Haakon, Stromgald Scourge

Legendary Creature — Zombie Knight

You may play Haakon, Stromgald Scourge from your graveyard, but not from anywhere else.

As long as Haakon is in play, you may play Knight cards from your graveyard.

When Haakon is put into a graveyard from play, you lose 2 life.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

IHATENAMES on Sidar Jabari Knight Combo

1 month ago

Profet93

I see a few Cathars' Crusade + Basri's Lieutenant + sac outlet and any other nontokeln creature with +1 counters Inf tokens and more

Phyrexian Altar + Haakon, Stromgald Scourge + 1 drop knight 2 life per etb ltb trigger some effects can reduce life loss/kill opponents

Note to brewer

I think Ashnod's Altar might be not worth it here. You might be better with another free sac outlet like Viscera Seer or more reanimation like Victimize

Happy brewing!

DreadKhan on That's Why it's Called Murder, not Mukduk

6 months ago

If there are decks in your meta that aren't good at blocking, then Rite of the Raging Storm is very scary. It is also a constant source of tokens that are never coming your way. Another Enchantment that can provide lots of bodies is Elemental Mastery, Mastery can make a small army of tokens that are both very good sac fodder and decent chump blockers if you're desperate.

I'm not sure if it's too awkward to make work, but Haakon, Stromgald Scourge is a decent recursion piece, allowing you to recast knights from the graveyard (including Haakon). All in all probably not as good as Gravecrawler, but better than many recursion options since there are many 1 mana Knights/Changelings. Another interesting recursion option that might work in here is Hell's Caretaker, this can turn a chump into the best creature in your graveyard on your upkeeps.

Any reason you're not running Pitiless Plunderer? It has pretty good synergy with your Commander, but also with stuff like Mayhem Devil (and maybe something like Marionette Master, which also works with any artifact creatures). Pawn of Ulamog and Sifter of Skulls both work with any recursive creatures to help generate mana. Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder is a really weird token generator that synergizes well with Gravecrawler or Haakon, providing you an extra body for each cast, helping them go infinite.

It's pretty janky, but Lagomos, Hand of Hatred is a neat repeatable tutor that also makes a token each turn. Another janky card that might do some work in here is Mask of Griselbrand, the buffs can be useful, but the card draw is the real perk, very good in a deck with lots of sacrifice outlets as a weirder Skullclamp. Dream Devourer is a surprisingly good jank 'ramp' source in Black, this also can protect your cards from discard effects by clearing your hand (and still letting you cast the stuff later).

DreadKhan on (Mid-power playgroups) Do you value …

9 months ago

It's probably not a great idea, but you could technically use Haakon, Stromgald Scourge as a way to stretch out your Nazgul. You need to run a bunch of cards to try to get Haakon into your hand, so you almost have to run some tutoring, but Haakon lets you run other knights to fairly good effect. TBH you can also run Haakon in the 99, he's an alternative to just Encoring in Araumi, but you'd want some discard outlets (which you might want in Araumi anyways, as well as self-mill).

Out of the two you mentioned, I think Araumi is pretty sweet, there are a ton of creatures that are sweet with her Encore ability, if you want a strong deck one of the easiest ways to ensure it is to run cards that are good in relatively normal situations, if you pick good enough cards you can also run a bunch of pet cards, because the real reason we play EDH is so we can summon an Uncle Istvan or Preacher, the most intuitive of creature types!

Doombeard1984 on No Horsin’ Around

10 months ago

Hi there. I have also made a version of this deck and it is great fun to play.

So I see you have Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and Forsworn Paladin, if you add a Phyrexian Altar to that mix, gives you infinite ETB, LTB, and Death Triggers, which could be another win con. I am waiting on the cards to turn up to add to my deck to give me a combo.

I also have Invasion of New Phyrexia  ^Flip, as apparently when it flips, Teferi is also Knight Tribal Planeswalker... Who knew?

Also Akroma's Will is just win on its own, but its got kinda pricey as card since its release.

Great deck, and defo a +1 from me

At the end of the day... Its Knight - Heres mine if you fancy a gander.

wallisface on Haakon's Nazgûl knights

10 months ago

Some general thoughts:

• the Ringwraiths have too high a mana cost to ever realistically get cast in your current build.

• I think you’re investing too much effort trying to fill your graveyard, for minimal return. Yes Haakon, Stromgald Scourge can cast stuff from your grave - but you still need to pay casting costs the same as if it were in your hand. Its more of a “nice to have” effect rather than anything you should be specifically trying to build around.

• Your mana curve currently feels a bit slow, and you have almost no interaction to compensate. I would heavily suggest adding in a bunch of low-mana interaction. It will give you better odds of dragging the game out so you can make the most of your effects.

Donvier on Can I play creatures with …

11 months ago

I've heard of a new rules change with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and Ashes of the Fallen which I don't totally understand but does this mean that Conspiracy doesn't work anymore either? To specify the idea is to play either type changing card and choose the Knight creature type to play any creature from my graveyard.

Just building a Hakkon EDH deck now and I'm quite sad about the idea that Maskwood Nexus is the only card in the game that can let me type change to make it work.

DreadKhan on EDH Merens Reanimator

1 year ago

If you're interested in playing fair, then you might like Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. This can take a board full of utility creatures and make them very formidable very quickly. Hell's Caretaker is a card I find useful that doesn't go infinite with anything I know of, it just lets you sneak stuff in once per turn. If you don't include anything like Pitiless Plunderer you can set up repeatable sacrifice loops to generate XP for Meren, probably to reanimate a Protean Hulk or someting else juicy. For this you might use Gravecrawler or Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and probably a 1 drop Knight to have something you can keep killing over and over. Any card that cares about creatures dying will go off, so some stuff that draws on death might be nice, Liliana, Dreadhorde General is a versatile card that fits the bill.

In my experience, the best thing you can tutor up is usually Protean Hulk, Sidisi, or Razaketh, any of these tends to spiral out of control in a deck that can reanimate them on the end step or sooner. Hulk can find various creatures to solve whatever problems you have, but you probably need a sac outlet to ensure it dies right away, the others are more generous. Razaketh notoriously likes abusing Life / Death to set up a pretty quick win when you're ready, you can find stuff like rituals to generate enough mana to go off.

If you want another reanimator that isn't picky, there is Demon of Dark Schemes that helps clear the board of weenies, and as long as you don't have cards that generate mana the Demon won't go infinite with something like Mitotic Slime or Underworld Hermit, they'll just give you lots of triggers for your extra mana. Demon also likes Merciless Executioner type creatures, they can easily generate Energy. Another reanimator I often forget reanimates stuff is Liliana, Death's Majesty, this brings back stuff as a Zombie if you don't want the ultimate, and she survives some wipes as a PW that can make 2/2s while milling you. Some people don't like PWs so ymmv.

I suspect that if you're not sure if you need more wipes, you might want to try one or two more. In Black there is Make an Example that is very brutal as you always hit your priority target for each opponent. It won't clear the board, but it can help manage it, and you can follow it up with a bunch of forced sacrifice. One card that likes seeing a wipe happen (that makes running extra feel less problematic) is Ogre Slumlord, if you run enough 'pay life'effects you might want Sangromancer, and if you think you can kill enough of your opponent's permenants then Kothophed, Soul Hoarder might work out, that can turn a Damnation into a big draw spell.

If your deck is finding it hard to stay alive, you can use Dawnstrider to save you on needing to reanimate a Spore Frog, though I use both as I find Meren can be annoying to certain players.

If you like Phyrexian Arena and aren't using 'win on the spot combos', have you considered Protection Racket? This can draw plenty of non-land cards or deal damage to your opponents, both seem good as long as you don't care if you lose some random 1-3 drops. There is also Black Market Connections, this can provide various resources without being as busted/all-or-nothing as Necropotence.

Hope some of this is helpful! Any Commander that requires a lot of tutoring is very frustrating to learn to play, Commander is incredibly hard to master, but it's easy to get better with practice!

lhetrick13 on

1 year ago

zigail - Creature cheat is something {G} excels in...casting big stompy creatures for less or for free is a solid plan so your concept is not bad. All wallisface and I are saying is that this deck is not optimized for this strategy specifically for for Modern play because Modern is just such a harsh and angry format.

Essentially your whole deck hinges on your opening hand...you MUST have at least 2-3 lands in your opening hand, hope you draw 1-2 more in the next few turns, and hope you either start with or draw Treefolk Harbinger, Bosk Banneret, and Leaf-Crowned Elder within the first few turns...which wallisface has pointed out even if all that works out, Leaf-Crowned Elder has no built in protection and you have no ability to provide any. So this crucial lynchpin and all the setup can be complete undone by a simple removal spell, likely staling your deck entirely.

I run a deck that is "similar" to this concept of building around a single creature (Beyond the Grave (Abzan)) as it is built around Haakon, Stromgald Scourge's ability to reanimate knight creatures. Excluding the lands, the other creatures, and 4x copies of Haakon, the rest of the cards are usually focused around finding Haakon and getting him into play as soon as possible. This is done via cards like Collected Company, Eldritch Evolution, Finale of Devastation, Pyre of Heroes, Aether Vial, etc...The point I am making is that the deck has so many ways to fetch Haakon or any knight I may need really. Adding additional ways to "force" your strategy will help your deck be much more consistent. As it is right now, the ideal combo you mentioned in your comment will be pretty rare and most times, this deck will struggle to find a board presence.

Other than adding cards to help fetch Leaf-Crowned Elder more consistently, I think adding some ramp to help cast those big treefolk earlier or adding in additional ways to accelerate the deck by lowering the mana cost of those treefolk would go a long ways. An example of accelerating a deck built around big stompy creatures with mild ramp or lowering creature cost that I can provide is my dino themed deck Spared No Expense!!!. 8 cards lower the cost of dinosaurs and then I have 7 others that provide me some ramp making it so I can cast things like Regisaur Alpha or Trapjaw Tyrant on turn 3. This makes it so that despite having a >3.5 CMC, the deck is very consistent and fast. I know you mentioned you want to hit more on the creature cheat ability of Leaf-Crowned Elder but just food for thought on ways I feel the deck could potentially be improved.

Good luck and happy brewing, hope some of the material I mentioned was helpful!