MTG Salvation

I've been wanting to build a Phelddagrif deck for a while, because he's the PERFECT multiplayer edh general. Why? He's got blue to counter major enemy threats, white to kill them, green to pump them out...and most importantly, he's very unlikely to be taken seriously, so people will focus on killing each other. And you can happily sit back and give favors to whoever you please. It's the ultimate politician deck.

But how do you keep from always coming in second? As every douchebag knows, infinite combos are the easiest way to clear out a big multiplayer game. In order to avoid drawing hate, all the "tutors" in the deck (except LTP) are just ways to sift through the deck until you hit the deadly - and fully concealed - combo: mischievous quanar + turnabout. From there, all you need is any targeted draw spell (including oona's grace from the grave...devious) and you can deck everyone immediately (tap 'em out first). if you want to be 100% concealed, use either teferi, mage of zhalfir or scout's warning. or winding canyons is 99% concealed.

The basic strategy - help everyone out and generally act as though you're a "group hug" deck until you've got your combo pieces in hand...then you can either win immediately, or let the game continue until you're bored and win. personally i favor the latter approach. wait until someone else is set to win...then kill 'em all in response.

Pretending to be a group hug deck, then instantly killing everyone...sounds like fun to me.

Quote from Jenesis

Unfortunately, you can't tap down your opponents because you need the infinite mana your combo gives; even if you Turnabout all their lands, they can tap them and float mana in response.

Cute combo, by the way. However, considering it's the only morph creature in the deck, no one can say they didn't see it coming the second time.

Why the Basilisk Collar? It does absolutely nothing on a Wall creature.

that is true, although some opponents might not realize it. at any rate, it's pretty irrelevant. Once you have infinite mana, as soon as they do anything you can just keep copying stuff in response. i.e. if you go infinite with careful consideration and they discard emrakul, the aeons torn, in response to the trigger keep copying careful consideration. no problem. Plus you should draw most of your deck before you deck everyone else, just in case they have something in their deck that might cause a problem.

quanar isn't the only morpher. Zoetic cavern is already in the deck, and voidmage apprentice and voidmage apprentice are both in the deck too. Not a ton, but there weren't any other morphers that I really liked for the deck. I did take that into consideration though. 4 is enough to create uncertainty, imo. plus you should never actually play quanar until you can combo off. if people decide you're too threatening then just kill 'em all.

basilisk collar is mostly for deterrent and lifegain. pheldy is always a decent target since he can gain flying and has decent p/t. Stuff like fog bank is great at preventing attacks but it isn't usually as effective of a deterrent as saying "I'll kill your stuff and gain life doing it".

Quote from uberdylan

I enjoy Sun Droplet and Eternity Vessel as methods of "non-aggressive life gain" - unlike usual life gain, which encourages people to attack you, they discourage attack, as it would for the most part be meaningless.

I usually enjoy Howling Mine/Font of Mythos/Rites of Flourishing in my group hug decks, and increased card draw might help you assemble the combo. You can also try Willbender and Chromeshell Crab as additional morph creatures. And Recurring Insight seems perfect for this deck - let somebody draw a bunch of cards, then benefit double from your charity.

Oh, and most important: Trade Secrets. Cast it on a deck without counterspells who wants to draw cards: at worst, you just drew 4 for 1UU, and at best he/she decides to draw their whole deck; you get the combo plus all the counterspells you could possibly need.

my problem with sun droplet or eternity vessel is that they encourage people to kill you all at once. Which is generally what the deck forces anyway, otherwise you'll give their enemies a hundred tokens and two hundred life.

I considered stuff like font and mine, but keep in mind this isn't REALLY a group hug deck. it's basically control/combo, with a happy hippo face plastered over it to throw people off the evil trail. It's actually been pretty decent at 1v1 because it can get brutally controlling with only one enemy. Although the general is pretty crap, i'd switch it with rubinia soulsinger or something a lot less huggy for 1v1. Anyway, font and mine both give my opponents a good chance of getting something to kill me. I just want to stall the game out long enough to get my combo, not help anyone else win. The magic hippo lets me target my tokens, life, and draw so I only give them to the people I'm not worried about.

recurring insight actually got played against me for someone to draw 20 cards lol, but I dunno if I like it in my deck. it ties up a lot of mana and it makes it look like i've helped people only so I'd benefit. I usually try to make it look like i'm helping just for the hell of it. makes people take you less seriously. plus paying to bounce the hippo means you're playing a lot of mana to replay him and all that.

trade secrets is a good idea though, I'm surprised I didn't think of it since I used it in my high tide deck.

So far the deck is undefeated in 5 games vs a total of 9 opponents.

Quote from Oppo28

I don't see how this could ever win against the same kids though, and I like playing against the same kids more than once.

It depends a lot on how you play it. If you play it like a douchebag and gloat all over your win, then sure, people will want to kill you in the next game. Also, it's best to NOT use the infinite combo to win unless you absolutely have to. I've won plenty of games just by smacking face with the hippo, while having the infinite combo ready to go off if things should get bad. Quite simply, the deck does not draw hate, and what hate it DOES draw is easy to deter...No one is going to attack into glarecaster, and probably not into angus mackenzie either. The deck has craptons of control, it excels at making itself the least appealing target.

Keep in mind, even if everyone knows the deck has an infinite combo hidden somewhere inside it, probably the other decks are still more threatening in the early game. It's built for a moderately competitive meta, where people are struggling to survive against other, nastier generals and will leave you alone until it's too late.