MTGGoldfish is supported by its audience. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a commission.
Browse > Home / Strategy / Articles / Commander Clash S2 Episode 5: Hungry Hungry Hippos

Commander Clash S2 Episode 5: Hungry Hungry Hippos


Hello and welcome to Commander Clash, a video series where several MTGGoldfish contributors battle in a four player Commander game for fun and bragging rights. This week, all of us are building decks around everyone's favorite legendary flying hippo, Phelddagrif, but we're all going for different strategies! Here's what we came up with:

  • Seth flips the downsides of Phelddagrif's abilities into upsides
  • Richard suits up his hippo for war, using its innate flying and trample to go Voltron
  • Tom gets aggressive as well, going all-out on +1/+1 counter synergies
  • Tomer plays Group Hug, making everyone draw all the cards

This is certainly one of our longer games, but it turned out pretty awesome! Hope you enjoy seeing the mighty hippo's versaility! Also, quick reminder: if you like Commander Clash and other video content here on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish Youtube Channel to keep up with the latest and greatest.

Seth's Deck

 

Richard's Deck

 

Tom's Deck

 

Tomer's Deck

 

Closing Thoughts

Everyone's decks were really great this time around. I loved how both Richard and Seth took full advantage of Phelddagrif's abilities in opposite ways; Richard using the hippo's flying and trample to get commander damage through, while Seth using the opponent's lifegain and hippo tokens to fuel his own shenanigans. Tom showed us plenty of unique ways to abuse +1/+1 synergies, and this was the first time I got to see how absurd Managorger Hydra can become for so little investment.

I thought my deck was pretty neat even though it didn't get to "do" much other than draw cards for everyone. I hate Group Hug that has no purpose other than Hugs, so I tried to take advantage of all that card draw: I could either mill the table out with a big Prosperity, mill myself out to win with Laboratory Maniac, crush with giant beats like Psychosis Crawler, or go for lethal commander damage by pumping my Phelddagrif with Inner Calm, Outer Strength. It's janky but it's fun!

 

Next Week: Superfriends!

For next week, each of us have picked a three-color combination and building decks around the planeswalkers available to us. The focus will be on the planeswalkers but there will also be subthemes going on. To keep things fair, Doubling Season is banned for this clash, but otherwise anything goes!

As always, we encourage you to leave us a comment on this article, on YouTube, or on Twitter @BudgetCommander. Your feedback is greatly appreciated, be it thoughts on the game, ideas on how to improve the series, or suggestions for future themes; we read all of them and bring them up in discussions. Thanks for watching!



More in this Series

Show more ...


More on MTGGoldfish ...

Image for Commander Clash S2 Episode 4: Viewer Submitted Decks commander clash
Commander Clash S2 Episode 4: Viewer Submitted Decks

The crew plays decks submitted by you, the viewers!

Sep 3 | by Tomer Abramovici
Image for Podcast 476: Are These MTG Arena Conspiracy Theories Real? podcast
Podcast 476: Are These MTG Arena Conspiracy Theories Real?

Seth and Crim discuss post-ban Modern, Crim's recent Standard tournament and whether or not a massive list of MTG Arena conspiracy theori...

Mar 18 | by mtggoldfish
Image for Every You "Lose the Game" Card Ranked from Easiest to Hardest video
Every You "Lose the Game" Card Ranked from Easiest to Hardest

Magic has 18 cards that can make the opponent lose the game directly, and today, we're going to rank them all from hardest to easiest!

Mar 18 | by SaffronOlive
Image for Weekly Update (Mar 17): Violent Outburst Banned in Modern weekly update
Weekly Update (Mar 17): Violent Outburst Banned in Modern

This week in MTG news: Violent Outburst Banned in Modern.

Mar 18 | by mtggoldfish

Layout Footer

Never miss important MTG news again!

All emails include an unsubscribe link. You may opt-out at any time. See our privacy policy.

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Twitch
  • Instagram
  • Tumblr
  • RSS
  • Email
  • Discord
  • YouTube

Price Preference

Default Price Switcher