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Angry Hermit Part II Primer
Angry Hermit Part II is an Extended combo deck. It was first thought up
by the Dutch Pro Tour players and played to a top 8 at PT: Houston by
Bob Maher Jr. It then top 8ed again at GP: New Orleans before the season
ended. The deck is easily the fastest combo deck of Extended, capable of
winning on the second turn while having the best matchups of any other
deck in existence.
The deck seeks to reanimate a fat creature out of the graveyard and
continually beat with it until the opponent is dead. The key difference
between this strategy’s other advocates (UB Reanimator/Mono-Black
Reanimator) is the inclusion and subsequently built deck around Hermit
Druid. This 1G druid is actually a tiny combo machine that is like
drawing your entire library and playing any spell from it for one turn.
The idea is to play Hermit Druid as quickly as possible, and activate it
the next turn. The deck has no basic land, so your entire library is
dumped into the graveyard. From there, you cast Reanimate or Exhume to
pull out a Sutured Ghoul, which “devours” all the other creatures in
the graveyard to become 20+ points of power and toughness. Then the
Ghoul inherits a Dragon Breath, allowing it to attack immediately for
the win.
The transfer of the Anger + Bloodstained Mire + Mountain system into 1
Dragon Breath makes Hermit incredibly consistent now. With no chance of
hitting a Mountain with the Hermit, the deck is guaranteed to dump
everything, thus going off immediately or allowing Krosan Reclamation to
go to work.
This is my current decklist. The raw speed of the combo and basic
reanimation makes Hermit a difficult match against quite a few decks
because they either can’t race with it or deal with the massive
fatties the deck is capable of dishing out. There are few difficult
matchups, mostly coming from counterspells and black disruption, like
all combo decks.
Uber-Hermit
Land (22)
4 Cabal Pit
4 City of Brass
4 Forsaken City
4 Llanowar Wastes
2 Tarnished Citadel
2 Underground River
2 Yavimaya Coast
Creatures (10)
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Gilded Drake
1 Visara the Dreadful
1 Sutured Ghoul
1 Petradon
4 Hermit Druid
1 Verdant Force
Other (28)
3 Careful Study
1 Cabal Therapy
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Vampiric Tutor
4 Exhume
1 Dragon Breath
2 Krosan Reclamation
1 Vindicate
4 Mox Diamond
Sideboard (15)
1 Gilded Drake
1 Havoc Demon
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Coffin Purge
3 Duress
1 Naturalize
3 Oath of Druids
1 Vindicate
1 Cursed Totem
2 Defense Grid
It looks like a pile of crap, doesn’t it? Well, it actually is. The
pile, however, works together to accomplish a single goal: Reanimate a
fat creature and keep it around long enough for it to win. This is
actually simpler than most people think. You just play out what you have
drawn and decide what fattie to use for what situation. There are no
difficult plays involved; you just have to be in-tune with your deck and
realize the best answer for a certain problem. This primer will focus on
this more than about actually playing the deck.
The only cards you get are the ones you have in your opening hand, along
with whatever else you topdeck. There are absolutely zero ways to gain
card advantage; in fact, the deck is based on card disadvantage.
Reanimation is a bad way to win, from a control player’s point of
view. It uses 2 cards to get 1 big creature out, with zero counterspells
(and actually zero discard in my version) to protect it. Instead of
protecting the fat creature, the deck seeks to beat players with as much
of speed as unstoppable fat creatures. By having big creatures out on
the first, second, or third turn, you have a significant creature
advantage against your opponent, no matter how many more he’ll play
during consecutive turns after yours. Unless he deals with the fat
creature immediately, his status in the game will continue to
deteriorate until he ultimately loses. If you can back your fattie or
pull it out fast enough, it’ll be game.
Hermit Druid takes this to the extreme. You basically win after the
activation of Hermit unless he stops the eventual Reanimate/Exhume or
takes out the Hermit first. Hermit is a fragile creature; you’ll need
to be either too fast for them to remove it or just go with basic
reanimation instead. Actually estimating your chances with Hermit
against their removal is a key factor to good play with this deck. If
you see a perfect way through, the deck basically plays itself out from
there. Only a few decisions actually arise in a Hermit game; the rest of
the game follows that decision. This puts all the pressure on just one
move, and you have to follow through most of the time. There’s no
backing out of the combo when you’ve milled your entire library. You
have to play from there, which isn’t a good position, so the first
move counts for everything.
The entire deck speaks for itself when you understand how it wins. The
pain and nuisance of having an all-nonbasic mana base has to be endured,
but only long enough to get something out. It’s all quite simple: As
long as you have a solid thing going, the pain won’t matter because
the opponent will be losing very soon. Being at 1-5 life and attacking
with a fully powered Ghoul is the common situation, not the exception.
These are the finer points of my version. Dragon Breath will be
incorporated into every Hermit deck once Scourge is legal. The benefits
of having a quick and reliable haste enabler over a clunky system with
the same results far outweigh the possibility of an immediate Hermit
activation against removal. But there are 2 main cards that separate
Uber-Hermit from the rest of the pack.
The first is Careful Study. This little gem was originally a replacement
for Brainstorm, but I believe it has surpassed its predecessor in
efficiency and synergy. To really appreciate its value, look at it this
way. The deck has a lot of cards that aren’t meant to be in hand, yet
you can’t avoid drawing them. Occasionally, the fattie you want out
winds up on top, and you draw it. Or maybe you have your Hermit pieces
in hand, or just have excess land. In any case, Careful Study trades
your 2 crappy cards for the top 2 cards of your library, and if you
discarded fat creatures or combo pieces, you not only essentially
avoided the Study’s drawback, but also offset the need to go through
Entomb or Cabal Therapy. That’s thinking win-win…
Cabal Pit is a solid mana supplier for the main color of the deck.
Hermit dismisses it like every other land, but it kills Whipcorder,
Meddling Mage, Waterfront Bouncer, etc. like few other cards can. Thus,
the inclusion of it is very logical, as it doubles as creature removal
once you Hermit your library away, taking out annoying utility creatures
so you’ll win without KR (Krosan Reclamation) ing Vindicate back. With
Careful Study at its back, the Pit is a reliable way to silence weenies
by turn 4. It’s not hard to accomplish threshold by your second turn,
as a matter of fact.
The following are tricks of Hermit. They allow you to protect the Ghoul,
make sure you get the Ghoul out, or just have lots more fun than you
might expect from such a straightfoward, and often times serious, deck
to play.
The first makes use of Krosan Reclamation and Reanimate or Exhume. The
idea is not to rely on drawing a reanimation card before going off with
Hermit, but to play the Reclamation after you've milled your library,
essentially stacking your next two draws and avoid decking yourself in
the process. With KR safely in your graveyard, Hermit can be considered
a one-card combo: You only need 1 card and land to go off and win. Note
that you can target any card in your graveyard, so stacking up Cabal Pit
or Vindicate is a viable choice. It also serves as a last-ditch effort
to avoid decking, or just act as graveyard removal against the various
graveyard-oriented decks associated with this format.
Cabal Therapy, like KR, is almost solely for the purpose of comboing
your opponent out. Once you've Hermited your library away, there's not
much else Hermit Druid can do for you, so it can take one for the team
and clear the way for your Ghoul by peeking and blindly cutting into the
opponent's hand for a feared card. I've taken measures to not have to
rely on this method, because killing your Hermit leaves your Ghoul wide
open to Diabolic Edict. However, you must deal with such cards as Daze,
Circular Logic, Foil, Reprisal, and probably the new Wing Shards once it
becomes legal. You can avoid Daze if you've got a mana open, but the
others are all common ways to foil a Ghoul, and subsequently causing you
do deck yourself and lose. If there is no way to avoid such a thing,
consider reanimating a Petradon and shutting off their mana to stop the
Ghoul next turn (considering you still have KR open for use) or at least
make the 'Don a scapegoat. Be creative and use your imagination, because
those two can carry you through tough situations. Cabal Therapy can also
act as your 4th Careful Study and discard a fattie or combo piece, and
if you know they can't stop you, feel free to sac Hermit and Therapy
yourself.
Here's a cunning and old trick... When you know you're going second, and
without any way to discard a fattie in hand, consider the old fashioned
way of Entombing fat creatures by discarding it after drawing your 8th
card. You can then play a land next turn and Reanimate the fat creature,
essentially accomplishing the same thing without much lost! Exhume can
be used if you have a Diamond and two land to ramp up for it. This
leaves you very vulnerable to Daze though, and I don't recommend it.
However, if you're facing red and you don't have any way to get Akroma
out, it's at least going to get the job done. In fact, seeing you going
through something like this might put a foolish player in a sense of
security. But this can be seen both ways, as almost all players will see
this as a way to "cheat" a fat creature out of your hand.
The sideboard provides answers to difficult matchups, and the nice
tricks you can do with them.
Oath of Druids is an alternate way to get fat creatures out, but you
don't interact with your graveyard, so the deck will be unaffected by
graveyard removal brought in to devastate Hermit. Almost all decks that
actually bring in graveyard removal plays creatures, so just plop Oath
down and wait until you hardcast fatties if you want (this is actually a
viable way if your opponent becomes too stubborn to cast creatures
).
Havoc Demon adds more fat creatures to Oath of Druids's oathing arsenal,
and doubles as a mass removal card when you try to combo an opponent
out. Just Hermit your library away, reanimate the Demon, sacrifice it to
Cabal Therapy, wiping all creatures out, and then reanimate the Ghoul to
avoid annoying utility creatures like Whipcorder and Waterfront Bouncer.
There's one extra Gilded Drake so you can combat opposing Drakes. Having
a hard-earned fattie taken for 1U should make anyone mad, so take it
right back! It's not fair losing 8 life for Akroma and then get beaten
in by her. Fight back!
Ray of Revelation is basically another way to remove annoying things
after you Hermit your library. For a low low price of G, you take out
the feared Seal of Removal, which sticks around like a disease until you
cure it. Otherwise, it acts as another sweet card to tutor up, and lets
you kill 2 things for just 1W and G. Wow.
Coffin Purge is simple graveyard removal. Period.
Duress is pretty simple. Because there's no maindeck room, Duress are
sideboarded for the control or combo decks. You can sometimes God hand
opponents, but to be safe, Duress is a nice alternative to facing down
lots of counters and only Careful Study to help out.
Naturalize is cheap enchantment and artifact removal. Again, period.
Vindicate takes out anything for just 3 mana. Nice, but combo it with
Petradon and you've got Time Walks that just keep on coming, with each
Vampiric Tutor basically being another land (read: turn) wasted...
Cursed Totem is just more utility creature hate. Like Vindicate,
combo it with Petradon and things get a lot easier against bad matchups.
Lastly, 2 Defense Grid hold the line against counters and instant speed
Coffin Purge that usually devastate Hermit. Works with Petradon too. |
