Out of anyone in my playgroup, I easily have the most Commander decks. I really enjoy deck building, especially within the context of Commander. I started playing Magic in grade school, and recently picked up the game again around rise of the Eldrazi. I still had all my old cards, but about half of my new playgroup were new to the game. We eventually tried Commander, and it quickly became clear to me that half the group having old collections, and half cobbling something together from a handful of drafts was not going to make a healthy meta. I scrapped my original Grixis reanimator/control deck and tossed together a GR beatdown deck to loan out featuring Radha, Heir to Keld, and a group hug deck, with the aim of running no win conditions, and solely trying to support other players. This has quickly become one of my favorite decks. Here's how is exists today:
For anyone looking to build a group hug deck, I strongly urge you to consider your intended meta. This deck has been overhauled... maybe 4 times, taking out everything but the commander and starting from scratch. It's been tweaked significantly more times, all in response to meta considerations. Group hug is easy to build, but difficult to build well, and its success and effectiveness is highly meta-dependent.
To briefly illustrate:
Originally, most of my group gleefully embraced the "go big!" aspect of Commander, and ended up running top-heavy curves and land-poor decks. They got land-screwed constantly. My original build ran group card draw and table-wide mana doubling effects to help everyone out. with the help of the hippo, even less-focused builds were able to do cool things and win games. As our collections grew, overall deck power increased and people's builds became more efficient. At that point, my hugs started to do more harm than good.
I remember one game dropping Awakening alongside Heartbeat of Spring. The next player dropped Geth, Lord of the Vault, and milled someone over the next few turns. It was a cool play, but it was time to overhaul the deck. Since then, this deck has run everything from no win conditions, to group ramp + counterspells, to soft locks, to aggro-control to angelic beatdown. I've been careful to tweak this deck to balance the help I give relative to the power and style of the decks in my meta, and this approach has been very enjoyable to play.
My meta has flourished in the two or so years that we've been playing Commander. It's healthy; a wide variety of decks, play styles and most of all, good people. With a more balanced meta, the traditional group hug deck with unconditional help quickly became undesired. Basically whomever sat to my left and got to untap first after I helped out got ahead, and whenever anyone won, it was by a landslide. So the unconditional approach was scrapped in favor of more political deck. Since I like building more roguish decks, I decided to take the deck a step further and focus on auras as my political weapon of choice...
Playing the Deck
While the deck does contain aspects of its previous unconditional selves, the deck now is all about politics. I don't set out to win every game (sometimes it's all just about hanging out and having fun), but the deck usually does very well. With it's current incarnation, the deck aims to enchant other people's creatures, making huge threats that will likely be sent to attack a third party, even if you don't ask them to. The other players spend their cards trying to destroy or protect these enchanted beatsticks, while you sit around and watch. Using enchantresses, and the synergy between Burgeoning/Horn of Greed/Rites of Flourishing, as well as auras that draw you cards when you play them (such as Flight of Fancy), you can easily end up ahead of the other players before they know it.. all while helping them at the same time!
Group Ramp
After playing a few games with a previous incarnation, where I repeatedly used my own removal on Heartbeat of Spring to prevent things from getting out of hand, I decided to scrap the group doubling effects - they were too easily to abuse. Instead I opted for an incremental approach to help ramp the group, relying on Rites of Flourishing and Horn of Greed. The help is slow and steady, and hard for someone to really "break" and abuse the help.
Auras and Card Disadvantage
Traditionally, magic players are conditioned to avoid auras like the plague. A few cards like Rancor, and a few strategies like Legacy Enchantress bend this general rule of aversion. When you add politics to the mix though, the rule can be broken. A number of my enchantments give me cards when they enter the battlefield, and my enchantresses reward me for playing them as well. Since I'm not generally enchanting my own creatures, if the creature gets destroyed, I'm generally at least still up a card in the whole deal, usually more!
Winning with this Deck
If you win, it's usually with a huge enchanted beater at the end of the game. Some cards key to winning:
Bruna, Light of Alabaster - When she was spoiled, I really wanted to build around her. But commander-dependent decks aren't generally my style, so I scrapped it. She fits in splendidly here, helping you reuse all your old auras, and in conjunction with Instill Energy, she can swing for a ton out of nowhere.
Drogskol Reaver - not as blatantly powerful as Bruna, but still very strong, with excellent abilities.
Sovereigns of Lost Alara - I nice, multi-use tutor. What I grab depends on how much of a threat I want to be. Instill Energy - Like I said, this card works great with Bruna, and is the only Bant-colored aura to provide haste as far as I know. Serra's Sanctum/Sigil of the Empty Throne/Flickering Ward - A bit unwieldy, but it's a flashy and unusual way to create an army.
Blue Sun's Zenith - For this latest version I had toyed with supporting mill conditions as secondary routes to victory (Labatory Maniac for self-mill, and cards like Prosperity for group mill. Ultimately, I just didn't want to win that way, so all but the zenith was cut. The Zenith is can target, and can be cast for a variable amount, making it a great political card.
So that's the deck as is for now, along with a brief overview of my take on group hug, and how this deck changed from group hug into a quirky politically-focused build. All suggestions and comments are welcome, I'd be interested to see how others running group hug adapted to their own changing metas, and if you have any nifty cards I may have overlooked. Thanks for reading!
1 Phelddagrif
Creatures
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Mistmeadow Witch
1 Kor Spiritdancer
1 Femeref Enchantress
1 Verduran Enchantress
1 Mesa Enchantress
1 Firece Empath
1 Walking Archive
1 Noble benefactor
1 Shattered Angel
1 Totem-Guide Hartebeest
1 Sun Titan
1 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
1 Bruna, Light of Alabaster
1 Drogskol Reaver
Spells
1 Path to exile
1 swords to Plowshares
1 Rampant Growth
1 Cultivate
1 Kodama's reach
1 Beast Within
1 Bramblecrush
1 Return to Dust
1 Congregate
1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgment
1 Austere command
1 Three Dreams
1 Open the Vaults
1 Wargate
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Jace Beleren
Artifact
1 Spectral Searchlight
1 Horn of Greed
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
Enchantments
1 Burgeoning
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Rhystic study
1 Rites of Flourishing
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
Auras - (Control)
1 Arrest
1 Faith's Fetters
1 Prison Term
1 Flickering Ward
1 Instill Energy
1 Spirit Loop
1 Diplomatic Immunity
1 Ancestral Mask
1 Battle mastery
1 Ophidian Eye
1 Empyrial Armor
1 Unquestioned Authority
1 Vow of Wildness
1 Auramancer's Guise
1 Indestructibility
1 Protective Bubble
1 Flight of Fancy
1 Epic Proportions
1 Celestial Mantle
1 Eldrazi Conscription
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Graypelt Refuge
1 Sejiri Refuge
1 Coastal Tower
1 Elfhame Palace
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Bant Panorama
1 Hinterland Hharbor
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Halimar Depths
12 Plains
8 Forest
4 Island
For anyone looking to build a group hug deck, I strongly urge you to consider your intended meta. This deck has been overhauled... maybe 4 times, taking out everything but the commander and starting from scratch. It's been tweaked significantly more times, all in response to meta considerations. Group hug is easy to build, but difficult to build well, and its success and effectiveness is highly meta-dependent.
To briefly illustrate:
I remember one game dropping Awakening alongside Heartbeat of Spring. The next player dropped Geth, Lord of the Vault, and milled someone over the next few turns. It was a cool play, but it was time to overhaul the deck. Since then, this deck has run everything from no win conditions, to group ramp + counterspells, to soft locks, to aggro-control to angelic beatdown. I've been careful to tweak this deck to balance the help I give relative to the power and style of the decks in my meta, and this approach has been very enjoyable to play.
My meta has flourished in the two or so years that we've been playing Commander. It's healthy; a wide variety of decks, play styles and most of all, good people. With a more balanced meta, the traditional group hug deck with unconditional help quickly became undesired. Basically whomever sat to my left and got to untap first after I helped out got ahead, and whenever anyone won, it was by a landslide. So the unconditional approach was scrapped in favor of more political deck. Since I like building more roguish decks, I decided to take the deck a step further and focus on auras as my political weapon of choice...
Playing the Deck
Group Ramp
Auras and Card Disadvantage
Winning with this Deck
Bruna, Light of Alabaster - When she was spoiled, I really wanted to build around her. But commander-dependent decks aren't generally my style, so I scrapped it. She fits in splendidly here, helping you reuse all your old auras, and in conjunction with Instill Energy, she can swing for a ton out of nowhere.
Drogskol Reaver - not as blatantly powerful as Bruna, but still very strong, with excellent abilities.
Sovereigns of Lost Alara - I nice, multi-use tutor. What I grab depends on how much of a threat I want to be.
Instill Energy - Like I said, this card works great with Bruna, and is the only Bant-colored aura to provide haste as far as I know.
Serra's Sanctum/Sigil of the Empty Throne/Flickering Ward - A bit unwieldy, but it's a flashy and unusual way to create an army.
Blue Sun's Zenith - For this latest version I had toyed with supporting mill conditions as secondary routes to victory (Labatory Maniac for self-mill, and cards like Prosperity for group mill. Ultimately, I just didn't want to win that way, so all but the zenith was cut. The Zenith is can target, and can be cast for a variable amount, making it a great political card.
So that's the deck as is for now, along with a brief overview of my take on group hug, and how this deck changed from group hug into a quirky politically-focused build. All suggestions and comments are welcome, I'd be interested to see how others running group hug adapted to their own changing metas, and if you have any nifty cards I may have overlooked. Thanks for reading!
Phelddagrif - Hippopolitics!
Barrin, Master Wizard counts as a Wizard
Radha, Heir to Fun
To be posted soon....
Ulasht, the Hate Seed
Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
Vaevictis Asmadi (Pauper)