With so much land ramp, especially the Upwelling, why not put in a card like Hurricane as a surprise wincon? Assuming that you are higher up in life since people are leaving you alone, you would win out of nowhere after drawing it?

I'm surprised to not see Freed from the Real. It gives you infinite mana with Axebane Guardian. Although infinite mana can't win with Pheddagrif's abilities, I'm sure there's a way to win that way maybe putting Blade of Selves on Pheddagrif for a sudden win besides the "I win" cards.

While you say there is no win condition, I also have a Phelddagrif group hug deck that tries to accelerate everyone as much as possible while making it so I can't be attacked. The win condition of the deck is milling everyone out by making them draw all of their cards. I plan on adding in Barren Glory+Oblivion Ring so my Worldpurge has to possibility to give me the win on my next turn.

Holy crap guys, I haven't replied to your comments in a minute. I apologize for that but let's get to it now...

What you're saying about allowing combo players to combo out quicker can be true, onehitterquiter, but it also means that people can get to their spot removal, counter spells and board wipes quicker too. Plus, if you're playing this in your playgroup, the scummiest of players are probably not invited anyway. If you're playing at a LGS, it could be a problem, but the few times I've played this deck at a game store, it hasn't been an issue. People usually roll with it and have a good time.

bushido_man96, LOL.

This is the deck of mine that gets the most attention, aquacode, but it's only one of ten or eleven decks I play, so it doesn't come up in the rotation that often. Honestly, I play it way less than people want me to. I can't decide if they want me to play it because it's fun or because they know it's one less opponent they have to worry about. /;-)

Minds Aglow would take some serious collaboration to pull off, shadowfrost. The cards I do have to be concerned about though are Prosperity and Skyscribing, those two are actually used as win conditions in a lot of hug decks. I usually use Prosperity for X=3 or something fairly small, and usually use Skyscribing only for it's Forecast ability.

Actually IAmTheWraith, the last game I played (not with this deck though) was won by someone playing a Laboratory Maniac combo, don't remind me. /:-(

Thanks for the +1, Nillstan. If you do build this deck, let me know if you and your group have as much fun with it as I do.

I made a decision from the get-go that I didn't want a win-con in this deck, Smalls2004, so while I know of a number of cards I could include in the deck to win, I've never considered it. I have a number of other decks I play to win with, but not this one.

As I said above,1astrokid1, I'm not looking for a win condition with this deck and mana is hardly ever a problem for anyone at the table after the first few turns, so Freed from the Real wouldn't be worth the card slot.

I've heard from many people who have hug decks that look to win, garrukhunter98, but it's just not the way I wanted this decks to play. Believe me when I say I understand that this is a hard concept for a lot of people to grasp. If you look back at some of the comments for this deck, most of which I've archived in order to make this a more readable page, there are a lot of people who just don't get it, and that's alright, people should play decks that make them happy. This one makes me the happiest of all of my EDH decks when I play it. I'll play a card like Rites of Flourishing or Upwelling, and people will laugh and say, "Hell Yeah". It does my heart good to see less salt at the EDH table.

Not trying to argue or anything, just wanted to note that minds aglow actually does the exact same thing as prosperity, but your opponent's have to counter it before you put any mana into it, as compared to after with prosperity. I mean, with prosperity, let's say you pay blue + 3 to allow each player to draw 3 cards, someone casts a counter spell, not you are out 4 mana. Now using the same every body draws 3 cards plan in the same scenario, but with minds aglow, you just pay blue, someone counters, you only lost 1 mana. If they don't counter when given the chance, you can then pay the 3 and they can't counter anymore. So the question is more along the lines of, do you wanna risk the mana to make sure 3 or 0 cards get drawn, or do you mind playing less risky but get more cards drawn because of other people? Maybe it's just a me thing as I am not sure about your play group but someone in mine really hates group hugs, (even if they don't try and win,) for some reason, and they love to counter my everybody draws card spells, so I can't run prosperity myself. Sorry about the long reply. P.S. I love the deck. I really enjoy decks playing like this personally and appreciate that others feel the same.

How many games has "meanwhile everyone is having loads of fun, lots of laughs" actually happened with this deck. Every time i played a deck similar to this one player gets way ahead and everyone has to try to catch up. It may seem counter intuitive, but a few counterspells and global reset buttons, go a long way to making an unfun gamestate created by you manageable. The awful games that My purple hippo deck creates are far greater than the fun ones, I only bring it out for playgroups where punishment needs to happen, and usually only once a year.

Actually every game, Servbot40. I can honestly say that I've never had an unpleasant game with this deck. Of course I mostly play this in a playgroup where no one plays super competitive decks, so for the most part nobody's playing combos that aren't of the janky variety anyway.

The few times I've played this at a card shop, everyone's enjoyed the added resources, so yeah, I've never had anything but positive feedback from this deck. Once everyone knows that I'm not aiming to win and that I'm just giving out stuff for free, everyone seems to get on board with the concept.

I really think it's all about your attitude and the attitude of your playgroup. I get requested to play this deck way more than I play it. I have 10 or 11 other EDH decks, all of which try to win, and so this is just a deck in the rotation, it fun, everyone seems to like it, and it's a great change of pace. Anything that will take some of the salt out of a game that is supposed to be fun is a good thing, no?

How do you feel about the new cards that released in Dominaria? Any you think would work in the theme of this deck?

Overall I like the set, FrankTHErabbit, and have added a few cards to my want list for possible additions to other decks, but I didn't see anything that this deck needs from the set. If I missed something good, I hope and expect someone will let me know.

only found 4 decent cards for a group hug in dominaria for hippo colors.mending of dominaria,amarthine wall,helm of the host & howling golem

This is so funny :) You my friend just got an upvote!

Some notable missing selections (I have a similar list in paper)

• Vernal Equinox
• Arbiter of Knollridge
• Noble Benefactor
• Swans of Bryn Argoll
• Hypergenesis
• Otherworld Atlas
• Hive Mind
• Jace Beleren
• Fecundity
• Fascination
• Dream Halls
• Weird Harvest

My only question is why not make the questing philasophical thingy the commander instead of the normal philasophical thingy...... Question, Questing, Punny? No just me. Its krillin time? Da da da daw crap.... This is why i dont try. But honestly why not the other hippo thing which seems to be stronger.

sportcarracer, the Questing Phelddagrif isn't a legendary creature, so the Phelddagrif ends up the Bant group hug commander, also the questing one is more aggressive while the original is less threatening. It also has built-in protection from boardwipes so you don't have to repay the commander tax.

OH didnt see it wasent legendary. thanks.

cool deck!

Then you hide Immolating Souleater in the deck and murder them just as they think they are gonna win. Ha ha. JK

I agree with Servbot40. I was playing against this deck with some friends and I was the one that got super ahead using my tokens deck Nerd Post-Prom. I got a couple of doubling enchantments out with Elspeth, Sun's Champion and was soon creating 12 1/1 soldier tokens every turn. Pair this with Jazal Goldmane and I could swing at everyone for lethal damage to each player, all of which had gained a fair amount of life.

Are you Excited about the new friend/foe cards in Battlebond? You can just choose all players as friend! Hooray!

I'm also excited for how these new cards will help group hug!

Island Sanctuary is great here. Arcane Denial fits the theme I guess.

Very refreshing idea to be an enabler, does it speed up the games a bit? Our commander games always take forever lol

Battlebond will help the theme so much, even just the assist cards, cause people will want to ditch in for you :P

Surprised to see you not playing Bramble Sovereign (I think that's how you link cards, hopefully did that right.) I have my own group hug, which was originally based off of this list until I got Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis, I put in Bramble Sovereign to see how it was and it's been REALLY fun with it.

Does anyone know how to win with a group hug deck?