So this whole deck is based around using Selvala, Explorer Returned to force your opponents to draw their decks. We achieve this by pretending to be a group hug deck until we can activate her infinitely, or so many times it doesn't matter.
We've got a few ways to group hug while getting ready:
Ghirapur Orrery: Everyone can play another land and they get a draw boost if they empty their hand. This is a good group hug card but it's great for us because we will be playing our entire hand most of the time.
Heartstone
: This doesn't help us all that much, unless we have
Avacyn, Guardian Angel
out, but it's a relatively cheap reason for people to keep us alive.
Temple Bell: More card draw but can also be used for more sinister things...Like drawing people out if they stopped Selvala, Explorer Returned from going off.
Beacon of Immortality: Not exactly group hug but it does keep people friendly towards us. Also it's reusable!
Nature's Claim,Path to Exile, and Swords to Plowshares: These guys are dual purpose, they can act as some useful removal but also provide some help to the target.
Arbiter of Knollridge
: Brings everyone back to an equal footing life-wise. You should have the highest life total, most of the time anyway, and thus everyone else is happy for the boost. Can also be used as an emergency card if your loosing.
Avacyn, Guardian Angel
: With enough mana we can just stop damage for everyone. Also helps protect us in case we annoy someone.
Ashnod's Altar: Yeah, not group hug or even useful at first glance or even the second glance in this deck but we use it as a sacrifice engine for some cards that are: Banisher Priest is used to flicker someone's card for ETB effects. (Oblivion Ring + War Priest of Thune
can do the same thing) and
Veteran Explorer
gives everyone land. We also get some mana out of the deal. The drawback is that those cards are in the graveyard now but we'll get them back, more on that later.
Forgotten Ancient: We can buff other people's creatures! and with all the mana and draw buffs we've got, people are going to be casting a lot more.
Keeper of Progenitus,
Magus of the Vineyard
, Dictate of Karametra,
Heartbeat of Spring
: Everyone gets more mana! Just be careful you don't give them too much, we have a lot of defense cards but give certain decks too much to work with and they'll destroy our shields. Try and give them just enough to hang themselves with.
Forbidden Orchard: Here! Have a creature! Sometimes all people need is one more creature to stay in the game and that means that they stay a target for your opponents.
Kor Haven: More defense! Again, the more people alive who like us the better.
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea: More card draw!
Awakening: Everyone untaps almost everything! This allows players to stay alive and fight among themselves and ignore us while we prepare our win conditions.
Oath of Druids: Not only does this give people more creatures, it also mills them too!
Oath of Lieges
: It's not as good as it's cycle-mate above but it's a decent group hug card.
Rites of Flourishing
: More draw and more lands per turn!
Vernal Equinox: Be careful with this one, it helps us a lot but can really help our opponents. Watch out for a surprise Laboratory Maniac and keep some removal prepared just in case.
Collective Voyage
: Even more land!
Okay, so that's the group hug but how do we win? Well, there are a few ways but I'll go over the main one first:
Selvala, Explorer Returned is our go-to, both as a group hug card and our win-con. She provides mana and life for us while giving everyone a card. Best of all, she's easy to get out at three mana. Now I mentioned earlier that we would draw our opponents out using her, but how? It's a tap ability. We can only do it once on our turn or once on everyone's turns with Awakening but people will see that coming. Here's the solution:
Sword of the Paruns and Umbral Mantle: These guys allow us to untap Selvala, Explorer Returned as many times as we have mana to do so, and with three or more people she might just pay for it herself!
But wait! That relies on having a bunch of mana or getting really lucky. If the chain stops everyone will attack us! How do we guarantee a kill? One of the ways is this: Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth
. It's a simple, two card, infinite combo that gives us a bunch of colorless mana to power our untap abilities. It's kind of obvious though and people will try to get rid of it which is why we have other mana sources. We've got the group hug ones but we also have some for ourselves:Omnath, Locus of Mana, Doubling Cube and
Burgeoning
, along with a bunch of creatures and artifacts that give us some mana.
Even with all of that backup and support, we might not be able to pull it off. We might have played with someone before and they know what we really do or perhaps we just aren't getting the right cards. Don't worry, we've got three other ways to win: Felidar Sovereign, Helix Pinnacle, and just smashing them in the face.
Felidar Soverign is already good in commander but when combined with our commander's ability to give us life, Behemoth Sledge, Alhammarret's Archive, and Unflinching Courage to give us even more life with Sigarda, Host of Herons and
Avacyn, Guardian Angel
to play defense, we've got this in the bag.
Helix Pinnacle is a great card and hard to get rid off with the shroud it has but charging it is hard! For most people anyway. With our infinite mana combo or Omnath, Locus of Mana, along with our other mana boosts,we can not only power it, we can probably do it in a turn.
And finally the classic, tried and true, method of grinding the opponent's face into the ground. We've got some heavy hitters in here with Omnath, Locus of Mana and two eldrazi titans, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre. We've got the mana for them and even if they don't kill the enemy they can still delay while we set up another win-con.
Alright, so that's victory dealt with but what about defense? We can't expect our opponent's to just sit there while we get ready to kill them, right? Well, yes we can. That's the whole point of group hug in the first place but you're right we should expect someone to try and kill us instead of the other opponents on the field. Here's what we have for protection:
Crawlspace: That limits attackers right off the bat and we can deal with just two guys pretty easily, even if we're just throwing chump blockers in the way.
Vedalken Orrery: Not great for defense on it's own but a surprise eldrazi makes for a great blocker.
Avacyn, Guardian Angel
: No damage, ever!
Nature's Claim + Path to Exile + Swords to Plowshares
: Get rid of our attackers.
Kor Haven: Damage nullification.
Ghostly Prison: Not that great with all our mana boosters but good early game.
Lost in the Woods: With 17 forests in the deck, this makes for a great defense, especially once we fill the deck with just forests!
Oblivion Ring
: Good old removal.
Okay, we've got good defenses but what about all this card draw? We have nothing that would expand our maximum hand size! We are going to either be casting everything or discarding half the deck! Yup. That's right. We want that to happen. The eldrazi titans are in here for a reason and that's to keep our deck nice and full and our graveyard empty. Why should we worry about having to discard 10 or 15 or 20 cards when we can shuffle them right back into the deck? We're probably going to draw them next turn anyway.
If you haven't realized it then I'll tell you, this is a blue deck. Yeah, it might look like a green/white deck but that's a filthy lie. It's blue, 100% blue mill and draw with some black graveyard shenanigans thrown in for even more confusion. It's so good at being blue with it's illusions and misdirections and "I'm totally doing something else, don't mind me" stuff that it's disguised itself as a green/white group hug deck while it lurks in ambush to just slam you with it's blueness while your deck experiences a fatal case of No-Longer-Exists-itis.
