successful deck back in amonkhet standard that used mostly amonkhet cards and focused on -1/-1 counters. Using Nest of scarabs to turn the counters into tokens to swing wide, with the token doubler from the same set Annointed Procession, and Annointer Priest to recover some life with the token strategy. I was able to use green and black cards to generate a large amount of -1 counters and then had black and white cards that would give me payoff for the -1 counters. I used the tormented champion as a mana generator and a place to put my counters if I needed them on my own creatures. I used spells that placed counters on target creatures to remove and/or weaken my opponents things while amassing a board of insect tokens and life. I once cast a splendid agony for 3 mana and gained 128 life on arena during the open beta, which was standard only. Amonkhet is still among my top favorite sets and I wish they would give us the full set back on arena, but instead we got the “remastered” set which didn’t include all of the cards I would’ve liked to have in the set…

Their not a failure. They just don't utilize properly.

i love your failed mtg mechanic vids!!! i love making custom commanders around the mechanics

Nice video 😊 I would like to add something important about the mirrodin block. A lot of artifacts had the indestructible ability, that was also one of the reasons they used -1-1 counters, because that was the only way to destroy those creatures, apart from exiling, which was rarely seen back in the days.

I wonder if something like this could be a good -1/-1 ability: Leech x (Whenever an opponent casts their first non-creature spell each turn, they lose x life. Whenever a creature enters the batlefield, if its not under your control, you may pay x life for it to enter with x -1/-1 counters on it.) The idea is to limit the amount of damage and -1/-1 counters the ability can deal by giving it a fixed x amount. I realized that a passive -1/-1 counter application on ETB could be a problem, so I thought making the leech ability also drain the user to give it a price to pay for such an effect.

Skinrender can still kill an X/3 with Indestructible. So, there's that, I guess.

I would like to remind people that when WotC makes sets they on average do so with limited in mind. Furthermore they did pretty much 1 and a half blocks of direct-1/-1 counters and a few more sets that weren't. In the end -1/-1 counters fails because not only its more situational than +1/+1 counters but thus far they don't have good impact according to player feedback on limited (see Amonkhet). It is fine to like -1/-1 counters but as a mechanic that pretty much most mechanics are made for and designed with limited in mind, They are a failed mechanic.

Creatures CAN have both + and - counters on them at the same time. Game state will check if both are present and remove them, but if a creature is also marked with lethal damage at the same state, then a creature with either persist or undying WON’T come back.

I never understood why +1 and -1 had to cancel each other out. So many broken loops would be solved if they just kept their counters on

The second deck I ever made was a red black scorpion god deck focused on wither/infect. I ended up changing it to more of a aristocrat-style skullclamp deck where you would put -1/-1 counters on your own or opponents’ 1/1 creatures to draw cards off of scorpion gods effect. As you mentioned, it doesn’t work well as a form of removal, given that the usual rate for a -1/-1 counter costs about 3 mana. It also doesn’t work well just trying to shrink opponents creature to make them less threatening since it takes lots of mana to do so and outright removal would be better. It also suffers from one critical flaw: it is much faster and easier for your opponents to put +1/+1 counters on their creatures than it is for you to do the same but with -1/-1 counters. This means -1/-1 counters can’t be viably used as a “shrinking” focused deck against most decks. However, using them to kill 1/1 creatures in an aristocrat style based deck is massively powerful. Soul snuffers (4 mana to put one -1/-1 counter on every creature) works well with 1/1 creatures and scorpion gods effect to draw massive amounts of cards easily. Combo with blowfly infestation, nest of scarabs, and zuluport to infinitely kill 1/1 insects and drain your opponents. Very fun, very unique deck IMO and I love playing it. Overall, -1/-1 counters are a “failed mechanic” because they’re not great at shrinking opponents creatures given their slow rate of application, are outpaced by +1/+1 counters, but are incredible for combos. I love the archetype and look forward to new cards bringing them back in every set. If anyone wants my scorpion god deck list, I can add it to the comments as well

-1/-1 counters found their home in EDH with Hapatra. I run both Chants alongside Urborg and Yavimaya. She can get out of hand really quickly and there's plenty of combos and win cons.

I would say that -1/-1 counters are fundamentally harder to design around because they kill creatures. Once that is the case you have a much more limited design space. There are several A+B or A+B+C combos with -1/-1 counters that would just never be printed with +1/+1 counters because WOTC just knows better

My buddy has a shadowmoor deck that uses bloat fly infestation to accumulate counters quickly and cause a board wipe. It's a great deck and fun mechanic.

Wither is a perfectly designed keyword that introduces an healthy counter to standard keywords, which in my opinion is the best kind of keyword designs. Wither counters indestructible creatures and is weak to protection. Likewise how reach (while less effective than just having flying yourself) is an answer to flying, or how first strike can counter deathtouch. I think if they handled the design powerlevel to that of giving creatures trample on top of its other effects or perhaps maybe balance it around the powerlevel of flying creatures. It would be a lot more effective. I genuinely think that its a keyword that deserves to be evergreen and I'm happy that wizard is giving it to a few cards in their newest sets.

i can understand the "until end of turn" addition to some cards especially ones that give like -5/-5 but there are cards that wouldve bin ALOT better if they didnt have that "until end of turn" line on them.

One of best -1 creatures. Ammit Eternal 2B 5/5 Afflict 3 (Whenever this creature becomes blocked, defending player loses 3 life.) Whenever an opponent casts a spell, put a -1/-1 counter on Ammit Eternal. Whenever Ammit Eternal deals combat damage to a player, remove all -1/-1 counters from it. Opponent would usually lower its power to 3 or 2 rarely to 1. Then you attack without any hesitation. The opponnent has to make a choice. Block and take 3 damage, or take damage and let Ammit reset back to 5/5

How are they failed? It comes up alot and is quite a good mechanic

Also you could pair wither with infect because that would give you another way to be able to put out negative counters and you don't even need your opponents to have creatures to do any of the shenanigans I was explaining above you just need negative counters to be coming in

One of my favorite enchantments ever has to deal with the subject of this video. Everlasting Torment 2 b/r hybrid Players can't gain life All sources of damage are dealt as though they had wither. It's symmetrical, but makes everyone hate you. And the name/artwork is incredible.

They could design a set that has persist and wither in it, wither outright negates persist while persist makes creatures without wither give you their ETB trigger again

5:41 is this something wotc has actually stated? And if so: do you think it is a good design choice to leave out certain interactions out of Draft boosters for example? Because last time I checked people liked highly synergistic Draft environments.

I happen to like the -1/-1 on my Carnifex Demons in my Planeswalker / Proliferate deck. Every card has some counter effect, even the land. Every time I proliferate, I double the mana I can produce, increase loyalty counters, and such. With the Carnifex demon, I allows use one of the two -1/-1, giving all of the other creatures a -1/-1. My creatures just happen to come with +1/+1 counters (whereby I proliferate, then give everything a -1/-1). Meanwhile, their creatures are getting much smaller, even the hexproof, shroud, indestructible, and Protection From. This also keeps my Planeswalkers safe.

To add a bit of nuance to the -x/-x vs straight removal debate. -x/-x allows to kill indestructible creatures more easily which depending of the meta can be a lot more useful, as in mirrodin with it's high number of indestructible creatures.

IIRC, +1/+1 Counters and -1/-1 Counters removing each other was something that was added in the M10 rules revamp, meaning it was introduced a year after Shadowmoor and Eventide were released.

I would really like a "troublesome mechanics" or "brilliant mechanics" videos in addition to the failures

You definitely need to do a full video on Poison counters themselves.

Thing is they should have made the wither creatures bulky blockers, like 1/4 with reach and wither would actually be pretty decent, or a multi blocker with wither. The mechanic itself is fine, it's just always been implemented as either an aggro tool or a combo tool, when its more suited as a defensive tool.

I get the feeling -1/-1 counters would probably have more legs as a mechanic if they had been more central to removal design from earlier in MtG's life. Only really being introduced in Shadowmoor means they were being worked into a game that already had well over a decade of precedent for hard removal being the norm, leading to all the issues described here. As a game mechanic in a vacuum, they have a lot of potential, but they aren't well suited to the existing mechanical ecosystem they were trying to add them into.

mechanics relating to -1/-1 counters just arent evergreen, so they dont appear in every set, i don't think its fair at all to call them failed since we still get them decently often in standard sets

I love the concept, I just do not have any negative dice lying around.

Markov Manor shows that they stopped caring about not having +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters in the same set.

As a proud owner of both Hapatra and The Scorpion God Commander decks, I approve of this video. And I'm still waiting for a Jund commander that deals with -1/-1 counters, so that I can merge them.

They do counter indestructable creatures.

I wasn't around when Whither was a mechanic, but looking at it, I think I prefer it to Infect. In fact, I'd like to see it return. It seems like a great idea that would be easier to balance. My problem with Infect is that it warps its meta. Whither seems like it could co-exist in any meta without taking over.

While I agree -1/-1 counters aren't great, they're far from a failed mechanic.

I whole heartedly believe this guy mispronounces words and names on purpose

I have a system where I use either a token for that card or a erasable marker to represent the stat line and then use a white die for +1/+1, a black die for -1/-1 counters and a green die for the total amount of that creature

i think wither/first strike combo could make for an interesting card. it might make you actually survive a fight against an opponent you can't 1-hit

The only thing holding them back is that we don't shorthand them as "minus" and "plus" counters

Amonkhet standard had plenty of -1/-1 counters going around. People absolutely played with these cards.

How about doing one of these on the land walk abilities?

Frankly, the only point I see to the -1/-1 and +1/+1 interaction, which seems to be at a root of a lot of design issues and limitations, is that some people would get confused tracking the two types of counters. I understand some level of memory space is important, but it's not like the two types of counters don't coexist in most formats and really it's a matter of subtracting, a skill you need to play the game (because you subtract when you lose life). Plus we're in a post-Ikoria world, a card having by design multiple distinct types of counters is already a thing, so it's not like distinguishing is a justifiable issue either. Maybe there's some obscure random card that would be negatively impacted by the rule change, but considering the unintuitive nature of the rule + the problems it brings to -1/-1 counters, I think it should be discarded.

Spitting Dilophosaurus is the newest card i know with a -1/-1 mechanic it's from the lost caverns of ixalan. i'm trying to build a -1/-1 deck with scorpion god but i have to say it is a challange

I think the mechanic might work if the counters were given off of a trigger, Like when a creature you control dies put a -1/-1 counter on up to X creatures where X is the destroyed creature's power.

The biggest buff wither or infect could have is first strike or double strike. Even putting wither on instants or sorceries would have been great.

You forgot about the Quillspike/Devoted druid combo :P

has kitchen finks ever been playable in modern??? I know it saw Extended play for a while but modern was after infect fridays

What about soul-scar mage? I remember that card seeing heavy play not only for its aggro capabilities with prowess but it's ability to change burn damage into permanent nerfs to opponents big creatures was huge and made blocking difficult.

I did really well in Amonkhet draft with green/black

Wait, how someone wouldn't understand +1/+1 and -1/-1 counter interactions? With little magic knowledge, but I have more knowledge in different tcg (Yu-Gi-Oh) and I undestand the interaction like how in the was mention. Like for example creautre would have 3 +1/+1 counters which would make +3/+3 and opponent places -1/1 on that creautre - which would make +2/+2. Or that is wrong?

Infect is definitely not a strict upgrade to wither. With allows you to do normal damage to players, while infect replaces that damage. Any deck playing Willow Elf would rather be using Scuzzback Scrapper, but almost none would want Glistener Elf. You can save yourself from lethal with Tainted Strike by converting the damage into poison counters. Infect is as parasitic as a mechanic can be. It's a downside, worse than vanilla outside the special case of its one dedicated deck. Having wither is a strict upgrade over not having it, whereas infect is instantly disqualifying for almost every deck.

I would actually like a series of successful mechanics and why they work.

*Laughs in Yawgmoth*

What printing of Contagion Clasp is that? I don't recognize the set symbol.

havent played mtg in a very long time but wither is a cool mechanic imo. turns the game in to hearthstone

As someone who played viscera seer melira and finks/redcap to many many modern wins I think -1/-1 mechanics are great

coughcough massacre girl known killer coughcough

I reallllllyy LOVE the world of Lorwyn and Shadowmoor and wish they'd revisit that plane. But alas it is not to be. Apparently those set player hated.

TheManalogs: -1 -1 counter is a failed mechanic Yawgmoth, Thran Physician enter the chat.

I would say that -1-1 counters are a powerful and interesting mechanic, especially in commander. Not a failed mechanic in my book. I love my Hapatra deck, and it's fairly strong too.

Needles to say, toxic in All Will Be One is just the skill poisonus under a different keyword, tough I wonder why the decision to name it differently was made.

-1/-1 counters go hard in my Shirei edh deck.

It would probably be busted AF if it had the right support

I can see Midnight Banshee and Necroskitter being good for a laugh in EDH alongside a board wipe. "All your base are now mine!" 3 card, two turn combo, so not that powerful, but good for a laugh.

I find it hard to believe you would go this entire video with no mention of Blowfly Infestation, which as a single enchantment essentially prevents your opponent from ever running 1 toughness creatures. It's a hard counter to token decks, and all you really need to kick it off is a single -1/-1 counter. Sure, it never won a grand prix, but it's still incredibly fun to watch a plague get unleashed across the board. One of my favorite decks to play for fun is a -1/-1 combo deck that randomly wraths the entire board and generates a ton of tokens.

I cant wait for my Hapatra deck to arrive 😂

Where my Skeleton Ship appreciators at

i think wither would be a bit more interesting when combined with something like first strike, as you could swing into a 1/2 with a 1/1 and, due to damage being dealt first, the creature would become a 0/1 on a block. there are also cases of creatures that deal non-combat damage having wither being useful if you are mostly just pining creatures for 1 damage, since that now also lowers their power with a permanent reduction to their toughness

i have a whole -1/-1 counter deck and it’s fire. how dare you

Failed mechanics but -1/-1 can be a beast in commander

i really wish wizards would have the balls to make a real -1/-1 counter set again like shadowfell, each attempt since has been more and more half-assed to the point they could've been removed entirely from amonkhet (a set which was sold at the time as "-1/-1 counters are back, baby!"). you can't make two blocks that barely featured them at all then throw your hands up and say "we tried, you didn't like it", take some damn risks again

You completely ignored Serrated Arrows from Homelands, which was the first and only competitive -1/-1 counter card that did had impact on pro tour in the 90's

Maybe with "boardwipe" this could be an interesting mechanichs, instead of for a "2 damage to everything" putting 2 -1/-1 on every creature achieve similar effect, with debuffing everything that survives as a small bonus. I also feel like it would "self synergise" better with more cards. Not that much mind you, having to trade 2 card for 1 is already bad, but if at least you could cast those 2 cards in a different turn it would be just a little less bad. I think permanent damage is such a small upside, you could just put it on a bunch of already good but not broken cards, and see what happens. I think it failed because the designer were constantly trying to put too much of a cost on the "permanent" part of permanent damage, resulting in only underpowered cards.

If they brought back battles, putting -1 counters would actually be more impactful as it makes it more difficult to remove defense counters from siege battles and makes it easier to defend them when you can weaken the creatures to the point of not killing your blockers

They USED to be more relevant when Finks was played in jund as a lifegain card, but outside of that, generally, yeah, they mostly haven't seen great play

My scorpion god EDH deck is a blast to play

I hate that they cancel out since there is so much design space for that being a choice. Id love to be able to agathas soul cauldron a devoted druid on things.

Kinda interesting how you seem to be mainly addressing the context of Standard, while many of these folks in the comments are like "Okay but EDH...". Not everything is about Commander, my friends...

*The Scorpion god has entered the chat* Still my favorite commander deck I’ve got, the whole thing revolves around killing things with -1/-1 counters for a tone of card draw. One of my strongest decks too

I was just gonna make a -1/-1 counter commander deck with Massacre Girl, Known Killer, but I guess I'll just use temporary toughness reducers instead.

MKM has -1/-1 counters in Massacre Girl, Known Killer

Yess… down talk the one mechanic that can hose my pillowfort deck 👹

I still hate the way that the counters cancel each other out. That would kill a lot of combo loops as you mentioned unless your own counters cancelled each other out. To me though, if you are trying to put -1/-1 counters on a creature you don't control to kill it and are playing lots of proliferate to finish the job, this gets frustrating going against a +1/+1 counter deck. And for that deck, which may also want to proliferate, if you're just playing tug of war constantly, it can be annoying. I still think a players -1/-1 counters and an opponents +1/+1s should be tracked separately. Of course this can get awkward and hard to keep track of, but it keeps -1/-1s functioning more effectively, especially if I can proliferate much more.