Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire!

Varragoth is a three mana 2/3 with deathtouch and a Boast ability for one and a black where target player searches their library for a card, then shuffles their library and puts that card on top of it, which can only be activated if this creature attacked this turn and only once each turn.

Having a Commander that is a universal tutor is incredibly powerful, mitigated by the fact that we need to have Varragoth attack in order to be able to tutor for anything. However what interested me more was the fact that Varragoth has any player tutor for a card, not just you.

This means that we have the opportunity to make a Group Hug deck where we can let people tutor out for things that they want, all the while making is so that we can eventually use their things against them.

While we are not in the optimal colors for a Group Hug deck, we still have options that help play into that role.

Wishclaw Talisman is one of the more well known black Group Hug cards in that it enters with three wish counters on it and on our turn we can pay one mana and tap it to remove a wish counter search our library for a card and put it into our hand and then give control to an opponent.

Keen Duelist is a bit of double edged sword Group Hug card because at the beginning of our upkeep, us and an opponent reveal the top card of our libraries and we each lose life equal to the mana value of the other player and then we each put that card in our hands, which we can leverage to help us but can also hurt us if our opponent rolls high.

Hunted Bonebrute is a three mana 6/2 with menace and the downside that when it enters an opponent makes two 1/1 Dog creature tokens, and when it dies each opponent loses 3 life. Now it also has the caveat in that we can Disguise it for one and a black to not give our opponents the Dogs, but if we are trying to get on our opponents good side then we may need to do so.

In a similar vein there is Hunted Horror, which is a two mana 7/7 with trample and when it enters we give an opponent two 3/3 Centaur creature tokens with protection from black, which is more often a worse deal for us because those Centaurs will often be able to avoid most removal we have.

That removal can also be in the form of Group Hug like Baleful Mastery, which exiles a creature or a Planeswalker, which normally costs four mana but we can cast it for two mana if we have an opponent draw a card.

Now since our goal is to have our opponents search for things that they want, naturally we need to make sure that we can survive the results of that.

Hissing Miasma is one of these options because whenever a creature attacks us, its controller loses 1 life. While it is a minor deterrent in the grand scheme of things, it can be one if we are playing against a tokens deck or we stack our field with more effects like this such as Blood Reckoning which also triggers if an opponent attacks a Planeswalker we control, or Revenge of Ravens which also gains us a life if an opponent attacks us or a Planeswalker we control.

We can also use Hellish Rebuke as a way to retaliate people attacking us because it gives permanent our opponent controls the ability “When this permanent deals damage to the player that cast Hellish Rebuke, sacrifice this permanent. You lose 2 life.” which can come in handy against some burn decks where sometimes an enchantment or creature deals additional damage to us because of some trigger.

Dread is a way for us to act as a disincentive to attack us because it destroys creatures that deals damage to us and also shuffles itself back to our library whenever it would go to the graveyard, meaning that it’s a much more difficult way to deal with without exile based removal.

One of the most effective ways to prevent an opponent from attacking us in general would be Koskun Falls, which has it so a creature can’t attack us unless they pay two mana to do so for each creature, and has a relatively simple upkeep cost of us tapping an untapped creature we control.

Now comes the plan to steal our opponents things and use it against them, and that is one thing that we can do really well.

Brainstealer Dragon is perfect for this because at the the beginning of the end step we exile the top card of each opponent’s library and we may play those cards for as long as they remain exiled, being able to spend mana of any color for spells, and whenever a nonland permanent an opponent owns enters the battlefield under our control, they lose life equal to its mana value, and since Varragoth tutor to the top of the deck, we can steal what an opponent tutors for very easily.

Court of Locthwain also works because when it enters it makes us the monarch, and at the beginning of our upkeep we exile the top card of an opponents and may play it as long as it remains exiled, able to pay mana of any color to cast it, and if we happen to be the monarch we can cast a spell exiled with it for free. While not as effective since it is an upkeep trigger, it never hurts to take what could be something useful from an opponent.

Gisa, Glorious Resurrector can also help us againts creature focused decks because she exiles creatures our opponent controls if they were to go to the graveyard, and at the beginning of our upkeep we take all the creatures exiled with Gisa and put them under our control with decayed, meaning they can’t block and they sacrifice themselves after combat if they attacked.

To also help keep go wide boards in check, we can use Curse of the Cabal where we have an opponent sacrifice half of the permanents they control, and while we are never casting it for ten mana, it does have a Suspend cost of four mana for two counters, where if our opponents don’t want this effect to happen, then they can sacrifice a permanent at the beginning of their upkeep to put two more time counters on it.

Varragoth is an interesting Group Hug Commander that can also function as a toolbox Commander for us because we are able to also take advantage of Varragoth’s ability to tutor whatever we need at the time, whether that be spot removal or a board wipe, and for a bit of negotiation we can convince our opponents to let us.

The downside does come from the fact that Varragoth needs to be in play for us to get this working, which if an opponent doesn’t want to play ball can be really annoying if they keep removing it. We do have ways of protecting Varragoth and recurring them, but it can be annoying if that’s the only thing we were doing the whole game.

Still, Varragoth is a neat Commander with a lot of serious potential alongside the goofy potential in having a weird Group Hug Commander that no one may be expecting.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual