Werewolf EDH
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on May 5, 2016, 5:41 a.m. by clayperce
If you want to talk about Werewolves in Commander, you're in the right place!
If you're looking for other formats, please drop by All things Wolven for Standard, or Modern Wolves for Modern.
- You're 100% welcome to post here asking for help on anything Wolven, though you may want to set up a separate thread as well, in the Commander Deck Help forum.
- Please don't hesitate to post your deck in large format (it makes it easier for others to find the decks that are asking for help).
- Here's the syntax for a large format deck ... just copy-and paste this, replacing the "gruul-wolves-soi" part with the "slug name" from your deck's URL:
[[deck-large:gruul-wolves-soi]]
Want to add a note about the thread to your deck description? Just copy-and-paste this:
... the [Werewolf EDH](http://tappedout.net/mtg-forum/commander-deck-help/werewolf-edh/) thread!
Want to add a subscription button to your deck description? Just copy-and-paste this:
<a class="btn btn-default" href="/subscriptions/subscribe/67/63394/?return_url=/mtg-forum/commander-deck-help/werewolf-edh/">Subscribe to the Werewolf EDH thread</a>
We look forward to reading your comments and looking at your decks! Good luck (and good skill) on your builds!
P.S. No worries if you just want to lurk. Please just click the Subscribe button here or underneath the Comment window. Thanks!
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed or Xenagos, God of Revels both seem like they could fit the role nicely
May 5, 2016 7:27 a.m.
SolarFlare13 says... #5
Xenagos, God of Revels that's what I use in my Wolf edh Howlpack of Lambhot
May 5, 2016 9:34 a.m.
Everyone I tagged,
Thanks tons for dropping by.
But I want to apologize for tagging you in the first place. I didn't realize, but it's against the rules to tag large numbers of people on something unless they've all expressed interest in being alerted about a topic. And though y'all have built some really interesting Werewolf EDH decks, you certainly didn't ask to be alerted about this thread!
I'm very sorry to have bothered you with a mass-notify. But thanks again for dropping by!
Draw well!
May 5, 2016 9:47 a.m.
Adding my 2 cents.
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed seems like the most synergistic commander for werewolf tribal right now. Werewolves have a few ways to get trample so Stonebrow isn't essential, but he is more 'thematic'. I still say you should wait for Eldritch Moon because I am pretty sure they are going to print Ulrich as a legendary.
Arboria is a non-obvious card you can use that encourages players to pass their turns. Descendants' Path is a goodstuff tribal card that you should run if you are creature heavy. I recommend cards like Vedalken Orrery, Winding Canyons, and Yeva, Nature's Herald so you can play your creatures on other peoples' turns and transform. Elvish Piper is particularly good for that if it's in your budget. You could splash white and play cards that limit the number of spells cast per turn, but that will draw you hate. I think sticking to Red/Green is more fun.
May 5, 2016 10:20 a.m.
JoeBert,
Oh, Ulrich would be awesome!
Would be amazing to see him as a real card ... flavor text (Parallel Lives and Ulrich's Kindred) and one sentence in an old Wizards article just don't do him justice!
May 5, 2016 10:47 a.m. Edited.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #9
they better give us a legendary in eldritch moon...
they should know how pissed off the EDH community will be.
May 5, 2016 11:03 a.m.
Eldritch Moon isn't until July tho. I don't want to wait that long for Werewolf EDH! Wah
May 5, 2016 11:05 a.m.
My thoughts on some possible Commanders (with Tier "rankings" from this list).
I think I'm leaning towards Surrak Dragonclaw ...
- Arlinn Kord Flip: Obviously not a Legendary, but would be superb (haven't asked yet, but my playgroup doesn't generally support exceptions for Planeswalkers).
- Dragonlord Atarka (Tier 4): Elder Dragon. 'Nuf said.
- Huntmaster of the Fells Flip: Another great non-Legendary option ... and my playgroup would probably allow.
- Mina and Denn, Wildborn (Tier 4): Nice ramp and love the Trample effect.
- Ruric Thar, the Unbowed (Tier 3): Superb Transform enabler.
- Stonebrow, Krosan Hero (Tier 4): Great Werewolf synergy
- Xenagos, God of Revels (Tier 3): Better with bigger creatures, but still great. And I like the night/day cycle in the artwork! :-)
- Surrak Dragonclaw (Tier 3): Superb Werewolf synergy, and enables the full set of Blue effects.
- Gahiji, Honored One (Tier 4): I really like the political aspects of this card, and it enables White removal and protection.
- ??: Unfortunately, none of the Legendaries do much for me here, though it would be fun to run Black simply for the flavor of Lesser Werewolf and Greater Werewolf.
May 5, 2016 11:19 a.m. Edited.
I'm worried though, that we're not going to get a Legendary Werewolf. MaRo has acknowledged it was a big miss, but he gave it an "if" rather than a "when" back in November :-(
More on this post, over on a Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation thread.
May 5, 2016 1:17 p.m. Edited.
clayperce Thanks for the invite. I won't begrudge you for inviting me to share some information with others and potentially get an idea for how to better my deck building skills.
Since I am here, might as well contribute. Personally, I believe that either Ruric Thar, the Unbowed or Stonebrow, Krosan Hero make the best werewolf commanders due to how well they compliment the creature type.
Ruric makes your opponents think twice before playing non-creature spells which helps your werewolves stay transformed longer. Though his big weakness is that he does nothing to slow other creature heavy decks and I sometimes have a hard time keeping other players' armies manageable.
Stonebrow loves how easily werewolves get trample and gives them more power because of it. Cards like Breath of Fury or anything that grants multiple attack phases makes any werewolf a threat very quickly. But I feel Stonebrow burns out too quickly if you have too many opponents and it is harder to keep people from transforming your creatures back to their more docile forms.
Either way, my biggest issue seems to be how to keep creatures at bay. I have plenty of fight cards like Ulvenwald Tracker and Gruul Ragebeast and some removal spells but other than that I haven't found many ways to control the board state. I could definitely use help in that area if anyone here has the answer.
May 5, 2016 2:26 p.m.
I highly recommend Chameleon Colossus for any tribal deck that can fit it. With only a single activation (especially with a power boost from cards like Immerwolf) he can hit really hard.
May 5, 2016 2:29 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #15
How can you play werewolf EDH/Commander without Rule of Law, Eidolon of Rhetoric, and Curse of Exhaustion? I guess Arcane Laboratory is cool too, but three white cards that are the best support for werewolves puts this tribe into naya colors as far as I can see.
May 5, 2016 3:51 p.m.
MunchingAberration says... #16
Strongly agree with the above comment on "lock" cards. My werewolf EDH is Naya as well. Also, I can not stress the awesomeness of Hibernation's End enough. A repeatable creature tutor that puts them directly into play AND allows you to use your mana on a flip turn? Heck yes. Also NP about the tag thing!
May 5, 2016 5:23 p.m.
I wasn't tagged? Oh well. I still have some input. I'd say wait until EMN to build this. I have a strong feeling that we'll get a werewolf legend, and they would be the best candidate. Looking at you, Ulrich.
May 5, 2016 7:32 p.m.
Naya does sound like a great idea with the lock cards prolonging the life of your wolves indefinately. That being said, I would still like to keep my deck as strictly Gruul. I feel adding a third color would ultimately dilute my deck's theme too much. Plus I love how anti-blue Ruric Thar, the Unbowed is. I hate blue...and Jace.
Also, Hibernation's End sounds really cool MunchingAberration. I will have to see if I can make room in my deck for it. I also need to post an update on my deck as I have changed it since I last uploaded it.
May 5, 2016 8:45 p.m.
This may sound dumb, but who is Ulrich? I keep seeing his name mentioned but have no clue as to who he is.
May 5, 2016 8:48 p.m.
Ulrich is the shadowy figure in the background of Ulrich's Kindred. The fact that he is named and quoted leads me to believe we'll finally get a werewolf legendary.
May 5, 2016 8:55 p.m.
I actually run Xira Arien . Why?
LOL I originally tried to include the old Black Werewolves from 'The Dark' set, or at least Greater Werewolf
Including black lets you include awesome cheap Golgari stuff.
In my meta, Commanders, even with Hexproof or Indestructible, die like crazy. There is no Legendary Werewolf to be a 'real' Trial Commander. Therefore, I go with cheap and easy to cast.
Xira 'sucks'. At a table with Teferi, Scion, Sharuum, etc Xira will always be at the bottom of the list and will therefore actually be able to use her lame ability (3 mana draw a card). This ability is actually very useful in a Jund aggro type deck where my biggest problem is refilling my hand.
May 5, 2016 9:18 p.m.
TheACTR,
Here's the sentence about Ulrich I mention in Post #7:
The alpha of Krallenhorde is currently the werewolf Ulrich, a cunning and perceptive wanton who remains in the wild and runs with the howlpack even when he reverts to human form.
May 5, 2016 9:27 p.m.
TheACTR, MunchingAberration, and others,
Thanks for not minding the tag! I get the T/O policy ... there's a fine line between a nice invitation and spam. Just glad this thread didn't fall on the spam side of the line!
Kala and others,
Sorry I missed you, but so glad you made your way here anyways! I pretty much tagged everyone I could find on T/O that had a Werewolf EDH deck ... it's no surprise I missed a few (many?) !
May 5, 2016 9:49 p.m.
Kala, clayperceThanks! I had no idea that Ulrich was a name drop to be aware of. I do run Ulrich's Kindred so I guess I should have picked up on that. I would definitely love a Legendary werewolf and was really holding my breath for one when SOI was announced (I am surprised I didn't suffocate!).
Cybersix I almost ran Jund wolves for that same reason! I liked that there were the older werewolf cards like Greater Werewolf and it also allows Garruk Relentless Flip. But I again didn't feel like the one extra creature (as the other two black werewolves are kinda underpowered) and the planeswalker were enough of a reason to add a third color to my deck.
May 6, 2016 9:45 a.m.
I was thinking about the potential impact on card prices if we get a Legendary Werewolf, so started a thread over in the Economics forum: Werewolf EDH speculation.
Please drop by if you're interested!
May 6, 2016 10:10 a.m.
I find it interesting that none of the discussions of Commander options have listed Ulasht, the Hate Seed. Is it just that unplayable? Maybe it's a style choice, as I'd personally hate to run Ruric Thar, the Unbowed given the threat of a downside from my own Commander.
Still, I'm open to discussion. :P
May 9, 2016 8:59 a.m.
So here is a good question: What do you feel a Werewolf deck's greatest weakness is? Maybe we can get some ideas on how we can best overcome those weaknesses with our commander choices or card selections or no true answer to those problems exist we can look forward to a possible answer from Eldritch Moon.
May 9, 2016 2:46 p.m.
The biggest problem I feel werewolves have is the lack of synergy with non-creature cards. While this may seem obvious it actually puts us at a great disadvantage. While the combination of Immerwolf + Moonmist is fantastic, it's also very susceptible to boardwipes and spot removal. For this reason it can be difficult to find synergy when out wolves keep flipping back and forth and we can't get the combination we need to win. To this end It is best to run a relatively strong aggro deck in Red Green, with Werewolf tribal being more of the theme rather than the main strategy.
May 9, 2016 6:12 p.m.
cheeseychum says... #30
I like theme decks, hence why i made a ww one. A cool combo I've pulled off is having yisan and transformed geier reach bandit//vildin pack alpha and tutoring with yisan for werewolves to come in transformed and stay transformed once I grab Immerwolf. But yeah boardwipes are so rude >:(
May 11, 2016 8:16 a.m.
cheeseychum says... #31
In accordance to werewolves weaknesses, I feel its their transforming thing. They only ever transform in early game, the 2 spell transform back really annoys me, its just too constricting plus just getting them to go to ww form is tricky you have to stagger yourself if you want em to flip :(which im fine with but holy fuck its hard since theres only 3 cards which interact with transformations...
May 11, 2016 8:20 a.m.
I feel like a glaring werewolf weakness is (at least for Gruul decks...Jund and Naya decks shouldn't have this problem) how little answers you have for other creatures, especially fliers. Although after reading other comments, I definitely agree with cheeseychum. There could be more interactions with the transform mechanic. SO I was a step in the right direction with Cult of the Waxing Moon but we need more ways to either punish players for playing spells or make our wolves easier to transform and keep transformed. Also, we need more Werewolves like Huntmaster of the Fells Flip that triggers upon EACH transformation so our creatures getting flipped back to their weaker states becomes less detrimental.
May 11, 2016 9:40 a.m.
Worst Fears is a transform. Also there are many 'hurricane' like effects in green, 'x damage to all flying creatures'.
May 11, 2016 9:18 p.m.
True, Cybersix, there are a lot of Hurricane effects. I guess I just purposely limited myself since I was trying to lower the amount of possible backlash I could receive from Ruric Thar, the Unbowed.
May 12, 2016 12:04 p.m.
Fenderblitz says... #35
Sorry I didn't see this til now, but thanks for tagging me.
Most of my removal stems from either combat (things like Bow of Nylea) or fight and bully effects like Prey Upon, Alpha Brawl, the transformed 4/4 ww that fights and Moonlight Hunt. I've found that silly old Guttural Response can be a blowout at times since no one ever expects a counter from Gruul.
I've also found that relying a bit on wolf tokens to get damage through can really help you in the mid to late game with things like Wolfcaller's Howl, Howl of the night pack, parallel lives, raised by wolves, etc. Sword of Body and Mind is also great for getting attackers through and making wolves.
Finally I've been working with enchantments that buff all of my dudes at once like Rage Reflection, Gruul War Chant and the natural ww enchantments.
May 13, 2016 6:26 p.m.
COUNTDOWN TO ELDRITCH MOON LEGENDARY WEREWOLF HYPE TRAIN !
According to this schedule over at MTG Salvation, key dates are ...
- Official Spoilers start: 27 Jun (2 weeks of articles)
- Full Spoiler Released: 8 Jul
- Pre-Release: 16-17 Jul
- Release: 22 Jul
May 27, 2016 12:04 a.m.
@clayperce: I love your enthusiasm and share it as well. Thanks for the important dates. Now I won't have to check daily to make sure I haven't missed anything lol. Here is to hoping we all get the legendary werewolf we have all been wanting.
I have been looking at fan-made Tovolar cards for the past two days and while most are intentionally broken or just badly designed, some of them are very flavorful.
May 27, 2016 9:48 a.m.
In case anyone from the design team frequents sites like these for ideas or what have you, I would just like to reiterate how much I would LOVE if we got more Werewolves that either had punisher effects for our opponents when they cast spells like Mondronen Shaman does or had effects when they transform back into humans from werewolves like Huntmaster of the Fells. And of course, either Ulrich or Tovolar (or both!! We can dream big)) Legends would be nice.
May 27, 2016 10:06 a.m.
I'd like a double-edged werewolf actually, and I know that sounds weird. Normal on the front, but while it's flipped, it's bad for you. It'd still need to be good enough to make it worthwhile, but I think there's some interesting design space to go with there.
May 27, 2016 11:29 p.m.
Deckologist says... #40
Ill go ahead and be that guy. Why not run Radha, Heir to Keld for werewolves? Shes a guaranteed natures lore on turn 2 and with things like Vedalken Orrery and Yeva, Nature's Herald you can flash creatures in with her attack mana. Its on of those things that on paper it looks terrible but seeing it in motion is amazing. I watched a new player make a whole table fall over laughing when he revealed he was playing Radha (I knew better, I've played her before and realized then that she was a lot stronger than she seemed) only to have them all scratching their heads after losing in 8 turns.
May 28, 2016 12:50 a.m.
Personally, I've always had a fondness for field control, and werewolves really do need some way to control how many cards people play a turn. Combining them with discard mechanics or land destruction mechanics is a great trick, or using blue cards like Memory Erosion to punish them for playing multiple cards.
In terms of updating the werewolf genre, I would maybe push for creatures that are more dangerous as humans, so opponents would want to transform them. A legendary that turns all human werewolves into Ally creatures.
June 3, 2016 5:03 p.m.
I use Mina and Denn, Wildborn as my commander, decent commander and the extra land a turn is nice. Thing like Hunter's Insight and Hunter's Prowess are good for draw, all of Domri Rade's abilities are relevant as well, Group War Chant is a nice anthem for the deck, Price of Glory is fun but risky, Descendants Path is good as they share a type even when flipped, I have trouble with flying and rely on fight spells and wind removal for that. I think if they made a werewilf legendary I think it would be Tovolar.
June 9, 2016 10:29 a.m.
I am starting to believe that Tovolar is going to be the Legend for EMN as well. Just from what I hear about the novels, Avacyn has died and her powers that have kept the werewolves (particularly the Mondronen clan) and zombies at bay are diminishing. Since his clan is known to have mystical powers, I am hoping the new set and Tovolar especially will bring some much needed field control to the werewolf clan.
June 9, 2016 11:03 p.m.
Epochalyptik,
Do you mind moving this thread over to the Commander Deck Help forum? This started out as just as place to chat, but as we approach EMN spoiler season (and HOPEFULLY a Legendary Werewolf), I'd like folks to be able to post decklists too.
Thanks!
June 11, 2016 1:32 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #45
This thread was moved to a more appropriate forum(auto-generated comment)
June 11, 2016 2:17 p.m.
For everyone unaware, spoilers have started for EMN including a Legendary Werewolf, Ulrich!!!
June 20, 2016 4:55 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #47
however, the werewolf legend is boring and not very good.
June 20, 2016 5:59 p.m.
Well it is still too early to count Ulrich out altogether. While I admit I was hoping for a little more out of him he still makes a solid card to put in the deck. Just maybe not the perfect commander.
June 20, 2016 7:24 p.m.
So what do y'all think? Is Ulrich better than the other options for a Werewolf Commander?
June 20, 2016 7:35 p.m.
I don't think Ulrich will be great as the commander compared to other option, I will be trying to build a full werewolf flavor deck with him as commander though, so glad we have him.
clayperce says... #2
Tagging a ton of folks ...
Show
May 5, 2016 5:58 a.m.