What's with the hulk?
Molderhulk is just an average creature without big important keywords. A 6/6 and an extra land in play is not impressive in itself, but will still get us ahead in value ever so slightly every time we cast it. And yes, it can become as cheap as two mana but this is rarely the case(atleast the first time we cast it). A 6/6 is pretty big for the format but the real strength of the hulk isn't the stats, it's the extra lands allowing us to play other giant bombs like Ulamog's Crusher besides hulky. It also gives us a great excuse to play around with the graveyard with two of the best colours for it.
Strengths
Consistency
The deck is able to cast Molderhulk consistently at the latest around turn 5, which means that from that point forward we will have access to enough mana to cast pretty much anything else that we draw.
The hulk itself is surprisingly sticky because most removals won't solve the problem, as we will likely be able to recast it from the command-zone even cheaper than the first time. This never really stops being the case, even when facing gravyard hate, because of the extra land from each cast and our consistent land-drops. By bringing an extra land in play, moldy is effectively canceling its own commander-tax making only a few creatures in the grave enough to cast it even if it has already been cast multiple times. Competent opponents may realize this, and chose not to target Moldy or instead opt for Oubliette or Lignify which can be annoying but not very impactful for our overall gameplan.
The curve is almost perfect, like a cute whale, with plenty of 1- and 2-mana cards to set up our advantage, while still being high on of 3- to 8-mana valuable goodstuff. Almost every early play can be done with just green mana and by the time we really need black, we've probably already had the option to fix for it multiple times.
Pure Power
We are playing twice the amount of creatures compared to most other decks in the format. On top of that the creatures we play are generally beefy and generate value. This gives us a natural advantage against strategies with few creatures and a lot of spot-removal, because if they can't consistently create blockers to decentivize our attacks, we will always have a creature to swing their way. While too many 1-for-1 removals will get them behind as the two other players won't be losing cards during the exchange. Coupled with the fact that many of our creatures replace themselves or, in the case of Molderhulk, is easily returned from the command-zone, repeatedly spending cards to deal with our boardstate 1 by 1 is just not a viable strategy. We will always have a way to bring a creature into play.
Weaknesses
Grave Hate
Cards such as Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus can take away all of our advantage in one swoop, leaving us in a position where we need to re-fill the grave, and with cards permanently unavailable. Especially Nightsoil will completely destroy our strategy, while making a huge boardstate for it's controller at the same time. The deck can still win without the gravyard by just playing cards as normal, but it takes incredible luck(and skill), as most of our best synergies are gone while some cards become straight up useless. I've done my best to keep in mind how the cards would work without the grave while building the deck, because most of my group play atleast 2 hate cards. But trying to safeguard against gravehate too much would leave the deck weaker, we just need to accept that these cards will defeat us every once in a while.
Combo
This deck thrives by getting incremental value, exhausting the opponents, and overwhelming them with power. But since we rely entirely on creatures to get our damage through, some decks may be able to stall us out long enough to pull off infinite life, damage, tokens etc. and we have no way to match that kind of value. We also have very little instant-speed response, meaning that even if we suspect someone might go off next turn there is often very little we can do to stop it. The only real answer we have to these kind of decks is to kill them before they combo.
How to win
Part 1: Play a land every turn.
The later we get, the further ahead. Missing land drops defeats the entire purpose of accumulating mana through extra lands.
Part 2: Play the table
When playing tempo-style strategy in a multiplayer format, no amount of rules of thumb will be sufficient to explain the many ways it can play out, instead adjusting to the opponents strategies and picking the right time and targets is key. This deck can sometimes dump huge amounts of value early, but this can easily make us the archenemy. We need to outlast the other opponents and win the final 1v1, doing well early doesn't matter if we aren't around later.
We need to recognize who among our opponents are playing combos, who has the strongest lategame, and who is most vulnerable to our hulky strategy.
The combo players will usually be the ones we want to kill off first. The aggro players and tempo players last.
We don't have any infinite combos, we can make 30/30's but we don't have infinite, which is why it's crucial to not end up in the late-game with a combo player still around. Send that Johnny home so the timmies can play.
Once we are among the last few players it becomes time to apply maximum pressure with cards like Vigorspore Wurm or cast/reanimate that Lotleth Giant for a quick finish.
On Card Categories
The categories are here to help keep an overview of what the deck can do, and the ratio between.
When considering cards for the deck, creatures are obviously more relevant because having them enter the grave will discount the commander. So when a card appears that isn't a creature, i consider it to be INSANELY good in the context.
Bombs
Bigger than hulk
Undergrowth Scavenger and cards like it are just big, like BIG big, bit also just big. They will often die to removal or be blocked by 1/1's. This is to be expected, it's often what we actually want. Eat their removals and chompers to clear the path for further threats. Getting an untap step with one of these still in play is a sure sign that the enemies are running out of removal and it's time to turn up the gas.
Moodmark Painter and Lotleth Giant are the true wincons of the deck. They can immediately knock-out a player, leaving little time to respond.
Other than that, we have a few classics like Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Annoyed Altisaur that help put pressure when needed.
Mana
A land every turn and then a few more lands every turn.
The ramp package as a whole doesn't generate a ton of mana on it's own, but it also doesn't get in the way of playing other things down on the same turn. By being either very cheap or very impactful, the ramp is able to quickly get us to enough mana to self-mill and then let the hulk take it from there.
We have a few noncreature cards at 1 mana that will immediately set us ahead like Wild Growth and Springleaf Drum. They are effectively an extra land drop and are good enough to be played even without the creature tag.
Skyshroud Ranger and similar cards allow us to play down the lands faster and because our draw tends to get more lands than not(more on that later), these cards can be powerful at any stage of the game.
"Why not Llanowar Elves or Elvish Mystic?" - i hear an imaginary idiot ask. The short answer is that we need our mana to stick around. Explosive starts are fun and impressive, but they don't tend to win multiplayer games, unless they end in a combo. If you can't immediately and securely win after exploding, you will more often than not end up as the games first casualty instead. This is the reason we are only including Arbor Elf- the only "dork" that can explode hard enough for us to stabilize afterwards.
In addition to the 1-drops we have a few cards like Llanowar Visionary and Druid of the Emerald Grove that come "on sticks" and let us build a board state while contributing to the overall ramp-count.
Filter/Mill
Fuel for Old Moldy
I must have looked through hundreds of cards for this category. So many different ways of milling my cards and getting value while doing it. How much mill is necessary? How much mill is too much? Resisting the urge to include amazing sorceries and instants beyond count. It was incredibly hard to keep this category at such a low count. I've landed at only 1 sorcery and 1 instant. Winding Way & Grisly Salvage respectively. The rest are creatures that either mill us and return a land, or creatures we can somehow put in the grave without going down cards.
We have 1 notable card that mills us without requiring any mana while keeping our hand-size steady. Stinkweed Imp. So "Why not other dredge cards?" - the imaginary idiot asks. Trust me, i've considered it. I even put dredge in the title. But i realized that milling myself straight up left me without cards in hand, or with shitty dredge creatures, and in a situation of having to rely on lucky draws to capitalize properly. Filtering is just better than dredge here, and milling cards into the grave isn't the only way to ramp towards Moldy. There is also straight ramp and having powerful creatures die organically.
Draw
Drawing cards is always good, but in our case Sign in Blood and Deadly Dispute are not creatures, and if we found justification for including one of them we would quickly end up having all of them, and our creature-count would be down 5 cards.
Instead i opted for a single sorcery: Syphon Mind which will often draw us 3 cards while setting each opponent down 1.
Winding Way can be draw sometimes, but is included for multiple reasons; it's flexible in what to draw, and will also fuel the grave for recycling purposes.
The rest are creatures.
Monarch and Initiative are counted as draw for the simple reason that it can net us multiple cards. Thorn of the Black Rose is not quite a Phyrexian Arena, but it's close enough when our gameplan centers around creatures attacking and blocking.
Avenging Hunter and friends are even better for the deck than The Monarch, as The Initiative will guarantee that the card drawn first is a land, and can give us direct effects that help us adjust to the board state without spending cards. Undercity has many great options such as two +1/+1 counters to make Moldy threaten lethal commander damage in two hits instead of three. Goading a creature and drawing a card are also great options.
Then we have a few "divinations" in Krosan Tusker and Yavimaya Elder. Although they draw more lands than not, they are effectively "draw 2" and count as a creature in the grave. First-Sphere Gargantua is in the list for the same reason.
The last card to mention is Gibbering Barricade. It's one of the few mana sinks in the deck and works well when drawing our filter-creatures later in the game. The reason i chose this over Spark Reaper and others, is the statline. 2/4 dodges removals and wipes much more effeciently than 2/3. The defender downside is irrelevant in most scenarios because we rarely would be attacking and risk losing our repeatable draw anyway.
Removal
They should have put a stick on it.
Once again the list has only one removal not "on a stick": Overwhelming Remorse. The rest comes with a creature. Given the fact that our deck contains nearly 50 creatures in total, we can expect to be making a lot of trades and effectively get creatures removed through combat. This means that our targeted removal should be reserved mainly for things we can't deal with through combat. Artifacts, enchantments and creatures that won't block.
The many "edicts" like Demon's Disciple and Chain Devil are surprisingly flexible removals as they take a creature from each opponent and can get around hexproof. They also serve as a way to sacrifice Moldy from under a Pacifism or just to cast it again for extra lands. We can often clear a players board of irellevant small creatures by just attacking, meaning that casting a Fleshbag Marauder after combat will take whatever is left, making their bad situation worse and opening them up for attacks from other players.
Crypt Rats is the only sweeper in the deck. It's just really good and works well with recycling.
Recycle
Always remember to recycle. It does more than just save the planet kids.
I've saved the best for last. If any of the above mentioned cards sound strong, imagine playing multiple copies.
Death Denied is Yawgmoth's Will-lite for this deck. It's entirely likely to pump 10 or more mana into X and have enough targets in the grave for it. The fact that it's an instant lets us wait for the right moment, perhaps bluff that we are gassed, and then draw everything back from the grave at the opponents end step.
Undertaker makes it possible to switch any card in hand with what we need from the grave. Effectively allowing us to turn our cards in hand into psudo-tutors.
Exhume and Dread Return can cheat on mana and bring bombs into play way ahead of curve. And like the other recycles, combined with filtering, they serve as effective tutors for the creatures we need.
Groundskeeper can ensure that we always draw the lands we need and is incredibly explosive when played alongside cards like Sakura-Tribe Scout.
Trix
Do i have a response? I only have 5 instants in the deck, what do you think?
We don't have much room for instant-speed interaction. And we should expect competent opponents to realize this pretty quickly. On the flip-side when we do have interaction in hand it can catch the opponents completely off guard, turn the game on it's head, and put us thoroughly in the lead.
Moment's Peace and Gnaw to the Bone are just swingy enough to be able to turn the game when applied at the right moment. Dodging someone's all-in attack or gaining 30+ life when they thought their damage was just enough for a kill. In addition to being powerful options when hidden in the hand, they also both have flashback, which creates a completely different but also advantageous situation for us. By simply holding 3 mana open, we can now discourage attacks and make our opponents always factor in the uncertainty of wether or not we will use it, leaving them vulnerable to misplaying. This scenario is also fairly easy to set up as we are highly likely to draw or mill atleast one of these during the course of a game.
