Tale's End is pretty good. What do you think about Squelch? It's less flexible but drawing a card off of it seems powerful. Flood of Tears would be worth it if we ran powerful permanents like Omniscience, so other control decks might like it. Lotus Field is rather expensive (dollar-wise) even though it's good with a land reanimation package.
With Scheming Symmetry and Head Games, I have hope for more interesting cards that could enable Tasigur once more.
The beauty of this deck is that it doesn't really require specific cards other than the commander, only that they fit styles like: counter, recursion, draw, mass removal, etc. Stonecloaker is one of the better targeted gy removals since it is repeatable but you can just go for some mass gy removal or your own version of gy removal, as long as it replaces that job of gy control. It's just hard to find something with that strength and repeatability.
Noxious Revival is very strong and worth considering in any build similar to the original due to what you mentioned. Regrowth I feel is a bit stronger due to same-turn plays like Regrowth into Wrath of God-variant, but both are good and including both is a good choice as well.
Mostly because I'm nauseated by the number of people suggesting gwafa hazid, profiteer when people ask for political commanders. no wonder so many people think politics is for bad decks, when they think gwafa is what politics look like. He's as good at politics as (insert partisan joke here).
This reminds me of something you said about stick vs carrot in relation to Tasigur: there's no carrot - it's all stick. However, Tasigur's stick is a decent stick. Gwafa is just bad.
I run Gwafa, but as a flavor build, with all sorts of merchant and money related cards, using pennies as bribe counters and gleefully using Conjured Currency to "buy" something from someone else.
It's an awful deck, but it's fun to get into that role.
I skimmed through your guide, already having an idea of how hippo should be, and it touches upon each aspect really well, from political maneuvering to the details of card selection for each of the main strengths of this deck. I'm going with a Seasons Past engine for the late game, but that's when it is towards 1v1, to help ensure I have what I need to close it out. Instead of Pulse of the Fields like an earlier build you have, been going with Beacon of Immortality since it is a Target Player instant, so I can use it like a pseudofog for another player or myself.
The real wingman of the deck is still Telepathy due to the enormous amount of information you get as well as giving that to other players so they often play rather differently than normal now knowing their plans are revealed.
Overall, 10/10, just commenting on some other cards and my love of Telepathy.
So, Dominaria for Purple Hippo:
Not much catches my eye for Phelddagrif but it is at least good to keep an eye out for what other decks will be using.
For Hippo: Dub: Makes it a Phelddagrif Knight. Then it becomes Sir Phelddagrif. Jousting Lance: So Sir Phelddagrif can win the tournament and the heart of the princess. Helm of the Host: Defeat your foes with an army of Phelddagrifs.
More serious things to look at: Urza's Ruinous Blast: More of a meta call since it doesn't hit legendaries, but mass exile is worth a look. Blink of an Eye: Into the Roil #2, or #1 if you like this art better. Deep Freeze: Lignify variant, good for keeping down a commander instead of letting it get recasted. The Mirari Conjecture: More expensive, but a double recursion and can double up on a removal spell (live the dream with a double Return to Dust). Precognition Field: Future Sight gives more power on what you can play off the top, but I like looking at hidden information, which helps with bluffs. Unwind: A free Negate, like how Rewind is a free Counterspell. Tatyova, Benthic Druid: More card draw for doing what we want to do: Sitting around and playing lands. Memorial to Genius: Card draw on a land. Better with a Life from the Loam package version of hippo.
I was just thinking about the card for things like U Sun's Zenith and totally forgot about the fact it made colored mana, making it more like Storm Herd...kinda. You could also draw people out with it with Hippo's U ability when at 1 vs 1 mode.
Every time I see it talked about I just think of Coffers and how it dies to every single land-hate possible, but with a lot more hoops to make it work.
On another note, for people who've tried it, what do you think of Curse of Verbosity? How has it played out for you?
Azor's Gateway just looks like bait for Naturalize effects or something that gets caught up in wider removal like Bane of Progress due to how long it takes to get active and how you want to be careful with what you exile since the only way you're getting it back is Riftsweeper style effects. I wish the UG flipland did more for the deck, but at least Ixalan had a lot of goodies for us in that department. Slaughter the Strong mainly got me excited since it's 3 cmc where most mass removal is 4+. It's no replacement for stuff like Wrath of God-style effects, but its fast enough to handle a speedy Kaalia or someone Entombing/Reanimating something potent, stuff normally handled by Path to Exile/Swords to Plowshares/Pongify, but another piece of cheaper removal doesn't hurt. Blazing Hope looked promising until I realized I misread it in my excitement as "less than" rather than "greater than". It seems like we won't ever get good removal cheap again, just like how they refuse to print good 2 cmc counters again with Cancel being the new standard.
At least the tribal decks got a bunch of toys so we can see other people having fun with phat dinos before they eat a board wipe if they turn our way.
Have you thought using alliance of arms with homeward path? Often unexpected combo, because of the difference between controler and owner: you dont control the token produced by alliance of arms and phelddagrif but you own them.
I build a phelddagrif too, and I manage to end 2nd place on a 15 players small event in my LGS, 1st time played the deck against real players, I loved it: killed 1 players with a 36 drawn card by blue sun zenith and the other player has killed himself because he cast too much spells trying to kill me while forced fruition was in play. Man that feels so good, seeing players losing but still smiling from one hear to the others on their face
I will post my decklist, if you want to compare our build.
Alliance of Arms/Phelddagrif don't work with Homeward Path like you think it does:
Quote from Comprehensive Rules »
110.5a A token is both owned and controlled by the player under whose control it entered the
battlefield.
Judging from your posts, your deck seems a lot more "group hug" than this list with cards like Alliance of Arms and Prosperity. This style of list is a Bant Control and the "hugs" are extremely targeted rather than a mass benefit to the table primarily using Purple Hippo, bringing up people in order to counteract the more powerful players so they grind each other down until Hippo descends from his throne in order to smite those that survive the attrition. Why give multiple players a benefit (like everyone getting tokens via Alliance of Arms, or everyone drawing cards via Prosperity), benefits that overwhelmingly favor the person taking the next turn after yours due to them untapping with it, rather than only benefiting those you deem fit?
--------------------------------
On another note: Rivals of Ixalan. Slaughter the Strong: looks like cheap mass removal that works against quite a lot other than Sigarda decks (but those always are potent against sacrifice). It feels a lot like Retribution of the Meek that keeps Hippo alive, or a Divine Reckoning that kills off stronger creatures. Flood of Recollection: for instant/sorcery recursion, it's cheaper than Call to Mind even though it can't be abused. Snapcaster isn't on the list right now, but unlike Snapcaster, this exiles itself rather than the spell. I'm a sucker for instant/sorcery recursion, and even though I know Regrowth is stronger, I'm going to mention this. Wayward Swordtooth: An extra Exploration, or a replacement for people without one. World Shaper: Plays best with Tasigur-style decks, but if someone's running a Hippo build with gy recursion, it will do some work. Silent Gravestone: On the flip side of things, grave hate that's got a decent static ability, though it seems worse than Relic. Arch of Orazca:Draws cards. Taps for colorless. Takes a land slot. 'nuff said.
Other cards look interesting but not for this deck. Slaughter and Arch feel the most powerful of those I mentioned.
I've been using the silliest looking thing I could find for them. They were also really cheap in foils for 20 of them.
I ordered some others though for people who might be a stickler about them not being green or 1/1s, but so far I've not any complaints. People like getting shiny silly things.
I don't see how he could achieve any of those in my play group. Commander damage with a 4/4 and no protection? Attrition with less than 10 CA engines and less than 10 accelerators? He doesn't even have anything on the board. He can use fogs or removals against the big fatties, but will he do the same on all the little creatures who go for a few damage a turn? Tymna, edric and saskia would love using you as a free way to develop their game plan.
Sure you can push people to fight between them most of the time, I can definitely see you reaching a 1v1 situation most of the time in friendly multiplayer, but I don't know how you expect to actually win then.
most of the time cmdr dies to Collateral damage. To accomplish a position to bargain, there must be benefits for the table.. a fragile general with strong control = hard to achieve the gazing part
First, Phelddagrif already has evasion, as it can gain flying and/or trample. It can return itself to hand and avoid mass-wipes as well as targeted removal, so it should always cost only 4 cmc while blanking out removal. It's like an older version of Derevi, or a bant version of Wydwen, the Biting Gale. These two things make it hard to deal with while it eventually kills a player with Commander Damage.
Secondly, the deck itself more than makes up for the 4/4 body vs larger creatures or opponents going wide. It's a bant control deck. You have endless tools to stabilize the board or prevent a combo from going off while giving players incentives to work with you. Extra bodies, even if 1/1s, are not a terrible thing as it can give people a chance to go wide enough to get past blockers and eliminate planeswalkers and other players, and an extra card draw can be worth even more in their eyes. It's not group hug, but very targeted hugs, where you can use the benefits you are capable of giving out to make deals while still being able to defend yourself with a hand full of answers. You don't need to spend answers when other players already are looking at the boardstate and can judge for themselves what needs removing. You're just helping to nudge that balance one way or another until it's a 1v1 game with a weakened opponent.
Tl;dr: You work with others so they feel like they are winning and achieving common goals until you are the last one standing, killing the final opponent with Phelddagrif.
The Kansas City Shuffle, to me, is the essence of this design. The subterfuge is that you play your opponents against each other even if they realize it, because they can't ignore the other opponents who are more actively attempting to knock them out of the game than you are.
While we wait for the Rivals of Ixalan spoilers, here's Kansas City Shuffle in song form.
Feels perfect for thread theme.
I've tried the first two, and outside of mono-U I prefer Aetherize since it worked extremely well with Wheel effects. Other benefits with it is that it costs 1 cmc less than Aetherspouts and is more multicolor friendly. Settle the Wreckage looks like a nice thing to try as well; it's like a cheaper Angel of the Dire Hour, only giving them lands instead of you getting an expensive body.
I was thinking of Field of Dreams as "unique" in that "unique and/or powerful" statement, but I see what you mean.
As for my previous post about the Hunted series, I got a lot of mileage out of Hunted Dragon in Queen Marchesa and was just asking what you thought of "targeted hug" cards like that where one other player benefited from it. The strongest of the new curses is probably the red one due to how cheap it is plus the extra artifacts that you can sacrifice for abilities like Goblin Welder in a color that loves interesting effects but lacks normal card draw, but the blue one seemed also very strong. You seem to lean more towards leaning on Purple Hippo for your targeted hugs, though, which is understandable since you can do it at instant speed and control how much of a benefit someone gets rather than the Offerings or Hunted or curses.
With Scheming Symmetry and Head Games, I have hope for more interesting cards that could enable Tasigur once more.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Stonecloaker is one of the better targeted gy removals since it is repeatable but you can just go for some mass gy removal or your own version of gy removal, as long as it replaces that job of gy control. It's just hard to find something with that strength and repeatability.
Noxious Revival is very strong and worth considering in any build similar to the original due to what you mentioned. Regrowth I feel is a bit stronger due to same-turn plays like Regrowth into Wrath of God-variant, but both are good and including both is a good choice as well.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
I run Gwafa, but as a flavor build, with all sorts of merchant and money related cards, using pennies as bribe counters and gleefully using Conjured Currency to "buy" something from someone else.
It's an awful deck, but it's fun to get into that role.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
The real wingman of the deck is still Telepathy due to the enormous amount of information you get as well as giving that to other players so they often play rather differently than normal now knowing their plans are revealed.
Overall, 10/10, just commenting on some other cards and my love of Telepathy.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Not much catches my eye for Phelddagrif but it is at least good to keep an eye out for what other decks will be using.
For Hippo:
Dub: Makes it a Phelddagrif Knight. Then it becomes Sir Phelddagrif.
Jousting Lance: So Sir Phelddagrif can win the tournament and the heart of the princess.
Helm of the Host: Defeat your foes with an army of Phelddagrifs.
More serious things to look at:
Urza's Ruinous Blast: More of a meta call since it doesn't hit legendaries, but mass exile is worth a look.
Blink of an Eye: Into the Roil #2, or #1 if you like this art better.
Deep Freeze: Lignify variant, good for keeping down a commander instead of letting it get recasted.
The Mirari Conjecture: More expensive, but a double recursion and can double up on a removal spell (live the dream with a double Return to Dust).
Precognition Field: Future Sight gives more power on what you can play off the top, but I like looking at hidden information, which helps with bluffs.
Unwind: A free Negate, like how Rewind is a free Counterspell.
Tatyova, Benthic Druid: More card draw for doing what we want to do: Sitting around and playing lands.
Memorial to Genius: Card draw on a land. Better with a Life from the Loam package version of hippo.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Every time I see it talked about I just think of Coffers and how it dies to every single land-hate possible, but with a lot more hoops to make it work.
On another note, for people who've tried it, what do you think of Curse of Verbosity? How has it played out for you?
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Slaughter the Strong mainly got me excited since it's 3 cmc where most mass removal is 4+. It's no replacement for stuff like Wrath of God-style effects, but its fast enough to handle a speedy Kaalia or someone Entombing/Reanimating something potent, stuff normally handled by Path to Exile/Swords to Plowshares/Pongify, but another piece of cheaper removal doesn't hurt.
Blazing Hope looked promising until I realized I misread it in my excitement as "less than" rather than "greater than". It seems like we won't ever get good removal cheap again, just like how they refuse to print good 2 cmc counters again with Cancel being the new standard.
At least the tribal decks got a bunch of toys so we can see other people having fun with phat dinos before they eat a board wipe if they turn our way.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Judging from your posts, your deck seems a lot more "group hug" than this list with cards like Alliance of Arms and Prosperity. This style of list is a Bant Control and the "hugs" are extremely targeted rather than a mass benefit to the table primarily using Purple Hippo, bringing up people in order to counteract the more powerful players so they grind each other down until Hippo descends from his throne in order to smite those that survive the attrition. Why give multiple players a benefit (like everyone getting tokens via Alliance of Arms, or everyone drawing cards via Prosperity), benefits that overwhelmingly favor the person taking the next turn after yours due to them untapping with it, rather than only benefiting those you deem fit?
--------------------------------
On another note: Rivals of Ixalan.
Slaughter the Strong: looks like cheap mass removal that works against quite a lot other than Sigarda decks (but those always are potent against sacrifice). It feels a lot like Retribution of the Meek that keeps Hippo alive, or a Divine Reckoning that kills off stronger creatures.
Flood of Recollection: for instant/sorcery recursion, it's cheaper than Call to Mind even though it can't be abused. Snapcaster isn't on the list right now, but unlike Snapcaster, this exiles itself rather than the spell. I'm a sucker for instant/sorcery recursion, and even though I know Regrowth is stronger, I'm going to mention this.
Wayward Swordtooth: An extra Exploration, or a replacement for people without one.
World Shaper: Plays best with Tasigur-style decks, but if someone's running a Hippo build with gy recursion, it will do some work.
Silent Gravestone: On the flip side of things, grave hate that's got a decent static ability, though it seems worse than Relic.
Arch of Orazca:Draws cards. Taps for colorless. Takes a land slot. 'nuff said.
Other cards look interesting but not for this deck. Slaughter and Arch feel the most powerful of those I mentioned.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
I've been using the silliest looking thing I could find for them. They were also really cheap in foils for 20 of them.
I ordered some others though for people who might be a stickler about them not being green or 1/1s, but so far I've not any complaints. People like getting shiny silly things.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
First, Phelddagrif already has evasion, as it can gain flying and/or trample. It can return itself to hand and avoid mass-wipes as well as targeted removal, so it should always cost only 4 cmc while blanking out removal. It's like an older version of Derevi, or a bant version of Wydwen, the Biting Gale. These two things make it hard to deal with while it eventually kills a player with Commander Damage.
Secondly, the deck itself more than makes up for the 4/4 body vs larger creatures or opponents going wide. It's a bant control deck. You have endless tools to stabilize the board or prevent a combo from going off while giving players incentives to work with you. Extra bodies, even if 1/1s, are not a terrible thing as it can give people a chance to go wide enough to get past blockers and eliminate planeswalkers and other players, and an extra card draw can be worth even more in their eyes. It's not group hug, but very targeted hugs, where you can use the benefits you are capable of giving out to make deals while still being able to defend yourself with a hand full of answers. You don't need to spend answers when other players already are looking at the boardstate and can judge for themselves what needs removing. You're just helping to nudge that balance one way or another until it's a 1v1 game with a weakened opponent.
Tl;dr: You work with others so they feel like they are winning and achieving common goals until you are the last one standing, killing the final opponent with Phelddagrif.
Hippo Can't Be Stopped.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
While we wait for the Rivals of Ixalan spoilers, here's Kansas City Shuffle in song form.
Feels perfect for thread theme.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
As for my previous post about the Hunted series, I got a lot of mileage out of Hunted Dragon in Queen Marchesa and was just asking what you thought of "targeted hug" cards like that where one other player benefited from it. The strongest of the new curses is probably the red one due to how cheap it is plus the extra artifacts that you can sacrifice for abilities like Goblin Welder in a color that loves interesting effects but lacks normal card draw, but the blue one seemed also very strong. You seem to lean more towards leaning on Purple Hippo for your targeted hugs, though, which is understandable since you can do it at instant speed and control how much of a benefit someone gets rather than the Offerings or Hunted or curses.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch