The Commander
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice Chisei unless you remove a counter from a permanent you control.
Guide
Gameplan
Chisei is a mono-blue counters-matters commander that wants permanents loaded with counters to feed its upkeep tax. You ramp into artifacts and enchantments stacked with charge/age/storage counters, then drain them turn after turn while leveraging proliferate and counter-doublers to stay ahead. The deck plays as a controlling, value-driven artifact/counters engine that grinds incremental advantage into a combo or big finish.
Strengths
- Mono-blue gives access to the best card draw, counterspells, and tutors for consistency
- Counters are sticky resources Chisei can convert into upkeep fuel, ramp, and card advantage
- Proliferate and counter-doublers (Doubling Season effects) snowball quickly
- Highly synergistic with powerful storage/charge counter combo pieces
Weaknesses
- Chisei sacrifices itself if you ever run out of counters to remove, making it fragile
- Single-color identity means no removal beyond bounce and limited interaction with permanents
- Slow to set up the counter engine; vulnerable to fast aggro and stax
- Relies on its own death-trigger tax that can be exploited by opponents stripping counters or denying the engine
Key Cards
- Everflowing Chalice — A cheap, scalable source of multiple counters that Chisei can shave off for upkeep payments and ramp.
- Astral Cornucopia — Provides stackable charge counters that double as mana and Chisei fuel.
- Karn's Bastion — Repeatable proliferate keeps counters replenished so Chisei never starves.
- Doubling Cube — Combos with storage-counter lands and rocks for explosive mana, and the counters feed Chisei.
- Power Conduit — Lets you freely move counters around so you always have one to remove for Chisei's tax.
- Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider — Doubles counters you add and halves opponents', supercharging the entire engine.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana (Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault) and counter-doublers (Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider) to accelerate the engine, plus proliferate density like Inexorable Tide and Karn's Bastion to keep Chisei fed. Tighten the win plan around a storage-counter mana combo (Doubling Cube plus charge lands) into a draw or X-spell outlet, and pack stronger interaction with Cyclonic Rift, Fierce Guardianship, and Mystic Confluence.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Infinite mana from storage counters plus Doubling Cube fueling a giant X spell or draw outlet
- ▸Proliferate loops generating overwhelming card and board advantage to grind opponents out
- ▸A big blue finisher like a Blue Sun's Zenith or laboratory-style mill/draw win
- ▸Levelling up planeswalkers or charge-counter threats into game-ending ultimates
Archetypes
- Counters Matters — Chisei rewards stacking and manipulating +1/+1, charge, and age counters across your board.
- Artifact Ramp — Charge-counter mana rocks like Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice fuel both ramp and Chisei's tax.
- Control — Mono-blue counterspells and card draw let you protect the engine and dictate the game.
- Combo — Storage-counter pieces and proliferate enable infinite mana and counter loops to close games.
Combos
- Chisei, Heart of Oceans + The Mirari Conjecture + Time Warp
→ Infinite turns, Lock
- Chisei, Heart of Oceans + The Mirari Conjecture + Temporal Manipulation
→ Infinite turns, Lock
- Chisei, Heart of Oceans + The Mirari Conjecture + Capture of Jingzhou
→ Infinite turns, Lock
Combos via Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (U), by popularity.
