Zidantur The thing with bouncing him and letting them draw cards is that once Phelddagrif is on the board he becomes very difficult to get rid of; Since you don't have to pay the extra "commander" cost if you are playing your commander from your hand it is a pretty good way to dodge removal. Additionally, you can chain the card draw ability multiple times to let one or more players draw a LOT of cards. I generally prefer to use this ability to help somebody who is missing their land drops or in general in a poor position.

As for the life gain, it is a great way to get a political partner who can help you later on in the game. Usually I use it to (by surprise) save an opponent from lethal damage by making a deal with them that we can work together to beat the other opponent. This is good for buffing a weaker player to take out a stronger player, leaving you to deal with the weaker player in the end rather than trying to beat the stronger player. Another thing I tend to do just for fun is to attack players with Phelddagrif and then heal the players back. It is kind of funny to do, but it also gets 4 commander damage on that player that they may forget about later.

In terms of giving people creatures, I usually like to save it for either when one player throws down a large threat, or as a threat to anyone that wants to take me out of the game; You want to kill me? Alright, but have fun dealing with the 11 hippos that I just gave to every other player.

In general, the main thing that keeps the Phelddagrif deck going (aside from just being nice to everyone) is the threat that if somebody does something that you don't like, you can make the game a lot more difficult for them to win by giving resources to every other player. Since the deck has the power to bring so much to the table (just not necessarily on your side), it has the ability to have a huge impact on the direction of the game.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you ever try the deck and if so, what you liked/disliked. It helps me a lot! Also, thanks for commenting!

I love this. I’m going to think about building this as my next edh adventure. Looks like a TON of fun. +1.

Maybe I'm just missing something really ovious, buthow does Windfall deck people out? Wouldn't it only be discarding 6-7 cards?

toxicliam since the endgame goal of the deck is to get a ton of mana and force players to draw, you can use something like New Frontiers to force each player to draw 14ish cards, and on the same turn cast Windfall to force each player to draw an additional 21ish cards. Essentially it doubles (and more) a lot of mass draw effects. Also, with Reliquary Tower and some other possible additions like Spellbook , we can keep our hand, causing even more draws.

Doesn’t New Frontiers put the lands into play?

toxicliam oops sorry, mistake on my part! The card I meant to mention was Prosperity

Oh ok that makes a lot of sense! I’ll probably be building this to mess with my friend group very soon!

How is this deck doing?? I'm really having trouble with my pheldagriff deck in my group.. I've made it two ways.. 1 it's been very group hug.. Everyone draws cards and has tons of mana. That way just seems to make the good decks ever better or speeds up them getting to their combo so I don't feel like that build is much fun... I've also built it very pillowforty with cards like propaganda and ghostly prison and just given like one opponent 1/1 hippos to help him and then if he can survive or kill the others I can play some cards to either take his creatures or make them deal damage to him.. But this tactic didn't seem to work much as plp play some enchantment removal of board wipes.

So kinda curious what your meta is like with this deck.. My group is like 6 out of 10 on the competitive scale.. Nothing too crazy but our decks also aren't just $25 net decks or precons.. But most are around $100 or so.

Most of the decks reply on tribal it seems... Like vampires with edgar and dragons with Ur And zombies with sidis.. Lots of tokens or creatures that get pumped.. Lots of board wipes and some counters.

I am a big Mill fan in modern and have tried to build a mill phenax deck but to mill all 3 players has never been a possibility so I just gave up on that deck.

So from your list I have all but Leyeline of anticipation Solitary confinement Tempt with discovery

What would you suggest to put in place for those?? And budget options?? Or just take a look at your maybes? Are any of those above cards MUST have for the deck to preform.

Thanks for any and all advice

Fr0sty11 So first of all, I'd like to mention that I really haven't done much with this decklist for a couple years. I pretty much bought every card in this deck with a budget of under $5, but the meta seems to have changed enough to increase the price of some cards.

I haven't been playing the deck recently because I've moved on to some other decks that I enjoy, but from my previous experiences, I've found that this archetype can morph to more playgroups than you'd think, you just need to think about the long game. That being said, I think this deck definitely fits in the 60-75% range in terms of meta. Anyways, let me clear some things up:

• The deck can play to multiple different archetypes: Control, Group Hug, Mill and Pillow Fort are the biggest ones. A big thing to keep in mind with this is that depending on your specific playgroup, you'll probably want to tune the deck to suit the problems that you are facing. Personally I don't play against many enchantment wipes. Have problems with board wipes? Try tossing in Faith's Reward or other redundancies such as ways to give your stuff indestructible. Counterspells also work.

• Your opponents will remember your past games, and they will try to avoid past mistakes. A big thing about this deck is attitude. If you come in saying "Hey I'm gonna mill y'all", people are going to be wary of your generosity in letting them draw cards for example. They might also take your offerings as threats, undermining your biggest way to protect yourself. In general, you HAVE to run this deck as a group hug deck, and swing the game into your favour once the game is close to an end and you can get people to root for you. The best way to get to this win condition by playing as a group hug deck is to swap in cards that subtly work well for you while benefitting everyone as a whole. A good example of this is Collective Voyage, which gives everyone lands, but it also might get you a lethal Strength of Cedars or enough mana for an insta-mill.

• An addition to the previous point, if you want to win multiple games in a row, you're going to need to find a different angle each time, otherwise you're going to attract unnecessary attention; If, for example, you won one game by pumping up Walking Archive, people are going to be afraid if you play that card again, so consider trying to look for counterspells and play something like Forced Fruition instead on your next game, allowing you to lead your opponents into a trap, or go a completely different angle, either winning through politics or again playing an angle like Strength of Cedars.

• Don't feel bad if you have a losing streak, the deck is mainly focused around making the game wacky, and other people aren't going to have fun if you're winning too much. While winning is the goal, it's not what you should exactly aim for for the majority of the game, since I really made this deck just to see what crazy shenanigans could happen.

• My playgroup tended to play nice with politics when I made this deck, but if your playgroup is different, you may want to add more ways to discourage your opponents from attacking you. Caltrops is a good example, or any other pillow fort card (I tried to avoid these), and if you find that there is just too much in play, try something like Portcullis instead.

• There are really no "necessary" cards. The point of the deck is redundancy, so if something is out of your budget range it's totally fine not to include it. Try looking at other people's suggestions, the maybeboard, or other decklists if you'd like more inspiration, but usually the best thing to do is look at the problems that you are seeing and put some patches on those holes.

• I was never able to test this deck against combo, mainly just goodstuff decks. If you're having trouble with combo, try something like Torpor Orb, Suppression Field, Grafdigger's Cage or just more counterspells. The weirdest thing to balance in this deck is contingency plans, so I had to go with purely what worked for me.

• Opposing control decks are your friend, just don't make yourself look like a target to them. Usually they will attract a lot of hate, so you can let them counter the scary stuff while taking hits, and once they inevitably die, you may have enough resources to assemble a wincon.

• Have other decks to play, because people will definitely get tired of having you throw too many wrenches into their plans. The deck is meant to be a fun thing that you play every once in a while, so too much of it can be a bit annoying to opponents.

• Finally, I'd like to mention that with this deck you REALLY need to know when to hold things back. This deck requires a lot of knowledge of your opponents' decks as well as a lot of patience, so if you're just playing your hand, you will most likely attract too much attention. If you notice that you are attracting too much aggro, take a step back and reassess how you've affected your opponents. You may find that if you just waited for an extra turn, you could have won rather than getting your stuff removed.

Anyways, this was just a lot of random thoughts, but I hope it helps! I really believe in this deck, but I definitely need to revise some things now that I've made more control decks and, well, played more commander. This was the first deck that I've ever purchased for EDH, so it definitely holds a special place for me, and I hope that it ends up working out for you! I'll see if I can find some budget options later, but for now I need to sleep...

Wow thanks for the detailed response.. You bring up some great points and some great cards.. I think I do need to make this deck just a fun deck and bring it out every once in awhile.. And yes I think I have sometimes emptied my hand too quick and made it pretty obvious what I am doing and became too much of a threat.

So I will tinker around with your build some and see how me and my group enjoys it..

If you ever do update it I'll be keeping an eye on it.. Thanks again.

Fr0sty11 No problem! And feel free to let me know how things work out for you and if you find any card changes help out!

Hey man - I recently copied, added duals, and played this deck at an event at my lgs, and got 1st place! Couldn't believe how fun it was, and like an opponent mentioned "you just sit back and chill and watch the chaos infront of you." Worldpurge saved my bacon more than once. I also replaced Fecundity with Borrowing 100,000 Arrows because the name is funnier and I often play against decks where people swing a lot, and it's a good way to recoup after a battle.

Hey! Copied this deck on MTGO for fun tonight and Psychic Corrosion is a crazy way to end the game if you can be sneaky and flash it in with Leyline of Anticipation . Managed to get an opponent to 20 cards in hand, played Corrosion with flash and then cast Windfall ! Very good build, especially with a few expensive upgrades :)

hindugangsta Wow! That's awesome! I'm glad that it worked well for you, I haven't been able to hear from people about results recently so I really appreciate that! I agree, Borrowing 100,000 Arrows is a pretty dang funny card and I bet it works pretty well, especially if you give somebody an army of hippos... I'll definitely consider that, I like it!

warp67 That's a great idea! I'll definitely take a look into running that card. I've been thinking of coming back to this deck and revamping it to adapt to my playgroup's meta, and that seems like a really strong card synergy!

Did you abandon this deck? :'(

OptimalGreen Heya! I have no plans on abandoning this deck, in fact I've been wanting to revamp it for a while since I've gained some experience in deckbuilding and there have been some great group cards recently. I just haven't really had the time or money for EDH recently so I haven't been able to do much playtesting, and I know that I want to slightly change the direction of the deck to make it better in more competitive settings. Definitely planning on making some big changes sometime, just don't know exactly when!

Awesome! :D

Hello I've made some changes to this list and was wondering what you think of them. :)

This looks super interesting - it's almost certainly on my list of "next deck ideas", as my last happy purple hippo deck was based around enchantment stax, and I'd really like to play one that's more politically minded than one that looks to actively control the board.

(plus it's in Bant, as opposed to my usual colour choice. Gotta mix it up every now and then)

toxicliam There's actually quite a few decent combos with windfall! With the sheer volume of mana that can be generated with this deck, there can be turns in which you cast an X draw spell for a huge amount, and windfall essentially doubles that. It's not as out of the ordinary as you'd think because the existing accelerated draw can leave people with decks of maybe 20 cards for example.

The biggest thing with Windfall is that you can make a one-person huge draw into a huge draw for everyone, since it picks the player with highest cards in hand. This combos really well with any of your effects that cause people to draw more than one card per turn, AND it can really synergize with the fact that you'll usually have a way to remove your own max hand size. If you manage to remove your max hand size, windfall becomes very dangerous to your opponents. It's definitely won me a few games!

hahaha thank you for the response! i was pretty bad at magic and deck building in general back then so i was very blind to a lot of different synergies and combos that weren’t laid out step by step in front of me- i hope the deck is still kickin well!

toxicliam No problem! I like explaining stuff with this deck because it's a unique playstyle. It's still kicking for sure! I'm going through a pretty slow rework that got waaaay slowed down because I haven't played physically for a year and a half now lol, I can't make any promises about any big changes remotely soon but it's still going for sure!