Conditions Allow - Lagomos, Hand of Hatred EDH

(Lagomos, Hand of Hatred

| Art by Tuan Duong Chu)

Cult of the Dragon

Hello, and welcome back to Conditions Allow. In this series, I take a legendary creature with a drawback, and turn it into a strength.

The Brothers' War may be upon us, but I'm not finished with the legends of Dominaria United quite yet. This week on the show we've got former cultist of Belzenlok

Lagomos, Hand of Hatred

In Commander, this condition isn't hard to meet, but it does require some setup to use. Perhaps more importantly, it suggests a particular kind of combo for you to set up. Whether you use Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

I don't want to build a straightforward aristocrats deck, though. That would make using Lagomos, Hand of Hatred

Dragons Demand Sacrifice

Magic has a long history of Dragons demanding sacrifices and tributes, and Lagomos is happy to carry on this tradition. He helps himself, by providing an Elemental token every turn, but we're going to need more fodder than that to summon any Dragons.

Creatures that easily come back from the graveyard will form the core of this deck's strategy. While they're not great for sacrificing to Sacrifice

I'm also including a number of payoffs for sacrificing these small creatures. Altar's Reap

Of course, Sacrifice

Going Big

Every Storm deck needs rituals to keep its mana pool full, and this deck leans on Sacrifice

The other important half of a Storm deck is card draw. To keep casting spells, you need to see a lot of cards. For this deck, I'm leaning on the black spells that require you to sacrifice creatures. Once again, this helps you get to the five creature count for Lagomos

Dragon's Approach

Once you kill five creatures and get up to nine mana, you're ready to use Lagomos, Hand of Hatred

With the first copy of Dragonstorm, you'll grab Lathliss, Dragon Queen. Then, when you put Terror of the Peaks into play, you'll get a 5/5 token and deal five damage to an opponent. Utvara Hellkite enters next, alongside a token for another eleven damage.

Finally, get Dragonlord Kolaghan. She gives all your creatures haste, so you can attack and create eight more 6/6 Dragons from Utvara Hellkite's triggered ability. If you had to discard any of these to Thrill of Possibility or Frantic Search earlier on, you can grab Bladewing the Risen to pull it out of the graveyard, and if you have an extra Storm or two, you can also put Scourge of Valkas into play to deal even more damage.

I've selected these Dragons to deal as much damage as possible with a relatively low Storm count. With just four copies of Dragonstorm, this setup can take out two players easily, and all three opponents if life totals have shrunk a little bit. If you'd can find space for it, I'd love to add Terror of Mount Velus to make it even more likely you can take out three players at once with a Storm count of five or six. Let me know what you might swap for the Terror from the decklist.

Lagomos, Hand of Hatred has an undeniably powerful ability that points you towards a certain style of play. I've done my best to expand outside of that style as much as I can without making it even harder to activate his effect. I do like that casting Dragonstorm isn't enough to end the game on its own. You have to attack to get the full value of your Dragons, which gives your opponents lots of opportunities to interact. This means you have to pick your moment carefully, which should stop this deck from feeling too linear as well.

But let me know what you think. How have you built Lagomos, Hand of Hatred? Did I overlook any key synergies? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading!