more on this below.) Hopefully you're beginning to see why the counters eventually get folded into +1/+1 as about 90% of designs can be accomplished (or accomplished closely enough) with +1/+1 counters
It reminds me of Lich: Lich was in the first set, and you no longer died for dropping below zero life, although in Lich's case, you would die if Lich was destroyed or if you cannot sacrifice your stuff
Thanks to the leaked Ria Ivor, Bane of Bladehold, it appears that MTGs combat system could be getting reworked
Im also only considering cards that reduce the cost of other spells, not cards that reduce their own casting cost
It reads, At the beginning of combat on your turn, equipped creature or a creature you control named Vecna gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of cards in your hand. Finally, The Book of Vile Darkness is a three mana Black Artifact that lets you create a 2/2 Zombie token if you lost two or more life in your turn