MTGNexus

In the last couple of months, I took apart my dumb fatties deck. It was Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder + Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper. The deck had been around in some form or another (sometimes half disassembled, but usually playable) with different colours and subthemes for maybe five years, with the generals changing but the idea being the same - a big pile of power and toughness turning sideways into people.

But the deck sucked. It pretty much always sucked, except against other fatties decks. Fatties is not the greatest strategy in EDH, outside of looping a couple of the more egregious ones such as Avenger of Zendikar, and fatties without haste or etb value are particularly trash with all the board wipes. The deck hasn't been successful for a long time and it eventually bit the bullet so I could use the expensive 4c mana base for other things

It is time now... time for the deck to be reborn once again. From the ashes of failure the phoenix of big smashy bois shall rise again!

I'm looking for this forums personal favourites for big dumb fatty decks. Whatever floats your boat, as long as its big and turns sideways.

Dinosaurs have been coming up here a decent bit lately, could go that route. Big stompy Timmy things. Mainly thinking of Ixalan, Ikoria hasn't been explored much yet.

Mono- with Molimo or Multani perhaps. Ramp like crazy and beat face with a scaling fatty.

Doran, the Siege Tower|J17 - You could still run Ikra and play a slightly different if mildly dated pile of P/T.

or Abzan dragons - find a way to make a dragon deck w/o for the challenge, also kinda playing into your previous deck's style and theme.

-based Sea Monsters - Original Zegana as my vote for general. Draw spell that becomes a voltron option if surf and turf beatings isn't an option in the CZ is smart.

I run a Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma deck that has been very, very satisfying to play. It took me a while to tweak it enough to where it mitigates a lot of mono-green's weaknesses, namely board wipes, flyers, and card advantage. The goal is to get fatties out early and wreck face with them. It's very Timmy, but it's very fun. List here.

If you want to be successful with just turning big dumb fatties sideways, Maelstrom Wanderer is the only answer. Probably my favourite deck I have.

Fair warning, though: even if the deck is just full of big dumb fatties, it's definitely still too strong for some (many?) playgroups. My group plays 75 with occasional infinite combos, very rare MLD. I've intentionally excluded some powerhouse/busted cards like Food Chain and most of the extra turn spells, and have no infinites or MLD in the deck. It's still one of the strongest decks in our group.

I only currently have one fatty-based deck: Thada Adel, Acquisitor. Steal mana rocks, cast giant robots, sea monsters, and Eldrazi. Definitely capable of keeping up in ramp with the green decks, and running off of your opponents' artifacts makes the deck play out a bit differently every game, depending on what they have available.

I have two big dumb fatties decks:

1. Maelstrom Wanderer which I switch to omnath, locus of the roil for lower powered groups. Landfall themed.
https://deckbox.org/sets/2383669

2. Mono red Golos, Tireless Pilgrim with all my favorite red fatties I don't get to play other places, with such luminaries as scourge of the throne and molten primordial.

https://deckbox.org/sets/2603527?s=c&o=a


I like both decks a lot, but I find the red fatties are amazing. If I were going to make another deck I might consider xenagos, god of revels with all the green and red dummies, which are all super fun and giving them haste is sweet.

Either maelstrom wanderer or mayael the anima

My big, dumb fatties are demons. Judith, the Scourge Diva runs 42 apostles, 7 demons, and 4 demon facilitator creatures. The demons are Doom Whisperer; Rakdos, Lord of Riots; Razaketh, the Foul-Blooded; Rune-Scarred Demon; Sire of Insanity; Dread Cacodemon & Vilis, Broker of Blood. That said, while they certainly turn sideways as good as any fattie, they're mostly there to guarantee I can machine-gun my opponents down with a smooth cycle of apostle sacrifice and Judith damage.

I'm not sure if I have a dedicated 'big dumb fatty' deck so much as I just spread my love of big beaters around almost every deck I have. Thinking about it, almost every deck has several things that are 1.) on theme for the deck and 2.) definitely qualify as a big dumb fatty whose primary purpose is to beat face if such a need arises.

Although I guess my Atla Palani, Nest Tender eggs into big dinosaurs&stuff (with enrage) is closest I have to a direct big beaters deck.

Usually the problem with fatty decks is that people run too many fatties. In reality you only need Zacama, Primal Calamity and nothing else.

Xenagos, God of Revels. With the upgrades that the deck has been getting recently, it can kill players faster than any other fatty deck while still not heavily compromising on sustainability.

plushpenguin wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Xenagos, God of Revels. With the upgrades that the deck has been getting recently, it can kill players faster than any other fatty deck while still not heavily compromising on sustainability.

I've said it before but the thing I like about Xen is that he really doesn't require overcommitting. You can just play one or two fatties and bash with them at double sized, and it puts so much pressure on that you don't need to go wide at all. It definitely has some advantages over other decks in that respect.

I'm a big fan of battlecruiser magic so most of my decks revolve around casting fatties and turning them sideways, sometimes I go wide, but generally even then they've become fat via counters etc.

So my main one is Xenagos, God of Revels since it turns even mid-range creatures into "big dumb fatties" and I really love haste these days.

Others I like are...

Rakdos, Lord of Riots. Loves the dumb fatties, obviously classically Eldrazi. In a 4+player group it gives a huge discount so easily.

Nikya of the old ways. Pretty much designed for the job, gives you an excuse to fill your deck with the choicest gruul beaters.

Zacama, Primal Calamity is one of the biggest and dumbest fatties. My deck is to ramp hard to either Zacama or other big dumb fatties

Several mentions of Zacama so far, and that's not a bad recommendation by any means, but I've got to say that Gishath, Sun's Avatar is a riot to play without being too degenerate. I guess you could say Gishath is a milder version of Zacama or Maelstrom Wanderer, but it still can pack some infinite combos like Marauding Raptor/Polyraptor for when the turn stuff sideways plan isn't quite cutting the mustard with fewer than 3 million dinos.

As uninspiring as it is, I played Selvala, Heart of the Wilds for a couple of years, and she could definitely make the fatties rise to the top.

More than anything, I played lots of things that rewarded giant critters; Rishkar's Expertise-like effects, Berserk that kind of thing.

All the big fatties general and the most iconic of them all not mentioned yet

animar, soul of elements you can get fatties out so fast in this one

Thassa, God of the Sea is my favorite big, dumb bois commander. She does it with style.

Gishath, Sun's Avatar is a great fatty beater that's decently strong.
Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is a just a stupidly strong general. I bet you could make a decent Craw Wurm tribal with him.
The Ur-Dragon is good for big beefy dragon tribal.
Braids, Conjurer Adept can be a decent general for cheating beef into play.

Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma served this role flawlessly. Super fun, super simple research, super frustrating for people to deal with knowing this insane speed you're getting fat hurled down with. I suspect Surrak, the Hunt Caller would fill a a similar role (whom is also quite fantastic in the Goreclaw 99).

My Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck (below) is all about getting fatties into play on the cheap, and it usually does a pretty good job of doing so. It's not too difficult to disrupt the general game plan, but it can be explosive early and it has a solid late-game where you can just hard-cast large bodies.

My Niv-Mizzet Reborn deck, you can check out in my signature.

I use my tribal Elementals deck under Horde of Notions which throws lots of big fatties on the table and likes them to die so they can be yonked on the field again.

https://archidekt.com/decks/69213#Elemental_Tribal

I'll second all the Maelstrom Wanderer opinions. One of my favorite decks for a long while. Just a lot of big temur creatures, ramp, and Sunbird's invocation, and life is good!