The abbey is under attack!!! Someone inform Hazduhr the Abbot!!!
Wait, who??
The first time I showed up to my LGS to play commander I brought my Edgar Markov deck, and wouldn’t you know it, two other players in the pod were playing the same commander as me. In an effort to avoid such a phenomenon in the future I scoured the internet in search of some of the least played commanders. This is were I stumbled upon Hazduhr the Abbot.
What can we do with the Abbot? Well, for mana we can redirect damage to him from another white creature we control. A very underwhelming ability. But how can we take advantage of that? Well, I certainly tried to come up with some ideas.
INDESTRUCTIBLE: various equipment and Auras can grant indestructible, like Darksteel Plate and Indestructibility so by popping effects like these on the old Abbot will essentially nullify any damage her takes.
TOTEM ARMOR: auras with totem armor like Hyena Umbra work very similar to indestructible, destroying themselves to save the abbot from lethal damage.
PROTECTION: we’re running a good sword package leaving out anything that protects from white allowing us to continue to reap the benefits of our white spells, while allowing the old abbot to avoid damage from other colors.
So now that we figured out how to take advantage of Old Man Hazduhr’s crappy ability, what are we looking at? Ah, yeah, this is just a Voltron deck isn’t it? Well, it IS, but it wasn’t supposed to be. White, fortunately has some good support with these types of decks, So, Stoneforge Mystic and Puresteel Paladin in you go!
And now we need to cover some of our weaknesses. The Geezer of the Abby is not prepared to take on large board states. Token armies would blow right past this game plan, and that’s why we need to run some tax to attack abilities like Ghostly Prison and Windborn Muse. This will certainly help limit the number of attackers which is a lot easier for the Abbot and friends to manage damage that way. Now what about effects that exile out permanents? Yeah, this is for sure going to be a big weakness for us. We run Swiftfoot Boots and a couple Ward abilities, but honestly other than that, the abbot is toast to being exiled. Mother of Runes and help give protection to white to stop a Path to Exile or similar targeted effect, but other than Akroma's Will or Teferi's Protection we’re kinda screwed as far as mass exiling board wipes go.
Unfortunately we’re been taking up a lot of our spell slots trying to make the Abbot useable. What about the fundamentals?! Ramp? Card draw? Interaction!? Yeah, any good deck deck needs the fundamentals, and if we want the Abbot to make it out alive we need the most stapley staples out there. Mana Vault and Mana Crypt are not necessary for the deck, but when you’re running the head of the Abby of Geriatrics, I don’t think anyone will be complaining about the power level of the deck. Trouble in Pairs and Esper Sentinel provide endless value in a mono white deck where we are so limited on options. I could go on and on about staples, Dawn Charm, Comeuppance, etc… you get it.
So I sat down and had a talk with Papaw Hazduhr, and he asked me, “is this deck any good, young man?”
To which I replied “you bet your ass it’s not!” The deck works, it’s just not very good. It can win games, sometimes, but, not very often. I genuinely think this deck would be better with almost any other mono white legendary creature.
“But is it fun?” The wrinkled old clergyman asked.
“Meh.”
