April 19th, 2021
New Reasons to Plains!
My love letter to group hug as a format wouldn’t be complete without a weekly chat about all the new cards that I discover! The card pool for Commander is huge so sometimes my discoveries are from Magic’s past sets but there are so many good cards coming out all the time that there will be plenty of new stuff to discuss!
This week I’d like to talk about the group hug gold mine that is the new cards from Strixhaven and Commander 2021 in white! I have been playing a Simic group hug deck for the last few weeks but I’m definitely gonna build something with white in it to try out some of these new cards!
I always, always root for the underdog. I can’t help myself. Which makes me want to play a mono white Commander deck. But it also makes me want to help the player or players who are losing at the table. So a card like Secret Rendezvous is very nice for times like those! Being able to generate value for the player who needs it most without increasing the lead the archenemy at the table already has is great! Temporary Truce and Truce are great but I love the more selective nature of Secret Rendezvous! Gotta hug carefully or games will just end too quickly!
We can’t talk about Monologue Tax without talking about the better version we already have in Smothering Tithe. I’m not saying to replace Smothering Tithe. I’m saying let’s play both. I love repeat effects in Commander so my decks run more consistently. But let’s face it our target for Idyllic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor and Academy Rector won’t be changing from Smothering Tithe over to Monologue Tax any time soon.
Speaking of mono white Commander decks… Nils, Discipline Enforcer would make a great general for a pillow fort group hug deck! He combines well with another new card from Commander 2021 set, Promise of Loyalty. Of course this does put us at risk if Nils is removed and there is a board full of pumped creatures and nothing to prevent them from stepping on our face. That’s where Ghostly Prison and Norn’s Annex come in handy! But if your local meta has a ton of board wipes running the new Strixhaven card Semester’s End can really help! When I run white I will run it as well as Cosmic Intervention and Teferi’s Protection. Getting board wiped in white feels bad due to the lack of ramp… But wait, what’s that???
Mono white ramp??? Archaeomancer’s Map is a great card and I will be running it in any deck that enough Plains to support it. Who would have ever guessed that we would be comparing a white card to a green ramp staple like burgeoning but here we are! Archaeomancer’s Map is a bit like a Land Tax and a Burgeoning on a single card. The only downside is that unlike Land Tax you don’t get to search for Plains every turn, just when it comes into play. But why not run both right? Knight of the White Orchid can help you find more Plains and if you can manage to get your hands on a Tithe it would be a great fit to any white deck as well.
All of those cards help to fuel our own land ramp strategies but isn’t this a website dedicated to group hug? It is! Scholarship Sponsor is a card that I’m very excited to play. There is always at least one green or simic player that is ramping for five to ten minutes per turn and Scholarship Sponsor catches the whole table up to whatever ridiculous land count they have achieved! It’s an enter the battlefield trigger too so we could flicker this guy to ramp the table again later on! So much fun and so much value!
Thanks for checking in for The Group Hug Gazette weekly blog! Reach out on twitter if you wanna chat about group hug or Commander in general!
I wish you turn one Land Tax, turn two Knight of the White Orchid and turn three Archaomancer’s Maps at the table this week!
-marksquare