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Hogaak's Legion

Commander / EDH Aggro BG (Golgari) Budget Mill Tokens

henrypan321

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Creature (32)

Land (35)

Sorcery (11)

Commander (1)

Commander: Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Instant (12)

Enchantment (5)

Artifact (4)

Maybeboard

Creature (10)

Instant (4)

Artifact (1)

Land (1)

This is a deck focused on making tokens and self-milling to bring out Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis as soon and as often as possible, and taking advantage of its massive stats and ability in various ways to win. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis's summoning restrictions make for some interesting deckbuilding choices.

Strategy

This deck is focused on using Hogaak's stats to do things. Hogaak's huge body is great for just straight up combat/commander damage wins, but it's also great for cards that care about power/toughness/CMC.

DELVE: We need to fill the graveyard as fast as possible in the early stages of the game. This can be done through various selection cards (Satyr Wayfinder) or mill (Stitcher's Supplier). These effects are best on creatures since they also help fulfill the convoke requirement. Hogaak can come out as soon as turn 2 but typically shows up turns 3 or 4. We will be casting Hogaak very frequently so we will be milling a lot even after bringing out Hogaak.

CONVOKE: This deck has lots of low cost creatures or token makers that can help convoke. Tokens can be mass produced with the likes of Korozda Guildmage which gives tokens equal to Hogaak's power by sacrifice. Hogaak can immediately be brought back with convoke, essentially giving free tokens.

Winning

This deck can win in a number of ways:

  • Commander Damage: Hogaak can three/two shot with evasion (Rogue's Passage / Shizo, Death's Storehouse), or just chip away at life totals with trample. Sometimes people would rather take 8 damage than lose their value creatures, but they won't realize how close they are to the danger zone until Hogaak gets evasion for the second knockout hit.

  • Going Wide: We make lots of tokens - pump them with Beastmaster Ascension or Return of the Wildspeaker. Or just attack normally and overwhelm with quantity. Alternatively, Gruesome Fate will just kill the table outright if combat isn't ideal.

  • Syr Konrad, the Grim: He will ping every time we delve or mill, which adds up quickly. Hogaak with a five-delve is already 6 damage. With Greater Good and mass draw spells, we can also ping when discarding as well.

Delve Order

Due to some recursion present in the deck, we have to watch what we delve. This is how I tend to prioritize which cards I use to delve. Things may change during gameplay depending on the situation but generally I try to order it like this, from first to last:

Lands > Instants/Sorceries > Mana/Mill Permanents > Enchantments/Artifacts > Token Makers > Flashback Effects > Wincons

However, when Syr Konrad, the Grim is on the battlefield, I try to delve as many creatures as I can.

Combos / Interactions

Card Evaluation

Cards with generally uncommonly seen in Hogaak decks that I use and why:

  • Sol Ring: Hogaak is one of those commanders that people will try to forgo this staple, as it does not help cast Hogaak due to the casting restriction. However, there is still the rest of the deck that would like Sol Ring. There are lots of two and three drops (and activated abilities) that Sol Ring helps accelerate.

  • Scute Swarm: Makes a ton of tokens if left alone. Gets convoke online easily on the same turn its played, and diverts interaction away from Hogaak or some other good stuff we have. Works even better if you have fetches.

Exclusions

Somewhat popular cards in Hogaak decks that I don't use and why:

  • Altar of Dementia: Somewhat of a staple among graveyard decks, and seemingly very strong in Hogaak. Through testing I've found that while it fills the graveyard very fast, there isn't much value in doing so due to the lack of pay-offs. Hogaak still needs convoke to be cast, and having excess graveyard fodder only makes the deck more vulnerable to gravehate. This is very build-dependent and I've decided to exclude it in mine.

  • Dredge: Cards like Dakmor Salvage, Golgari Thug, Golgari Grave-Troll, Life from the Loam. Similar reasons to Altar of Dementia.

  • Number of Type Cards in Graveyard Matters: Cards like Worm Harvest, World Shaper, Spider Spawning, Kessig Cagebreakers, Splinterfright. These cards interfere with the delve strategy. To get full value of of these cards, you would want to keep cards in the graveyard, which is the opposite of what Hogaak wants to do. Running these cards also makes the deck vulnerable to gravehate; one of the strong points of Hogaak is that gravehate doesn't hurt him much.

  • Feed the Pack: Slow and underwhelming for its CMC. You also lose Hogaak for the turn cycle, which means Hogaak will have summoning sickness constantly.

  • Perpetual Timepiece: While the mill is nice, it doesn't help much with the gameplan.

  • Sylvan Library: I'm running this card in another deck and I won't want to buy a second copy or proxy.

Potential Upgrades

Updates

Small update, replaces some of the statline-matters burst draw.

Added: Dark Confidant, Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar, Hostile Negotiations

Removed: Dark Tutelage, Morbid Curiosity, Momentous Fall

The average CMC did not change.

Grabbed some upgrades for cheap due to Commander Masters reprints.

Added Toxic Deluge, Undergrowth Stadium, Old Rutstein.

Removed Crux of Fate, Hissing Quagmire, Plaguecrafter.

The average CMC decreased by 0.02, from 2.26 to 2.23.

I started going back to my LGS after a long time (almost three years) and decided to update my list. The power level of the local meta seems to have increased a bit since the last time I've been there, but Hogaak still does pretty well, even against decks 2-3x its budget. I might increase the deck budget to $150ish in the next update. Possible writeup on evaluation of some cards soon too.

Added Ulvenwald Tracker, Utopia Mycon, Cankerbloom, Braids, Arisen Nightmare, Beast Whisperer, Nemata, Primeval Warden, Cultist of the Absolute, Tear Asunder, Infernal Grasp, Castle Locthwain.

Removed Chittering Witch, Ghoulcaller Gisa, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Return to Nature, Deadly Brew, Bonehoard, Read the Bones, Dragon Shadow, Ram Through, Svogthos, the Restless Tomb.

The average CMC decreased by 0.15, from 2.51 to 2.36. I've discovered how to set Hogaak's CMC to 0 for this list, decreasing the average by 0.1, with the final average CMC being 2.26.

Just a small update to the list before I make some bigger changes.

Added Swiftfoot Boots, Gnawing Vermin, Blanchwood Prowler, Circle of the Land Druid.

Removed Perpetual Timepiece, Skull Prophet, Gorging Vulture, Renegade Reaper.

The average CMC decreased by 0.04, from 2.55 to 2.51.

After a lot of deliberation and experimentation with over a dozen commanders, I decided to finalize my Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis decklist and buy the deck in paper! I opted for a low to the ground build, with the average CMC of 2.55, that let me cast mostly small creatures that help mill or generate tokens. I wanted to push a relatively low power strategy, being non-combo and combat-centric, to still be consistent enough to do well in the majority of games.

At the time of purchase, the deck ended up costing around $96 in total, along with various tokens, Midnight Hunt basics, and some miscellaneous cards in the maybeboard.

Thanks for reading. Primer rewrite soon.

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96% Casual

Competitive

Date added 4 years
Last updated 6 months
Key combos
Legality

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

1 - 0 Mythic Rares

31 - 0 Rares

23 - 0 Uncommons

26 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.11
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Blood, Copy Clone, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Insect 1/1 G, Pest 1/1 BG, Plant 0/1 G, Saproling 1/1 G, Treasure, Treefolk */* G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders Others decks, good commanders to beat these guys, Budget Commander, saved decks, Paper EDH Decks
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