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✶Twilight Sparkle's Hug✶【Group Hug Primer】

Commander / EDH* Casual Combo Five Color Group Hug Jank Primer

TheSimikBOat


Yeah, I know it, silver bordered cards aren't legal in EDH, but this is like a meme deck (one of the best things of edh are the meme decks). Because that, this deck is more for casual edh, like to play it in your playgroup. Also s great part of the cards are group hug staples, and i hope that this primer will help you while building another legal group hug deck.

Probably some people (that not much has been reported about that) will think that a group hug deck is like that you give stuff and stuff to your opponents, then a random deck will win, and then you say: "Oh, GG". It's true that some people that plays group hug don't play to win, and they play to see the others playing the game around them. But, really, the group hug players have a "hidden face": They also want to win. That is because the gameplan that this kind of deck has is to help all the other players, but they also want to use politics (and protection effects like Ghostly Prison ) as one of their ways to make the game longer and then, win with thinks like Insurrection or Flurry of Wings (who don't knowns our favorite Happy Hippo named Phelddagryff?).

Because of this, some people calls Group Hug with the name of "Political Control", because they use politics to control the game. For example, if one player will win, you can help the other 2 players to don't stop the game, and then after a great number of turns you will play your finisher like in a control deck. But that control plan is "hidden" in the idea that group hug is a deck that helps everyone (that probably will be 50% true).

I think that a fun thing of this deck is that with it you can make friends because you help the other people,and that con be funny because our commandant here is the main character of "Friendship is magic" that comes to Mtg with a Group Hug deck to make more friends!

Functions

Here I will explain the functions and the strategy of a group of cards that are in the deck.

Like in any edh deck, we need ramp to start to cast good spells, in this case to help our opponents. In this point, we have:

In this strategy we have the cards that help everyone weith symmetrical effects (like "each player ...").

  • Veteran Explorer : Also can be a ramp spell if he dies quickly, and legacy players here will know it because of Nic Fit.

  • Howling Mine , Dictate of Kruphix : Card advantage for everyone!

  • Ghirapur Orrery , Rites of Flourishing : Ramp and card draw, I think that our opponents will be happy with this.

  • Mana Flare , Heartbeat of Spring : It's funny, because the two do exactly the same, but the only difference is that Mana Flare don't knows what it the color pie.

  • Collective Voyage , Minds Aglow : I think that the normal way to use them is pay all the mana that you can and then the other players also contribute if they can. But, for example if you have 6 mana and you need also to cast Ghostly Prison , you can pay 3,and then the other players can pay 1 mana each. That will be 5 cards to each player (or lands), and that means that you don't need to spend do much mana to make it good.

  • Selvala, Explorer Returned : It's very powerful, because she can add up to 4 mana, can give us some life, but also is a good group hug card because makes that every player draws.

  • Grismold, the Dreadsower : Sometimes, the magic of friendship requires a flower troll that gives creatures to each player.

This type of cards can be used to equilibrate the game.

  • Scheming Symmetry , Wishclaw Talisman : Giving to an opponent the option to tutor something is very powerful to made a "contract".

  • Sylvan Offering : With this you can give chump blockers (or a nice army of you pay a great amount of mana), and also a big creature.

  • Edric, Spymaster of Trest , Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist : The idea that the two have is the same: card advantage to you and your opponents if they attacked another player than you.

  • Nin, the Pain Artist : She gives card draw to one single opponent each time. That cards are in exchange of damage that probably will be inofensive.

  • Benefactor's Draught : This is a card that really helps one player, because you literally can help that player to survive, but also can be useful to make "contracts" like "you can attack that player that everyone hates because plays Stax, and then i will untap your creatures to block". And this way also you get a bunch of cards.

That cards are designed to benefit all players except one, that will be the player that is in a best position.

We use cards that protect ourseves, that can benefit our opponents if they dont attack us or they attack other players, or cards that can "control" the attackers.

  • Propaganda , Ghostly Prison , Archon of Absolution , Windborn Muse : Propaganda and Ghostly Prison do exactly the same, Windborn Muse costs 1 mana more but can be a good blocker, and Archon of Absolution only forces our opponents to pay , but has protection from white, that can be fine.

  • Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs : Sometimes can be best than Ghostly Prison , because if the attacking player don't pay the , we create a chump blocker that sometimes can be bigger than the creature that its attacking. The problem is that Kazuul is bad against the creatures that are unblockable.

  • Blazing Archon : 9 mana seems too much, but with all our ramp shenanigans probably will be easy to play this.

  • Orzhov Advokist : This is one of the cards that represents very good the Group Hug strategy: It help all players (in this case all players that have creatures), in exchange of keep us alive.

  • Gahiji, Honored One : Why your opponents will attack you if they can do much more damage to another opponent? This is the idea of our naya beast.

  • Pramikon, Sky Rampart : This is a very powerful inclusion from C19. The great power of that legendary wall is that you just have to "worry" about 1 player instead of 3. With this i mean "control attckers"

  • The C17 "Bearded man curses" (this is how i tell them) that we saw before will be included here.

Normally group hug decks don't need tutors, but in this deck we need our combo to win, and the tutors help.

The idea of the deck is to win with the combination of specific cards, and if one of that cards goes to our graveyard, we need to have recursion to get it another time.

  • Road of Return : The new recursion spell from Commander 2019 that also can help you if our opponents are very bad people and killed our little alicorn commander a great number of times.

  • Noxious Revival : That don't get the card back to our hand but it can cost 0 mana, and thanks to instant speed is like we get the card to our hand.

  • Regrowth : The classic recursion spell and one of the most powerful of all thanks to it's low cost, and its flexibility.

  • Skullwinder : In this deck is best than Eternal Witness because it can help one of our opponents.

  • Seasons Past : High cost, but can return a buch of cards, and in a slow deck like that i think that can be good.

This is the part where I explain the combo to win. The pieces are:

HOW THAT COMBO WORKS:

The idea is to use Progenitor Mimic or Followed Footsteps to have at least 5 copies of ___ on the battlefield (or 4 if we have Rarity ), and use their ability to name each one with the names that Princess Twiligt Sparkle needs to activate her ability. Then you active the ability of Twilight, and if you control Platinium Angel or you cast Angel's Grace , you will be the only player that wins the game.

EASY!

This is only like a meme, but I think that its nice to play silver bordered cards, because they are funny, that its the main goal of non-competitive commander: Be fun. And, yeah, I know that ponies can't give hugs.

You liked the deck? What do you think about that? Also, all suggestions are appreciated.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Changes:

Coward_Token suggested me to add Gideon here to have another combo piece. I was thinking about what to cut and funally I cut Sylvan Tutor because it is a sorcery, and somtimes that can be problematic, or just you waste a turn you could combo-off.

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Top Ranked
Date added 5 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

13 - 0 Mythic Rares

55 - 0 Rares

16 - 0 Uncommons

6 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.69
Tokens Copy Clone, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Emblem Gideon of the Trials, Gold, Ogre 3/3 R, Plant 1/1 G, Spirit 1/1 C, Treasure, Treefolk X/X G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders Other people's cool decks, Group Hug Decks (for inspiration), Decks other people made that I might use for ideas and stuff like that., Favorites, memberthis
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