I like building different archetypes for each of my commander decks and overlapping as little as possible. How do group hug decks usually win?
I give everyone lots of resources and free cards, but then I have to work out how to stop people from combing out and then winning myself.
You could go for the tried and true combo like splinter twin and zealous conscripts or any infinite combo depending on your colors. Alternatively, you can wipe the board with something like obliterate with barren glory, etc.. or any other 'you win the game' effects.
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pucatrade
big receipts
alpha mox emerald
beta time walk
4 goyfs received
3 liliana of the veil
4 karn liberated
3 force of will
4 grove of the burnwillows
snapcaster mage
3 horizon canopy
2 full art damnation
I am thinking about Vazi, Keen Negotiator or the beamtown bullies atm.
The bullies can always pull out leveler on people.
Most Vazi decks I see are group slug trying to ping people to death but I feel like that isn't going to be that effective. I want to lay low before winding up the haymaker. I am considering just using X spells, the most meme-worthy being Release the Gremlins/ Pest Infestation since giving treasures to others gives me more targets and Torment of Hailfire
How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
So I put together a prototype deck of The Beamtown bullies. I gave up on Vazi when I saw the price of Dockside extortionist... it's extortionate. I decided to go without Leveler or Eater of Days but keep the life total reduction like Ebonblade Reaper. While I am running comet storm X spells aren't super important I just have some ways to knock out that last bit of life quickly.
Through testing, I have learnt, that sometimes you are just going to have to trust other players in group hug. I need a critical mass of creatures in the deck to make self-mill cards work. So while I am in Jund I had to cut most of my spot removal, so I am just going to have to trust that other players have spot removal and will use any spot removal I give them wisely, e.g Shriekmaw that can't hit the bullies and puts itself in the graveyard.
I used to like to generate infinite mana (like from Palinchron plus a mana-doubling enchantment, which fit the group hug theme anyway) and then cast a massive Prosperity while I have a Pursuit of Knowledge in play. Very convoluted but felt like "hugging everyone to death" by making them all draw out. My group hug had a heavy enchantress subtheme so I preferred Pursuit to Lab Maniac, plus Pursuit is just more obscure and so a little more fun to try out.
I won at last week's FNM by using Living Death on my graveyard like a pretty standard Graveyard deck. This is the advantage of going group hug The Beamtown bullies over ones with more bad gifts... I can give them to myself.
I am thinking about Vazi, Keen Negotiator ...
Most Vazi decks I see are group slug trying to ping people to death but I feel like that isn't going to be that effective.
I like Vazi a lot. I didn't exactly go for "group hug", though, more politics, which generally involves shooting yourself in the foot less often. I can say though that Mayhem Devil does win games.
Just get any old goblin card and draw some glasses and a fake moustache on it, and write "Dockside" at the top. Boom, problem solved.
That said, Dockside is a bit of a double-edged sword in Vazi. I mean, it's brilliant everywhere, but if you get 10+ treasures at once you probably want to win, or at least do something big and swingy. If you give someone else 10 treasures, they'll probably just win. And yes, you'll draw like one card off Vazi, but you'll be dead. The best card for this deck is really Bootlegger's Stash, though it's pricey at 6 mana. Aside from the base advantage of being able to store up treasures, this lets you give people exactly as many treasures as you want by tapping a couple of lands, then activating Vazi, whilst still letting you make the rest. And, of course, it's pretty much a wincon with Mayhem Devil.
If anything, though, Vazi wants to be less of a group hug deck and more of a stax deck (or possibly a bit of both).
Anyway, to go back to your original question: how do group hug decks win? How do any decks win? You've really got plenty of options.
Quite often, group hug decks are combo decks that are trying to dig for their combos really quickly, hence all the drawing of cards and stuff. Sometimes they're mill decks. You don't have to do that, though... but ultimately you're aiming to break parity somehow. Otherwise, why are you playing group hug? You've just got to make sure that you can make better use of the resources that you're giving everyone than anyone else. So, give everyone mana, but play bigger haymakers than everyone, or draw everyone cards but have better mana generation, whatever. Remember: group hug decks aren't really choosing to give people stuff. The giving people stuff is either a roundabout way of killing them or it's a drawback that you consider worth it because it comes with benefits for you too.
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I give everyone lots of resources and free cards, but then I have to work out how to stop people from combing out and then winning myself.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
pucatrade
big receipts
alpha mox emerald
beta time walk
4 goyfs received
3 liliana of the veil
4 karn liberated
3 force of will
4 grove of the burnwillows
snapcaster mage
3 horizon canopy
2 full art damnation
The bullies can always pull out leveler on people.
Most Vazi decks I see are group slug trying to ping people to death but I feel like that isn't going to be that effective. I want to lay low before winding up the haymaker. I am considering just using X spells, the most meme-worthy being Release the Gremlins/ Pest Infestation since giving treasures to others gives me more targets and Torment of Hailfire
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
I have a Naya group hug deck that usually wins with flameblast dragon, hellkite charger, hydra broodmaster or genesis wave
Through testing, I have learnt, that sometimes you are just going to have to trust other players in group hug. I need a critical mass of creatures in the deck to make self-mill cards work. So while I am in Jund I had to cut most of my spot removal, so I am just going to have to trust that other players have spot removal and will use any spot removal I give them wisely, e.g Shriekmaw that can't hit the bullies and puts itself in the graveyard.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
My next goal is to win with Happily Ever After - probably by casting Planewide Celebration for a double flavor win.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Just get any old goblin card and draw some glasses and a fake moustache on it, and write "Dockside" at the top. Boom, problem solved.
That said, Dockside is a bit of a double-edged sword in Vazi. I mean, it's brilliant everywhere, but if you get 10+ treasures at once you probably want to win, or at least do something big and swingy. If you give someone else 10 treasures, they'll probably just win. And yes, you'll draw like one card off Vazi, but you'll be dead. The best card for this deck is really Bootlegger's Stash, though it's pricey at 6 mana. Aside from the base advantage of being able to store up treasures, this lets you give people exactly as many treasures as you want by tapping a couple of lands, then activating Vazi, whilst still letting you make the rest. And, of course, it's pretty much a wincon with Mayhem Devil.
If anything, though, Vazi wants to be less of a group hug deck and more of a stax deck (or possibly a bit of both).
Anyway, to go back to your original question: how do group hug decks win? How do any decks win? You've really got plenty of options.
Quite often, group hug decks are combo decks that are trying to dig for their combos really quickly, hence all the drawing of cards and stuff. Sometimes they're mill decks. You don't have to do that, though... but ultimately you're aiming to break parity somehow. Otherwise, why are you playing group hug? You've just got to make sure that you can make better use of the resources that you're giving everyone than anyone else. So, give everyone mana, but play bigger haymakers than everyone, or draw everyone cards but have better mana generation, whatever. Remember: group hug decks aren't really choosing to give people stuff. The giving people stuff is either a roundabout way of killing them or it's a drawback that you consider worth it because it comes with benefits for you too.