Kydele / Esior -- Hand Size Tribal

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Sinis
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Post by Sinis » 2 years ago

Not much history behind this deck. Originally, I was enchanted by Eligeth, Crossroads Augur, and wanted to build a deck around it. To mitigate the cost, I decided to partner in Green, and then the logical partner was Kydele, since she rewards you for drawing cards (which presumably the scry stuff would just give you on the cheap). That led to the question 'well, how big is your hand, anyway?', and most of the theme followed. Some of the cards dovetailed very nicely; Thassa, God of the Sea scrys, but also can make huge hand size guys unblockable. Kydele cost 4, so In Search of Greatness would let you put a free hand size lad in (since most of them cost 5). Alrund, God of the Cosmos // Hakka, Whispering Raven had an early game scry/draw piece, and would later come out as a wincon in his own right.

It didn't work as well as I'd liked, but, I found Esior to be a reasonable replacement. Cheap for card drawing equipment, resistant to removal, and gave Kydele a little protection also. Given that Kydele is the star of this show, the second commander as Esior felt pretty much okay, though I'd perhaps consider a third colour to give this deck more options to draw. There are still some hold-overs from the Eligeth version that I haven't quite gotten around to replacing, or have proven too indispensable to remove.



Hand Size Tribal

Planeswalker

Approximate Total Cost:

Main Strategy: Draw a bunch of cards, and then put out a guy who is huge for having those cards. Beat face. Get around blockers with Loxodon Warhammer, Shadowspear, and Rogue's Passage. It's not especially complicated, and there are other ways to sneak your guys by, like by tapping all your opponents' creatures with Cryptic Command, bouncing them with Wash Out, or Mystic Confluence. Additionally, Esior can become a hand-size beast with Empyrial Plate.

Side Strategies: Sometimes getting through is a pain, and can't be done because of a Maze of Ith, or Glacial Chasm. There are a couple of other ways to win: Triskaidekaphile, who will just outright let you win the game, Psychosis Crawler, who will just batter people for you drawing cards, or Tomoya the Revealer who can force people to draw out if you activate it a couple of times in a row on the same person while holding a huge number of cards.

Cute Synergies:
Kefnet the Mindful/Soramaro, First to Dream + Mystic Sanctuary: Get back an instant or sorcery over and over again. This can produce some locks, like tapping someone's creatures every turn with Cryptic Command. I've intentionally left out extra turn cards that don't exile themselves, because I don't want to take infinite turns.
Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Equipment: Kydele is actually really difficult to leverage with a few exceptions. Often you spend mana on card draw, and then have nothing left to dump Kydele's mana into. Equipment can often soak up that resource.
Realm Seekers: These guys are huge with no evasion, but they can tutor Rogue's Passage.

Card Choices
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath: this deck doesn't play out of the graveyard at all except for Kefnet/Soramaro+Mystic Sanctuary. It's an acceptable 3 mana ramp spell, and the escape option is actually fairly reasonable, here. It doesn't hurt that he's a biggo.
Alrund, God of the Cosmos // Hakka, Whispering Raven: Initially, I intended to play Hakka more with Eligeth, but, this still feels mostly welcome. Alrund can sometimes make good on Sylvan Library peeks, or Brainstorm stacking. Absent more information, the correct card type to name is the type of something you desperately need, or 'land' if you just want more cards in hand.
As Foretold: We generally want as much tempo as possible, considering the glut of cards we have. This also has some cute synergy with Ancestral Vision.
Omniscience: Pretty much the same as As Foretold, only bigger. The dream, of course, is to somehow draw 7 cards, and cast it with Kydele and three blue sources.
Cultivator Colossus: Since we draw a lot of cards and are generally limited to one land play a turn, this guy represents a huge draw, and a major leap forward for developing mana. It's about as good as it could possibly be in this deck.
Sword of War and Peace: This doesn't draw any cards, and the evasion is not especially amazing, but the lifegain presents insurmountable barriers to some decks. Also, other decks drawing a lot of cards deserved to be punished. That's OUR game!

Why all the snow stuff?
Initially, one of the big scry cards for the deck was Graven Lore for Eligeth. This didn't stick, but I'm too lazy to change the mana base.

Where's your Breeding Pool?
Would you believe I own more Misty Rainforests than Breeding Pools? It's actually kind of embarrassing.

Do you like Cultivate/Kodama's Reach?
They probably should be in this deck, if anything because they put cards in my hand (though, not 'drawn' for Kydele's purposes). Often, this deck plays a 2-mana ramp card into Kydele.

Isn't Sea Gate Restoration // Sea Gate, Reborn pretty much mandatory for this deck?
Yes, I've ordered one.

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Haman
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Post by Haman » 1 year ago

I owned one of these big hand deck last time,
Was builded on a huggy shell
There is a yeti u missed
I would actually run the black red sword instead of fire ice .. killing artifact is added bonus.. but it is just my opinion. Great deck

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