Shay Cormac

Gameplan

Shay Cormac is a two-mana voltron/removal hybrid who punishes opponents' creatures: tag them with bounties via your targeted removal, then cash them in by killing them to grow Shay with stacks of +1/+1 counters while the activated ability strips away the protection that usually saves problem permanents. You spend early turns deploying interaction and ramp, then snowball Shay into a lethal threat backed by repeatable removal.

Key Cards

• Swords to Plowshares — Premier one-mana removal that tags a creature with a bounty—but exile won't trigger the death payoff, so save it for true threats.
• Bedevil — Flexible targeted destruction that plants a bounty and kills, feeding Shay two counters when the creature dies.
• Heartless Hidetsugu style ping effects, replaced by Soul Snare — Repeatable or cheap targeting effects let you stack bounties before a board wipe.
• Toxic Deluge — After tagging multiple creatures, a wrath cashes in every bounty at once for a massive Shay buff.
• Skullclamp — Essential card draw engine in a counters/aristocrats shell to refuel B/W's thin card advantage.
• Rogue's Passage — Gives the growing Shay guaranteed evasion to push commander damage through clogged boards.

Upgrade Path

Push power by adding cheap, repeatable targeting effects (pingers, auras like Soul Snare/Journey to Nowhere, and recurring removal) so you can apply many bounties before a sweeper. Improve consistency with the best B/W ramp and card draw (Sol Ring, Talisman of Hierarchy, Phyrexian Arena, Skullclamp) and tighten the curve toward instant-speed interaction. For the kill, add reliable evasion and protection for Shay—Whispersilk Cloak, Rogue's Passage, Lightning Greaves, and Swiftfoot Boots—plus a few extra-combat or trample enablers to ensure your snowballed counters actually convert to lethal damage.