Kill sequence:
Tutor + cast + activate Hermit Druid with another creature in play. Mill your entire library including a Narcomoeba which subsequently returns to play. Sacrifice your 3 creatures to Flashback Dread Return targeting Angel of Glory's Rise. Return your Human creatures to play and use Azami, Lady to Scrolls and/or Deep Analysis to draw cards to win with Laboratory Maniac. Alternatively you can Dread Return Laboratory Maniac directly to play and then Flashback Deep Analysis. However, that line is significantly more mana intensive and vulnerable to spot remove and thus should only be used as a last resort.
Haste Enablers:
Postmortem Lunge, Shallow Grave, Lightning Mauler, Lightning Greaves, Generator Servant, Apprentice Necromancer
Combo Protection:
Counterspells, hand disruption, Silence, Spellskite, Mother of Runes, Sylvan Safekeeper, Misdirection
Answers to hate:
Chain of Vapor, Nature's Claim, Ray of Revelation, Ancient Grudge, Abrupt Decay, Cyclonic Rift
Looters:
Merfolk Looter, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Thought Courier are cheap threats that improve your hand quality while pitching to Dread Return for your kill sequence. 2 of them are Wizards which is obviously relevant for Azami, Lady of Scrolls as it makes you more resilient against non-Sudden Death spot removal. Looters also have immense synergy with Flashback spells such as Ancient Grudge, Ray of Revelation and Deep Analysis and recursion such as Snapcaster Mage. They can also be used to bin key combo cards that you unfortunately happen to draw.
Explanation:
The ramp, tutors, draw7s and cantrips speak for themselves. This is a combo deck and they're either used to assemble our key pieces or look for removal to be used on opposing hate. Unlike other versions of the deck this one doesn't bother with alternate kill sequences or expensive spells. The curve essentially stops at 2 (and literally stops at 3) and that's where it should be kept. There's very little to explain about this deck in that sense since most of the cards speak for themselves. The kill sequence is extremely basic in the sense any player of any skill level can reliably pull it off each and every time. After all, there's no Necropotence, Ad Nauseam, Doomsday pile shenanigans, nothing. Even when people are employing disrupting you have ample tutors/cantrips to dig for removal but otherwise you're one of the fastest, most consistent and most interactive combo deck in the meta.
A big advantage of this version of 5CC Hermit Druid is that it's fast and simple to pilot. There's exactly 1 kill sequence and it's supported with a throng of cantrips, tutors and 1-2 CMC interaction. Whereas you can't ship someone a Jeleva Storm deck and expect them to experience success with it the AoGR combo is linear and basic (relatively speaking) which makes it perfect for a newer player who's trying to break into the format. You don't need to worry about Doomsday piles, drawing cards with Necropotence/Ad Nauseam "the fair way" or 4-5 alternate kill sequences that you'll have to juggle and attempt to manage. Rather, this a pile of 1-2 CMC spells that accomplish one goal quickly, effectively and through reasonable amounts of hate/disruption.
With respect to speed, again, it's as simple as looking at the real-world CMC of the build. Once you exclude key combo pieces such as AoGR and Dread Return the deck is literally a pile of 1-2 drops with a sprinkling of 3 drops that are almost exclusively hard tutors. Where other players field 30+ lands we run something in the 28 range which means that we see more action and cast more spells on average. Also, whereas other players focus their efforts on expensive forms of interaction (upwards of 3 mana at times) for us it's typically one and done. Even things like Grudge/Ray are often Looted away and cast for a single mana. Our counterspells, our hand disruption, our protection, most of it comes down for 0-1 CMC and that enables us to out-spell the rest of the table and push our combo past reasonable amounts of interaction faster and more reliably than our adversaries.
With that in mind the deck has always fared well for me in my cEDH testing thus-far. I don't like drawing conclusions or making blanket statements based on anecdotal evidence but I'm happy with the build on the whole. It has significantly more 1-2 CMC interaction spells than the vast majority of builds that I've seen proposed and since the curve ostensibly stops at 2 (with some minor exceptions) you just plain cast more spells faster than the majority of your adversaries. Whereas Commanders such as Zur ideally want to jam a 4 drop and attack with it this deck can consistently win games on 3 total mana sources and that's not a feat that most other cEDH builds can boast. You're often too fast to be significantly disrupted by Stax decks, you have more than enough interaction to push your combo through and your kill sequence is consistent (always defeats any number of adversaries), reliable and relatively fast.
With respect to disruption it's difficult for me to think of a way in which I could make the kill sequence more reliable. When you add up all of our 1-2 CM protection spells be it hand disruption, counter magic or other my build has something like 15-16 spells that can interact with players trying to hinder me. In that sense not only do we have one of the fastest kills that requires the least amount of mana but we also have one of the highest interaction densities. When you curve literally stops at 3 you don't have to field many mana sources at all and a quick combo kill supported with a swarm of 1 CMC interaction is the perfect way to consistently claim victory.
Again, it's worth repeating that ultimately your goal as a competitor is to maximize your overall win %. If you don't have the capacity or time to master a deck like Jeleva Storm then it doesn't behoove you to field it. This version of 5CC Hemit Druid has to be among the faster versions of the archetype (I assume that most builds run 4+ CMC spells or have less reliable draws) and since it's easy to execute and fields plenty of protection + removal for hate this is where you want to be to farm 98.5% of the EDH playebase. The top 1-2% of cEDH players piloting the best builds well can still cause you grief (the deck can lose games, I'm not suggesting otherwise) but the overwhelming majority of your opposition will fall to this easy-to-learn, easy-to-master version of the archetype.
