How They Brew It - Xavier Sal, Infested Captain: Battles at Sea
Xavier Sal, Infested Captain | Illustrated by Bryan Sola
So, you want to join Her Royal Navy? It's not for the cowardly, but I can see that sharpness in your eyes. You have your reasons, don't you? Then sit a while, and listen to my tale. I remember it like it was seventeen years ago.
When I was a young boy, growing up in Port Starboard, I didn't have a single care in the world. Every day, I woke up bright and early to watch the sun rise and breathe in the crisp ocean air. I'd run around barefoot on the sand, laughing and playing in the sun while my parents drank. And after school each day, I'd make an honest living scouring the coast for seashells, which I'd fashion into arrowheads and sell to the three talking crabs who always seemed to want more. Yes, life would be perfect forever. Perfect, until the pirates came.
There was nothing we could do. These scoundrels took everything from us, and before long, Port Starboard, my home, was their base of operations. They were cruel and merciless. Even now, I shudder to remember that we were all forced to illegally duplicate films, television shows, and computer software without the express permission of their copyright's owners, thereby infringing upon the exclusive rights of said copyright owners as conferred to them by Title 17, § 106 of the United States Code. I'm not proud of what I did, and it was only by pure luck -- no, maybe fate -- that I saw an opportunity to stow aboard the invaders' ship, the Fast Track. I weathered horrible torrents aboard that pirate vessel, but eventually, I escaped. I became a sailor in Her Royal Navy, and I spent years climbing the ranks. Now? It's finally time to take my home back.
The Pirate Bay
Yes, I am Fleet Admiral Michael Celani, and when I watch Pirates of the Caribbean, I root for the British. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who remembers when Moonlight Smuggler King Scuttlebutt Crossbones's Crimson Lagoon and Booty Cove was known as Port Starboard, but history, unfortunately, is written by the winners... or at least it was, until I wrestle it back from their control.
...wait...
Behold, the monster that took my home from me: Xavier Sal, Infested Captain, the man who would download a car. A fearsome pirate not content to just create illegal copies of the hit new video game Final Fantasy VII Relapse, Xavier likes to take counters off the stuff he owns to create illegal copies of his own crew. And it goes the other way, too; he's not above sacrificing his own mateys for a little extra booty. This fungal pirate man is incredibly dangerous, so listen up, or else you'll find yourself in Davy Jones's locker, wedged between Davy Jones's workout shorts and Davy Jones's Axe body spray.
Counter Spells
The most dangerous thing about pirates is that they recruit. They'll claim that piracy isn't theft, because it doesn't deprive the owner of their property. They'll argue that downloading a movie that's been out of print for decades and whose rights are owned by a defunct company is an act of preservation. They'll try to convince you that the public domain exists. To that I say, nuh uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... So don't fall for their tricks, because pirates have even been known to take counters off of permanents they control to populate, which is a felony in six of the Seven Seas and nine of the Great Lakes.
Preparing for Battle
Sun Tzu once said that "victorious warriors win first, and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first, then seek to win." Sun Tzu also said that there's only five musical notes, proving he's an idiot. Regardless, ol' Sunny may have been on to something, because battles, introduced in March of the Machine, enter play with tons of counters on them, and it turns out you can win them without fighting. You might think that, since an opponent protects these Sieges, you wouldn't be able to remove their counters with Xavier's ability. However, battles are, in fact, permanents you control no matter who their foster parent is, so you're legally obligated to fritter that defense away to populate. Sieges form the crux of our strategy, and we have ten in all.
Invasion of Ixalan and Invasion of Pyrulea both smooth out your early draws as they kickstart your descent from "kinda into historical battles" to "I talk about the Revolutionary War way too much on first dates." Then, Invasion of Amonkhet replaces itself, leaves your opponents down a card, and has the benefit of stocking your graveyard, which pairs well with quite a few spells we'll discuss later. Invasion of Segovia enables itself when it comes to Xavier, as in even the worst case you can still populate the Kraken tokens it creates. Its back side also all but pays for your noncreature spells for the rest of the game. Invasion of Innistrad, Invasion of Vryn, and Invasion of Zendikar are decent, if pricey, removal, draw, and ramp spells respectively, whereas Invasion of Shandalar can recur any battles you own that ended up in the graveyard.
However, the two strongest scuffles in the deck are the two tutors: Invasion of Ikoria and Invasion of Arcavios. Invasion of Ikoria tutors any creature in your library onto the battlefield and transforms into a win condition all on its own, because when twenty bears are barrelling down the field at your opponent, it helps that they don't get distracted by anything. Finally, Invasion of Arcavios is a one-card infinite, since it simply searches for a spell like Doppelgang that lets you create more copies of Invasion of Arcavios. That leaves you with tons of counters and access to every instant and sorcery in your deck if it's not dealt with.
Make Ye Walk the Plane
It's not just battles that enter play with tons of counters ready to be spent; planeswalkers do too, and although it's much worse to take away loyalty from your own planeswalker as opposed to defense from your own Siege, they can still get the job done if you need to populate in a pinch. This makes them far more situational than battles, so we're limiting ourselves to just two: Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler, who, thanks to his static and +1 loyalty, supercharges Xavier activations, and Tamiyo, Compleated Sage, whose -X copy-from-the-graveyard ability can get our shenanigans started. Don't sell Tamiyo too short, though: she can interact with Xavier's other ability, the proliferate one, to fire off a cheeky ultimate the turn she comes down provided you've got the right board state.
Embarrassment of Riches
Of course, without a healthy helping of jank, all those plundering pirates would come down with a case of scurvy and also rabies, so here's a few more prime cuts of lobster included simply for the fact that they're served with a crapload of counters. The Millennium Calendar plinks down a counter for each permanent you untap every turn, meaning you'll quickly outpace even a generous understanding of what Xavier can spend especially if you're planning to speedrun 2012 with its activated ability. Similarly, Vexing Puzzlebox comes down right away with an average dice roll of ten counters, all while fixing your mana and ramping you. Tribute to the World Tree grants all of your creatures with less than three power a two-point boost, and that can easily enable an infinite combo if you choose your populate target wisely. Speaking of infinite combos, Chronozoa's vanishing, paired with its death trigger that makes token copies of itself, is another two-card engine in Xavier, and frankly not enough people know about this duo. Trenzalore Clocktower rings true as an untapped nonbasic Island that adds counters every time you tap it, but the real prize in the land slot is, ironically, locked leagues beneath the sea within the Dark Depths. Ten ice counters is all that separates you from Marit Lage, who, according to the Necronomicon, is destined to eat an exile immediately unstoppable.
Don't Copy That, What, Why
Look, I'm just going to break character here and say that if you didn't see the twist that this How They Brew It about piracy would involve literally copying creatures, I'm actually impressed, and I envy you. For those of you with high school diplomas, no, Pirated Copy does not make an appearance in this list. My fruit doesn't hang that low.
A Fleet of Admirals
Let's start with the instants and sorceries that can clone creatures. Cackling Counterpart is the most basic -- it's just an instant-speed copy with flashback -- but it quickly gets weirder from there. Saw in Half, the only card from Unfinity that anyone is allowed to play (though you can slot Sole Performer in this list if you're not a coward), is best spent on one of your own creatures to turn it into two smaller ones. Going even further, Haunting Imitation has a ceiling of three creature tokens, and if you happen to hit something like a Kokusho, the Evening Star off an opponent, the game's just over. Double Major and Irenicus's Vile Duplication both get around the legend rule, meaning their ideal target is Xavier himself; you'll just start populating more Xaviers. Replication Technique has the benefit of hitting any permanent, making it the prime target to fetch when you're able to cast Invasion of Arcavios. And who could leave out Doppelgang? This crew-in-a-bottle can easily turn the game around if you're in a rough spot just as well as it can press an advantage when you're ahead, leaving its inclusion a no-brainer.
A Curse Most Foul
Now we move on to the permanents that copy creatures, and here's where the deck breaks through the surface of the waves, like the graceful whale, capsizing a yacht. There's two broad categories here: things that copy creatures on the battlefield, and things that copy creatures cards in the graveyard. On the battlefield side, a good start is to play a Bramble Sovereign on turn four and curve into any three-drop on turn five to get two copies of your target creature and start your populate chain. Nightmare Shepherd and Kinzu of the Bleak Coven are also both ticking cannonballs; all you need to do is sacrifice one of your creatures as a cost to Xavier's proliferate ability, and you'll end up with a token copy of that creature for free. Our deck is pretty diverse typewise, so Volo, Guide to Monsters almost always procs when you cast creatures. Last in this category is Blade of Shared Souls, which is a bit of a weird one. On the face of it, it's functionally a Quasiduplicate, but it gives you the power to turn any token creature you control into anything else you'd want to duplicate whenever you want, giving it much more flexibility than a one-shot copy.
While Xeroxing creatures from the battlefield is fine, copying them out of the graveyard tends to be much more threatening, since those effects often beef up their creature tokens as a side bonus. Notably, The Scarab God, Dino DNA, and Dollhouse of Horrors turn even the wimpiest losers into actual threats, and because you now control actual threats that can be populated, it'll spell the end of the world very quickly for any table that isn't paying attention to you. The actual mechanism of these permanents is pretty samey: exile a creature card from a graveyard, get a copy that doesn't skip leg day. Drilling down, The Scarab God's trigger will probably kill your opponents if left unchecked, it's difficult to kill for any stretch of time, and it's capable of pulling Zombies out of any graveyard; Dino DNA, like /r/magicthecirclejerking, turns everything it touches into Colossal Dreadmaw; and Dollhouse of Horrors gives its creatures a self-anthem that turns the amount of stats-per-stat quadratic as you populate.
The Finest Crew
Xavier has survived on the high seas this long by having the best pirate crew ever assembled, and thanks to his populate ability, he also happens to have the most pirate crew ever assembled. He's hand-picked only the creatures that he can work closely with, and it turns out "work closely with" means "combos like they were a stuffed pretzel snack."
Untap a Keg
Yup, you guessed it: the way we're flipping that Invasion of Ikoria or chiseling Marit Lage out of their icy prison is by populating creatures that untap Xavier himself. Whether it's something like a Pestermite, which twiddles Xavier when it enters the battlefield, or a Kiora's Follower, whose activated ability usually needs a turn but makes up for it by being able to untap permanents multiple times, you'll be able to keep going for as long as you have counters on your permanents. There's a ton of these effects in the deck, and they're all more or less functionally identical. You might be tempted to hold out for beefier variants, but don't drag your feet hoping for a Bounding Krasis to sink your forty counters into when a simple Corridor Monitor will do the trick.
Draw up a Map
But those untappers won't matter if we don't find them in the first place, so we've put enough draw on our creatures to keep churning through our deck. Mulldrifter is the standard play here, and it evokes really well into a Nightmare Shepherd. Outside of that, Champion of Wits has the benefit of eternalizing itself into a 4/4, and since Xavier is a sac outlet all by himself, all you need is the mana to have a guaranteed draw engine that you can keep reusing. Timeless Witness works a similar magic, but for recursion instead.
Bruiser Buccaneers
Okay, I lied. It's not all combos; sometimes, you just wanna hit some people in the face with an anchor. Pack Rat, like Dollhouse of Horrors, creates populatable anthems, and it does this by stocking your graveyard. Each additional copy of Aeve, Progenitor Ooze you make gets one bigger than the one before it, and if you've happened to find your copy of Intruder Alarm, that's another game-ender right there. Finally, there's Honored Hydra, the Colossal Dreadmaw that Dino DNA doesn't want you to know about. All of these are great ways to close out a game once you've reached a critical mass of untappers.
Tall Tales
But, there's one last thing we should mention before going up against this gang of copyright infringers. Legend has it that Xavier's populate-arity has gotten so great thanks to the fact he provides better services than media companies at a much better price point that debauchery and sin is on the rise that he's even gotten things that are... unnatural to fight for him.
Halsin, Emerald Archdruid extends Xavier's populate prowess to any permanent on the battlefield. Simply make a token copy of your victim with Doppelgang or Replication Technique, plop down Halsin, Emerald Archdruid, and turn that token into a bear. Your target is now a creature token, which means that Xavier wakes up. Ever wanted ten copies of Intruder Alarm? Why not. As many Tribute to the World Trees you could muster? You bet.
You can even copy the battles that made you a naval hero in the first place. Simply make a token copy of a battle, animate it, duplicate it, and now you're stuck in a never-ending war that would make Airstrip One blush, as those copies come in with the defense counters printed on the card. The plunder never ends!
Download Complete
Well, sailors. Now that you know absolutely everything there is to know about our enemy, it's time to set sail, and -- wait, you're telling me that software pirates don't actually sail? They use something called a "lime wire" to download "empty threes?" That's just crazy. Guess that's the fifth one walking the plank today...
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