Has anyone had any luck with Okinec?

Hey everyone!

Happy New Year!

TLDR: Has anyone had success with Okinec? I'd love to hear any tips or anecdotes about your time with him.

I've been wanting to build a deck around [[Sovereign Okinec Ahau]] for a while now, but I'm struggling with it. Maybe I've been playing too many stompy decks and it smoothed out the wrinkles of the good ol' gray matter. Or maybe I'm just psyching myself out too much.

My first attempt tried meshing too many things together. I tried +1/+1 counters, anthems, and tokens which ended being a mess in actual play.

For my second attempt, I tried using an enchantress shell with anthems. This never made it to paper. I felt that it took too many anthems to make the enchantress shell worth it, but at that point, I had no slots left in my deck for anything else.

My last attempt (also never made it to paper), tried using more +1/+1 counter synergy, but it felt slow. Doubling one counter on a creature feels too slow. And by the time Okinec's ability triggers once, I figure that he'd become an immediate target for removal.

Like I said, maybe I'm just psyching myself out. Or maybe I've been playing too many big creature decks that mechanics other than ramp and stuff that cheats things into play don't make sense to me anymore.

I had thought about maybe changing perspective and going a bit more stompy with it. Maybe more things like hydras, but then the problem becomes; how do I boost Okinec? I'm not sure.

Anyway, I'd love to hear what you all think? Any advice you might have or if you have any anecdotes that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks and Happy New Year!