Are you tired of all your hopes and dreams being shattered by a guy with a Meren deck who is adamant that "Ulrich just isn't good at all as a commander"? Are you sick of being the only guy who is confident that Tribal werewolves can work, whilst everyone else tells you that the $200 it would take to make your dreams a reality would be better spent in the adult-sized diaper section of your local grocery store? Are you sick of being the eccentric guy in your playgroup with too big an idea for your peers to accept? Well, rest assured. Your dreams can become a reality, despite what that Meren-wielding ragamuffin may tell you.
I am not just selling dreams here(okay, I might be. Cut me some slack). By playing with three key concepts, you can eliminate a large part of the squishy nature of werewolves and cut down to the goody-goodies that ((insert nemesis's name here)) just doesn't see. These concepts are spell-whacks, cheating creatures into play, and a Crazy Little Thing Called Tribal(Queen's new hit single).
Spell-whacks are abilities that ping your opponents for casting those sweet, sweet sorceries and instants they love so much. The closer you can get your opponent's spell count to zero the better, regardless of which side your werewolves are on. These appear as either static effects or transform abilities. Static effects are very good, and are cards like Ruric Thar, the Unbowed and Tovolar's Magehunter. A splinter section of static-effect spell-whacks are cards like Hermit of the Natterknolls
or Lurking Predators, which punish your opponents by helping you rather than hurting them. In contrast, Transform spell-whacks are upon-transform abilities that either help you cash in when your opponents give in to the pressure of your spell-whacks and cast nothing OR when you're playing against a volatile deck like a counter or Izzet deck. These are Afflicted Deserter
, Mondronen Shaman
, Huntmaster of the Fells
, and others. This is actually just as good as static if you play it right, because you can customize your spell count to flip the Deserter or the Huntmaster to take out the annoying board state of ((insert names all those who doubted the validity of your dreams here)).
The next concept is cheating cards onto the battlefield. Even if your spell-whacks are in place to reduce your opponent's impact on your lovely warwolves, you can still transform your fun-fest a la Ulvenwald back to its human form by casting too many spells. Thus, a solution is to eliminate spells that have to be cast on your turn(hence my low sorcery count). However, because you are playing tribal, you still need creatures. Over this, you groan and sob, and throw yourself against the nearest wall in despair. However, when all hope seems lost, enter Quicksilver Amulet from stage left in a crown and cape carrying the world on its shoulders. With cards like the Amulet(Lurking Predators, Belbe's Portal, Cryptic Gateway, Defense of the Heart, and Vedalken Orrery), you can get your creatures onto the battlefield without disturbing your precious spell count.
Now your lovely Kessig kreatures are on the board, your horde is growing, and your nemesis's board state is in shambles. What is the third point? TRIBAL GALORE!!! you made the deck as a tribal, do not discount or disregard the fun that you set out to have. Sure, half the fun of constructing the deck was showing ((Insert Nemesis's name here)) that your youthful exuberance about werewolves is not Naivete incarnated, but the other half was a true hope that your half-cocked schemes would yield fruit. Just because you stuffed your glorious creation with spell-whacks and creature-cheats doesn't mean that there isn't room for win-cons and tribal funstuffs.
Just a Caveat: if you want a deck that you can play mindlessly and triumph over your foes, this is not the deck for you. That's what Leovold is for. There are many complex stratagems that exist in this deck, and the right move will often be subjective. Such is the nature of Werewolves, and I wouldn't play it any other way. This is a Strangelove-esque deck one game, a conservative turtling aggro deck another, and an effortless phenom never. In short, this is a deck I love, and I suggest you modify this deck as you like to get that feeling, where the correct choice, when extracted from a situation, yields fruits beyond compare.
Enjoy!
PS I told you it would work Chandler
PPS If you want to, Ruric Thar makes a pretty good substitute commander.
PPPS This was made with my own budgetary restrictions, so feel free to edit as needed.
