Minthara, Merciless Soul

Gameplan

Sacrifice or trade away your own permanents every turn to bank experience counters, which simultaneously make Minthara harder to kill (ward) and turn your whole board into an escalating beatdown engine (+1/+0 per counter). You play a token/aristocrats shell that generates expendable bodies, then go wide and swing for lethal once counters pile up.

Key Cards

• Bitterblossom — Free, repeatable token every turn feeds sacrifice outlets and guarantees a permanent can leave each turn.
• Ophiomancer — Makes a Snake each upkeep if you control none, an endless renewable body to sacrifice for experience.
• Viscera Seer — Free, repeatable sacrifice outlet to reliably trigger an experience counter every end step.
• Goldnight Castigator — With a stack of counters and a wide board, you can convert experience into massive double-strike-adjacent damage spikes—pairs with anthem to close games fast.
• Skullclamp — Turns your fragile +1/+0 tokens into a card-draw engine while sacrificing them for counters.
• Pitiless Plunderer — Generates treasure when your creatures die, ramping and refueling your aristocrats engine.
• Mirkwood Bats — Punishes opponents each time a token enters or leaves, adding a drain wincon alongside the anthem.

Upgrade Path

Add more free and repeatable sacrifice outlets (Carrion Feeder, Ashnod's Altar, Goblin Bombardment) plus token engines (Endrek Sahr, Ophiomancer, Mondrak) so a permanent reliably leaves every turn. Layer in aristocrats payoffs (Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Bastion of Remembrance) to win even through board wipes, and include recursion like Welcoming Vampire or Reassembling Skeleton for inexhaustible fodder. Top-end accelerants like Pitiless Plunderer and fast mana let you build counters faster and protect Minthara with the ever-growing ward.