I have talked a lot about the power balance at a commander table and how group hug can mess with that balance and even in some cases completely destroy it. Playing cEDH has helped me to dive deeper into this issue. By knowing where the top is I now understand why some decks shouldn’t be hugged and also why cEDH decks have zero business at a casual table.

I’m hoping that I can teach myself how to play a group hug deck alongside optimized aka power level 9 decks. But first lets talk about what a cEDH deck looks like when you modify it into a group hug deck. Could that be the answer to playing in high power casual pods???

Kinnan and Basalt are like chocolate and peanut butter. Infinite amounts of each! Bloom Tender and Freed from the Real are also infinite mana producers and I use them as a backup way to go infinite in my cEDH Kinnan deck.

Here is a link to my Kinnan cEDHUg deck! I have established that in order to play a group hug deck in any pod you need to make up for giving resources away by playing more powerful cards or by benefitting from the resources given way more than the rest of the table. And unlike any other format I’ve played cEDH delivers. cEDh decks generate resources suddenly and can turn the game around regardless of the board state by using a+b style card synergies and combos. They also have compact win cons…

That being said I think that playing group hug decks is a style choice and just jamming a win that has nothing to do with how the deck is built even in the late game goes against why I play group hug in the first place. So what would a group hug deck do with all that raw cEDH power?

These are very powerful synergies but they can also be harnessed into stylish and on theme plays in group hug decks! Imagine allowing everyone to tutor up 20 creatures and then put them onto the battlefield. Sounds pretty sweet and it also sounds like winning at group hugging in a big way! But…

…I have played the Kinnan cEDHug deck a few times and probably never will again. Every time it basically feels a bit like I’m playing with my food. It powers out Kinnan and Basalt Monolith very early and I could just use all that mana to win but instead I make the surprise group hug play and give out free creature tutors and allow everyone to put their creatures into play for free with Tempting Wurm. Then you go through the extra step of playing Mass Manipulation and take everyone’s creatures for yourself! Manipulation seems like an appropriate word here. It’s just a lot and it really isn’t fun for anyone involved. Now admittedly the combo takes more effort than the usual cEDH line I use (drawing your deck and playing a huge ballista) but it warps the game so much that it feels like a chore. One time the players didn’t even want to resolve all the etb triggers. It basically caused a table wide scoop! Imagine if they would have gone through the trouble of resolving all thise etb triggers then I had played Mass Manipulation and taken all the creatures??? Oooh the salt! And rightly so I think. This illustrates why cEDH decks don’t belong in casual. It feels like you are playing a completely different game. 

I personally never feel right about playing infinite combos in casual. Generate value sure but infinite just feels like a bit too much for my tastes. But that is me and everyone has to decide for themselves how they wanna play and what they wanna play when and where. This is what makes the rule zero conversation such a tough one to resolve! 

So what can be done when playing in an unbalanced pod as happens so often lately? Next weeks blog is all about it!