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Dog Soldiers, a Tovolar [Primer]

Commander / EDH Bracket 2 Innistrad Midrange Multiplayer Primer RG (Gruul) Theme/Gimmick Transform Vorthos Werewolf

cheeseychum

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Creature (38)

Land (34)

Instant (6)

Planeswalker (3)

Commander (1)

Commander: Tovolar, Dire Overlord  Flip

Enchantment (10)

Sorcery (5)

Artifact (3)

WELCOME TO THE DOG SOLDIERS PRIMER!

Do you like unique decks? Are you a connoisseur of aggro/combat based decks? Would people describe your playstyle as a Jack of all Jank? Does the story or theme of a deck REALLY matter to your personal enjoyment? Then please join the Dog Soldiers Howlpack!

About the decklist

This deck is named “Dog Soldiers” after the cult horror movie about a group of Scottish marines being attacked by werewolves. It intended as a midrange/aggro deck that aims to establish a strong board early, refill the hand and pressure life totals quickly. If you have blockers, you are probably doing something wrong.

Thematically this deck is all about Werewolves, I have strived to have the majority of the deck be werewolves as the idea is Tovolar is uniting them all, since we finally have a werewolf tribal commander. The cards are specific printings/treatments because those are the physical cards I have. They do not need equipments because primal animals of tooth and claw don’t require pretty magic swords.

I have included werewolves that do something on either transformed form so there is at least some kind of effect on the board. Essentially it is an low-costed Gruul Timmy deck, with extra steps

Deliberately excluded the standard tribal cards such as coat of arms etc because I like my decks being a bit different personally, plus only WWs would be getting anthems since when they flip their abilities in combat should be strong enough.

Tovolar, Dire Overlord  /Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge   ties older printed werewolves with the daybound/nightbound werewolves in addition to being a cool lore character and is the best werewolf commander currently available to us.

Ulrich of the Krallenhorde  /Ulrich, Uncontested Alpha   is a cool guy and has neat effects but he does not do anything to enable the rest of the deck.

Other Gruul/Gruul+X commanders: they dont do enough to enable the creature type we are building around. I have experimented with multiple iterations with Gahiji, Honored One Kresh the Bloodbraided in the past to include every werewolf possible or for Rule of Law effects but its not worth it.

COMBAT - Make big life numbers reach 0, if you have creatures they should go sideways. There are plenty effects that make our werewolves good attackers ( Berserkers' Onslaught, Howlpack Resurgence, Full Moon's Rise, Beastmaster Ascension etc )

BURN - There are two main ways to try and burn opponents using the tools in the deck.

-> Arlinn Kord   's Emblem, if you are lucky enough to get her to the prerequisite loyalty counters the haste and activated damage ability is enough to whittle life totals relatively easily to close out a game

-> Ill-Tempered Loner  /Howlpack Avenger   + Blasphemous Act + a board of creatures. This one is a meme wincon but people never see it coming. It is utterly hilarious to have a wide board of creatures, go through combat and reflect blocking damage back at opponents' faces then dropping Blasphemous Act to nuke the board (literally) and resulting in multiple instances of 13 damage doming people in the face.

VOLTRON - Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge   can beef himself to assign lethal damage quite nicely so he has the potential to put a clock on people. If you have a life gain opponent then beat them to death with your commander damage as much as possible while targeting the rest of your board elsewhere so you don't waste your time.

INFECT - Triumph of the Hordes can do a lot with a small board, you always need a way to kill someone with a high life total so every one of my decks has poison accessible in some way.

How to play this deck

Basic Outline

A good standard hand for this deck contains lands, ideally creatures you can play on T1 or T2 to immediately get a board state. Haste enablers are a HUGE plus and do a lot for the deck. As a general rule a mana dork and 2 lands gets you going pretty easily due to our low curve but if you have low cmc cards/creatures and the resources to play them and start attacking then absolutely go for it.

Control/Value Decks

Control decks will usually wipe your board if you over extend so manage your boardstate so you dont end up completely empty handed. Main cards to look for/have against these decks are:

Cindervines - usually they play lots of noncreature spells so punish them for it.

Myth Unbound - Tovolar has a habit of being killed a lot when youre trying to refill your hand via combat damage so easing your access to him goes a LONG way. The deck does depend on his abilities to tie werewolves together.

Howling Moon - Inclement value from people playing multiple spells and giving you a free boardstate? Yes please.

Domri, Anarch of Bolas - Domri stops counterspells for your creatures and gives a small damage increase, underrated card.

Triumph of the Hordes - For Oloro or Orzhov lifegain decks!

Combo Decks

You will probably just be doomed vs combo orientated decks as they have higher card quality than a Gruul of occasionally hairy janky humans so keep as much instant speed removal/interaction as you can. Focus them!

Main cards to look for/have against these decks are: Lightning Bolt Beast Within Chaos Warp Moonlight Hunt

Midrange Decks

Against midrange you want to use your strongest cards to make sure youre hitting your mana curve appropriately and consistently.

Best things to go for in your opening hand are our best enablers/werewolf synergestic cards:

Howlpack Piper   - This creature does everything we could want. Drops werewolves in without casting and puts cards in hand after transforming. Love it.

Huntmaster of the Fells   - One of the few werewolves that likes transforming. Going back and forth with him gives us a board as well as damage to go with trample/a good body

Duskwatch Recruiter   - Card 'draw' on front side, creature cost reduction on the back side

Arlinn, the Pack's Hope   - Arlinn fills many roles; gives us a board to protect her/wolves to enable Tovolar's abilities, lets us play creatures at flash speed during the day while also being a creature and mana dork during night.

Werewolf Pack Leader - WWPL is good stats for cost while giving itself a buff and an on attack trigger that puts an additional card in hand.

The Celestus and Obsessive Astronomer - These two cards give us card filtering upon Day/Night cycles with the Celestus being able to force it to change from Day-Night or Night-Day depending on what you need.

ATTACK AS MUCH AS SAFELY POSSIBLE (duh).

Your strategy is to lower life totals and attack with impunity in order to achieve that goal. Getting Tovolar, Dire Overlord   in play relatively early will help you force Day/Night shifts so you are almost always being able to draw cards or keep your werewolves transformed on the back side in their strongest iterations.

Ramp

We run lots of mana producing creatures rather than mana rocks (other than the staple Sol Ring and utility Celestus) because this deck is supposed to be an aggro deck so we need to hit the ground running. Since there are several werewolves that produce mana they are greatly synergistic with Tovolar's upkeep ability so prioritizing the ramp dorks/borks out means that when we already have a board we can play Tovolar into it, allowing the next turn to transform them and be at their most powerful be that for attacking or for casting spells. Due to this, via playing the deck you should prioritize being able to transform your werewolves.

Transform

Transforming is the unique mechanic that werewolves are famous for so as a rule we want them on the back side but a multitude of them have great effects for going back and forth (unless theyre the Eldrazi werewolves) for additional effects. Tovolar's front facing upkeep trigger will force all human werewolves to transform so he is one of the best cards for keeping the board consistent and allowing you to play your turn as normal while still casting spells to further game plan even if they go back to human on the next person's turn. Because of this lynchpin status we run Myth Unbound as to always have access to the cornerstone of our deck for it to function at its best. The transform cards featured are as follows:

Moonmist for the Innistrad to Shadows Over Innistrad werewolves

Unnatural Moonrise and The Celestus for the Daybound/Nightbound werewolves (and Arlinn)

Vildin-Pack Alpha   for the Eldritch Moon and non-Daybound/Nightbound werewolves.

Immerwolf is a fantastic card to keep them in werewolf mode but be careful with it as it will prevent non-human werewolves from transforming, which does effect the Eldrazi Werewolves Conduit of Storms   Kessig Prowler   Shrill Howler   Ulvenwald Captive   negatively.

Card Advantage

Your best bet for card advantage/draw is Tovolar, Dire Overlord   combat draw but Realmwalker and Duskwatch Recruiter   give you more access when your board looks a little bit light. If people are throwing spells around with impunity then Howlpack Piper   is an incredible transformation enabler that grants card selection when it transforms each turn too.

Combat Buffs

This is our main gameplan so we want to ideally be swinging and surviving as much as possible. Cards like Full Moon's Rise protect our werewolves while doing so letting us dodge lethal damage defenders while trample enablers Howlpack Resurgence etc combined with our many stat boosts Mayor of Avabruck  /Howlpack Alpha   Lord of the Ulvenwald  .

Problem Cards/Weaknesses

Protip: you wont do anything without a boardstate to do it with

Werewolves cant fly, thus anything that flies (notably dragons and angels) needs to be a priority target to kill the player.

Cards such as Ghostly Prison Propaganda or anything that messes with our creatures (forced sacrifice effects) need to be removed as soon as possible or you will be stuck doing nothing but tracking Day/Night until you are finally killed. If it prevents combat it gets removed.

Since we draw a lot of cards due to Tovolar's ability, cards such as Underworld Dreams and Nekusar, the Mindrazer will kill us very quickly.

Specifics

Tovolar, Dire Overlord   - Tovolar is the lynchpin for the entire deck. Synergy with old werewolf cards and new, controls Day/Night cycle, fills your hand, transformes werewolves. He is one of the strongest/most important things in this deck.

Arlinn, the Pack's Hope   - Arlinn is one of the best enablers for this deck.

DAYBOUND +1 allows us to cast creatures at instant speed so we can allow transformations to occur and grants a small stat buff. -3 protects her on an empty board and grants bodies for Tovolar to trigger Day/Night changes

NIGHTBOUND +2 makes mana for activated abilities or for casting spells 0 transforms Arlinn into an indestructible trampling hasted werewolf to draw or deal damage

Moonmist - There are a lot of the older werewolves in this list which Moonmist transforms and also being able to fog to protect our werewolves/ourselves from a potential lethal swing if someone over extends attacking then retaliating with stronger creatures on the clapback feels really f**king good :-)

Werebear - I'll admit this funky guy doesnt have a lot of synergy beyond being a mana dork but he does get bigger and is kinda funny

Mass Hysteria - Getting haste ASAP is great for us esp early game because being able to play a cheap creature and immediately get a card/damage off it is important to our gameplan

The Celestus - Card filtering and forcing Day/Night is useful in the deck

Berserkers' Onslaught - Doublestrike provides twice as many combat draw triggers, this is a great enchantment

Anger - With all the loot effects in this deck it isnt super hard getting Anger into the graveyard. I'm considering testing Brawn (gives trample from GY) as well but we have enchantments that do that anyway

Torgal, A Fine Hound - I don’t run a lot of wolves but this guy triggers off nearly every creature in the deck as werewolves are cast as humans, so an auto include!

updated 14/06/2025 IN: Goblin Anarchomancer OUT: Child of the Pack

updated 07/06/2026 IN: Burly Breaker, Vivien Champion of the Wilds, Gruul War Chant, Kruin Outlaw, Progenitor’s Icon, Village Watch, Ulrich of the Krallenhorde, Sage of Ancient Lore, Lambholt Pacifist

OUT: Mild Mannered Librarian, Ulvenwald Tracker, Dolmen Gate, Signal the Clans, Aggravated Assault, Triumph of the Hordes, Arlinn Kord, Unnatural Growth, Signal the Clans

updated 27/05/2025 (primer update patch) IN: Torgal, A Fine Hound

OUT: Fires of Yavimaya

updated 25/05/2025

IN: Aggravated Assault, Lambholt Pacifist, Dire-Strain Rampage, Fyndhorn Elves, Beastmaster Ascension

OUT: Into the Night, Silverfur Partisan, Torgal, a Fine Hound, Fury of the Horde, Dolmen Gate

updated 22/05/2025

IN: Howlpack Resurgence, Torgal, A Fine Hound, Ulvenwald Captive, Silverfur Partisan, Progenitor's Icon, Fury of the Horde, Cindervines, Dolmen Gate, Moonmist

OUT: Fyndhorn Elves, Kessig Forgemaster, Chaosphere, Hound Tamer, Lightning Greaves, Ulrich Krallenhorde Alpha, Unnatural Growth, Hermit of the Natterknolls, Kessig Cagebreakers

updated 06/05/2025

IN: Hermit of the Natterknolls, Fires of Yavimaya

OUT: Volatile Arsonist, Weaver of Blossoms

updated 03/05/2025

IN: Hermit of the Natterknolls, Volatile Arsonist, Kessig Cagebreakers, Wolfbitten Captive, Werewolf Pack Leader, Kessig Forgemaster, Weaver of Blossoms, Sunset Strikemaster, 1xForest, 1xMountain

OUT: Savage Beating, Dolmen Gate, Gravity Well, Beastmasters Ascension, Ulvenwald Captive, Wolfkin Outcast, Child of the Pack, Howling Moon

Werewolves got me into EDH in the first place with my first commander being Kresh, the Bloodbraided and running every werewolf printed at the time (pre-Shadows over Innistrad/Eldritch Moon block), including the crap black ones from Homelands.

This deck is intended as a love letter to a younger me's intentions to build a unique and fun deck around an unusual and unique creature type with a cool play mechanic, if you have found it on the internet somewhere and read/playtested/been inspired by/intrigued by its contents then I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Thanks for reading all of the above if you made it this far, let me know what you think in comments I will periodically update it when I feel the need to with cuts/adds. cheeseychum

To Conclude

I would call this deck a solid 6-7 on a 1-10 power scale in EDH, with brackets its most likely a 2 or 3 but in the right hands can win a decent amount if you know how to utilize its pieces. I would encourage people to try and deckbuild without just grabbing whichever staples or obvious cards (looking at you Roaming Throne, Adaptive Automaton and friends) as this casual format is a great way for self expression and with the way I have crafted this decklist and resulting Primer I hope you can get a strong woods/wilds of Kessig, Innistrad from its gameplay art and featured creatures.

If youre visiting and have read down this far please leave a comment, upvote or card recommendation, this is probably my most favourite/unique deck I've ever built and I love playing it <3

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97% Casual

Competitive