PokeDecks: Hamza, the Cufant

The Elephant Typal Never Forgets!

Last article, we looked at an unusual typal deck: Jiwari Earthquakes. Chock full of Earthquake variants, the deck looked to blast opponents over and over again with big red X spells. This week, we'll look at a more typical, but still grossly underrepresented, typal deck: Elephants!

Today's deck is the giant, lumbering, intelligent, social, and (mostly) peaceful animal: Hamza Elephants!

Hamza, Guardian of Arashin

The deck makes Elephants. Elephants are big, heavy, and thick-skinned. They also stampede over opponents. What's more, they're adorable. Frankly, those terms can also describe me, so it makes sense that I'd have an affinity for them, but my ties to these noble creatures goes a few steps further.

I love typal decks because they simplify Rule Zero conversations and catch people's attention who might not know me, the commander, or even the game of Magic in general. You don't need to know those things to root on an Elephant deck; you just need to like Elephants! I've run typal streams; I have a typal podcast (Quote of Arms), and I've even run a casual 16-person typal tournament, with $20 donated to charity in each podwinner's name and gifting a Cavern of Souls to the grand champion!

There are plenty of well-known and well-supported typal decks out there: Elves, Dragons, and Goblins are among those typically supported in main sets, with others getting more and more love over the years. There are others, however, where there hasn't been a lot of official support, especially when members of the type are printed sporadically and do not synergize with one another. This is where the challenge comes in: how can the deckbuilder MAKE the flavor of the type come across?

Thankfully, the PokeAlter was easier than figuring out how the deck would represent the type. Both of the primary pachyderm Pokemon are defensive Elephants: the Phanpy and Donphan line, as well as the Cufant and Copperajah line. I preferred the Cufant line because I tutor a number of students of Indian descent, and one student in particular had it as a favorite Pokemon because it represented his culture. It helps that Cufant has defensive stats and a strong defensive typing, which match what Elephants are typically like. But how do we get the animal and Pokemon to translate to Magic?

Hamza's Abilities

Hamza is, first and foremost, an Elephant. That's already a major reason for its inclusion as the commander of the deck. It also references counters, reducing its cost and the cost of creatures we cast by the number of creatures with counters on them. While counters aren't a major theme of the deck, there are plenty of powerful pachyderms that do feature counters, and even use them to spread onto our other creatures!

Venerated Loxodon is a powerful card in a variety of formats. It can be powered out for free by using the Selesnya convoke ability, and it then puts counters on everything used to convoke it! This is a really strong swing in power on board, which can enable big turns, like casting our commander and subsequent spells for cheap!

Conclave Sledge-Captain provides counters and doubles the counters. It enables beatdowns in addition to spreading the counters to different creatures. This type of aggression is the kind of material advantage that makes it so that even vanilla Elephants can stampede over opponents.

Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant is one of the few ways to work a flying or reach creature into the deck so that we don't just lose to creatures in the air. It also adds counters to tapped creatures when our creatures leave the battlefield, allowing our surviving Elephants to avenge their fallen compatriots.

Take that, poachers!

Cufant's Moves

Unlike many of the decks I make, there's no subtlety here: the deck is designed to play Elephants and beat down with them. We want to lean those big bodies against our opponents, pushing them until they break under the massive weight and strength of an army of mid-power green and white creatures that have been boosted by counters from a variety of places. This weight pushing on an opponent is perfectly encapsulated in the Steel-type move Heavy Slam, which does more damage when the user is slower.

Song of Freyalise is a great card at using our Elephants to make more Elephants, like with Venerated Loxodon, while also adding counters and keywords with the last chapter. This allows our Elephants to spread out wide and smash in with extra damage, whatever we should need.

Cryptolith Rite is a more straightforward version of the Song, which "just" turns our Elephants into grounded Birds of Paradise. The communal effects, like convoke, Song, and Rite all work to replicate the feeling of close-knit communities that Elephants enjoy, even those born or raised in captivity.

Loxodon Restorer is one more convoke-able Elephant, but, unlike Song and Venerated Loxodon, it doesn't provide any advantage to the convoking creatures, except to give them a new friend to play with.

So...we've got waves of Elephants working together as a unit to apply pressure to the opponent, but how do we address their toughness and defensive ability?

The Perfect Fusion

Elephants are also known for their firm, leathery hides, which protect them from the elements, from predators, and from hunters. While they are penetrable, it takes a concerted effort to do so. A steel-type move that Cufant learns to imitate this is Iron Defense. Wrap in Vigor and Heroic Intervention are green staples that bring this effect into Magic, but how can we leverage this into a win?

Unbreakable Formation can be cast as a reactive instant to a mass or targeted removal spell, but it really shines when we attack. When we cast this during our turn, it provides counters for our creatures, which is exactly what we want.

Speaking of counters, Inspiring Call can potentially add card draw to a color combination that doesn't get a lot of draw support. This deck, in particular, has the propensity to draw blanks, as many of the Elephants are Vanilla or French Vanilla (combat ability only) creatures that get outclassed late.

Akroma's Will... is a blowout, plain and simple. If you cast it with any kind of a board, with or without your commander, you're probably winning. This gives us something to dig for, as well as operating as a defensive option in a pinch.

Hamza, Use Heavy Slam!

Here is the most recent iteration of the deck, which is still one of my favorites.

What are some of your favorite typal decks? And how might you build some underrepresented ones?