Kodama Sakashima Turbo Hug
I made Kodama Sakashima Turbo Hug in response to playing against a really oppressive boardwipe.deck at my LGS. When trying to group hug and accelerate the gameplay and a boardwipe that hits creatures, enchantments and artifacts levels everything on a regular basis it makes you rethink your strategy!
This deck has an incredible amount of value in it. Keep in mind that when players see your board and the amount of free permanents you will generate they will at times become uncomfortable and start to mistrust the hug! This is an issue that group hug has to deal with at times. The delicate balance of how to fly under the radar enough to construct the catapult before the table as a whole turns on you is one of the things I love about playing group hug!
Let’s start with what we have in the Command Zone! Kodama of the East Tree is an amazing card that allows us to generate an enormous amount of value! Notice the wording on his rules text: Whenever another permanent enters the battlefield under your control. That’s right you can play a land and then drop another land into play. Both are considered to have zero mana value. Or you could play a mana crypt and drop a land into play! And that’s just the beginning because Sakashima of a Thousand Faces can copy Kodama and then they can drop your whole hand onto the battlefield if you can cast you highest costed permanent!
That’s why with this deck I play some pretty selfish cards because basically I can play one for the table and get one free for myself. All the value! But in order to feed this deck we need a TON OF CARDS! So Rhystic Study and Heartwood Storyteller fit nicely! One for me one for the table (and me hehe!) Let’s check out some more of the card draw engine pieces!
As you can see drawing cards is important to this deck! Most of the card draw is symmetrical but key pieces like Consecrated Sphinx, Teferi’s Ageless Insight and Alhammarret’s Archive help to make sure we are generating more card draw and value than the table.
Horn of Greed and Rites of Flourishing also speed up the table but due to the other pieces we are about to look at they help us more than the table. There are a lot of ways to play group hug / political decks of course but I do enjoy making myself a long shot to win then trying to win anyway! Another underdog story with me as the dog!
Tatyova, Benthic Druid and Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait function like extra copies of Horn of Greed except they don’t help the table! That’s where deft piloting comes into play. Sometimes it pays to play it a little slow. Play out the group hug cards first or save them so you can play them alongside the cards that are only good for your side of the table.
Tempt With Discovery and New Frontiers are seriously good in this deck with all the mana it produces. Tempt with discovery can be free if everyone at the table searches for a land! Turning four lands into eight is pretty epic! The bottom of the curve in this deck is mostly all group hug pieces so getting people to agree to search is usually pretty easy to do.
Wayward Swordtooth, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Oracle of Mul Daya and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove all help to play out extra lands and also serve to help with one of the win cons in the deck. Exploration and Burgeoning also help put more lands in play while avoiding the dreaded creature board wipe.
With Kodama in the command zone recovering from multiple board wipes is very easy to do. So as a response to board wipes i consider this deck to be a success! Speaking of success lets talk about the win conditions in the deck.
As you can probably tell by my decks I don’t place very high value on winning games of Commander. I want to see flavorful, interesting plays regardless of what side of the table they come from. So usually I pick a few win cons based on flavor! The idea of my value creatures getting pumped by a Finale of Devastation and going on a rampage is a fun idea.
This deck generates an absurd amount of mana and usually playing group hug keeps your life total mostly in good shape so that’s why Hurricane is a fun way to end a game. I think of it as nature revolting against cheating so much mana and so many permanents into play that it levels the field and wizards involved in the shenanigans!
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Thanks for reading my Kodama Sakashima Turbo Hug deck tech! I wish you turn one Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt and Kodama drops this week!
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