May 17th, 2021
Wandering Archaic and the Art of the Glom
Definition of glom
\ ˈgläm \
glommed; glomming
glom on to: to grab hold of : appropriate to oneself glommed on to her ideas
Glomming onto your opponents is a time honored tradition in the Commander format. Cards that are simply not good in 1v1 formats really scale well to multiplayer. Having three opponents to benefit from is a game changer! Group hug decks in particular are poised to benefit from these cards because usually if you are helping the table everyone is inclined to help you back! I have instituted a shorthand at my local shop for Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora and Smothering Tithe triggers by announcing that I will be drawing or making treasures unless they announce that they will be paying. People really like this method so far.
Managorger Hydra is of course not a group hug card at all but if you explain that it’s for self defense sometimes that works!
I haven’t tried Tempting Contract yet and I think it will be good or bad entirely depending on your meta. It will also depend on how skewed toward total group hug your deck is. If you are doing nothing but help people are very inclined to be okay with you having all the treasures. My guess is there will be at least one player at the table confident enough in their deck to give you a treasure every turn but I don’t know if that’s a good enough return on the four mana investment that it takes to cast this. Excited to give it a shot though! I’m also excited that this design space is getting more attention! Speaking of which! Let’s take a look at one of the most exciting new cards from Strixhaven!
There are a few ways to play Wandering archaic in a group hug deck! One way is to announce that when someone plays a spell you will allow them to pick the target for the copy that Wandering Archaic makes as long as it doesn’t hurt your board. This does a couple of things, it allows it to feel much less taxing but it also keeps you from having to “be the bad guy” when a targeted removal spell gets played… BUT... Copying the spell is a “may ability” so another line of play is to explain this up front and just say you won’t be copying mean spells unless it’s a 1v1 situation.
All of this bargaining might be unnecessary in your meta though. I just play it out and say nothing so that I keep my options open. Or if I do say any of the above I also state that my archenemies (Hullbreacher & Narset) will still get targeted by me if they are in play!
Explore the Vastlands is also a very decent group hug land fixing or spell finding card! If someone at the table is struggling to find lands I would definitely play this side to help them out. Games where people don’t have mana aren’t really games at all!
Overall I am really happy with the new cards in Strixhaven and Commander 2021! There are a lot of fun new options for group hug and political play!
That’s all for this week! I wish you good luck at the table with glomming this week! Reach out to me on Twitter to let me know about all the glom spells I no doubt forgot or didn’t know about!
-marksquare