Main idea: Make dudes, turn dudes sideways


Where this deck is good: Beating face and keeping its creatures around to beat more face
Where this deck is bad: Board wipes that exile / bounce, or just dying without lategame life gain


Main win conditions:
    Commander damage
    Beating face with small and/or large creatures
    Purphoros, God of the Forge + lots of things dying and coming back
    Flayer of the Hatebound + things coming back
    Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion combo


Combos:
    Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion
= Infinite damage. Ping Trike twice, then use the rest of the counters
to ping whatever you want. It dies with no counters and comes back with
4.

Synergies (outside of the obvious +1/+1 counters + things that care about them):
    Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Pentavus = Remove all counters from Pentavus, get dudes and a fres Pentavus
    Marchesa, the Black Rose + Graft = get creatures back and immediately put counters on them
    Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Graft = graft off all the counters and get it back with more counters
    Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Persist = Persist + Undying = creature always comes back immediately
    Volrath's Stronghold + Phyrexian Tower = Put a creature on top of your library. Good with ETB / dies triggers


Card draw:
    River Kelpie - Free cards that also beats face and has persist, what more could you ask for.
    Novijen Sages - 1 to draw a card is good. Being able to manipulate +1/+1 counters is also good.
    Necropotence - Cards that cost life. Perfect for managing your hand and life total.
    Sage of Fables - Bad Novijen Sages, but does put a +1/+1 on Marchesa, so there's that.


Removal:
    Retribution of the Ancients - Cheap repeatable removal is very good. With Mikaeus, the Unhallowed it gets insane. Even more so if you add a graft creature on top of that.
    Nekrataal / Shriekmaw - Removal that you can recur. Also beats face.
    Cytoplast Manipulator / Simic Manipulator - Wouldn't count on them, but they do provide some utility on top of counters.
    Chaos Warp - Sometimes you just need thing gone.


Board wipes:
    Toxic Deluge / Damnation / Extinguish All Hope / Blasphemous Act - Destroy all creatures, get yours back. yay!
    Necroplasm / Caldera Hellion / Magmasaur / Crater Hellion - Repeatable board wipes, but can be very tricky to use properly


General tutoring strategy:
    Early game: Sacrifice outlet, this protects your cards from getting bounced / exiled, and adds a ton of options to gameplay
    Early / Mid - Volrath's Stronghold / Phyrexian Reclamation to fight through grave hate if you expect it, or removal if necessary, else card draw
    Midgame - Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. He is just so good with so many cards, and makes any boardstate even harder to dismantle
    Late game - Life gain and win cons