Excuse the editing, I'm not used to forum style posting
Are you sick of infinite combos plaguing your meta?
Do you want a deck that you can sit down at ANY table and have a fighting chance without your wins feeling unfair?
Do you like to feel to satisfaction THUNK of creatures taking lifepoints and having it make a meaningful impact in a game?
Well this just might be the deck for you.
This deck is an experiment into having a deck that is suitable for any table of EDH at any power level. It is fast and flexible enough to cause a serious headache for fast combo decks, but it still wins through acumulated value, so it is slow enough to give your friends with more budget or flavourful builds to enjoy a decent game of magic.
Early Game Strategies
Your early game can vary quite wildly in this deck depending on your matchups. But you have 2 general starts to a game.
-
Get a relevant hate piece and a card draw engine on the board ASAP.
This usually takes the form a 2 drop hatebear followed by
Tymna the Weaver
. But there are a number of other hate pieces and engines in the deck, so it can vary.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
followed by a
Rhystic Study
can spell disaster for so many decks.
-
Use fast mana and rituals to get Kraum out early, apply pressure and protect him.
Depending on your match-up, this can be incredibly powerful. But it can also be quite wasteful if your meta is removal heavy. This is a match-to-match call. But the pressure he can apply if rushed out on turn 2 with
Mana Vault
or
Dark Ritual
is insane. It's unusual if I DON'T knock out a player with Kraum commander damage.
Mid-Game Strategies
Your mid-game with this deck is providing an answer to every question that pops up while constantly pressuring your opponents life totals. There is a large number of hate pieces and a heap of instant speed interaction to have answers for almost everything. The trick is to keep your hate pieces on the board to slow your opponents down, and keep your card draw rolling to keep your hand full of answers.
A number of instant speed, top-deck tutors keeps your hand relevant. Remember to cast your tutors in response to your Tymna and Kraum triggers to move past the 'Top of the Deck' downside.
This is your critical tipping point of the game. The fast combo decks will usually burn out here, and the heavy accumulated value decks will start coming to bare. Tribal creature decks is one of your worst matchups. A valuable way to play here is to hold back your answers to make other decks appear more threatening than you. A little table politics goes a long way here. Once some of your more 'threatening' opponents have been dealt with, you can use 3-4 answers all at once to punch a hole in your opponents defences to deal some killer blows.
Late Game Strategies
As you move towards the late game, you want to stick a couple of serious Value pieces to the board and use them as effectively as possible.
The Scarab God
,
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
and
Luminarch Ascension
are your best 3 options in the deck for winning in the late game. Again, your worst matchup will be against slower, big value decks and this can be a nasty grind. Depending on your meta, change up your hate pieces to include gems like
Meekstone
to help you in the late game.
Cheeky Synergy
The use of
Notion Thief
and
Smothering Tithe
is a cheeky side-strategy in this deck. Correct use of these with
Wheel of Fortune
,
Winds of Change
,
Burning Inquiry
, ETC. can propel you so far ahead of your opponents.
Shocker
is also a very underrated hatebear that can ruin combo decks that need to craft their hand and is an excellent synergy with the above cards.
Final Thoughts
I've built this deck with cards that I have available, so there was some budget restrictions but not many. I've also trawled through SOOOOOOOO many hatebears and picked ones that give a good balance between early game combo disruption, and late game value. But I am very open to suggestions for changes.
Finally, I went with the colours choosing over as seen in Breakfast Hulk or Blood Pod builds for personal choice. Trading the more efficient green hate pieces and fast mana for a higher concentration of instant speed interaction and counterspells. A more interactive style of magic is just my preference of gameplay.
I hope you enjoy beating people in the face!
