Hogaak: My Favorite (Infinite) Combo Deck

Commander / EDH* BG (Golgari) Combo Creature Cheat Discard Infinite Combo Primer Sacrifice Voltron

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Creature (30)

• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Blanchwood Prowler
• 1x Bone Miser
• 1x Cabal Initiate
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Circle of the Land Druid
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Disciple of Bolas
• 1x Doom Weaver
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Endurance
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Glowspore Shaman
• 1x Korozda Guildmage
• 1x K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Noose Constrictor
• 1x Olivia's Dragoon
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Putrid Imp
• 1x Riftsweeper
• 1x Ruthless Technomancer
• 1x Satyr Wayfinder
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Stitcher's Supplier
• 1x Street Wraith
• 1x The Gitrog Monster
• 1x Undead Butler
• 1x Wall of Roots
• 1x Wild Mongrel

Artifact (3)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Phyrexian Altar

Land (35)

• 1x Argoth, Sanctum of Nature  ^Meld
• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 6x Forest
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Khalni Garden
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mosswort Bridge
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Tranquil Thicket
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Life's Legacy
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Morbid Curiosity
• 1x Sylvan Offering
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Unearth

Commander (1)

Instant (18)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Autumn's Veil
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Berserk
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Grisly Salvage
• 1x Harrow
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Hunter's Insight
• 1x Momentous Fall
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1x Sacrifice
• 1x Stinging Study
• 1x Tamiyo's Safekeeping
• 1x Veil of Summer

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1x Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Zombie Infestation

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Maybeboard

Creature (8)

• 1x Allosaurus Shepherd
• 1x Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1x Caldaia Guardian
• 1x Golgari Thug
• 1x Hermit Druid
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Soldevi Adnate
• 1x Underrealm Lich

Artifact (5)

• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Desecrated Tomb
• 1x Mesmeric Orb
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring

Instant (8)

• 1x Avoid Fate
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Fungal Rebirth
• 1x Golgari Charm
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Reap
• 1x Rushed Rebirth
• 1x Tend the Pests

Land (1)

• 1x The Biblioplex

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Cadaverous Bloom
• 1x Compost
• 1x Demonic Embrace
• 1x Elemental Resonance
• 1x Saproling Cluster
• 1x Survival of the Fittest

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Land Grant
• 1x Rishkar's Expertise
• 1x Soul's Majesty
• 1x Tormented Thoughts
• 1x Traverse the Outlands

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I present to you: Your average Golgari graveyard deck... with an 8/8 trampler that you get on turn three. Actually, a lot of what is going on here is not average. Here's how it all works:

Early Game:

On turns 1 through 3, you play cards like Stitcher's Supplier, Glowspore Shaman, Putrid Imp, Satyr Wayfinder, Gorging Vulture, Zombie Infestation and Sylvan Offering to have colored creatures to pay for Hogaak's colored cost while simultaneously filling up your graveyard to pay for his colorless cost. To help fill up the graveyard, play all the fetchlands that you can grab a hold of. The goal is to get Hogaak out as soon as possible.

Mid-Game:

After you get this big beater out, you get to swing at people! For Commander Damage! Your turns 4 through 6 should be filled with scaring people with your commander: Hogaak himself makes a three-hit kill, but you can run cards like Grafted Exoskeleton to make him a one-hit kill, and Berserk, which doubles as removal if you target an opponent's attacking creature. Also, besides budget restrictions, there's basically no reason to not play Shizo, Death's Storehouse. It's a swamp that gives your 8/8 evasion.

During these turns you'll also be doing some other exciting plays; such as drawing cards. But not just one or two per turn. More like seven or eight. Each turn. This deck has a whole slew of cards like Disciple of Bolas, Life's Legacy and Garruk, Primal Hunter. All of them with the intention of targeting Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis to draw us eight. These cards are effective because when you play one of them, you're almost guaranteed to draw into another. What they also do, is they get us the other cards that are crucial in our game-plan, as I'll be explaining in this next section.

Win Condition:

Sorry to all of you Voltron lovers out there, but to kill all three of our opponents, Commander Damage just isn't going to cut it. We're going to need a long-game strategy as well. So welcome to the combo part of this deck!

Draw the Deck:

Turns out, being able to cast an 8/8 from the graveyard for zero mana can lead to some pretty interesting combos. This first one will ensure that we draw into all of our other combos: Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis + Greater Good + Zombie Infestation. Here's how it all works:

Sacrifice Hogaak to Greater Good, drawing 8 and discarding 3 cards (a net gain of 5 cards), then discard 4 cards to Zombie Infestation, creating 2 black zombies. Tap them, exile 5 of the 7 cards you put into the graveyard and cast Hogaak from the graveyard. Repeat this process until you draw yourself out.

You can also do this by replacing Zombie Infestation with Desecrated Tomb (idea credited to Namulith). When you play Hogaak from the graveyard, Desecrated Tomb will trigger twice; once for Hogaak leaving your graveyard, and another time for delving away a creature when you cast him, giving you a total of two bats.

Play Hogaak, tapping two bats, making two bats. Sacrifice Hogaak and a tapped bat to Greater Good, drawing nine, discarding six (including one creature to delve away when you next play Hogaak). Repeat this as many times as you want, just make sure you’re discarding a creature to delve away each time.

Kill the Table:

But... I have zero mana!

Okay, so you've drawn your entire deck, congratulations! But now you're in a situation where you've run out of mana, so you may be thinking, now what?

Well, look no further, because here are the ways you turn 0 mana into... not 0 mana:

1. Cast Lotus Petal into Sacrifice on Ya Boy.

2. Flashback Dread Return for Bone Miser, and discard some lands.

3. Flashback Dread Return for K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, and pay 2 life for Sacrifice.

4. Flashback Dread Return for Ruthless Technomancer

Alighty, so now that you've drawn your entire deck, you can employ this next combo, which should win you the game:

Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis + Korozda Guildmage + Phyrexian Altar.

What you do is you sacrifice Hogaak to Korozda Guildmage's second ability, getting 8 green saprolings and then using 7 of them to convoke Hogaak out from the graveyard. With your Phyrexian Altar, sacrifice 4 of the tapped saprolings to get 4 mana, and use it to activate Korozda Guildmage's ability on Hogaak again! Repeat this process to get as many saprolings as you like.

To finish off your opponents, play Altar of Dementia to sacrifice an infinite squared amount of saprolings to demolish your opponents' libraries. And instead of giving them an upkeep to potentially win out of nowhere, we have to make them draw a card they don't have with Geier Reach Sanitarium.

If you want to skip the whole Phyrexian Altar thing for something that doesn't strain your wallet, you've got Pitiless Plunderer (idea from awesomepimaster). By combining Altar of Dementia with Pitiless Plunderer, you are essentially assembling a Phyrexian Altar for the Korozda Guildmage + Hogaak combo.

Discard Subtheme:

Besides these infinite combos, you might have noticed this deck's discard subtheme. Trust me, there is a rhyme or reason to all of this. Keep in mind, that Hogaak's ability to be cast from the graveyard is a major component of how this deck works. We have many effects that sacrifice Hogaak for value, and that's because he's really easy for us to get back. And one of the reasons that he is so easy to recur is because of our use of discard outlets.

There will be times when you don't have enough cards in your graveyard to recast Hogaak, so cards like Zombie Infestation (one of my personal favorites) and Wild Mongrel will have to be your go-to's. What I like about these discard outlets, is that they provide effects that are repeatable, and that are usually free in mana cost. Another cool thing about them is that they bring their own discard package. Cards like The Gitrog Monster, Bone Miser (and, if you want, Archfiend of Ifnir), provide effects that, like the discard outlets, cost zero mana. With this deck's build, it's so easy to draw into these cards and use them to steamroll me even further ahead.

Other Notes:

Other Combos I've Run Into:

• Unearth + Eternal Witness + Pitiless Plunderer + Altar of Dementia = infinite mill or Phyrexian Altar = infinite mana (idea attributed to King_marchesa)

• The Gitrog Monster + Dakmor Salvage + Discard Outlet = infinite self-mill

• Bone Miser + Life from the Loam + Discard Outlet = infinite self-mill

• Eternal Witness + Living Death + Phyrexian Altar + 5 other nontoken creatures = infinite mana

• Greater Good + Saproling Cluster + Phyrexian Altar + Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis = infinite draw

• Doom Weaver + Sac Outlet + Zombie Infestation + Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis = infinite draw

Notable Interactions:

• Both Wild Mongrel and Noose Constrictor are actually better than you think. These two are good at what they do, which is filling up the graveyard, but I didn't realize until recently that what's on the other side of the " : " is relevant. You could be discarding up to 10 cards or more, so potentially, these guys can swing in for even more damage than Hogaak!

• Dryad Arbor is such a weird card, but in this deck, it's a bomb! It's a green creature, meaning it can be used to pay for one of Hogaak's colored manas, but it's also a forest, meaning it can be easily tutored up by any of our five green fetches, like Misty Rainforest. And, as a zero-drop creature, it makes Green Sun's Zenith an easy ramp spell!

• Hey, you know how you're gonna be playing a whole bunch of effects like Return of the Wildspeaker? How about you casually double your draws with Berserk on Hogaak, and swing in for double damage while you're at it?

Notable Exclusions:

• Alright, I'm guilty! I do have The Great Henge in my paper list, and I think Sol Ring is actually good enough to put into this deck (I know; hot take ;) ).

• I've excluded the Izonis and the Jarads of the world, but don't get me wrong, they've got the right kind of synergy for this deck. They're also perfect if you're going for a more casual game, so feel free to use them. It's just for this deck in particular, those cards slow it down, and throw it off it's focused game plan.

Our Weakness:

Disruption. I cannot stress this enough; the Number One fear you're going to have when piloting this deck, is disruption. There is a critical moment in the game, when you're about to start your drawing train. If, when you cast your first draw spell (like Disciple of Bolas), somebody responds by killing Hogaak, then there is a good chance that you are going to be stuck in the Stone Age for quite a few turns, only being able to wait for another draw spell to pop up.

The other critical moment in the game is, obviously, when you're about to win. Hopefully by this time, you will have enough resources that you will be able to bounce back from any disruption your opponents might have. Let's take a quick look at what those resources could look like.

Since we are a graveyard deck, we're going to have ways to get stuff back from the yard, but in the case of somebody exiling one of our combo pieces, we have Riftsweeper. For our protection, I've also added in a copy of Heroic Intervention and Veil of Summer.

I've been thinking more about this weakness of ours lately. Depending on how fortified you want to be, you might want to add in a Dosan the Falling Leaf (which is handy because it's a creature), or even a City of Solitude. I've also heard that Carrion is a good card to have just in case someone tries sniping our boy (still undecided about whether the card is worth it though). Let me know if you think of anything else that can be useful!

Other Ways You Can Take This Deck:

• Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis + Birthing Pod + Razaketh, the Foulblooded might be something you want to add into your list.

• Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis + Greater Good + Desecrated Tomb also makes an infinite combo (assuming you exile a creature from your yard each time you cast Hogaak, just so that you get two bats each time).

• Need a Budget Version?

• If you want to see an interesting Necrotic Ooze build, you should take a look at ColFrogfoot's Combo Gak deck.

Final Thoughts:

In the beginning, I wasn't trying to make this deck into a combo deck. My goal was just to get Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis out as soon as possible, and then make some cute interactions like Decimator of the Provinces and Ghoulcaller Gisa. But I realized I needed to be doing something in the late game, and I didn't know what to do other than make these infinite combos that have been popping up out of nowhere.

I haven't made any combo deck before this one because it feels like all the combos have been done before, but this deck feels unique enough that I really enjoy it.

Feel free to give me some feedback. Is there anything in this deck that I've missed?

Top Ranked	Achieved #63 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #54 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Primer 4 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	1 Jahr
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.66
Tokens	Bear 2/2 G, Beast 3/3 G, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Plant 0/1 G, Saproling 1/1 G, Treasure, Treefolk X/X G, Wurm 6/6 G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Nutty Decks, Interesting, Cool Commander Decks, cool decks, EDH Idea, hogaak infinite combo, EDH, Cool af, hogaak, Fav Decks