Legendary Creature — Salamander Serpent

Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood

Mana value6EDHREC#4,748

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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.