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Gaddock Teeg Competitive Hatebear Combo

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Control GW (Selesnya) Hatebears

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

Enchantment (1)


Introduction

First and foremost, thank you very much for checking out my deck! I've been working on this deck since August 2016, and it is currently my favorite and most competitive deck that I actually own in paper. I am fortunate enough to have many good friends who have helped me along the way with theorycrafting and playtesting, and I've finally arrived at a build that I can truly be proud of. A special thanks to ironictiger for spending many hours with me brewing this deck.

Gaddock Teeg, as a commander, is particularly enabling due to its ability to "turn off" most board wipes and generally a huge list of cards that are good against heavy creature-based strategies. This deck can win on a lockdown plan, and it can also win on a combo plan. Unlike Saffi Eriksdotter as a commander (which is much more combo-centric without nearly as much hatebears), Gaddock Teeg strives to protect our boardstate investments. Saffi is a good commander too (very good, in fact), but I tend to gravitate toward the less risky strategy. By putting some focus on hate bears and not going all-in combo, I believe I have better game against the competitive field as a whole. I have put 6 hours of work into this description, so please enjoy all of the details! Now, without further ado, let's dive into the deck!

Win Conditions

This deck has several powerful win conditions. They are as follows.

Hate Bears

Our hatebears are each in here for a good reason, and there are very few weaknesses to our hatebear package. It's basically just Ixidron that slaps us in the face. Not even Hushwing Gryff stops that. :(

  • Gaddock Teeg: Haters gunna hate, potatoes gunna potate. This is our primary hatebear. He is incredible. He turns off Splinter Twin, Chord of Calling, Green Sun's Zenith , Tooth and Nail, 4+ mana wraths (which is most of them), and many impactful 4+ mana noncreature spells that we DO NOT want to be messing around with. Don't get blown out kids.
  • Aven Mindcensor: Cutting off tutors and fetch lands for our opponents is one of the strongest things our deck can do, and is one of the most efficient methods we have to shut down combo decks. This card is absolutely incredible.
  • Linvala, Keeper of Silence: She answers Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Splinter Twin, Deadeye Navigator, and Triskelion, which are all very popular combo pieces in the competitive field. She also turns off our opponents' mana dorks, which can often be a big subsection of our opponents' mana. As stated above, she also turns our opponents' lands off if Living Plane is in play.
  • Sanctum Prelate : This card is very difficult to play correctly. Obviously, we're choosing either 0, 1, 2, or 3. Gaddock Teeg takes care of everything else. The nice thing about Sanctum Prelate is that naming 2 shuts off Cyclonic Rift, which is definitely a problem for us. Naming 3 shuts off Toxic Deluge, which is another big problem for us. With Sanctum Prelate , you just have to have a grasp on what to play around, and name that number. The difficulty in playing this card is that it also turns off some of our cards too, but we're usually not too harshly effected by it, as we likely already have a board state.
  • Angel of Jubilation: This is one we have to be very careful with. It hates so hard that it actually hurts ourselves a bit too. We only proceed with the Angel of Jubilation plan if we are prepared to win without sacrifice combos. Angel of Jubilation shuts off our Altar of Dementia, Blasting Station, Birthing Pod, Mana Confluence, Saffi Eriksdotter, Caustic Caterpillar , Selfless Spirit, Loyal Retainers, Qasali Pridemage, Eldritch Evolution , and all of our fetchlands. Now I know that sounds bad, but it also shuts off our opponents' fetch lands, Necropotence, Toxic Deluge, Diabolic Intent, any sac outlet combo that our opponent was going to go for, and arbitrary other things that randomly matter. All the while, she acts as a lord by pumping our whole team +1/+1 and puts us on a hardcore beatdown plan (you might be pleasantly surprised how unbeatable this feels when this wins you the game). If you can get Sylvan Safekeeper, Gaddock Teeg, Sanctum Prelate naming 2, and Angel of Jubilation in play, most decks scoop.
  • Hushwing Gryff: This is another one that can be a bit risky. We definitely feel a little bit of the hate from this card when we play it. There's a sizable number of ETB effects in this deck. However, on our hatebear beatdown plan, Hushwing Gryff can be very effective at shutting our opponents' strategies down. For example, against a Roon of the Hidden Realm deck, obviously Hushwing Gryff is going to hurt them a lot more than it hurts us. If you have a sac outlet in play, then you can just sacrifice the Hushwing Gryff when you're ready to combo off. It's also just effective at shutting off Palinchron combos (and combos similar to it), as well as kiki/twin combos, and just lots of good value cards like Snapcaster Mage, Venser, Shaper Savant, Eternal Witness.
  • Spirit of the Labyrinth: This card is impressively good in this deck. We don't actually have any draw power except Sylvan Library. Our deck is all tutors and retrieval. Even though it's a two-way street effect, it doesn't actually have any effect on us at all (except Sylvan Library). It just turns off our opponents' draw to put them on a level playing field with us in terms of draw power. It often makes our opponents not want to cast wheel effects among other powerful draw spells.
  • Scavenging Ooze: One of our few answers to graveyards (the others being Stonecloaker and Angel of Serenity ). Scavenging Ooze has a more passive effect over our opponents' graveyards though. It will stop our opponents from relying on any graveyard strategies, and they will actively seek to get rid of the ooze if it effects them, giving away a key part of their strategy if it wasn't already obvious.
  • Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: The fattest hatebear of them all. Just outright wrecks our opponents' attempts at an early game, and puts us well on our way to a beatdown plan. She is certainly an alternate win-condition in her own right.
  • Thalia, Guardian of Thraben: Doesn't hurt us very much since we don't play expensive noncreature spells. It doesn't often make our cards uncastable, just a little it clunkier. However, it certainly puts some of our opponents back a turn, and stops them from casting two spells a turn for a long while. Slows some combo decks by even more than 1 turn.
  • Dosan the Falling Leaf: Our spells on our turns are pretty much uncounterable. It's a good feeling.

Interaction

Here are the ways we interact with our opponents and try to answer their strategies one at a time.

Boardstate Protection

These are the cards that save our boardstate from getting wrecked.

Tutors and Retrieval

The reason this is such a difficult deck to play is because of how many tutors and retrieval it plays. We often have many lines of play available to us, much more than most other decks. This is an extremely choice-heavy list, and that's one of the reasons I love it so much.

Shortcomings

This deck, while very good, isn't without its weaknessess. It's important to be aware of the weaknesses in order to be able to take precautions and play accordingly.

  • Enlightened Tutor: It's our only tutor for our sac outlet, and our sac outlet combos are are major puzzle piece to us winning the game. We don't always need the sac outlet combo to win, but it can certainly be frustrating to not always have access to it. Believe me, I've tried using Reaper of Flight Moonsilver . It didn't work very well.
  • Toxic Deluge: This card is very good against us. We only have a few cards that play around it, and it is unfortunately a very popular card in commander.
  • Cyclonic Rift: This isn't just our weakness, it's pretty much everyone's weakness. Rift is just a really hard card to beat. We have Sanctum Prelate naming 2 and Eerie Interlude... that's about it.
  • Ixidron: Wow this card is a powerhouse. It can not only answer Gaddock Teeg, but keep him answered indefinitely. I've only been able to overcome Ixidron a handful of times. It's got about an 80% winrate over me, and there's not much I can do about it.

Sideboard Selections

Sideboard slots might still need some testing, but I have tested most of them.

Previously Playtested Cards

These are cards that have already gone through playtesting and have been cut from my list.

Closing

Thanks again for checking out my deck, and I hope you liked it enough to give it a +1. I welcome all forms of commentary. Have a wonderfully hateful day!

PS: Check me out on Instagram! :)

Suggestions

Updates Add

Thanks to some suggestions, I have removed Dosan the Falling Leaf for Grand Abolisher. This change should have been something I did a long time ago. Got a foil one yesterday! :) It changes nothing in our combos. It's still works perfectly.

As well, I'm trying out Mirror Entity over Stonecloaker. The Stonecloaker is no longer needed due to Scavenging Ooze being able to perform the same function.

My next consideration as to changes is Living Plane out, and Earthcraft in. As well, I'm considering doing some more playtesting with Lotus Cobra. It's been a while since I last considered it.

In foiling-up news, I've picked up a foil Enlightened Tutor for now temporarily from EMA until I can find an arena promo.

Comments

Revision 3 See all

(7 years ago)

-1 Dosan the Falling Leaf main
+1 Mirror Entity main
-1 Stonecloaker main
Top Ranked
  • Achieved #11 position overall 7 years ago
Date added 7 years
Last updated 7 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

58 - 6 Rares

15 - 4 Uncommons

7 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.67
Tokens Beast 3/3 G
Folders Commander Decks to Try, Decks I am interested in., Other folks' decks, Commander/EDH, EDH (HateBears), EDH, EDH (Competitive), inspiration, Commander Decks, Interesting Decks
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