- Commander Overview
- Tovolar, Dire Overlord // Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge
- How to Play the Deck
- Synergy’s in the deck
- Phases of the Game
- Card Breakdowns
- Ramp
- Card Draw/Card Advantage
- Removal
- Protection
- Utility / Support
- Mana Base
- Win Conditions
- Strengths of the Deck
- Weaknesses of the Deck
- Deck Testing/Matchups
- Conclusion
Commander Overview
Day and Night, what a fun mechanic! All jokes aside, Day and Night can be a bit daunting to track. Still, overall, it is a marginally fine mechanic that is a huge flavor win for werewolves, and being able to flip all of our permanents at once can be especially insane. Tovolar does provide one thing that many Gruul decks don’t have a ton of access to, and that is a consistent source of card draw for the deck, and when combined with the ramp, Tovolar is a truly strong Gruul commander. One of the best aspects of Tovolar is that the card draw it provides is evergreen and is present on both sides, and both the daybound and nightbound sides are pretty awesome. Being able to either transform all of our werewolves or buff them up is very strong. Tovolar is a Gruul machine and a great option for werewolves. This deck is all about fun and flipping our creatures.
Tovolar, Dire Overlord // Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge
EDH BRACKET
The average current preconstructed deck.
- No Mass Land Denial
- No Chaining Extra Turns
- No 2-Card Infinite Combos
- No Game Changers
- Few Tutors
How to Play the Deck
The only really complicated part of this deck is remembering and keeping track of the conditions that flip or unflip your werewolves and whether it is day or night on the field. Outside of this is a pretty simple Gruul deck full of Gruul decks, like attacking hard and swinging big. Because of the heavy focus on remembering so many triggers, this deck is best for an intermediate; it’s not beginner-friendly, and even people with a few games under their belt may struggle. While this deck isn’t the most complicated in the format, it has a lot of triggers to remember.
Synergy’s in the deck
Our whole deck is synergized around our werewolves. We have some cards that support this amazingly, like Full Moon's Rise, which is not only a strong buff for our board but can be a great way to recover them after some form of mass destruction, like a bad combat for us. Druids' Repository is not only a pretty thematic card for the deck, but allows us to stockpile a ton of mana, which is great for Tovolar’s nightbound side or cards like Kessig Wolf Run. While we typically aren’t a great spot, if we have to cast it, Creeping Renaissance is an amazing mass recursion spell and can allow us to recover much quicker than our opponents. Overall, we have a lot of synergies within our deck.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: Just like most decks, the early-game is all about establishing support cards and maybe even our board! We have quite a few creatures in the two-mana slot that are great support pieces, like Goblin Anarchomancer and Scorned Villager, which can help us get the overall game plan started. Support cards like Herald's Horn can be extremely helpful for us as well. One of the best aspects of the early game is that Tovolar only costs three, so we can start them out early, and that early card draw can be great for us.
Mid-Game: The mid-game is basically the early-game but scaled up a ton. We get a lot bigger, go a lot wider, and swing a lot more, and with the help of Tovolar, draw a ton of cards for the deck. We can put some pressure on early and have a pretty threatening board quite quickly. Our deck synergizes perfectly so that the mid-game can be great for us.
Late-Game: The late-game doesn’t change much for us, but we do have access to a lot more mana, so if Tovolar is on his night side, we can easily pump a werewolf huge and hit like a truck. Cards like Ulrich of the Krallenhorde can also help us deal a lot of damage, and if all else fails, we have cards like Unnatural Growth to ensure we hit big. The game plan doesn’t really change here; keep on swinging.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
I know this comes as no surprise, but as a Gruul deck, we are pretty good at ramping. Druids' Repository can come down quite early and, more importantly, get a ton of counters quickly, allowing us to bring out a ton of mana and ramp a ton. I always love to include Cultivate and Kodama's Reach in my decks as they are cheap and easy sources of ramp for the deck and can provide some good color fixing for our deck as well. We also have some mana fixing + ramp in Chromatic Lantern and Arcane Signet. While we aren’t going to have seven or eight lands on turn four, we can ramp pretty well in this deck relative to the mana cost of our game plan.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Tovolar is by far the best source of card draw we have in our deck; they are almost always on the field, and we hit with our werewolves a lot, so they are by far the most consistent source of card draw our deck has. In this way, we certainly rely on Tovolar. But we have some good alternatives, like Hermit of the Natterknolls, which can be great against blue decks or any deck that tries to interact on our turn. Herd Heirloom is a great combat trick and can be a source for additional card draw. While we primarily rely on Tovolar, we still keep our hands full.
Removal
One of our best ways to remove our opponents stuff is through combat, our creatures are pretty big and overall just oversized compared to our opponents, so killing our opponents stuff in combat is quite easy for us to do, as far as traditional removal we have a few sources but this is not a huge aspect of our deck, we would much rather run over our opponents than care about what they are doing. Cards like Decimate are quite easy for us to cast and can hit a variety of targets, allowing us to disrupt one or many opponents. Beast Within and Moonlight Hunt are both ways to take our problematic things, our opponents have. While not strictly a piece of removal, Master of the Wild Hunt can be a great way to take out a big creature or a commander, it also provides us with some nice wolf production!
Protection
This is a very small aspect of our deck, but we do have a few protection pieces in the deck. I always love Tamiyo's Safekeeping, just a cheap way to ensure we keep Tovolar on the field. The same is true for Tyvar's Stand, but we do have the option to buff our creature, so this can be used offensively as well. While not strictly creature protection, I got a lot of great usage out of Moonmist, which can be a great offensive card to flip all of our stuff, but more importantly, can protect us from our opponents’ creatures, as long as we aren’t playing a Tovolar or other werewolf commander mirror match. While we aren’t great at protection, we can do our best to keep Tovolar on the field.
Utility / Support
Let’s highlight some of my favorite cards in the deck! Avabruck Caretaker is truly the whole package for our deck; their frontside is a great buff for Caretaker, and we are quite hard to remove. Still, when we flip them, we get the same great ability for combat, but more importantly, give all of our stuff hexproof, which can be especially against removal-heavy decks. Geier Reach Bandit is another card that I originally underestimated, but getting this down early and flipping it can be wild, allowing all of our werewolves to come in on their werewolf side, can be an insane power swing for this, even if it’s only for one or two turns. Ill-Tempered Loner is a really cool design on both sides, allowing us to weaponize our blockers into damage, which can be a great way to hurt our opponents, especially in the late game when attacking isn’t as effective since everyone has a huge board. Filling our board up and going wide is a big part of our deck, and Howling Moon helps a lot with this. If an opponent casts two or more spells and flips our werewolves, we are at the very least going to get a token out of it; the combat buff is pretty nice as well.
Mana Base
Win Conditions
Beyond our on-color duals and some helpful lands like Command Tower, we have some pretty awesome non-basics in the deck like Three Tree City, which can be a huge ramp piece for our deck, and since pretty much all of our creatures are werewolves, we can turn two mana into so much more. Reliquary Tower is necessary in this deck. I originally didn’t have it in, but we can draw so many cards off of Tovolar that it’s necessary, especially if we don’t have a ton of mana. Lastly, I want to highlight Kessig Wolf Run, which is truly the most werewolf-focused non-basic we’ve ever gotten and is a great late-game mana sink and an easy way to finish off an opponent.
Strengths of the Deck
We are a Gruul deck that has a consistent source of card draw, and we always have new things to do.
All of our cards feed off of and synergize with each other.
Weaknesses of the Deck
We are not the fastest deck; we are pretty aggressive, but not like a mono-red deck. Watch out for some early-game damage.
Decks that are board wipe heavy can be good against us since outside of Creeping Renaissance we don’t have a lot of recursion.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Ulrich of the Krallenhorde. Matchup Record: 2-2
A true werewolf mirror match, and a matchup where our Moonmist doesn’t work! This is a speed game; whoever has the better showing on the board will typically win. Ulrich’s buff can be nasty on a trample creature, so while you are aggressive in this matchup, make sure you leave up some blockers. Hit hard and try to be more aggressive than them, and you should get the win.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Cult of the Waxing Moon, Decimate and Full Moon's Rise.
Game 2: Vs Grenzo, Havoc Raiser. Matchup Record: 3-1
I was nervous about this matchup. Goad can be pretty good against us since we are a deck that attacks a lot, but overall, we are ok with this. Just be very careful of some of their stronger creatures, and they do love stealing our stuff. Just try to focus them down as much as you can.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Blasphemous Act, Unnatural Moonrise and Sphere Grid.
Game 3: Vs Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon. Matchup Record: 1-3
A pretty rough matchup, we really don’t have many answers with flying. Since our life total is effectively reduced to ten because of infect, we can struggle, oh, and on top of that, they have access to all of the wonderful black removal spells like Toxic Deluge, if they stumble, we can run them over, but this is a bad matchup, they are truly set up to beat us.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Decimate, Moonmist and Howlpack Piper.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed it! Gruul werewolves have been a lot of fun to play and test, while tracking day and night and tracking what flips and what doesn’t can be a bit annoying, this deck is absolutely worth playing, as long as you remember your triggers and remember to keep on swinging, you will get a ton of enjoyment out of this one.
