Tovolar, Dire Overlord | Upping the Average

[@bustedandblue8783]

I'd love to see a Tovolar 2.0 commander with the new crimson vow werewolves

[@kennethstagnolia7151]

I right there with ya man

[@cameronrobertson9800]

I think the great thing about Tovolar is he combines wolves and werewolves. There’s no reason to not be playing some smaller wolves to not only pad the numbers to make the night trigger easier to achieve, but also early on get you more draws so you can cast the big 5 mana werewolves later on

[@MathasiaJ]

It definitely fits with the theme of howlpacks, which were made up of both wolves and werewolves

[@YearOfTheSwagon]

Rot Wolf

[@tycoon1323]

A personal favorite I found for this deck is Dolmens Gate. Since the plan it to constantly attack, having an artifact that prevents your creatures from taking combat damage is amazing, especially since it only effects your own creatures.

[@TheCt519]

I see Joey has been taking notes from Matt Morgan on the dad jokes and puns.

[@andrewsparkes8829]

I can hear his sigh of disappointment in my mind...

[@rogerrabbit132]

We need a 2.0 for this Upping The Average. Make it happen Joey!

[@TheMaskedHero]

I agree with your Edric section. But, I did come to Tovolar for wolves. Because I love Lone Wolf, Wolfbriar Elemental and Young Wolf. That said, yeah, we don't need to optimize the deck to have a great time.

[@moonysh3827]

Tolsimir is better with Wolves :)

[@dezi9210]

This podcast is a tab I always have open. Great deck suggestions it really takes Tovolar to the next level!

[@DSP1927]

The Emperor's New Groove comment was PRICELESS! Well done!!

[@autofigure00]

In play I've found immerwolf to be a major Non-bo with Tovolar. Since he can't flip back over you don't have a guaranteed flip for any new werewolves you cast during your future turns since he will never get his upkeep triggers. I've run into this issue numerous times when playing the deck and goldfishing / testing it out and trying to improve it. It also doesn't work well with any of the werewolves that give you benefits for flipping (like huntmaster of the fells). I'm highly considering taking it out at this point and putting in another board / creature protection spell or way to protect Tovolar. Making sure he stays on board and keeps flipping back and fourth to transform your previous turns newly drawn / played werewolves is very important.

[@autofigure00]

For this similar reason unnatural moonrise has also not been very good and I've already removed it after it being a dead card NUMEROUS times. It's already going to be night on your turn and using it on an opponents turn hasn't been very useful.

[@aariuswins]

Good point, thanks

[@aaroncorsini6165]

I keep saying this and nobody believes it but I think you are right

[@autofigure00]

@@aaroncorsini6165 it is QUITE bad

[@aaroncorsini6165]

@@autofigure00 on edhrec he is in more tovolar decks than fucking sol ring.... people do some weird shit

[@leonardovieiradesouza8115]

Already sent this to my Kessig Running friend, and watched it so I was well aware of the shenanigans he my pull Thank you!

[@HomeCookinMTG]

The most important thing that I took away from this video is that Ancient grudge’s flavor text Is a reference to emperors new groove, And I completely forgot

[@moonysh3827]

Thanks for this video. I'm French, sorry for my bad english. But I love werewolves so much, I'm gonna play Ancient grudge and other flavor cards ~

[@rubyseverinwhitworth9066]

I don't know why you are it's perfect in this sentence

[@Piper0185]

Love to see a Redux for this EDH deck since there are new wolves :)

[@dbedford007]

Here are a few more card considerations 1. Vigor 2. Sandwurm Convergence 3. Feed the Pack 4. Lurking Predators 5. Sword of Body and Mind Just to name a few

[@Thimbrethil]

Waxing Moon is underwhelming, only back in standard it was playable. I was very disappointed when it came out. I would not think that Moonlight hunt is going to be cut, but you are right, there are spells we need more. In general i agree with swaps, and thank you for staying in werewolf theme :). Good job!

[@SkyFire2112]

I’m my Tovolar deck I kept Waxing Moon, Moonlight Hunt and Ulvanwald Captive. I took out hermit to put in Conduit of Storms. It ramps you after an attack which is where you’d want to ideally play a creature anyway. Also feed the pack and Hollowhenge Overlord are great for generating tokens to go super wide

[@heavenbot]

I can't believe you would suggest removing Ancient Grudge! It features Avacyn's collar, as seen around the churches of Avacyn, which uses a symbol in the shape of a collar, and werewolves hate that!

[@frankvargas1428]

I agree, the flavor and memes alone is enough to keep that sucker in.

[@Arkzard]

Better destructive reverly IMO, let's hope it'll be reprinted in wolf's flavour

[@Arkzard]

Found it! Dire-strain rampage

[@scottricks1676]

I’ve obsessed over this commander more than any other. I’ve used the hyperbolic calculator to see what the optimal amount of 1-2 drops are to flip tovalar the fastest. Everything after the 3 drop is a werewolf. The pups are all on the low end to get the flip then his milk shake brings all the furry boys to the yard! Sub theme of fogs (for the clap back) extra combates and finally playing extra lands. You will be drawing a lot…so what better to do than play lands to make the wolf run effect even better. Also mvp is nemesis mask and good lure effects.

[@JGushi87]

I would like to see a series about "Optimizing the Average". :)

[@Roylucky13]

I feel exactly the same. I'm all about the thematic werewolf deck. Flavor = fun

[@CruelValkyrie]

OMG, the puns in this video were great, I specially enjoyed the one about Avacyn's collar, yes the collar from the church of Avacyn, yes, that collar.

[@tommiepham8336]

Oh yeah, it's all coming together.

[@jylon63]

love this series

[@AlexOvTheAbyss]

I'm partially wondering if we will get more good additions for this in Crimson Vow. Sure, it is vampire based, but it is still on Innistrad.

[@DaKareerKilla]

I mean, we got how many Vampires in the Werewolf set? I would be shocked, *shocked* if there are no new members of the tribe in Crimson Vow.

[@TheAlmightyGameGenie]

Since they gave us werewolves in white black and blue in Midnight Hunt, part of me is hoping for another werewolf legendary so people playing werewolf tribal have some options. Maybe one outside of Gruul, maybe just another in Gruul that has a different game plan

[@DaKareerKilla]

@@TheAlmightyGameGenie I wouldn't count on it personally, for a number of reasons. Werewolves splashing into black and blue I feel is more of a thing for formats outside of commander, also WOTC print Legends into the ground, but notably they only printed one for the tribe in the Werewolf set? If you really want to play a non-gruul werewolf deck, there are 5C commanders you can play.

[@erikwilliams1562]

Is it possible to get a revised deck when Crimson Vow hits?

[@Xhorlok]

Would be great! Like u did for edgar

[@Yakiro255]

I've been playing my tovolar with home errata and I think there's quite a lot of players who are doing that as well. That changes quite a bit of the strategy and that might be warping the deck statistics. Celestice and unnatural moonrise notably are playable in that state, and I went with village messenger over young wolf to get the day night token cycle going as early as possible.

[@brandoncreek5709]

What did you errata, exactly? Not sure how Village Messenger helps with day/night. Also village messenger is in the average deck already I think

[@Yakiro255]

@@brandoncreek5709 The errata is fairly simple: 1. All human-werewolves have daybound and nightbound. This unites them with cards like Unnatural Moonrise and Celestus. It also gives them a nice boost since they enter transformed which has significant effects with things like Instigator Gang. 2. Moonmist now says: [It becomes night] followed by the rest of its usual text. This simply ensures Moonmist works cohesively with new Werewolves. On village messenger, I don't know how many people are including them for the haste/menace effect honestly and I SHOULD have used Reckless Waif as an example instead. The point is that, once you begin the day/night cycle, it stays on the board even if you have no permanents with daybound or nightbound who would care about it, but more importantly, the early turns are probably the only time you might get a lucky "land, pass" turn from an opponent. Normally without errata, this means Wreckless waif transforms, but any werewolves after still need to see a passed turn to flip. This becomes very unlikely after players pass 3 mana. With errata, your next werewolf enters as nightbound, and suddenly you have a very powerful early game presence, and it might take a few more turns before players can cast two spells.

[@No2hISwear]

Could we get a zurgo helmsmasher episode? Keep up the great work!

[@lightfut]

The dad joke puns have not even begun to fight

[@shadowalien40]

Moonlight hunt is actually pretty good! This is a creature centric deck so you usually have some damage to throw around. Conceptually removal in green is done after you play your creatures. This is why we have so many rabid bite like effects or fight spells in green The card works perfectly fine even if you only control 1 creature, like your commander Tovolar. There are a lot of kill on sight creatures in the format. So the ability to have multiple creatures join in on the Rabid Bite like effect is the gravy that makes the ceiling of this card really high. The point of the card is to hold the mana up to play it (like any other piece of removal) then instant speed Werewolf punch something in the face!

[@TrueTgirl]

While you did cut a few cards I'm playing, you added more of such than you cut, so that's very gratifying. XD For real though, big ups to Shared Animosity (cheaper than I thought it was) and Wrap in Vigor (added based on your protect the board episode, actually).

[@SmallVictories9]

I think druids repository would be good in the deck. 5 dollar add and since you'll be drawing and attacking a lot you could find a way to use all the extra mana.

[@darkmagicduellinks6874]

I love your upping the average videos and i think i have seen all if not most of them. If one of the next few could be a wilhelt the rot cleaver. I have been trying to put a deck together for him and ive tried some of your other decks from that series and would like to see your recommendations. Love the series and love the channel

[@ThePhoenixSlayer]

I've been fiddling around with the deck a bit, and I found that taking out 2 duel lands and putting in a Garenbrig Castle and Gingerbread Cabin works pretty good. Garenbrig castle for a land that gives more than one mana, solving the lower land count (works only when activating creatures/activating creature abilities, which you will be doing a lot) and Gingerbread Cabin just for a basic green land that gives you a food token which gives you a bit of a heal, (why not?)

[@ChidyDog]

I would take a second look at having Lightning Greaves in the deck. It gives equipped creature shroud and Tovolar’s activated ability on night side actually targets a creature even to give himself trample and +X/+0.

[@FenrirEX]

In other words, be careful with that one, because he can’t target himself when you do that.

[@DaKareerKilla]

I have a couple of thoughts regarding some cards raised in the episode. First, Return of the Wildspeaker. I feel as though because the mana curve is so heavy in the 2-3 Mana Value slot, including the commander, it means most games you should be able to punch through with 3-5 werewolves/wolves atleast once or twice before your board is answered. Outside of the nonbo issue that could crop up, would it not be better to recover with a mass graveyard recursion effect rather than with more card draw? I'm thinking Season's Past/Praetor's Council/ Creeping Renaissance to get all your departed wolfy boys back. Second, Unnatural Moonrise feels like a wait and see card for the theme. We likely get more Daybound/Nightbound tribe members in Innistrad Crimson Vow, plus who knows what other support cards, so it could be that the night time enabler goes up in should your commander get removed too often. There's also the debate over whether WOTC will eventually errata the old werewolves with the new mechanic, they could quite easily make a pretty penny if they were to release errata'd Equinox Showcase versions of the Mythic/Rare ones in a future Secret Lair. Nice video as always, Joey, keep it up :)

[@aariuswins]

Daybreak ranger’s fight can kill or mutual kill 7/10 of the most popular commanders. Still no bueno? Nice vid, was waiting for this!

[@robsta6543]

I'm inspired Joey good job

[@ryaninzana5640]

Your puns had me howling

[@brandoncreek5709]

War Cadence and Bedlam may actually be better than berserker's onslaught and rage reflection here. It's guaranteed unblockable in red, which ensures we're dealing damage and drawing cards! I think these cards are underrated in general, and I'll definitely be trying them out!

[@MTGSavage]

I'm still working on my rendition of the deck but some spicy includes my list has that I haven't seen others play are as follows: Cream of the Crop, Lurking Predators, and Season of Growth for enchantments. I'll be sure to post a deck tech once my deck is complete, I'm just not one to rush building decks, not my style. Solid deck tech though Joey!

[@YgorSantos0]

Nice video!!!

[@MrPinkpanzer]

Absolutely on fire with these jokes. Thank you, Joey. While my circumstances are such that money isn't an object for these cards, I understand that those on a budget might not have them. I think nature's will and sword of feast and famine do so much work in this deck. It lets you deploy the cards you just drew post-combat or keep going with other ramp and utility spells. Additionally, Joey, was there any consideration to keeping in unnatural growth in metas with a lot of other aggro/creature heavy decks because it provides that offensive boost, but also makes our creatures more likely to survive in combat? It's a worse version of dolomen gate and berserkers onslaught, but it does both jobs. Does that utility have enough merit to maybe change your mind in really aggressive creature metas?

[@Spawny]

Awesome Video. I absolutely love this series. Can you do a video on Marchesa, The Black Rose? Would love to see her featured.

[@hectormorales4090]

Ouuuh yeah, love it!

[@OriginalMokthol]

I wonder what werewolves we'll get and maybe add to this deck once Crimson Vow comes out

[@catanthill]

I love the pupgrades!

[@erikwilliams1562]

As a rule, I apply avoid fate and Vigor in every stompy deck

[@k9commander]

The thing about Moonlight Hunt is that it was the 4th creature removal spell in the deck. Gruul is not known for creature removal. Most of green's creature removal spells require you to have 1 or more creatures on the field. Red's removal tend to be damage based. When compared to other colors, Moonlight Hunt is bad removal. In a Gruul werewolf deck, it is the best of the non-staple removal cards. The staples are already in the deck.

[@skolrisulfr]

unnatural growth triggers every combat phase not just once so if you can make an infinite amount it goes nuts

[@813R]

I run Tovolar in my group where high powered decks/fringe cedh decks are played and having small wolves/werewolves with double strike isnt enough, plus the deck is still fairly slow. By T4 if your wolves/werewolves arent bare minimum 4/4's or 5/5's the wolves tend to just be cannon fonder to bigger creatures with way better effects or fliers. Ive found you need more than just wolves and combat damage to make this work in a 4 pod setting if everyone isnt running p5-6 lvl decks. Of course this is a situational thing and a deck to deck issue but wolves still seem to need more juice to be relevant.

[@hadeszero4526]

pup-grades? Guess I got add more dogs to my deck so I can say this more often lol.

[@ghost64626]

My addition is Blood Moon. Always play Blood Moon lol

[@DonVonBliss]

Yessss..I even play winter orb to stop them from unhappiness lands...can't can't more than one spell ...if your lands are tapped lol 😈

[@ghost64626]

@@DonVonBliss legit, Blood Moon is one of my all time favourite cards lol

[@DonVonBliss]

@@ghost64626 same here dude ..I stick it in every deck ..now I just need to find a stranglehold to go with it lol

[@ghost64626]

@@DonVonBliss hell yeah lol

[@MrManukenchin]

I would like to see an upgrade for Wilhelt, the rotcleaver.

[@Tuf_frijoles]

Unnatural growth is actually very nice when you have trample

[@charliepeterson8171]

Neyith of the dire hunt is made for this deck 👍👍👍

[@richarizardplays9619]

love the Kronk reference :))

[@josephsteinmetz2981]

Can you do one on the Curse Commander? Lynde?

[@frankvargas1428]

There should be one out now.

[@killervampir]

So I don’t know if it’s been said but A natural growth the point of it I tho was to use cards that give you extra combat so it would go 4/4 comes a 8/8 then extra combat likes say Savage beating not it’s a 16/16, use a double strike so it’s 32 damage Then use like soul fire to hit the player in the face. At least that’s how I use it

[@Strung0ut79]

I have a terrible time evaluating cards. I'm sure a couple of the new cards from crimson vow would fit in here.

[@Ryadic]

Today's jokes written by Matt?

[@jacobjclemens]

Please do an upping the average for Prosper Tome-Bound

[@egontrevisa]

Does tovolar trigger the transform to night If i have 2 Wolf and 1 werewolf?

[@aaronconlin]

Midnight Hunt was such a disappointment. Innistrad is my favorite plane and I was so stoked to build a werewolf deck in commander. The day/night mechanic is awful, ended up taking the deck apart. I used Saskia as the commander, for access to White and Black removal and most importantly, Winota. Essentially a second alternate commander to Tovolar, she works so well with werewolves.

[@quinncharleshatton]

does unnatural growth stack with each combat effect each turn?

[@brennenklover7414]

Thraximundar next pls 😁

[@rechardmarsh2834]

Is there a deck list

[@Hexatomb]

My favorite card for tovolar is Bedlam

[@efraincampos7382]

Upping the Average for Ruric Thar please

[@kennethbrunke2414]

Unnatural Moonrise came in a game winning clutch I wouldn't remove it.

[@domicci4460]

I used to have a werewolf deck iwth him ad the commander but the upkeep was horrific and made me feel like I was wasting everyone's time playing it so I ripped (took it apart) it mad made it into a sayter deck

[@KrisNorse]

How doesnt moonmist transform everyone if it says transform all the humans?

[@oom-3262]

There is a severe distinction between edric and tovolar- edric has evasive creatures. Almost every single one of them has some sort of evasion. This doesn't happen with wolves. I do not think wolves is the more optimized way to use tovolar precisely because of this- wolves are generally really bad too.

[@Dr.Barber]

Yeah Tovolar encourages similar things, but not exactly what Edric wants. Even in the most optimized list abusing his card draw you're still running a suit of the best werewolves/wolves. It becomes about 12 wolves and werewolves as your draw engine, but it's noticeable.

[@ragingbull914]

Unatural growth with extra combat spells and abilities makes them double up again after the beginning of the 2nd combat phase. So in my op I think it’s worth running

[@TrueTgirl]

Just my 2 cents: if y'all want an Edric-style commander, he's right there. So is Toski, for that matter. If you want to optimize Tovolar like that, chances are you don't actually want to play him.

[@RJLiams]

You need to put Ill-Tempered Loner in the deck. It's human ability is already incredible. Doing damage back to opponents that delt damage to loner. However, it's the werewolf ability that makes it a requirement. Whenever a permanent is dealt damage, Howlpack Avenger deals that much damage to any target. So you can come at them swinging with everything. It'll force them to stop and think if it's best to let the damage through or potentially lose monsters. I've yet to meet a player who's never caught off guard when I tell them that I do 9 damage to their 9 toughness creature, or when they lose the game because Avenger did 20 damage to the player himself and he was 19 life.

[@skullkrusher-dx4kg]

Id prefer wolf tribal because i hate fliping cards.

[@rileypowell5354]

Use blood moon. All the flavor in the world.

[@addie30mg62]

Extra combats scale better with unnatural growth because unnatural growth triggers for each combat phase. Not just your first.

[@shikabaneconga]

check this for me, but apparentlt daybound and nightbound permanents cannot transform by other means that arent their abilities, which begs the question why doesmt moonmist work but tovolar does

[@tresnalder2149]

Tovolar makes it night to trigger the new werewolves with daybound/nightbound.

[@autofigure00]

@@tresnalder2149 I feel like this person may be reading the second half of that trigger which is exclusively there for transforming the older werewolves that don't flip based on it being night / day with the nightbound / daybound mechanic.

[@shikabaneconga]

@@autofigure00 so he does transform them??

[@autofigure00]

@@shikabaneconga if you're referring to transforming daybound / nightbound cards, no. His trigger has 2 parts. The first part turns it to night, and whenever it becomes night all Midnight hunt werewolves transform but NOT because Tovolar MAKES them transform. They transform because Tovolar makes it night with NO relation to the second half of this upkeep trigger. The rest of the trigger says to "transform all human werewolves" which would let you tranfrom ALL of the remaining human werewolves that don't have daybound / nightbound so that he can transform all of the older werewolves that don't have daybound and nightbound.

[@YearOfTheSwagon]

Rot Wolf

[@Gweezy12]

i dont think tovlar can have the edric problem. His card draw is based on a tribe and lack of evasion.

[@nathanialmynameisajoke]

I hate puns

[@bobrashley5936]

Why always the focus on new commanders in this series? Surely the data for an average deck can't mean much when it's that new?!

[@kalebnunya9860]

This new deck already has more data than most commanders. It doesn’t take long for people to figure out.

[@DaKareerKilla]

I would have agreed if it was still at less than 100 decks, or even 290 like it was a few days ago, but now there is more than enough data to use in this episode. Plus, it's the new thing that many commander players are brewing around, so from a content creation stand point, it makes sense that Joey would use this opportunity to cover it.

[@Njzeo]

Card Kingdom price $331…