#hogaak

[niuttuc]

The Graveyard Gang

Did you know Golgari likes the graveyard? Read the cards carefully next time you face a golgari deck, and you might notice it. As a result, a lot of Golgari commanders like the graveyard a whole lot, and specifically creatures being in there. So I made a deck for them, a deck that can use any of its ten commanders, randomly selected before each game. And their companion, Umori, just to make deckbuilding a bit spicier. Here's the gang as a whole!

They all have equal chance of leading the deck every game, and even if they don't show up in the command zone, they'll be somewhere in the 99. They're all in special versions when possible and all in foil, the only foils in the deck, as to be able to find them easily when sifting through the deck to pick one at random before every game. They're of differing power levels, but that's fine! If you end up rolling one that's too strong or weak for the table, you could always reroll, or worse, pick one of them, but that's less fun.

As far as strategies, we're playing only creatures, so I wanted to lean onto creatures that get really strong from having many of them in the graveyard, so there's lot of that! Their large bodies are our wincons, either through regular attacks or throwing them at people's faces with Jarad.

Of course, we're playing commander, so we're also eating our veggies, with plenty of ramp, card advantage, interaction, and in this case, self-mill.

This deck WILL fold like wet paper in games featuring plenty of graveyard hate, but that's the life of a graveyard deck. And we can survive a reasonable amount of it. Just don't get your graveyard exiled when it's your entire library, before you can recycle it with Endurance.

Speaking of, Endurance is here as a safety valve. If we do our plan TOO well and end up milling out, like this deck is known to do on occasion, the combination of Genesis triggering on our upkeep and Endurance having flash can ensure we shuffle our graveyard into our library to avoid dying. We may have a lot of work to do once again milling all that, and a couple */*s may die, but that's a worthwhile price to stay alive.

Is Umori optimal for this deck? No, I haven't used it once. But this is a deck with ten commanders all wanting slightly different things and trying to be alright with all of them. We're not here for optimal.

[magicjudge]

If I have Chorus of the Conclave out and cast Hogaak, I can't spend any mana on the additional cost Chorus adds, right? Can I delve and convoke for it?

Correct.

Any additional cost you choose to pay for Chorus of the Conclave becomes part of Hogaak’s total cost and as such is affected by its mana prohibition. Since it’s part of the total cost, though, you get to pay it with delve and convoke! Hooray!

[magical-leak]

[spicydad94]

Takes that didn’t age well

[xizor14]

[hallarthefirefletcher]

Banned and Restricted Announcement, August 26, 2019

[carumsarene]

[magicjudge]

If I exile my opponent's Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis with Hostage Taker, thus gaining the ability to spend mana as if it were mana of any type to cast it, can I tap blue, red, or white creatures to pay Hogaak's convoke?

You can, but they'll only pay the generic portion of Hogaak's mana cost like for any other spell with convoke. Hostage Taker lets you spend mana freely in order to cast Hogaak, but Hogaak can't have mana spent to cast it, so that ability is completely useless in this case. You'll have to tap two black and/or green creatures to cast it. (You already have Hostage Taker, so you just need one more!)