We Built This City (Hogaak Reanimator/Voltron)

Commander / EDH BG (Golgari)

Jebdioah

Creature (34)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Arasta of the Endless Web
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Chainer, Dementia Master
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Doom Whisperer
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fleshbag Marauder
• 1x Genesis
• 1x Golgari Grave-Troll
• 1x Golgari Thug
• 1x Grothama, All-Devouring
• 1x Korozda Guildmage
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Lotleth Troll
• 1x Nyx Weaver
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Satyr Wayfinder
• 1x Sepulchral Primordial
• 1x Sewer Nemesis
• 1x Shambling Shell
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1x Spiritmonger
• 1x Stinkweed Imp
• 1x Stitcher's Supplier
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Underrealm Lich
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood

Land (34)

• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Blooming Marsh
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 9x Forest
• 1x Golgari Guildgate
• 1x Golgari Rot Farm
• 1x Jungle Hollow
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
• 10x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Tranquil Thicket
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Deadbridge Chant
• 1x Glistening Oil
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Guardian Project
• 1x Kudzu
• 1x Sylvan Library

Instant (5)

• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Carrion
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Grisly Salvage
• 1x Putrefy

Commander (1)

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Gather the Pack
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Unearth
• 1x Victimize
• 1x Winding Way

Artifact (5)

• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Grafted Exoskeleton
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Talisman of Resilience

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Vraska the Unseen
• 1x Vraska, Golgari Queen

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Maybeboard

Creature (8)

• 1x Bloodghast
• 1x Dusk Legion Zealot
• 1x Elvish Visionary
• 1x Fiend Artisan
• 1x Hermit Druid
• 1x Polukranos, Unchained
• 1x The Gitrog Monster
• 1x World Shaper

Artifact (8)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x The Great Henge

Instant (4)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Berserk
• 1x Deathsprout
• 1x Tainted Strike

Land (1)

• 1x Rogue's Passage

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Overview

My take on a Hogaak deck that combines elements of graveyard recursion and voltron with a hint of infect. The deck aims to get Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis out as quickly as possible with a series of cheap creature drops such as Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic, combined with graveyard mill with draw such as Grisly Salvage, and some combined effects, such as Satyr Wayfinder. Once we have Hogaak out, we aim to hit the same person each turn with them to get that commander damage win, and with the aid of cards such as Grafted Exoskeleton or Glistening Oil, we can cut down the number of turns it takes to get that win. In addition to Hogaak, we want to be playing meaty cards from our graveyard with our reanimation spells, such as Spiritmonger, Soul of New Phyrexia, or Doom Whisperer for some extra pressure on our opponents. The deck is incredibly resilient with the use of the graveyard for recursion, or as "mana" to pay for our commander. Please note that I use the word "voltron" lightly as this deck obviously doesn't have a billion equipments and single-creature-smacking-power, but it does tend to center around Hogaak swinging and killing.

Notable Synergies

Carrion is an extremely strong card in this deck because it allows you to sacrifice Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis at instant speed, so in response to removal aimed at Hogaak, or anytime, in order to make 8 0/1 maggot tokens. These tokens then let us immediately convoke out Hogaak again to the battlefield for free, and leaves a 0/1 for blocking. These tokens can then be used for more convoke costs if Hogaak dies, or as blockers for scary creatures.

Greater Good is a crazy good card in this deck as we can sacrifice Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis to it to draw 8 cards, often times replacing one or two of those draws with a dredge effect. If we do dredge, we can often times discard those dredge cards with the resolution of the Greater Good activation, and then delve out Hogaak back to the battlefield using those dredged cards, to then repeat the process with Greater Good again, creating a net of 5 cards drawn for each iteration of Greater Good.

Ramunap Excavator + Strip Mine is a hidden value engine in this deck, as it allows us to blow up an opponent's land each turn by continuously sacrificing strip mine to destroy a land, and then replaying Strip Mine from the graveyard with Ramunap Excavator.

Notable Exclusions

Cards that base their power and toughness off of the number of cards in your graveyard such as Lord of Extinction, Mortivore, and Splinterfright have been left off of the list because our graveyard often times does not stay full of cards as we delve them away with Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and reanimate creatures. My only ongoing experiment with these cards is Sewer Nemesis in order to see how effective this style of card is during an actual game.

Sol Ring Yes this should be in the deck. Though it is important to note that you quickly become the threat when you slam this turn 1.

PLEASE TRY

I feel that the swords (ex. Sword of Feast and Famine or Sword of Fire and Ice) would be extremely powerful in this deck and really help it live up to that voltron name a lot more, I unfortunately haven't gotten around to trying them out yet though.

In contrast to my notable exclusions, please do try a build of Hogaak less centered around Hogaak himself and more centered around building the graveyard. I think Hogaak would still command a deck like this well as he is a free 8/8 trample whenever you have the time for it. So please try out all of the "creature's power and toughness is equal to the number of cards in your graveyard" type of cards, and let me know if it works better!

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Key combos	Ramunap Excavator + Strip Mine
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 32 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.27
Tokens	0/1 B Token Creature Insect, Assassin 1/1 B w/ Player Killer, Emblem Vraska, Golgari Queen, Saproling 1/1 G, Spider 1/2 G