Readers!

There are a lot of different ways to build a Magic: The Gathering deck. Some of them have cute names, but all of them are fun and legitimate ways to engage with this format. I've done most of them, but there is one that seems so foreign to me as a concept that I have deliberately put it off. Today, I decide to wade into the world that is "Group Hug" decks. "Group Hug" decks win by discouraging players from attacking through means like building a pillow fort and granting players extra cards, life, and mana so that they attack each other and leave you alone. After they weaken each other so much than you can finish them off, that's when you can win. You can filter your own deck slowly and secretly because everyone will draw a bunch and you won't need to commit too many of your resources to balancing out the board because you'll equip them with the cards they need to keep each other even. I love the concept, but I think by now people are very suspicious of the Group Hug player and therefore more suspicious of your gifts. Lacking ways to enforce their hurting each other, like with goad, the deck I'm building today has a different way to make sure they don't kill you with their huge, dumb creatures. We're going to steal their huge, dumb creatures. We're going to steal them all.

Goad would be an excellent way to make sure we're not the focus of combat, but making sure you take away their biggest, nastiest beatsticks can keep you safe, but threatening to take said beatstick away unless they attack another player is a kind of unofficial goad that players sometimes call "politics". Keeping most of our stealing effects in plain sight, we can make sure players play nice and don't mess with us if they want to keep their creatures around. Helm of Possession, Chamber of Manipulation and Dominating Licid are reusable ways to make combat miserable for a player attacking you, and cards like Norn's Annex and Crawlspace can make sure that even if they do decide you're the archenemy, you'll have a few turns to find an answer. If attacking you is untenable, and you're giving them cards and possibly paving the way for their stuff to get through, why would they aggress you at all? Meanwhile, you're plotting your big win. I bet you're all champing at the bit to know which commander I picked for today. Fantastic, let's draw back the curtain, shall we?

This Council of Four is going to draw us some cards, give us some tokens and can even block for days. There's a lot to like here.

Leaning in to triggering these abilities as much as possible, if we can make sure they draw additional cards on their turns, you'll draw additional cards. If you can make them cast spells, you'll get soldiers. You can't make them cast spells very easily, but if their hand is full, the odds that they'll pitch gas to hand size rather than play some of their many spells and risk giving you a lowly 2/2 seem remote. What's more likely to happen is that they will play those spells with abandon, and we can amass a big pile of Knight tokens. Add Anointed Procession and we'll make 2 piles. Add Divine Visitation and Court of Grace and all of a sudden we get a lot of value when they play their spells. They might not want to play spells on their turn, but we'll make them with cards like Grand Abolisher that force them not to play spells on your turn. The plan is coming together, but we need to differentiate this from the stock list as much as possible, something I plan to do by cutting the large number of creatures the stock lists run. We don't need to bring creatures, we need to steal them. So, let's do that. What does the deck look like built around taking their stuff? It looks... very familiar and comforting, in fact.

Howling MINE | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 The Council of Four

• Creatures (20)
• 1 Agent of Treachery
• 1 Archon of Coronation
• 1 Daxos of Meletis
• 1 Dominating Licid
• 1 Esper Sentinel
• 1 Grand Abolisher
• 1 Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker
• 1 Keeper of Keys
• 1 Kwain, Itinerant Meddler
• 1 Mangara, the Diplomat
• 1 Master of Ceremonies
• 1 Master Thief
• 1 Nimble Obstructionist
• 1 Palace Jailer
• 1 Silent Arbiter
• 1 Spark Double
• 1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
• 1 Walking Atlas
• 1 Wandering Archaic
• 1 Welcoming Vampire

• Instants (8)
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Benevolent Offering
• 1 Desertion
• 1 Dovin's Veto
• 1 Hindering Light
• 1 Reins of Power
• 1 Sudden Substitution
• 1 Teferi's Protection

• Sorceries (3)
• 1 Council's Judgment
• 1 Fractured Identity
• 1 Rite of Replication

• Enchantments (19)
• 1 Anointed Procession
• 1 Authority of the Consuls
• 1 Blind Obedience
• 1 Cathars' Crusade
• 1 Chamber of Manipulation
• 1 Court of Cunning
• 1 Court of Grace
• 1 Divine Visitation
• 1 Felidar Retreat
• 1 Ghostly Prison
• 1 Leyline of Anticipation
• 1 Luminarch Ascension
• 1 Mind's Dilation
• 1 Norn's Annex
• 1 Propaganda
• 1 Rule of Law
• 1 Sphere of Safety
• 1 Tenuous Truce
• 1 Well of Ideas

• Artifacts (10)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Archaeomancer's Map
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Howling Mine
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Talisman of Progress
• 1 Vedalken Shackles
• 1 Venser's Journal

• Lands (38)
• 11 Plains
• 12 Island
• 1 Azorius Chancery
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dust Bowl
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Irrigated Farmland
• 1 Moorland Haunt
• 1 Nimbus Maze
• 1 Port Town
• 1 Prairie Stream
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Throne of the High City

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This looks like an awful lot of fun! We'll make them draw cards to draw us cards, steal their stuff and make it very difficult to hit us. Let's address the elephant in the room, first.

I very deliberately didn't make this a Thassa's Oracle deck. I think Oracle of Boracle and when you don't care which cards you draw as long as you draw all of them, Magic is less fun. Luckily, I don't care if you build the deck that way or not - adding Jace, Lab Man and Oracle and a few mill cards or more mass card draw can make this deck play that way, if you want. It's a lot of easy swaps and if that's your thing, it's very easy to do in this shell.

What do we think? Is this too much like my Inniaz deck? Too much like the stock list? Did you want the Thoracle shell? Hit me up in the comments and leave me something. That does it for me this week - until next time!