Killing With Kindness: Grouphug Stuff

Commander / EDH*

soviethorsie

Land (28)

• 1x Alchemist's Refuge
• 1x Arcane Sanctum
• 1x Cascading Cataracts
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Frontier Bivouac
• 1x Indatha Triome
• 1x Jungle Shrine
• 1x Ketria Triome
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Mystic Monastery
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Prahv, Spires of Order
• 1x Raugrin Triome
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sandsteppe Citadel
• 1x Savage Lands
• 1x Savai Triome
• 1x Seaside Citadel
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Thriving Grove
• 1x Thriving Heath
• 1x Thriving Isle
• 1x Thriving Moor

Sorcery (11)

• 1x Collective Voyage
• 1x Council's Judgment
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Merciless Eviction
• 1x Minds Aglow
• 1x Open the Vaults
• 1x Plea for Power
• 1x Prosperity
• 1x Skyscribing
• 1x Time Reversal
• 1x Wheel of Misfortune

Creature (19)

• 1x Borderland Explorer
• 1x Courser of Kruphix
• 1x Edric, Spymaster of Trest
• 1x Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer
• 1x Heartwood Storyteller
• 1x Keeper of Progenitus
• 1x Kruphix, God of Horizons
• 1x Kwain, Itinerant Meddler
• 1x Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis
• 1x Magus of the Vineyard
• 1x Nekusar, the Mindrazer
• 1x Noble Hierarch
• 1x Platinum Angel
• 1x Pramikon, Sky Rampart
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Selvala, Explorer Returned
• 1x Shizuko, Caller of Autumn
• 1x Xyris, the Writhing Storm
• 1x Yurlok of Scorch Thrash

Instant (12)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Bant Charm
• 1x Beacon of Immortality
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Dream Fracture
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Render Silent
• 1x Settle the Wreckage
• 1x Split Decision
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Calix, Destiny's Hand
• 1x Estrid, the Masked

Commander (1)

Enchantment (18)

• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Axis of Mortality
• 1x Curse of Echoes
• 1x Curse of Opulence
• 1x Dictate of Karametra
• 1x Dictate of Kruphix
• 1x Enigmatic Incarnation
• 1x Estrid's Invocation
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Heartbeat of Spring
• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Martyr's Bond
• 1x Overabundance
• 1x Rites of Flourishing
• 1x Sigil of the Empty Throne
• 1x Sphere of Safety
• 1x Standstill
• 1x Well of Ideas

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Coercive Portal
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Folio of Fancies
• 1x Howling Mine
• 1x Lavabrink Floodgates
• 1x Otherworld Atlas
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Venser's Journal
• 1x Worn Powerstone

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Sideboard

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Explosive Vegetation
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Migration Path
• 1x Tempt with Discovery

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Overgrowth
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Wild Growth

Instant (1)

• 1x Turnabout

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The general idea here is to, like all group hug decks, encourage a more interesting dynamic during play by providing buffs to everyone at once. However, I want to extend this idea beyond just buffing and killing with kindness (more on that later) by adding cards that just have strange, universal effects. These include the will of the council cards, the tempting offer cards, join forces cards, council's dilemma cards, and so on. Basically, cards that take full advantage of the multiplayer format.

My concern with group hug in general is that it will accelerate more powerful decks into winning first before less powerful decks can utilize my group hug buffs to reach relatively powerful positions. To that end, I want my group hug deck to also have elements of control so that I can situationally pick on stronger players and help weaker players. This can even be to help someone playing a stronger deck if they drew a bad hand, or are otherwise disadvantaged.

I think it's important to ask yourself why bother with this at all, if the goal of mtg, no matter the format, is to win. There's a lot of different answers here, most of them correct. Simply put, I think that games with lots of back and forth struggles, where it isn't obvious who's in a better position and where the outcome is uncertain until just before the game has ended are the most interesting. In theory, this sort of play style will drag out games longer than they strictly should be. That doesn't bother me personally, but I think I may need to make some sort of aggro edh deck to compensate.

Likewise, because I, too, like to win, if I get to pick on stronger players and hype up weaker players, all the while building up an enormous hand and working towards my win con, that'd be dope.

Killing with Kindness: My most interesting win cons are to either a) use Psychosis Crawler and/or Nekusar, the Mindrazer coupled with all of my symmetric card draw to make people draw themselves to death or b) use Overabundance and/or Yurlok of Scorch Thrash with Dictate of Karametra and/or Heartbeat of Spring to either force people to tap their own lands to death, or mana burn themselves to death via Yurlock. The latter win con is, I think, objectively worse than the former, since the former can be sped up using Prosperity , Skyscribing , Minds Aglow , and so on, and the latter can also be played around pretty easily in practice, I think, although I have no play experience with it yet.

Otherwise, I can do some silly stuff with Open the Vaults + Sigil of the Empty Throne if Sigil is already out. Of course, there's a fair chance that playing Open the Vaults late in the game will just kill me, but that's where the fun lies. There's a chance I could just ping people to death with Xyris, the Writhing Storm with its many snakes.

Problems: -I don't particularly care for my commander. I enjoy his ability to do a lot of different things all at once, but none them individually impress me. Overall, I could see swapping to Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis since their effect is more directly related to group hug, doesn't cost any mana, is cheaper to begin with, and black doesn't have a lot to offer with group hug. I would lose the ability to dole out shitty buffs like a king throwing pennies at beggars, but that may be a loss I have to take. -The deck is unfinished and, so far, I'm not sure if I can do everything I want to do at once.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	3 years
Key combos	Open the Vaults + Sigil of the Empty Throne
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 1 Rares 28 - 4 Uncommons 12 - 4 Commons
Cards	101
Avg. CMC	3.32
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Beast 3/3 G, Elephant 3/3 G, Gold, Mask, Snake 1/1 G