SimicLegendary Creature — Salamander SerpentXolatoyac, the Smiling Flood
Mana value6Rank#4,748
The Commander
Whenever Xolatoyac enters or attacks, put a flood counter on target land. That land is an Island in addition to its other types for as long as it has a flood counter on it.
At the beginning of your end step, untap each permanent you control with a counter on it.
Guide
Gameplan
Xolatoyac is a Simici counters-and-lands toolbox that floods opposing or your own lands into Islands while quietly building a counter-based engine. Each turn you grow creatures and lands with counters, swing for chip damage with islandwalk synergies, and use the end-step untap to double up on mana, attackers, or activated abilities. You win by snowballing big counter creatures or assembling an untap-fueled mana/combo turn.
Strengths
- Free, repeatable counter generation every combat that fuels proliferate and counters-matter payoffs
- End-step untap effectively gives pseudo-vigilance and extra mana from any permanent carrying a counter
- Turns your own lands into Islands to enable islandwalk evasion across the table
- Simici gives access to the format's best ramp, card draw, and proliferate engines
- Flexible: the flood counter can hose opposing lands or supercharge your own
Weaknesses
- At 6 mana the commander is slow and does nothing the turn it lands beyond a single counter
- No built-in evasion or protection on the body itself, so it's easy to remove repeatedly
- The untap triggers only on your end step, limiting explosive same-turn combos
- Heavily reliant on having counters in play to make the untap clause matter
- Vulnerable to counter-removal and graveyard/land hate in lands-matter builds
Key Cards
- Inexorable Tide — Proliferates on every spell, spreading counters so Xolatoyac's untap clause hits more permanents each turn.
- Master Biomancer — Ensures every creature enters with +1/+1 counters, so your whole board untaps and grows under Xolatoyac.
- Hardened Scales — Cheap multiplier that snowballs every counter you place, accelerating your counters engine.
- Cryptolith Rite — Lets your counter-bearing creatures tap for mana, then the end-step untap effectively doubles your ramp.
- Tatyova, Benthic Druid — Rewards the lands-matter axis, drawing cards and gaining life as you fetch and play extra lands.
- Phantasmal Image — Cloning evasive or counter creatures stretches the snowball and abuses the islandwalk you create.
Upgrade Path
Lean into a single axis—either tight +1/+1 counters with multipliers (Hardened Scales, Branching Evolution) and proliferate (Flux Channeler, Evolution Sage), or a lands-matter ramp shell (Cultivate, The Gitrog Monster, Tireless Tracker) that exploits the untap clause for mana. Add protection like Heroic Intervention and Lightning Greaves so your 6-drop sticks, and trim cute cards for proven payoffs and faster ramp to cover the slow start. For higher power, build toward a deterministic untap loop or proliferate-driven mana engine that lets you cast an X-finisher in a single turn.
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
- ▸Overwhelm with oversized +1/+1 counter creatures, often with unblockable islandwalk
- ▸Untap-fueled mana ramp into a giant X spell or game-ending payoff like Finale of Devastation
- ▸Proliferate planeswalker ultimates or a value engine that buries the table in card advantage
- ▸Combo finishes using the end-step untap on a counter-bearing mana producer to chain a payoff
Archetypes
- +1/+1 Counters — The end-step untap and proliferate-friendly trigger reward a go-wide counters board that grows relentlessly.
- Lands / Ramp — Flood counters and end-step land untaps let you abuse landfall, mana doublers, and high-value lands.
- Proliferate — Every flood counter and +1/+1 counter becomes a proliferate target, multiplying value across the board.
- Islandwalk Aggro — Turning every defender's lands into Islands makes your blue creatures unblockable for incremental kills.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (GU), by popularity.
