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Phelddagrif: Tyrant of Kindness

Commander / EDH Control Group Hug GWU (Bant) Multiplayer Pillow Fort

Shinzer_scrub4life

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Land (27)

HippoLiability (6)

OneCard (3)

Tutor (3)

Protection (2)

Recursion (1)

Planeswalker (12)

Control (8)

FetchLand (6)

Fog (3)

Prison (3)

ArmyInACan (1)

LoveMeSomeMirrageMirror (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Phelddagrif

Ramp (9)

CardDraw (6)

UtilityLand (6)

Doubler (2)

"People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do" - Niccolo Machiavelli

Ah, Phelddagrif , a commander notorious for spearheading durdly, do-nothing decks that exist to let everyone except yourself to win. Make no mistake, while this deck does have some of those iconic group hug cards, it looks to use others as tools to eliminate each other while acting the part of a useful (and hard to attack) benefactor. While they ignore us and focus on each other, we build up and/or immediately play our win conditions to close the door on everyone but us.

Hello, this is my sole Commander deck, a more sinister take on the ol' Garfield PHD (which is what Phelddagrif is an anagram of for those curious). I'm fairly set on the general gameplan for this deck, but I am totally happy to take any suggestions. Also feel free to ask me about an individual card in my deck if you want more information on my decision to include it (note: I do hold the authority to say "because it's shiny" or "I just like it").

How we Win

I won't sit here and bore you with an individual card analysis for all the 99, so I'll cover the general strategies and broad strokes on how this deck looks to win.

An Undying Horde

While we're a practically creatureless Deck, Core 2020 has offered land ramp decks an interesting method of building up a board in the form of Field of the dead.

In addition to being a combo with Scapeshift to create zombies equal to the amount of lands we have, the main appeal of this land is that mid-late game ramp spells become more impactful. You build up more lands for next turn, while also building a ground blocker army immediately to protect yourself, protect valuable Planeswalkers, or even push damage against opponents. I've had games where I'm the player with scariest boardstate of creatures, despite playing all of 4 cards that place bodies on the board.

We even have ways to copy Field with cards like Thespian's Stage and Mirage Mirror , and fetchlands such as Flooded Strand let us get two triggers for one land.

Plus, it's also hilarious to play a Bant deck yet beat your opponents with an almost mono-black army.

The Hippos are a Liability

While your opponents might believe that handing them a standing army of 1/1 Hippos would be a liability to us, our deck is designed so that the hippos will "generously" lead our opponents to their demise. The best part is that with the ability to hand hippos to our opponents, cards that would useless to creatureless decks can be turned into more effective tools.

Our Ghostly Prison effects and Fog effects make turning our hippos (and other creatures!) against us a tricky prospect. We can give an army to an opponent willing to turn it against the other players and have them do our job for us.

Even if our opponents are gunshy with attacking with free creatures, we have cards that capitalize on giant creature blobs. Amongst them, my favorite has to be Angel's Trumpet . This card is mean, it doesn't care if the creature is summoning sick, it doesn't care if you were given 15 hippos in your 2nd Main Phase that you couldn't have possibly attacked with. You didn't attack, tap them down and take that damage. With potential blockers tapped down, the now vigilant creatures that can attack now swing freely, and are heavily encouraged to do so. The trumpet just morphs the dynamic of creature boardstates so much, I love it.

With Friends like These

While very few of our Planeswalkers win the game outright, they all have good synergy with certain cards, provide incremental advantage, or even deal with problems our opponents may present. A critical mass of planeswalkers accruing value alongside our cards to both protect them and synergize with them have made some opponents concede just under the sheer weight of it all.

Notable synergies include:

Ajani, the Greathearted + Elspeth, Sun's Champion : Ajani makes Elspeth ult in two turns if he can -2twice with her on board, and if you can hold off on Ulting Elspeth, having her ult and stick around can basically spell the end, especially if you have Field of the Dead making 4/4 flying zombies alongside.

Arcane Laboratory + Teferi, Time Raveler : Teferi can bounce your "one card" effect to let you sneak several cards out, just before you place it gently back on the battlefield. He also works well to limit opponents while the "one card" effect is out, preventing instant speed players from sneaking extra value out of other players turns, while letting you do the opposite with his +1.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon + Will Kenrith (+ Abandon Hope ): Pretty self explanatory. (For those who don't get the joke, if I have an uncontested Ugin and Will on the field, I'm probably winning that game. Although they do actually have some synergy, Will and Ugin's +2s can combine to delete any one creature that is targetable and doesn't have +1/+1 counters or anthems.)

An Embarrassment of Riches

While they themselves don't win the game, the "one card" cards, such as Rule of Law , let us put a stranglehold on our opponent's ability to take advantage of all the goodies we give them. We, on the other hand, take advantage of planeswalkers, activated abilities of lands and cards, and all of our instant speed interaction to play mostly unabated. When we play a game winning piece, it's usually a card or two, so only having them one at a time isn't nearly as prohibitive for us.

The "one card" cards also let us rest a little easier against combo decks since they have to deal with them usually before they can go off, and hopefully destroying these cards is a red flag that can help players be on guard to interact with the combo.

Conclusion

Those are the main angles we play at to win. As you see, there is overlap in most methods, so if pieces of one condition come together, they can build on the other win conditions to create an overwhelming, but residual, advantage. It very rarely comes down to one big explosive turn with this deck, and I feel like that's what makes it so fun. The rest of the cards are just generic removal tools to control threats, cards to help us survive, and 's solid ramp package to play it all ahead of schedule. That about covers it, thank you for taking the time to check this out.

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Date added 4 years
Last updated 4 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

43 - 0 Rares

25 - 0 Uncommons

12 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.75
Tokens 1/1 G Creature Hippo, City's Blessing, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Emblem Nissa, Who Shakes the World, Emblem Will Kenrith, Phyrexian Beast 4/4 G, Soldier 1/1 W, The Monarch, Zombie 2/2 B
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