Hippo's Pair

Commander / EDH GWU (Bant) Infinite Combo Multiplayer

manaman22

Land (37)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Alchemist's Refuge
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 2x Forest
• 4x Forest
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Irrigated Farmland
• 1x Island
• 2x Island
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mystic Gate
• 1x Plains
• 3x Plains
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scattered Groves
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Bastion
• 1x Wooded Foothills

PT3 (3)

• 1x Academy Rector
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Reclamation Sage

Recursion (2)

• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Seasons Past

PT4 (24)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Banisher Priest
• 1x Cloudblazer
• 1x Faerie Artisans
• 1x Fiend Hunter
• 1x Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Keeper of Progenitus
• 1x Leonin Relic-Warder
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Mystic Snake
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Primal Forcemage
• 1x Qasali Pridemage
• 1x Riftsweeper
• 1x Sakashima the Impostor
• 1x Sawtooth Loon
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Sea Gate Oracle
• 1x Sylvok Replica
• 1x Thrasios, Triton Hero
• 1x Venser, Shaper Savant
• 1x Whitemane Lion

PT10 (4)

• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1x Great Whale
• 1x Tidespout Tyrant

Draw (3)

• 1x Concentrate
• 1x Evolutionary Leap
• 1x Harmonize

Selection (3)

• 1x Mirri's Guile
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sylvan Library

Commander (1)

Ramp (10)

• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Coalition Relic
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Selesnya Signet
• 1x Sol Ring

Tutor (6)

• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Sterling Grove

Wincon (4)

• 1x Concordant Crossroads
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x The Great Aurora
• 1x Wild Pair

PT2 (2)

• 1x Recruiter of the Guard
• 1x Suture Priest

Sweeper (1)

• 1x Hallowed Burial

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Sideboard

Other (2)

• 1x Portal Mage
• 1x Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa

Tutor (1)

• 1x Worldly Tutor

PT4 (2)

• 1x Fairgrounds Warden
• 1x Manglehorn

Land (1)

• 1x Forest

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The deck aims to get Wild Pair onto the battlefield and then leverage its interaction with Whitemane Lion into whatever win condition is accessible based on the board state.

Sometimes the win condition is getting a lot of creatures out and following with Avenger of Zendikar into Craterhoof Behemoth.

Other times the win condition is making infinite mana with Tidespout Tyrant and Great Whale to enable infinite tokens with Phelddagrif and killing with Suture Priest or The Great Aurora.

The Whitemane Lion interaction with Wild Pair goes as such:

Get used to this: Show

1. Cast Whitemane Lion.

1. Have Whitemane Lion resolve.

2. Put the Wild Pair trigger on the stack. Put the Whitemane Lion "return a creature" trigger on the stack above it.

3. Resolve Whitemane Lion trigger and return it to hand.

4. Resolve Wild Pair trigger and, using last known information, search for a creature with combined power and toughness of 4 with Whitemane Lion in hand to interact with opponents. Repeat as needed.

If Primal Forcemage is on the battlefield, this allows Whitemane Lion to bridge up to power and toughness 10. Put the Primal Forcemage trigger on the stack last in step 3 to get p+t=10 creatures, put the Whitemane Lion bounce trigger on last to get p+t=4 creatures.

One of the first creatures to be paired is Keeper of Progenitus. This doubles most of my mana and the manabase has been constructed to take advantage of this as much as possible. The deck is more slanted towards , so it's pretty easy to have most of your lands doubled. Typically you want to do this during the end of the your last opponent's turn after Wild Pair resolves. This sets you up with a healthy amount of mana going into the winning turn.

Once Keeper is down, the next creature is typically Primal Forcemage. This enables 2 lines of play. This first is infinite mana with Tidespout Tyrant and Great Whale. The second is combat math by making a lot of creatures with Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth.

The first route requires Keeper of Progenitus and Primal Forcemage in play, Whitemane Lion/Venser, Shaper Savant in hand,and Great Whale and Tidespout Tyrant in the library.

Infinite mana with the Tyrant: Show

1. Cast Whitemane Lion.

2. Have Whitemane Lion resolve.

3. Put the Wild Pair trigger on the stack. Put the Whitemane Lion bounce trigger on the stack. Put the Primal Forcemage pump trigger on the stack.

4. Whitemane Lion becomes 5/5.

5. Return Whitemane Lion to hand.

6. Search for Great Whale and put its trigger on the stack.

7. Untap up to 7 lands. Float between 10 and 14 mana, 2-3 of which should be .

8. Repeat steps 1-5.

9. Search for Tidespout Tyrant.

10. Cast Whitemane Lion. Put Tidespout Tyrant trigger on the stack targeting Great Whale.

11. Bounce Great Whale.

12. Repeat step 2.

13. Put Wild Pair trigger on the stack. Put Primal Forcemage trigger on the stack. Put Whitemane Lion trigger on the stack.

14. Repeat step 5.

15. Primal Forcemage trigger fails to resolve. Search for Scavenging Ooze or any other "vanilla" 2-mana creature.

At this point, infinite mana can be made at sorcery speed by casting Great Whale and bouncing Scavenging Ooze with the Tyrant trigger, floating mana off of the ETB trigger, then casting Scavenging Ooze to bounce Great Whale. Repeat for as much mana as necessary.

Another route uses Panharmonicon, Great Whale, and Venser, Shaper Savant or Whitemane Lion to get infinite mana. This is much more straightforward. Have Panharmonicon in play and enough lands to cast Great Whale. Float up between 12 and 14 mana. Cast Venser or Whitemane and bounce both creatures with the trigger. This resets the loop with more than 7 mana to cast the Whale. Go infinite from there.

Now that you have generated infinite mana, cast Phelddagrif. Use to give people an arbitrary number of Hippo tokens. Use either Suture Priest or The Great Aurora to kill them with all the happy hippos. Or, use the mana to draw your deck and put all your lands into play with Thrasios, Triton Hero. Win however you wish from there.

There are two ways for the deck to get to its win conditions once it has all the mana necessary. The first is to draw all of the cards with Thrasios, Triton Hero. This is the simplest method and the fastest way to shortcut the process of winning. The second involves Sawtooth Loon. The key is the combination of its first and second abilities. The first allows it to act like Whitemane Lion and be repeatedly cast. The second ability allows you to see 2 cards, keep what you want, and bury what you don't. The interesting case is when you have no other cards in hand. After you resolve the Loon, return it to your hand first, draw 2 and bury 2 second, then Wild Pair. You can bury the Loon with the second ability, letting you keep 1 of the 2 cards you drew, and then Pair it back out to do it again. At the end of the cycle, you have seen 4 cards, kept the best one, and have the Loon to do it all over again. From here, you bounce->draw->pair->bounce->draw to add cards to your hand or bounce->draw to just rotate through the deck. This makes every card in the deck available to you, so you can keep going until you have a win condition and seal the deal from there.

The second route uses the standard Whitemane Lion interaction with Primal Forcemage to generate a lot of attack power from Craterhoof Behemoth's trigger. Use all your mana to thaw as many creatures out as possible, leaving enough for 3 more creatures. The sequence at that point is to get Avenger of Zendikar first, Sakashima the Impostor and cloning the Avenger second, then following up with Craterhoof Behemoth last. All that really matters is increasing the creature count as efficiently as possible. It is better to get multiple Avenger triggers than Craterhoof triggers because you will square the damage bonus instead of just doubling it. This is crucial when only a small number of eligible attackers is available.

The deck has several ways of getting to Wild Pair. The most direct method is tutoring for it with Idyllic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, and Sterling Grove. It is possible to tutor chain into it with Mystical Tutor -> one of the above tutors and go from there.

The other method is to use Academy Rector. This route can use the creature tutors of Chord of Calling, Eladamri's Call, and Recruiter of the Guard to get the Rector. From there, you need to find a way to kill her. This typically means combat, but Evolutionary Leap can do the job as well.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	6 years
Exclude colors	BR
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 1 Mythic Rares 52 - 1 Rares 15 - 3 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.38
Tokens	1/1 G Creature Hippo, Copy Clone, Plant 0/1 G, Spirit 1/1 C