Phelddagrif Group Hug vs UR Chaos Mill
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Nov. 9, 2015, 1:35 a.m. by buildingadeck
Phelddagrif has been one of my favorite commanders with which to play for a while now, and I love the interesting things that happen when you enable other players (only to police their power when things begin to get out of hand). The wins are hard-earned if you aren't simply trying to mill everyone to death immediately (which you shouldn't do if you want to play your deck again without getting hated off the table).
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is UR Chaos, which uses cards like Scrambleverse, Knowledge Pool, and Possibility Storm to make it very confusing to cast spells and predict the outcome. While Group Hug plays nicely, UR Chaos plays mean, and I can imagine it would be hated off a lot of the time (unless your play group enjoys the wonky 5-hour games that it produces), but I feel like getting it going would be a lot of fun.
So I pose the question to you: which deck would you play and why?
Side note: this will not change my decision to build both decks, but is merely a survey of opinion.
StealthyGunnar says... #3
Group Hug Phelddagrif seems more fun.
I run a wacky, chaotic, mono-red deck with Norin the Wary as my commander (Hey Dylan, I chose this guy) and the games just go too long sometimes. My playgroup often kills me right away if I pull it out because they don't want a 5-hour game...
November 9, 2015 1:42 a.m.
I run a Phelddagrif group-hug deck, and I find that it can make games hard enough to follow without red chaos spells. Once a group-hug deck builds up its board it can slow down games as people try to keep track of all the triggers and effects going on. I took out Upwelling because it always became a hassle for everyone to try to keep track of what mana was in their mana pool on top of everything else.
That being said, I love the deck. It's the first deck I'll pull out if there are enough people. I run a clone sub-theme so that I can keep myself in the game by copying all the scary stuff that I help my opponents put onto the board.
You have to be aware of deck power imbalances amongst the people you play with when running a group-hug deck though. The more efficiently built decks are generally going to be able to capitalize on the benefits you give everyone more than less tuned decks; and you are going to have to make play decisions that help even the field for everyone else. That's less of an issue with chaos decks, which seem better at creating a more even playing field amongst decks of varying power levels.
November 9, 2015 2:02 a.m.
lemmingllama says... #5
I'd personally go towards the chaos deck. I have one that I quite enjoy that runs all of the chaos cards you mentioned (Some Goats Want to Watch the World Burn). The trick is to make your opponents lose track of what is happening due to all the triggers, then concede because they can't execute their game plan. Then you put the deck away for the evening once you win.
Chaos is the best way to learn how to manage a complicated stack. It may not be as fun as a group hug deck, but it is also much more fair.
November 9, 2015 10:02 a.m.
buildingadeck says... #6
Hey, guys! Thanks for all your responses!
I've played Phelddagrif a on and off for a while (I took an hiatus from EDH for a while), and I always enjoy the games I play with him, win or lose. Hugz is actually a very hard archetype to play properly, and I've really enjoyed navigating the balance between helping others and helping yourself.
lemmingllama: Good point on the fact that UR Chaos is the more fair of the two decks. It does produce insanely long games because a single Thieves' Auction can take 20-30 minutes to resolve, if not more, but it is simply bonkers fun to try to keep tack of Timesifter triggers and all that sort of thing.
I might begin testing UR Chaos as soon as my life calms down a bit. For now, Flying Hippos are incredibly fun. Keep the posts rolling, though. I love to hear your thoughts on these two decks that I enjoy so much.
November 9, 2015 12:03 p.m.
Dalektable says... #7
I love the hippo, but I do run a chaos Zedruu deck that I absolutely love but I think I would also enjoy a hippo deck so idk man.
EmblemMan says... #2
I would play phelddagrif because hes a happy little hippo and I would not play UR chaos because I dont like playing UR decks and things like possibility storm just arent fun at least for me it makes things too annoying games take forever no one gets to do anything fun its just not fun but thats just my opinion.
November 9, 2015 1:41 a.m.