Kynaios and Tiro, Embodiment of EDH (Group Hug)

Commander / EDH Casual Combo Control Counterspell Group Hug RGWU

CriticalZER0

Land (37)

• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 2x Forest
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Grove of the Burnwillows
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Homeward Path
• 2x Island
• 1x Karplusan Forest
• 1x Ketria Triome
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Mistveil Plains
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 2x Plains
• 1x Raugrin Triome
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Shatterskull Smashing  ^Flip
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Spara's Headquarters
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Bastion
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Win Con (5)

• 1x Chance for Glory
• 1x Expropriate
• 1x Insurrection
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Seasons Past

Card Draw (13)

• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Dictate of Kruphix
• 1x Finale of Revelation
• 1x Folio of Fancies
• 1x Howling Mine
• 1x Kami of the Crescent Moon
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Rites of Flourishing
• 1x Smuggler's Share
• 1x Sphinx's Revelation
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Temple Bell
• 1x The One Ring

Counter Magic (9)

• 1x Counterflux
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Kozilek, the Great Distortion
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Pact of Negation

Tutor (6)

• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Tithe

Flash Enabler (5)

• 1x Heliod, the Radiant Dawn  ^Flip
• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Teferi, Time Raveler
• 1x Vedalken Orrery

Commander (1)

Ramp (11)

• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios  ^Flip
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Nyxbloom Ancient
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Three Visits
• 1x Urza, Lord Protector  ^Meld

Removal (8)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Endless Detour
• 1x Farewell
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Settle the Wreckage
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x The Mightstone and Weakstone  ^Meld

Protection (5)

• 1x Angel's Grace
• 1x Avacyn, Angel of Hope
• 1x Comeuppance
• 1x Platinum Angel
• 1x Teferi's Protection

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Maybeboard

Other (5)

• 1x Everybody Lives!
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Peacekeeper
• 1x Teferi's Ageless Insight
• 1x Trouble in Pairs

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Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis, Embodiment of EDH

Do you enjoy ramping to large amounts of mana, drawing tons of cards, having a toolbox at your disposal, Spike-style brutal countermagic, Timmy-style splashy spells and stompy creatures, and Johnny-style infinite combos?

All that and more in K&T Group Hug!

The Game Plan

General game plan consists of ramping and providing card draw for the table while controlling the board with counter magic, removal, and board wipes. Generally, interaction shouldn't be used unless your opponents attempt to do something which will either win the game or provide them with such a large card advantage that they will win a resource war. Expropriate, Laboratory Maniac, Insurrection, or Folio of Fancies serve as the win conditions. I have won games with Laboratory Maniac, milling opponents with card draw spells, stealing creatures with Insurrection, and beating down with Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Kozilek, the Great Distortion.

The most important cards in the deck are Sunforger and Leyline of Anticipation/Vedalken Orrery (especially when paired with Seedborn Muse. Sunforger is a powerful toolbox of spells that allows you to address almost any board state. Leyline of Anticipation/Vedalken Orrery allow you to hold up mana for removal/counter magic/protection spells and if you don't need them you can either play more ramp or card draw.

Generally you want to play effects which cause all players to draw cards early, paired with ramp spells and your commander. Kynaios and Tiro effectively turn card draw into ramp by allowing you to play extra lands. From there you need to keep mana open for interaction until you can play a flash enabler, which will allow you to use unused mana for card draw spells instead. The most effective card draw engine to get into play is The One Ring with Seedborn Muse; 2 turn cycles of this combo nets 36 cards, and I have drawn over 70 cards with this combo before. Note that the life loss only happens on your upkeep, not each. Once you have ramped with lands or landed a Nyxbloom Ancient the x-cost draw spells can draw most of your deck, and you can use Journey to the Oracle   to dump all the lands in your hand into play untapped! At this point it is generally trivial to end the game with countermagic backup.

Toolbox

The deck contains a powerful Sunforger package that allows you to tutor up counter magic (Counterflux, Dovin's Veto), removal (Swords to Plowshares, Settle the Wreckage, Endless Detour), protection (Comeuppance, Angel's Grace, Teferi's Protection), or tutors (Enlightened Tutor, Tithe, Eladamri's Call). These can all be recurred with Mistveil Plains.

Countermagic

Generically powerful:

• Disallow, Mana Drain, Pact of Negation

For forcing spells through:

• Narset's Reversal: If you cast a game winning spell like Insurrection or Expropriate and your opponents try to counter it, in response you can simply target your original spell with Narset's Reversal, which gives you a copy and returns the original safely to your hand to be cast later.

• Teferi, Time Raveler: While not countermagic, Teferi effectively makes all your spells uncounterable.

For stopping opponent's spells:

• Dovin's Veto, Counterflux

Infinite Combos

There are two sets of (janky) infinite combos in this deck:

1) Sunforger Combo

• Start with Sunforger, Mistveil Plains, and Platinum Angel in play (the later two can be tutored with Tithe and Enlightened Tutor/Eladamri's Call).

• Equip and use Sunforger to cast Chance for Glory. Use Mistveil Plains to put Chance for Glory on the bottom of your deck. Repeat on your next turn. If Platinum Angel is ever removed use Angel's Grace to avoid losing

2) Seasons Past Combo

• Need Seasons Past and Narset's Reversal in hand, Chance for Glory and Angel's Grace in hand or in graveyard.

• Cast Chance for Glory, and if on an extra turn, cast Angel's Grace. Cast Seasons Past, and in response Narset's Reversal it. The original Seasons Past goes to your hand, and use the copy to return Chance for Glory, Narset's Reversal, and Angel's Grace to your hand. Repeat on your next turn.

Flex Slots

These cards are somewhat interchangeable to what I consider the core of the deck, and can be swapped out depending on your meta/playstyle.

• Teferi, Hero of Dominaria: Generically powerful, alternative wincon if you manage to ult him.

• Urza, Lord Protector  : Melding planeswalker is cool. Front side is useful as ramp, while the planeswalker side offers card advantage, ramp, and removal.

• Mightstone and Weakstone

• Kwain, Itinerant Meddler: Another 2 mana howling mine effect that counts towards Mistveil Plains. Creatures are more fragile than artifacts and enchantments though. Arguably better than Kami of the Crescent Moon since you control when the card draw happens.

• Isochron Scepter: We have plenty of 2 mana cards to imprint under here, including tutors, countermagic, and protection spells. Bounce it with Teferi, Time Raveler to re-imprint a spell!

• Peacekeeper: Run this if creature aggro is prevalent.

• Everybody Lives!: Alternative to Angel's Grace.

• Tatyova, Benthic Druid: Generically powerful incremental lifegain and card draw.

• Smuggler's Share: Still testing this card.

• Trouble in Pairs: I need to acquire on of these.

Notable Additions

• Chance for Glory: Mainly present for infinite turn combos. Prevent yourself from losing the game with either Platinum Angel or Angel's Grace.

• Kozilek, the Great Distortion: Amazing once you've drawn most of your deck (and have no maximum hand size), turning all of your dead cards into counter magic.

• Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios  : We mainly play this card for the backside Journey to the Oracle  . This allows us to effectively go off when casting our draw spells for large amounts of mana. When you cast Finale of Revelation, Sphinx's Revelation, or Sea Gate Restoration   leave open the mana to cast Journey to the Oracle   to drop all the lands you've drawn into play untapped. Doing this, and returning Journey to the Oracle   to your hand, allows you to chain together draw spells. This works especially well if you have Nyxbloom Ancient in play. Cast Chromatic Lantern to allow your fetch lands to tap for mana when no fetchable lands are left in your deck.

Notable Exclusions

• Ghostly Prison, Propaganda, Sphere of Safety: Prison effects suffer when you ramp everyone else. I've found it to be better to just run more protection style spells in case anyone tries to attack you.

Change Log

--- 8/5/23 ---

Commander Masters update!

(-) Pramikon, Sky Rampart, (+) Deflecting Swat: Pramikon, Sky Rampart hasn't worked as well as I had hoped, hopefully you have no one attacking you instead of forcing a single opponent to only attack you and is useless in a 1v1 situation. Commander Masters has made Deflecting Swats much more affordable, so get them soon.

--- 4/19/23 ---

March of Machines update!

(-) Tidal Barracuda, (+) Heliod, the Radiant Dawn  : Front side helps recur enchantments, back side provides flash and makes our spells cheaper.

(-) Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, (+) Urza, Lord Protector  : Meld planeswalker is cool, and Urza, Lord Protector   makes most of our spells cheaper to cast.

(-) Treasure Map  , (+) Mightstone and Weakstone

--- 7/21/22 ---

Lands update!

(-) Plains, (+) Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire

(-) Island, (+) Otawara, Soaring City

(-) Mountain, (+) Shatterskull Smashing  

(-) Forest, (+) Boseiju, Who Endures

(-) Sunpetal Grove, (+) Windswept Heath

(-) Rootbound Crag, (+) Wooded Foothills

--- 5/15/22 ---

Streets of New Capenna update!

(-) Chaos Warp, (+) Endless Detour: A super flexible card. Able to hit indestructible permanents like Chaos Warp, even if it just delays them for a turn. Also able to recur our own spells to the top of our library.

(-) Kruphix, God of Horizons, (+) Smuggler's Share: Smuggler's Share has great synergy with all of our extra draw spells, allowing us to get more consistency from it than most decks.

(-) Seaside Citadel, (+) Spara's Headquarters: A strict upgrade, able to be fetched with Three Visits and Nature's Lore

(-) Deflecting Palm, (+) Three Visits: Extra ramp that is able to get our tri-lands.

--- 4/29/21 ---

(-) Sphinx of the Second Sun, (+) Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios  : We mainly want this for the reverse side, which allows us to drop lands that we draw in our x-cost draw spells.

--- 11/15/20 ---

Commander Legends update!

(-) Tatyova, Benthic Druid, (+) Sphinx of the Second Sun: 8 mana is steep, but because of the additional untap phase he immediately pays for himself. This card is potentially more powerful than an additional card/untap during our turn, since we play so many howling mine type effects which trigger during the untap or draw phase.

--- 10/2/20 ---

(-) Forest, (+) Sea Gate Restoration  : A land that can draw a bunch of cards.

--- 5/24/20 ---

Ikoria update!

(-) Summary Dismissal, (+) Fierce Guardianship: Cutting a powerful, but situational, counterspell for a more flexible and free one.

(-) Hour of Revelation, (+) Tidal Barracuda: Vedalken Orrery + stopping opponents from countering our stuff on our turn. Fits the group hug theme.

(-) Frontier Bivouac, (+) Ketria Triome: Can fetch this land with Nature's Lore.

(-) Mystic Monastery, (+) Raugrin Triome: Can fetch this land with Tithe.

--- 2/5/20 ---

(-) Dictate of Karametra, (+) Nyxbloom Ancient: Nyxbloom Ancient is less of a group hug card, but triple mana seems fun.

(-) Eternal Witness, (+) Seasons Past

(-) Show and Tell, (+) Chance for Glory

(-) Horn of Greed, (+) Rhystic Study

(-) Wrath of God, (+) Supreme Verdict

(-) Desertion, (+) Thought Vessel

(-) Crush Contraband, (+) Chaos Warp

--- 10/18/19 ---

(-) Wilderness Reclamation, (+) Kruphix, God of Horizons: Kruphix is back, looking to add more effects to remove maximum hand size.

(-) Wall of Shards, (+) Folio of Fancies

--- 9/2/19 ---

(-) Wall of Denial, (+) Pramikon, Sky Rampart: Testing out the new Commander 2019 wall as a direct replacement for Wall of Denial.

--- 5/9/19 ---

War of the Spark update!

(-) Veteran Explorer, (+) Dovin's Veto: We have no way to easily kill Veteran Explorer ourselves, so it's not as reliable ramp as I would like. Dovin's Veto is great at stopping people's spells and can be tutored with Sunforger.

(-) Tempt with Discovery, (+) Teferi, Time Raveler: Usually opponents either won't get any lands, causing you to pay 4 mana to get Reliquary Tower since we don't run any really broken lands, or opponents run Gaea's Cradle/Serra Sanctum/Cabal Coffers and we don't run Strip Mine to destroy those. Teferi, Time Raveler has multiple useful modes; he makes our spells uncounterable, allows us to flash in sorceries (the main reason we run Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery), and can temporarily remove most permanents while drawing us cards, for just 3 mana!

(-) Blue Sun's Zenith, (+) Finale of Revelation: Finale of Revelation addresses the drawbacks of sorcery speed x-draw spells by giving us no maximum handsize for the rest of the game and untapping 5 lands, allowing us to use countermagic and removal that we draw into.

(-) Mystic Confluence, (+) Narset's Reversal: A cheaper counterspell that allows for fun interactions with opponent's spells (Cyclonic Rift) and our own x-cost draw spells and Expropriate.

--- 3/23/19 ---

I've revised the list to reduce the amount of cards that tend to draw the opponents more cards than us.

(-) Heartwood Storyteller, (+) Sylvan Library: We tend to play more noncreature spells than our opponents. Sylvan Library comes down earlier, easier to cast, and can draw us a lot of cards.

(-) Forced Fruition, (+) Teferi, Hero of Dominaria: Forced Fruition was always a risky wincon, allowing our opponents to draw a lot of cards and giving them a chance to find an answer to Forced Fruition. Teferi, Hero of Dominaria costs less mana, draws us cards and lets us hold up mana, removes problem permanents, and his ult will win us the game.

(-) Minds Aglow (-) Prosperity, (+) Sphinx's Revelation (+) Blue Sun's Zenith: I like the group hug aspect of Minds Aglow and Prosperity, and with Consecrated Sphinx these cards became incredibly powerful, I found that if I cast these at sorcery speed they give the opponent such a huge advantage that the only way these cards were useful were if they could be flashed in at end step. Instead of relying on a flash enabler we can just run card draw spells that have instant speed and are one sided. Blue Sun's Zenith is nice because it goes back in the deck and can still be used to mill opponents.

I've also removed cards that I've found haven't been impactful enough.

(-) Selvala, Explorer Returned, (+) Eladamri's Call: Group hug effect, ramp, card draw, and life gain, she ends up not doing enough of any of those in a consistent enough manner, and the fact that you have to wait a turn to use her, has caused me to cut her. We run very powerful creatures, and Consecrated Sphinx is one of the best cards in the deck, and Eladamri's Call gets them at instant speed and can be cast off of Sun Forger.

(-) Kruphix, God of Horizons, (+) Treasure Map  : No maximum hand size and storing tons of mana is good, but not quite good enough to pay 5 mana for. Treasure Map   allows us to control our draws in the early game, flips and provides ramp or card draw, and combos very nicely with Smothering Tithe.

(-) Reins of Power, (+) Mystic Confluence: Too situational, Insurrection, even though it costs more mana, usually wins the game on the spot. Mystic Confluence allows us to remove problematic creatures (providing a similar role when casting Reins of Power on an opponents turn), counter spells, and draw cards.

(-) Insidious Will, (+) Pact of Negation: The easiest to cut of the expensive countermagic we run (see comment section below).

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Cards I'm considering:

Solitary Confinement: We draw enough cards that the drawback is easily mitigated, and this is a powerful protection card, downside is we skip our draw step so we miss out on any Howling Mine effects.

Peacekeeper: Useful in aggressive metas.

Everybody Lives!: Great effect similar to Angel's Grace that can also save the board. Very on theme.

Cards I'm considering cutting:

Top Ranked	Achieved #44 position overall 5 years ago Achieved #32 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Casual 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Combo 4 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	1 month
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	19 - 0 Mythic Rares 63 - 0 Rares 7 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.45
Tokens	Spirit 1/1 C, Treasure
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