Experience Counters in MTG: Rules, History, and Best Cards

Last updated on September 30, 2025

Kelsien, the Plague | Illustration by Chris Rallis

Einstein said: “The only source of knowledge is experience,” and that’s as applicable to Magic: The Gathering as it is to physics. Personal knowledge based on your lived events shapes your worldview and decision-making processes either consciously or subconsciously. Your experience affects your win conditions in life, just as it does in MTG!

A handful of Magic's legendary creatures gain experience counters as events occur during a battle. They use their experience to execute powerful abilities or to statically buff themselves or your other creatures.

How do experience counters work in MTG? Which are the best? Let’s get grinding and start earning some XP!

How Do Experience Counters Work?

Meren of Clan Nel Toth | Illustration by Mark Winters

Although they’re exclusively generated by legendary creatures (typically your commander), you are actually the one gaining experience counters. A player gains an experience counter whenever a card’s effect says so.

For example, Meren of Clan Nel Toth looks at your graveyard on your end step and finds your favorite reanimation target or gives you a gravedigger effect. Experience counters hang out on players the same way as poison counters, energy counters, or any other type of counter a player could have.

Typically, having experience counters does something positive for you. Daxos the Returned creates tokens that are spirits with power and toughness equal to the number of experience counters you have, for example. Kelsien, the Plague and Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas both get +1/+1 for each of your experience counters. Minthara, Merciless Soul has ward X, where X is the amount of experience you’ve accumulated thus far.

Experience counters from different sources aren’t tracked separately. For example, if you control both Kelsien and Kalemne, the experience counters they generate inhabit the same “pool.” Kelsien’s experience counters and Kalemne’s experience counters contribute to both +1/+1 buffs.

The History of Experience Counters in MTG

Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas | Illustration by Jason Chan

Experience counters were introduced on a cycle of cards from the Commander 2015 set of preconstructed Commander decks. The first five experience counter generators were:

• Daxos the Returned
• Ezuri, Claw of Progress
• Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas
• Meren of Clan Nel Toth
• Mizzix of the Izmagnus

Experience counters would return on a single card in Commander 2020, Kelsien, the Plague, and again two years later in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate on Minthara, Merciless Soul.

One more was printed in Phyrexia: All Will Be One Commander with Otharri, Suns' Glory, and another experience counter legendary appeared in the Modern Horizons 3 Commander decks with Azlask, the Swelling Scourge.

On to Universes Beyond and Avatar: The Last Airbender, where the world first learned of Aang, Airbending Master and Katara, Waterbending Master as part of the eternal set, meaning the cards that care about experience counters continue to enter Magic outside of Standard.

How Do I Get Rid of Experience Counters in MTG?

Experience counters, like many player-placed counters, are difficult to remove. Only a few cards exist that can remove counters from players, but we’ve seen at least one card that interacts with this effect.

Notably, Price of Betrayal and Suncleanser can both remove counters from opponents. Final Act can also removal all counters from your opponents as one of its modes.

Besides that, your best bet is to prevent the accumulation of the counters in the first place with a Solemnity.

Does Proliferate Work on Experience Counters?

Yes! You can proliferate experience counters if you choose yourself with the proliferate effect.

However, if you proliferate yourself, you must add another counter of each type present. If you have both experience and poison counters, you’ll get an additional one of each. Be wary when proliferating yourself versus that Vishgraz, the Doomhive deck!

Are Experience Counters Good?

Yes, experience counters can be very good, namely because so few things interact with them. As in, once they accumulate, it's very difficult to slow them down.

Can I Build a Commander Deck with Experience Counters?

No, experience counters themselves are not a Commander deck you can pull off easily. The effects are wildly different, and the limited number of cards that start your experience counters are simply too few. Now building off of one card's experience counters, that's more like it.

Gallery and List of Experience Counter Cards

• Aang, Airbending Master
• Azlask, the Swelling Scourge
• Daxos the Returned
• Ezuri, Claw of Progress
• Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas
• Katara, Waterbending Master
• Kelsien, the Plague
• Meren of Clan Nel Toth
• Minthara, Merciless Soul
• Mizzix of the Izmagnus
• Otharri, Suns' Glory

Best Experience Counter Cards

#11. Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas

Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas might be the worst of the experience counter cards, but I’d love to hear an argument against that. Kalemne is just too slow for a Boros commander, which is typically a very fast and aggressive color pair. The number of 5-plus mana creature spells you can cast in a single turn is very limited, and all that just to get a +1/+1 buff really pales in comparison to the other experience counter legends. Even on a double strike body, Kalemne needs seven or eight experience counters before it becomes a real threat with its commander damage.

#10. Otharri, Suns’ Glory

A second phoenix commander hit the scene with Phyrexia: All Will Be One’s Commander precons: Otharri, Suns' Glory. This Boros card creates a number of tapped and attacking 2/2s equal to the number of experience counters you have whenever it attacks. At 5 mana, that’s a little later in the game than we’d like to start generating experience, but luckily Otharri can recur itself with those Rebel tokens it creates, so we’ll always get the chance to make more on the following turn.

#9. Minthara, Merciless Soul

If “ward X” sounds like it’d be obnoxious, that’s because it is. Minthara, Merciless Soul isn’t impossible to remove, but it sure is a pain. While its +1/+0 anthem isn’t as exciting as Azlask’s activated anthem, this elf cleric‘s greatest strength is how easy it is to generate experience counters. White and black have some of the best ways to trigger Minthara's effect, either by blinking creatures with Ephemerates or sacrificing them with a Carrion Feeder.

#8. Daxos the Returned

Daxos the Returned is one of the original C15 experience counter legendaries, and its design is a bit conservative compared to the others. Daxos’s greatest strength is not having to tap to activate its ability, letting you pump out multiple Spirit tokens per turn as long as you have the mana for it. Also note that you can create a Spirit token when you have no experience counters, creating a 0/0 token that’ll die when state-based actions are checked. This is useful for generating a free death trigger for your aristocrats cards, at least!

#7. Aang, Airbending Master

Aang, Airbending Master plays very nicely with the frogs of Bloomburrow and the warp cards of Edge of Eternities, or any number of blink/self-bounce targets. It's almost like Commander's Authority elevated to a point where this kid can save the world with an ally anthem or mass pump.

#6. Ezuri, Claw of Progress

Ezuri, Claw of Progress wants to play a lot of small creatures and then pump them up exponentially as you gain more and more experience counters. It’s a fairly straightforward Simic commander () in possibly the best colors to exploit its effect – blue cards have access to a ton of small unblockable creatures that trigger Ezuri on the way in and benefit greatly from the dozens of +1/+1 counters it can create over the course of a game.

#5. Katara, Waterbending Master

You already want to flash in cards, and play instants on other players turns. Katara, Waterbending Master rewards you like Sanctum of Calm Waters where the first counter gets you to a loot, but after that is pure card draw. Katara even costs less, has a higher ceiling, sports the Water Tribe watermark, and has hair that looks so manageable.

#4. Mizzix of the Izmagnus

Mizzix of the Izmagnus might be the perfect example of a spellslinger commander. Mizzix discounts the cost of your instants and sorceries more and more as long as you can cast bigger and bigger spells.

Personally, I love how this Izzet commander plays into itself: As you cast more spells, the harder-to-cast spells become easier to cast, generating more experience counters and making the even more expensive spells easier to cast. Before you know it, you’re hardcasting Searing Wind for 2 mana!

#3. Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Meren of Clan Nel Toth is by far the strongest of the original experience counter commanders. This Golgari commander generates experience counters easily; we all know how many free sacrificial outlets are available in EDH, from Ashnod's Altar to the humble Viscera Seer. In addition, Meren’s free creature reanimation each turn means you can very easily set up an early Massacre Wurm or loop a Walking Ballista with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed in an instant.

#2. Kelsien, the Plague

Kelsien, the Plague is the only legendary creature with experience counters to come out of Commander 2020. As Draftsim’s resident Mardu guy, I should say I’m a bit biased, but I think Kelsien might be one of the best designed commanders of the past five years.

Kelsien’s ability to ping a creature and gain experience when it dies is easy to break with a simple Basilisk Collar, and its vigilance means you can declare it as an attacker and still use the effect to one-shot a troublesome blocker. Besides that, this excellent Mardu commander’s a cheap body with haste that can start accumulating experience counters much quicker than its contemporaries; I often use it to snipe my opponents’ mana dorks off the field on turn 3.

#1. Azlask, the Swelling Scourge

Azlask, the Swelling Scourge isn’t just a great Eldrazi commander; it’s also the best commander to build around experience counters! As a 5-color commander, Azlask's color identity lets you include every single one of the other experience counter cards, and its generally useful activated ability synergizes well with all those extra ways to generate counters.

Decklist: Mardu Kelsien Headshots in Commander

Drumbellower | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

I love to run my Kelsien, the Plague Commander deck. It keeps my opponents’ creatures off the table and perfectly captures the assassin vibe I wanted for it.

By using untappers like Thousand-Year Elixir and Magewright's Stone, Kelsien can wipe the board of huge threats multiple times per turn and still swing in for commander damage all at once. You use cards like Glaring Spotlight and Shay Cormac to clear away hexproofed commanders, and you can grant Kelsien deathtouch with Basilisk Collar to make sure any amount of damage it deals is enough to kill.

Wrap Up

Ezuri, Claw of Progress | Illustration by James Ryman

Experience counters are a fun way to track your commander becoming mechanically stronger as the game progresses. We've seen them return sparingly since their inception, but with exciting new effects each time. I can’t wait to see where experience counters end up next on the release schedule!

Which experience counter commander is your favorite? How would you design another 3-color experience counter card? Let me know in the comments, or over on Draftsim's Twitter/X.

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