Are hatebears viable?

[TheGildedGoose]

Some of you may remember my neverending quest to find an Abzan deck I enjoy playing. I've tried non-combo Ghave, midrange Teneb, midrange Tymna/Ikra, and Voltron/aggro Doran. None of them particularly blew my skirt up for one reason or another, so now I'm turning to Tymna and Sidar Kondo hatebears.

Are hatebears a viable strategy in 75% metas, though? My Erebos list is decidedly anti-creature, so every hatebear list I've played against has floundered, but it's difficult to say whether or not that's because their lists are poorly assembled or because my deck is their hard counter. Even with asymmetrical wraths and disruption I worry I just fold to midrange decks that play normal creatures.

How do they even win in a format with three players to chew through? Hoof springs to mind, along with Beastmaster Ascension and Triumph of the Hordes. Maybe attrition via cards like Dusk // Dawn, Seasons Past, and mmortal Servitude is enough? Alpha strikes via Rude Awakening and Sylvan Awakening with Sidar out sounds fun, especially since I would be able to recur them.

What are your experiences with hatebears as an archetype when playing against your varied field of tuned decks?

[pokken]

My Ephara deck wins disproportionately, but I'm not sure it's that much of a hatebears deck anymore. It's got quite a few but it wins with reveillark combo most of the time (and elesh norn/multiple sun titans/giant soul herder as backup).

I don't like craterhoof behemoth because there are basically two really strong hatebears that can take over/control games -- torpor orb bears and rule of law bears -- and Craterhoof is not amazing with either of those.

I think if you want to win with combat damage, elesh norn, grand cenobite and pathbreaker ibex and thunderfoot baloth are the three approaches I would consider, followed by garruk wildspeaker as a maybe. Ibex is my favorite if you have green because they have to spend their removal before it attacks, which keeps you from getting blown out.

I'd say that of the games that I win with hatebears, eidolon of rhetoric is absolutely #1, but without blue in your color identity you're going to struggle to play enough at instant speed to capitalize on that. Possible that enough flash enablers (winding canyons, new Vivien champion of the wilds, etc.) could make it work I guess. hushbringer is definitely my #2 win assist.

Don't sleep on winds of abandon as an asymmetric wrath btw; that card has been absolutely bonkers at closing games for me.


I'll say that blue is disproportionately good in these strategies; venser, shaper savant and spell queller and glen elendra archmage and stuff like that really put in work for me. I'd probably be playing Tymna+thrasios or Ludevic+Sidar or something like that if I were not on Ephara.

Having access to spellseeker for cyclonic rift is also pretty huge, as Rift does a lot of work for these kinds of decks as a second strong one-sided sweeper.

You're absolutely right that playing partners is the way to go with those guys, and Tymna has a huge edge. Ludevic has been scarily good for me in practice though; really gets people chipping at each other.

[gilrad]

How do they even win in a format with three players to chew through?

Depends quite a lot on your metagame, actually.

If people generally win through sudden victory states (forcing everyone to concede with a lock, combo wins, dealing thousands of damage at once through craterhoof behemoth and friends), there's not much you can do but do the same. Easiest solution would be something along those lines.

If your meta is a more "life totals matter" playstyle where players are incrimentally winning or losing to damage, then you don't really need a "game closer" to end the game immediately, all you need to do is keep in mind that your opponents' creatures are helping you win as long as they're not hurting you, only kill them if they're attacking you and you don't want to tank the damage, or if they're giving your opponents an advantage you can't keep pace with. Life totals go down through everybody contributing to damage, then when everyone is pretty close to 10 life or so, you make sure that the player who would give you the most trouble if left alive is killed first through strategic unblockability, even on an opponent's creature, or even just a moderate x-burn spell would be enough to seal the deal.

[toctheyounger]

I've been looking for the same; personally I'm just going to keep an eye out or new releases this year. I....have enough decks for now lol

In terms of win cons, bleeders/aristocrats could be pretty feasible in these colours. Ghave used to love them, but y'know, Ghave combos every time you sneeze.

[darrenhabib]

Hate-bear decks only have a hard time closing the game out. The reality is that attacking opponent's for say 6 damage over the course of 20 turns to deliver 120 damage in a 4 player game, doesn't work.
I've played against Thalia and Gaddock decks and they have always been unable to close the game out on purely on creature stax alone, even when they provide the dominant tempo of the table.

But I do play hate-bears in decks where low costing creatures are complimentary to some other ways of getting advantages. Advantages might be draw off creatures, or good ways to recur creatures from graveyard, or whatever.

I do think it's possible to build a really good Tymna the Weaver // Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa hate-bear deck, given that you can get the draw from Tymna.
You just have to make sure that you have nice ways to recur those creatures from your graveyard in the face of removal, of which there are plenty of options.
You also have to get spikey with it. That is an Armageddon or Winter Orb is an actual path to victory. You can't go half-way and chicken out on card selection because your playgroup "doesn't like it".

I would personally have at least one game finishing combination, just so that you don't leave the entire game for opponents to 3vs1 gang-up to get out of the lock down strategy.
For example Karmic Guide, Reveillark, Viscera Seer plus some ETB/LTB creature effect. The Karmic Guide and Reveillark are nice standalone graveyard recursion for the deck, so makes sense.
ETB/LTB can be things like Knight of Autumn to destroy all opponents artifacts and enchantments while gaining infinite life. Or Eternal Witness to get your entire graveyard back. I'm just pointing out that it doesn't mean you have to dedicate additional creatures, but you can play things like Corpse Knight to actually finish off opponents.

[DirkGently]

I used the same commanders for my abzan hatebear deck. You could probably dredge it up on mtgsally if you're curious, should be in my old sig.

Worked fine for me power-wise. It was pretty grindy though. Main thing was that the board-protecting creatures like selfless spirit were instrumental, along with recursion (can't remember what I used exactly but it should be in the list). I played a decent number of wipes to clear the way, along with sidar to fly overhead, and targeted removal for priority targets. As I said, it was overall pretty strong but it was pretty grindy since I wasn't playing any big overrun effects or anything, so it was just plinking away with little dudes for lethal. I was able to hold off several opponents at once for quite a while, though, so it was a pretty strong deck.

[bobthefunny]

Well, there was that post recently about that mono-W heliod that top-4'd a CEDH tournament on the strength of hatebears, but there was also the combo-finish in it.

So yeah, it seems do-able.

Not a hatebear deck, but my Aryel deck is Knight Tribal, and knights tend to have rather smaller bodies than most EDH threats, but it manages to do well at the 75% on the strength of anthems and tribal synergy. While you won't have the synergy exactly, you can play around with the anthems maybe to scale the hatebears into the lategame.

My Linden deck is new, so hard to really evaluate success with it yet, but the first game went well despite being mostly smaller creatures. I rode the back of Valor in Akros, and Jazal Goldmane for the pumps to win. I can also safely say that in the 5 player game, I was responsible for most of the damage dealt to other players. I believe the Eldrazi player hit one not-me person for 12, and there may have been some incidental 1 or 2 damage here and there from other players, but I definitely 40-0'd two players, and 30ish-0'd the other two. So beats can definitely kill people.

With WGB you should have plenty of staying power/reanimation in order to recover from most disruption. With Tymna/Sidar, I would also look to how you plan to protect yourself from crack-backs, and have enough of a defensive power to ward off larger attackers.

[Ulka]

Hatebears if built right are outright oppressive.

That said my playgroup hated my hatebears ephara so much they had to request it be retired. BLue offers a lot to what makes hatebears work as others have said but specifically i find its the counterspells and specifically opposition turnsa all the bears into double duty and that closes the game out very quickly.

[ISBPathfinder]

So, most anything is "viable". My issue with Hatebears is that the strategies are very vast these days and given we do best of one with no sideboards its a lot harder to do it. In formats like modern its expected that players are moving fast cracking fetchlands and trying to do things on or before turn 4 which is why hatebears work better in a format like that.

I don't really think that hatebear or hate cards work in this format most of the time because of the wide variety of cards utilized. Rhystic Study / Aura of Silence are some of the closest to "hate" cards that work but they just work because they are good cards. In the past when commander tuck was a thing we saw more ETB value decks and Torpor Orbs worked better then. With how diverse strategies have gotten most of the time I think its hard to dedicate yourself to being hatebears. Being toolbox with tutors and having access to one or two of those effects might be doable. I have also run things like Pithing Needle when I have access to cycling or care about artifacts.

The lack of sideboards / best of three makes it a lot harder not to mention the inconsistency in drawing any one card in this format. Most hatebears are also a lot worse threat in this format than they are in 60 card formats.

[Dunharrow]

I built a Sidar + Kydele hatebears and have enjoyed it so far. I like it as a 75% deck because it will do better against people who are playing more tutors and more broken interactions.

But yes, hard to close the game with a bunch of little guys.

I think there are a few options:
1. Overrun effects
2. More stax to lock people out of the game (soft locks or hard locks).
3. Combo (possibly the best combo colors)

You can maybe also look at some planeswalkers that can help your strategy. You mentioned Elspeth, Sun's Champion, and her ult is a win condition for sure. Vraska the Unseen looks nice with Sidar.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Don't sleep on winds of abandon as an asymmetric wrath btw; that card has been absolutely bonkers at closing games for me.

And that's joining my "wraths viable in tokens" list. My favorite is still March of Souls.

Hatebears/hate cards are viable. I've used them in Stax strategies to cover any blind spots. (And some of them are downright oppressive all on their own. See any variant of Rule of Law.) Even ones like Blood Seeker and Tunnel Ignus can basically say "welp, you're not going infinite today".

[Toshi]

Yes, i am convinced that hatebears are viable in 75% metas. Best combined with staxy elements, propably.

My own closest take was 2/3 years of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death with Mardu hatebears and aristocrats.
From Kinjalli's Sunwing, Immolation Shaman, Kambal, Consul of Allocation, Harsh Mentor, Aven Mindcensor, Loxodon Gatekeeper, Remorseful Cleric to Maddening Imp and several extorters it was all set to draw out games until i could finish it off with Mirror Entity, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + X, Master of Cruelties and others.

The most crucial element was time. It took a lot of effort to stay alive long enough, to drain and punch everyone else until i could close out the game. Given the nature of bears you won't amass lots of damage, so you either have to tax the rest of the pod hard or include alternative routes to win.
In stronger metas and the case of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death this would usually mean all out stax and/or combos.

I never wanted to go there completely and dismantled the deck for other reasons ultimately. But the niche is certainly there.

[maeos]

I enjoy playing hatebear decks but the main problems as you have discovered is closing out the game once you have sufficiently locked down the board. Here are a few ways I have closed out games.
- Any inf combo: basically you stall until you can tutor for pieces for a combo of your choice. you are in 3 of the best colours for pulling combo pieces.
- Bears in cars: using vehicles to actually do dmg instead of small hatebears. Obviously you arent going to use all the vehicles but some vehicles are great as a way to close out games. Here is a cEDH version of one you can look at for ideas bears in cars from lab maniacs. Remember that just because they are using blue doesnt mean that you have to either. blue is there for the countering and interaction. replacing blue with green gives you access to more bears.
- people scoop because they cant do anything: stuff that do not let your opponents play and then they just scoop cause they understand they can't do anything. (examples would be living plane/ nature's revolt + elesh norn)

[onering]

In 75% they absolutely are, so long as you don't plan on winning solely through turning them sideways without support. You don't necessarily need a combo for 75%, but you should have some sort of strong synergy or repeatable non-combat wincon, or some haymaker plays. Hoof and other haymakers are a great option in Abzan, half a dozen hate bears on the board then a Hoof is spicy enough to close games so long as you've been getting in for incidental damage. In Abzan you can use the half dozen death trigger drain creatures and a sac and Rez engine to close out games. You also have access to the big black X spells like Sanguine Bond, Torment of Hailfire, and Debt to the Deathless to finish tables. Basically you need something that finishes the job once the initial period if aggro from the hate bears ends. You use the bears early to get peoples life down a bit then play control until you draw a finisher.

[Mimicvat]

I've built Kondo/Tymna fairly recently as a hatebears deck, awesome to see its getting some recognition as it was a very unpopular combination on edhrec.

I play in a semi-competitive meta, without a lot of the easier combos or the common and high powered 'staples' such as rift or craterhoof. We try to stick to "life totals matter" as Gilrad put it. Deck is currently on the weaker side of the meta but its also in a fairly early iteration.

I feel that in some ways the deck would actually perform better (once tuned) for a more combo based cEDH style meta when combined with other hate pieces, where some players entire wincons might be shut off until a particular bear dies. IE, Thalia, Heretic Cathar vs most Kiki-Jiki combos is far more impactful than most bears vs things bigger than bears turning sideways.

So far, have found that the +1 to noncreature spell cost bears, tutor hate and the torpor orb bears have the biggest impact in this meta. The rule of law bears haven't done much and are at the point where I am considering cutting them. Hushbringer and her friends get active groans and can entirely shut down some of the greedier etb based decks I play against.

However, I think this deck is only working because we are light on wraths. I differ in opinion to many people here in that I think the main issue is staying alive/relevant rather than securing the win. Without counterspells the deck is reliant on heroic intervention etc to protect your board, and the good iterations of those cards are mostly out of my budget. For winning, chipping in with unblockable and then a large anthem or overrun effect later on is definitely good enough here. Mirror Entity is also a superstar, getting things through the blockers and then making them big. Theres also a few cheap sources of extort that can scale pretty well with cheap bears.

I also think that armageddon and friends could have a place in this type of deck. Problem is mitigating a more aggressive boardstate held by your opponents. I really like whites size-based conditional wipes such as Dusk / Dawn and Citywide Bust type cards here.

[pokken]

This type of deck should really have a few ways to recover from wraths (eerie interlude, dusk, intervention, thrilling encore etc). I wouldn't stress out too much if they start wrathing. Tymna will fix a lot of problems on her own with her CA too.