MTG Salvation

I love building decks, and from time to time I take a new and unique commander suggestion to build. This time it was a Hallar deck, and I'm in love with the interactions the deck can have, so much so that my problem now is trimming the deck to 99 cards. My usual playgroup has all kinds of decks, most of them being around 75% decks. What are your thoughts on what to put in and what to take out? The Maybeboard are cards I thought weren't really that great on first sight, but after getting a playable 99 card pile I'll playtest each one of them.


The cards I'm thinking about/have cut are:

Generally speaking, you will often get better suggestions/responses if you post your list here rather than making us go to another site to view your list. I have taken your list (I ignored your maybeboard for now) and organized it for you here:



Now, as to your deck, your curve is very low so that is a good thing. However, it is somewhat misleading since you are trying to run Kicker spells so the cost of those is greater than their mana cost shows. Also, your creatures seem to be leading down the path of a go-wide or aggro strategy but you don't have enough to do that. Either you need more creatures, or you need ones that are more relevant.

To start with, since it is probably a big part of the theme: your kicker spells. Most are at least decent, but there are a couple I don't think are very good:

Emblazoned Golem - This is, at max, a 3/4 for 4 mana. Not the worst, but not exactly steller either. It works OK with your general, but on its own it is pretty bad.
Skitter of Lizards - This can get a bit bigger than the Golem, and it has Haste, but the cost/power ratio is way higher than you want. A 2/2 for 3 is OK. a 3/3 for 5 or a 4/4 for 7 or a 5/5 for 9 isn't. This card can, again, be a cheap way to trigger Hallar but, without him on the field, this isn't going to do a lot.
Everflowing Chalice - This I am not sure on, but your deck seems to want to be pretty aggressive. So, paying 2 mana to ramp {1} or 4 to ramp 2 isn't all that good. You would want to be casting more relevant spells than this.
Savage Offensive - This would be a good card ...if it was an Instant. The effects really want to be a combat trick of some sort, but it can't be. I know it is cheap and can be relevant so this may not be a great card to cut, but it seems like it is likely to do very little.
Scorching Lava - 3 mana for 2 damage is pretty bad. I think there are better options for this, even if they don't have Kicker.

Instead, you may want to try some of these in those spots:
Citanul Woodreaders - Probably not my first choice, but a 1/4 that draws 2 cards for 6 isn't the worst. The main thing is the draw 2 cards. It is not an efficient use of mana, but it could help with card draw.
Mold Shambler - This seems like a decent hate card as EDH has plenty of artifacts and enchantments running around. 6 mana for a 3/3 body and a Naturalize is reasonable.
Thicket Elemental - A free creature might be worth playing a 7 mana 4/4. I am not sure on this either, but I could see it being a cool card to get something huge for free.
Verdeloth the Ancient - This could be a good payoff card. A 4/7 lord for 6 is already reasonable. And then you get 2/2 Saprolings (as long as Verdeloth is around to buff them) for each extra mana you pay. If you have a ton of mana just sitting around, you can make a pretty good sized army with just this card.
Verix Bladewing - This gives you a couple decent sized fliers and 8 power total for 7 mana. Not the most efficient, but they can be helpful in closing out games.
Wolfbriar Elemental - This is another card like Verdeloth. An "Army in a Can" so to speak.

You have 20 ramp spells (a combination of creature, land, and artifact ramp) and I don't think you need quite that much. I would like towards cutting Wild Growth and Arbor Elf to start with. I know they work off each other, but I don't think your deck needs or wants them.

The other theme of your deck seems to be focused pretty heavily on the +1/+1 counter theme. A lot of good cards are in the mix here, but some are probably not necessary. Evolutionary Escalation, Hunger of the Howlpack, Increasing Savagery and Quest for the Gemblades. I don't think these are necessarily bad, but I think they are more than you need with everything else you have.

Of the remaining cards, I think Keen Sense and Alpha Authority could be cut. The former probably doesn't do a lot except the early game if you actually get it and the latter is a worse version of about 5 other cards you are already running.

Hey, thanks for the suggestions, I've uploaded the list and the maybeboard there. And about the card suggestions, looking at some Hallar games online, mostly the success comes from big bursts of counters on Hallar followed by 2-3 small kicker spells, that's the reason for the bunch of sub-optimal kicker cards like Emblazoned Golem, Savage Offensive and Scorching Lava, and the +1/+1 cards you suggested cutting are some of the best at giving Hallar some quick bursts of +1/+1 counters at low cost.

I don't really like Citanul Woodreaders as, if I'm going for the kicker cost, he doesn't really help with the burst damage Hallar, and if I'm spending 6 mana for draws, I'd rather use Soul of the Harvest or Primordial Sage, given the number of creatures I'm running.

Mold Shambler is a beast, I just don't know what to remove yet, so I took him out because of the mana cost.

Thicket Elemental is a card that I really like, but I have no idea what to cut for it, as most of my creatures are low costed already, so I wouldn't really take that much advantage out of it.

Verdeloth the Ancient and Verix Bladewing are just slow and not that helpful for the general direction I'm going with the deck.

Wolfbriar Elemental is great and I can't believe that I missed him when looking at the kicker spells, he surely deserves a slot.

I'm pretty sure I need to cut some of the ramping package, and that's probably a good start, thanks.

Keen Sense is one of the best cards in the deck along with Snake Umbra, as in a typical 4 player game, every Hallar activation nets me 3 draws.

About Alpha Authority, this deck's supposed to focus heavily on Hallar, as he can easily dish out 10+ damage to all opponents per turn if left unchecked, so everything that can help protect him is needed. This one also gives him reverse menace which, with Hallar's trample, can help doing some combat damage too.

Your deck looks like a better version of mine that I built but never ended up completing because it just didn't work out; we have a lot of similar themes like Elves and big bursts of counters. Here is my list, although I wouldn't take it as a final draft or anything. I just thought I'd highlight some selections I have that you might like:

Scrounging Bandar is a nice early drop that also lets you "store" counters to put on Hallar later on, much like Forgotten Ancient. Increasing Savagery is a great mana outlet later on and gives a pretty decent rate up-front on +1/+1 counters as well. Evolutionary Escalation may be a little group-huggy for your liking but I figured with all the elves who tap for mana based on counters or power, it's basically a Gilded Lotus every turn for me at the cost of beefing up whatever the worst creature on the board is. Hope my beta-version build gives you a couple ideas. You've got me wanting to dust the list off and try it again myself.

Hallar decks need alot of mana.

While the choice of kicker spells is different, as more people know your deck , you have to adapt more.

I usually have to do a big pump, then kick 2 spells in the single turn as my commander tends to die alot