“Everybody Loves Hugs” – An EDH Deck Archetype Report By Jeremy Blair

Saturday, March 6th – In this weekly edition of his EDH column for The Game Academy, Jeremy goes in depth about the caring and loving EDH archetype known as “Group Hug”. Jeremy has been a pioneer of the EDH format since it’s creation, and has more experience with the EDH format than just about anyone. Check his amazing EDH coverage on YouTube by clicking HERE.

*Editor’s Note* – The Game Academy hosts an EDH league every Sunday; tournament signups begin @ 2 PM and tournament entry is $7. All entry will be given back to top finishers in store credit to use towards anything in the store. Jeremy is always in attendance to play EDH in our league, offer deck advice, and record matches for his popular YouTube channel. If you don’t have an EDH deck, don’t worry, we normally have a few extras if you want to play. See you here!

The Newest Archetype in Magic the Gathering

In last week’s article, we covered the concept of archetypes.  Archetypes were defined as a mental short cut that educate both our overall strategy during competition and a means to organize decision-making under that strategy.  We covered the major three archetypes in magic:  Beat down, Control, and Combo.

When a player decides to build a beat down deck, they look for the capacity to do damage early and often.  The creatures, burn, and other means of destruction packed into the deck have the single goal of obliterating the opponent.  Therefore, the card choices and game-time decisions generally tend to be very aggressive.  The archetype demands this aggression and allows the beat down player to build the deck and play the cards accordingly.

However, the last article noted that playing beat down in EDH can be a tough venture.  Multiplayer games suppress the effectiveness of the beat down strategy through politics and increased life totals.  In fact, it has been written that only Control and Combo are viable contenders as Darwinian survivors in the EDH format.  While this point it debatable, it is certainly a debate that deck architects should cover before purchasing cards and registering a deck for a tournament.

The Newest Archetype:  Group Hug

To understand the player base and nature of games during multiplayer EDH, one must understand some of the goals of the format.  Players like to win, players like to compete, but they might not do so at the exclusion of fun.  EDH players tend to be a particular kind of gamer.  Often times the players will be competitive, but will want to compete by playing according to some different rules.  EDH players seem to admire fantastic game states, mind altering swings in tempo, epic wins, historic fails and all the while sporting a fully blinged-out foil deck!

If folks wanted to be ultra competitive, then they would just play standard or extended.  If they just wanted to play with expensive cards, they would have signed on for legacy or vintage tournaments.  However, they want a little bit of it all.  EDH players seek a balance of the aforementioned characteristics of the game under the umbrella of FUN.  If it is not fun, then why do it?  After all, there are no pro tour admission tickets on the line, nobody is walking away with thousands of dollars in prize money, and often games are run outside of tournament settings.  I have never really picked up an extended Affinity deck and played a bunch of casual games on Sunday afternoon “just for fun.”  I have tested the deck to try to win a tournament or to understand the constructed metagame, but we all have better things we could do for fun.

Enter the Group Hug.  If you are an EDH newcomer or veteran to the format, you should spend some time getting to know the format’s newest archetype.  It comes in many different colors and card combinations, but can best be defined through the use of “helper cards” and fantastic, unselfish strategies to achieve balance in a game, make the game last and expand enjoyment, and ultimately create fantastic game states worthy of recounting over the coming months.

I have had some crazy multiplayer games when someone piloted the Group Hug archetype.  There were cards that had each player drawing 3 cards a turn, dumping our hands into play, and selectively gaining players life as they became the target of others around the table.  Just when you thought things couldn’t get any wilder, some new over-the-top card would have us all bursting with excitement and rolling on the floor laughing at the incredible and ridiculous situations that are possible in Magic.

Group Hug formed as an archetype for a couple of reasons.  The first, and foremost genesis for this deck type was a direct response to the occasional brokenness of the EDH format.  If you really wanted to build a deck that would consistently win on turns 3 or 4, it is possible.  It is not fun, but it is possible.  If you want to sit down with your hundred-card concoction and deny every other player the chance to enjoy a game of magic, you can use some pretty annoying cards and employ an annoying set of social skills to achieve that goal.  It is not fun, but possible.  In a format that seeks to maximize the available design space, increase access to the card pool, and deliver big on fun, there are also shadowy players that will abuse this freedom and crush the opportunity for enjoyment.

Douchebaggery

The Urban Dictionary has over 160 definitions for douche.  The variants of douche bag and douchebaggery knock that estimate easily over 250.  Let’s cover a few of the choice definitions:

Douchebaggery:

The greatest word of all time, simple yet pleasing in its onomatopoeic beauty. For one to commit douchebaggery, he/she is not limited to but may include some or perhaps all of the following behaviors:

- the wearing of flat-billed baseball caps backwards

- using an enormous amount of gel to spike the hair porcupine style

- wearing polo shirts or any other type of shirt with the collar popped, a disgusting gesture that should’ve died in the 1980s with parachute pants

- the sideways peace sign gesture

- overdone pursing of the lips

- too many visits to the tanning salon

- pointing at oneself, holding up beer cans, or making other obscenely immature gestures in solo or group photos

- following trends for the sake of fitting in

- adding “The” or the suffix “-ster” to one’s name, as in “The Rickster”

Essentially, “douchebaggery” is one of those things as easily understood by definition as it is by one’s demonstrations of it.

Douche bag:

Someone who has surpassed the levels of jerk and ass***e, however not yet reached f****r or motherf****r.

Or

A person with a sh***y personality that needs to “take themself the f*** down” or “go home and get their f*****g shine box.” A douche bag usually assumes the form of a hair-gelling pretty-boy but can also be described as an overzealous, pompous, or vexatious ass***e that most people wish were killed with a Mortal Kombat fatality.

Basically, nobody is looking to play multiplayer EDH against a Douche bag.  In online game, the term griefer refers to someone who does not cooperate with others and often finds enjoyment in irritating or annoying players.  These characteristics are taboo at the EDH tables.

Therefore, players began building decks that were the polar opposite of being a douche bag or griefer.  They began to calculate ways to be more cooperative, super political, and essentially a helper deck that serves as a catalyst for fun.  Here are a couple of lists that I have highlighted from the community.  Note:  The lists contain no real win conditions, but are packed with cards that heal, draw cards for everybody, and essentially create amazing game scenarios (like Hypergenesis, Eureka, or  Tempting Wurm).  The decks run very few counter spells, no prison style cards, and would never attempt to blow up lands.  If anything, they might be a tad underpowered and rely on politics and people needing the Group Hug benefit as a means for survival.  I have rarely seen a player running a Group Hug deck be the target of mass attacks or become singled out for another player’s hate cards.

Project Group Hug

General: Phelddagrif

Creatures-

Arbiter of Knollridge

Ghosts of the Innocent

Eternal Witness

Tempting Wurm

Magus of the Vineyard

Veteran Explorer

Noble Benefactor

Braids, Conjurer Adept

Iwamori of the Open Fist

Liege of the Hollows

Questing Phelddagrif

Hunted Wumpus

Peacekeeper

Indentured Djinn

Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer

Heartwood Storyteller

Wall of Shards

Kami of the Crescent Moon

Nullmage Advocate

Spurnmage Advocate

Soldevi Sentry

Spells-

Words of Wisdom

New Frontiers

Condemn

Pongify

Swords to Plowshares

Vision Skeins

Show and Tell

Selesnya Signet

Azorious Signet

Simic Signet

Temporary Truce

Saproling Cluster

Elephant Resurgence

Unifying Theory

Metamorphose

Howling Mine

Spectral Searchlight

Second Sunrise

Fecundity

Windfall

Truce

Dream Fracture

Rites of Flourishing

Samite Sanctuary

Hypergenesis

Horn of Greed

Upwelling

Wheel and Deal

All Suns’ Dawn

Horn of Plenty

Gate to the Aether

Cultural Exchange

Weird Harvest

Fold into Aether

Flux

Font of Mythos

Path to Exile

Divine Intervention

Eledamari’s Vineyard

Arcane Denial

Oath of Lieges

Land

Snow-Covered Island

Snow-Covered Forest

Vivid Grove

Vivid Creek

Mikokoro, Center of the Sea

Ghost Quarter

Selesnya Sanctuary

Vivid Meadow

Snow-Covered Plains

Forbidden Orchard

Simic Growth Chamber

Nimbus Maze

Adarkar Wastes

Azorious Chancery

Flood Plain

Coastal Tower

Calciform Pools

4x Plains

6x Island

9x Forest

Here are a few comments from one of the authors of this list (I believe that Dale Lovelace composed the following section):

How does it win?

It doesn’t, or at least it’s not supposed to. I can actually also almost see it milling someone out, but I wouldn’t count on that one. If this deck wins a game, though, I’ll probably end up dismantling it. That’s just not the point.

So, what does the deck want to do?

Help people out and be everyone’s friend. The suggestions that I want are for possible cards that help out other people.

For a deck that can’t win, you’re playing some powerful cards…

Sometimes, helping someone out means taking down a relevant general (Condemn), a relevant creature (Swords), countering a game ending spell, or doing something similar. In order to do that, though, you should give someone something in return. Swords and Condemn give life, Dream Fracture and Spellshift give the player in question another spell, etc. And Witness/Dawn lets me do all of my cool stuff all over again.

Another Deck List

General 1 Phelddagrif Creatures-27 1 Glory 1 Genesis 1 Eternal Witness 1 Questing Phelddagrif 1 Birds of Paradise 1 Soldevi Sentry 1 Iwamori of the Open Fist 1 Kami of the Crescent Moon 1 Walking Archive 1 Hunted Troll 1 Hunted Lammasu 1 Hunted Phantasm 1 Noble Benefactor 1 Veteran Explorer 1 Nullmage Advocate 1 Pulsemage Advocate 1 Ith,High Arcanist 1 Teferi,Mage of Zhalfir 1 Oracle of Mul Daya 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder 1 Uyo,Silent Prophet 1 Heartwood Storyteller 1 Sibilant Spirit 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror 1 Shizuko,Caller of Autumn 1 Noble Hierarch 1 Magus of the Vineyard 1 Loxodon Hierarch Instants-9 1 Weird Harvest 1 Truce 1 Time Stop 1 Fact or Fiction 1 Capsize 1 Trickbind 1 Bind 1 Sprout Swarm Sorceries-7 1 Prosperity 1 Skyscribing 1 Flux 1 Ancestral Visions 1 Sylvan Scrying 1 Tidings 1 Hypergenesis Enchantments-9 1 Upwelling 1 Heartbeat of Spring 1 Oath of Scholars 1 Oath of Lieges 1 Seed the Land 1 Eladamri’s Vineyard 1 Hive Mind 1 Dual Nature 1 Rites of Flourishing 1 Forced Fruition

Artifacts-9 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Expedition Map 1 Sensei’s Divining Top 1 Howling Mine 1 Font of Mythos 1 Helm of Awakening 1 Gate to the Aether 1 Coalition Relic 1 Mind Stone Lands-38 1 Seaside Citadel 1 Treva’s Ruins 1 Misty Rainforest 1 Windswept Heath 1 Flooded Strand 1 Breeding Pool 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Temple Garden 1 Mystic Gate 1 Wooded Bastion 1 Flooded Grove 1 Skycloud Expanse 1 Sungrass Prairie 1 Sejiri Refuge 1 Graypelt Refuge 1 Reflecting Pool 1 Forbidden Orchard 1 Gemstone Mine 1 Sunpetal Grove 1 Glacial Fortress 1 Vivid Meadow 1 Vivid Creek 1 Vivid Grove 1 Terramorphic Expanse 1 Blinkmoth Nexus 1 Mishra’s Factory 1 Urza’s Factory 1 Tolaria West 1 Rupture Spire 1 Calciform Pools 1 Saltcrusted Steppe 1 Reliquary Tower 1 Horizon Canopy 2 Island 2 Forest 1 Plains

You can see that each player used the archetype in a similar fashion.  There are some variants floating all over the web.  On our YouTube site, we have featured a couple of Group Hug style decks.  The first one we covered followed a tournament in an interview with local judge, Dale Lovelace.  He noted that he did not invent the idea, but these deck types are springing up all over the Internet.  Players love them and the folks that pilot the decks often serve as cornerstones of EDH in the local community.  It is like Christmas shopping with Santa Claus or having a bake sale with Little Debby.  Playing in a group that has a single or even multiple Group Hug decks can make the tournaments a blast and result in some great stories.

Another advantage of the Group Hug archetype (aside from fun and popularity) is the cost of making the build.  I noticed that many of the Game Academy prices on the cards used in this deck were cheap.  The entire deck will run players a lot less to build because the cards are not that “hot.”  Forced Fruition, Hive Mind, and Weird Harvest are not exactly flying off of the shelves.  They are all interesting cards, but give players a chance to win in an entirely different way by just playing the game for fun.

Thanks for reading.  Leave your comments and questions below and we will do our best to provide answers.  The EDH league on Sundays around 2 pm would love to have you.  Build up one of these group hug decks and I will pay your entry fee for the week!  Not only is it fun, but also it will be free the first time you give it a run.