Hurska Sweet-Tooth Commander Deck Tech
New Year, New Perspective
One of my favorite articles I've written was a Gaddock Teeg deck tech I wrote for EDHREC, published just after the New Year in 2022.
That article was about starting off the new year on a positive note, breaking through my negative preconceptions about Hate Bears decks and gaining an understanding and appreciation for them. This article is also about a bear, and also about an ability I happen to... strongly dislike.
Life gain decks tend to bother me because they: extend games, exacerbating issues with timing and technology; lead to poor threat analysis due to missing that life disparity can be as threatening as board state; and durdle a lot, taking tons of game actions but not actively advancing gameplans or contributing towards ending the game in a reasonable time period or exciting way.
But like Gaddock Teeg before it, Hurska Sweet-Tooth is a game-changer.
Pump Spells
Hurska is a sweet commander, both in the literal, having a sweet tooth and gorging itself on Food, a la Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, and in the figurative, having two abilities that feed each other, also both literally and figuratively. When Hurska enters, it makes a Food.
It can pump a creature for either a green or white mana, any time we gain life, equal to the amount of life gained. At a minimum, we can pop the Food to proc the pump for a three-mana Giant Growth and Healing Salve. We can do this in combat, pumping any creature that isn't blocked, but the more redundancy we have, the more bashing we can do!
Unlike last week's Rube Goldberg combo deck, this is a more typical synergy-laden deck. We're trying to use incidental life gain in the jobs our deck already does, in order to accrue advantage. The life gain pieces then pump our whole team, such as Archangel of Thune, or super-pump a creature with Sierra, Nuka's Biggest Fan, who rewards us for attacking by accumulating Quest counters and making Food tokens to gain more life. I'm a fan.
Ramp
This deck is deceptively mana-hungry, but having green as a main color helps to mitigate that. We need mana to cast spells or to crack Food as well as to activate our commander's ability. Thankfully, Sam, Loyal Attendant makes the Food cost less to eat, so we can always stop for Second Breakfast!
Buried amongst our litany of typical mana dorks is Accomplished Alchemist, who makes X mana of any one color, where X is the amount of life gained that turn. By using that in the second main phase, it can operate almost like a green Neheb, the Eternal.
In the situations where we have an excess of Food and need more mana, Jaheira, Friend of the Forest turns our tokens into Llanowar Elves. That's particularly helpful because we're already running just about every functional reprint, as a one-mana body is better than a one-mana Sol Ring most of the time.
Return from the Wilds is secretly a fairly powerful card, as it is a three-mana Rampant Growth (which we're already running) that also makes either a body or a Food. Each of its abilities works with what we're doing, and it can even make a body and a Food that both tap for mana with Jaheira out!
Draw
Shamanic Revelation is a green staple and a solid card in any go-wide deck that can run it. While we're not necessarily going as wide as other decks that want the effect, we are looking to make creatures big and gain life, and the Revelation gains life if we have big creatures.
Alhammarret's Archive multiplies our life gain and card draw, making this a powerful card that makes almost every card we play exponentially better. While the card doesn't do anything on its own, it unlocks our synergies and drastically increases our clock.
Celestine, the Living Saint is a card advantage engine and one of the few ways we have to get back pieces from the grave. Celestine reanimates based on the life we gain, and she has lifelink to operate as a Sun Titan with flying that can return bigger things when we gain more life. Given that we only need to gain one life to return another engine, Esper Sentinel, Celestine is quite a fearsome card.
Pulse of Murasa is probably the most innocuous-looking card in the deck, but I've learned from experience not to underestimate this powerhouse. I'll even run it in non-lifegain decks, as it can be used as a political card (it doesn't specify whose graveyard), as an instant-speed Regrowth, so we can use it on end step and re-cast on our turn, and it gains life, which this deck loves.
Removal
Heliod's Intervention is a potent modal card which we can use to pick apart our opponents' artifacts and enchantments or to double-lifelinking-fireball an opponent with our commander. Again, it's an instant, so we can do this as a combat trick and super pump an unblocked creature!
As a Midwesterner, I knew I had to include Stew the Coneys when I saw its name. No, it has nothing to do with Coney Dogs, which are absolutely delicious, but the name was too hilarious for me to ignore. In terms of the card itself, it's a fight spell that makes a Food. Because making a Food is part of the resolution of the effect, however, we can't pop the Food to use our commander's ability to pump the creature and impact the fight. It's still a powerful card, but that is a niche interaction that's important to recognize.
The general plan is to ramp into a developed board, gain incidental life through the spells and Food we create, and then bash through for large chunks of damage by leveraging our wide board into creating positive attacks, which we can swing with our commander's ability.
