There can only be one alpha

> Introduction

First of all, this deck is not competetive or something like that at all. It is a gruul werewolf tribal deck which means, we will play some fluffy wolves over som good stuff cards. Still to make this deck playable in some stronger groups we need to play at least some gruul power cards to increase the powerlevel of this tribal. Unfortunately wotc didn't release very powerful werewolves, but we got a very good commander with whom we can finally play a werewolf tribal deck. I have been waiting for a long time to build a werewolf commander deck and before that I had an oathbreaker deck with arlinn. This is my attempt to make werewolves playable in commander and also in rounds with slightly stronger decks.

>Mechanic

With Innistrad Midnight Hunt a new mechanic came into this tribal. Day and Night is a new way to transform our werweolves but there are some important things to know first.
Day and night is not just a name for the old transform mechanic, there are significant differences between the old and the new mechanic.

1. Day and night does check if the active player is playing two spells or more in his own turn where the old mechanic just checks if two spells are played in one turn or not

2. If it is night, all the nightbound creatures will enter the battlefield with their nightside where the old werewolves will still enter with their human side.

3. Bound means...bound, yeah it is pretty easy but important to know. The new werwolves won´t transformt to cards like moonmist or geier reach bandit so take care of it.

>Examples

Your board has following cards and it is the turn of one of your enemies and it is night :
Tovolar, Dire Overlord
Ulrich of the Krallenhorde
Lambholt Elder
Kessig Naturalist

Scenario 1:
your enemy played at least two spells and ends his turn. It will be day and alle of your creatures will transform to their human side.

Scenario 2:
your enemy played one spell and another enemy played a counter spell. Then the active playe ends his turn. Tovolar, Dire Overlord and Kessig Naturalist will stay in their werewolf side and it will still be night. Ulrich of the Krallenhorde and the Lambholt elder will tranform into humans.

You see, kinda complicated. Same is true for cards like Moonmist, which will transform Ulrich of the Krallenhorde and Lambholt Elder but not Tovolar, Dire Overlord or Kessig Naturalist. Unnatural moonrise will transform Tovolar, Dire Overlord and Kessig Naturalist but not Ulrich of the Krallenhorde or Lambholt Elder.

So stay focused on the mechanics and don´t waste cards or opportunities.

> Immerwolf mechanic

I have to wait for the new rule text for this card but my asumption is, that can´t transform is a stronger restriction than daybound. So a werwolf on his night side shouldn´t transform on his day side if immerwolf is on the battlefield, but we will see if the new ruletext is released.

>Strategy

Well it is a gruul werwolf tribal so the strategy is pretty simple. Try to stomp your enemies with strong, buffed werwolves. Tovolar is the perfect commander for this king of strategy, because we can transform our human werwolves into real beast and we can draw cards if we make dmg to players. Also we have an Kessig wolf run effect on him which can give us trample and more power. Tovolar is our key card to get our humans transform and draw cards, so take care on him.

One of the key abilites in this deck is trample. Why trample? well we want big stuff make big dmg so we need evasion. Trample fits perfect in this tribal and makes our buffed creatures not only big, it makes them also dangerous. And don´t forget, you will draw a card if you make dmg to a player, so evasion is not only important to win, it is also important to draw cards.

For this reason I tried to play ramp spells with cmc 2 or less to make this deck fast.

> Key cards

• Tovolar, Dire Overlord : As already mentioned, our most important creature is our commander. He will transform our werwolves and let us draw cards. Try to play him and draw cards soon.
• Triumph of the Hordes : Can instantly win the game if we have enough power on board. It will also buff our creatures and give them trample, so absoluty perfect to win a game.
• Unnatural Growth : Double our power and defense in each combat phase will give us a great attack and defense upgrade. With trample and some other buffs, we are able to make tons of dmg and wind the game with it. It is also a great synergy card for the great henge or Rishkar's Expertise whih we can play in our second main phase.
• Trample enabler like Howlpack Resurgence or Breakneck Rider : Trample is our key ability to get evasion and to guarantee that we can make combat dmg to a aplayer do draw cards and to kill him.
• Haste enabler like rhythm of the wild or Village Watch : Haste will make this deck more explosive and gives us the opportunity to suprise our enemies with attacks in the same turn.

> Synergy Cards

• Moonmist : will protect us for combat damage and let us transform our old werewolves. Can be used to defend but also for attacks.
• Unnatural moonrise : the "new" Moonmist. Will transform the new werwolves, let us draw a card and gives trample to one creature
• The celestus: let us filter some cards, gives life and give us the option to switch between day and night if needed. Also a mana rock.
• Realmwalker : a card advantage card which is also a werwolf and synergize with the whole deck.
• The great Henge: great card to get life and draw cards. It will also buff our creatures and shouldn´t be that hard to play for less mana. Our creatures are aimed to be big.
• Goblin anarchomancer: amazing cost reduction for the whole deck.

> Strong Cards

• Jeska's Will : We want our commander to be on the battlefield, so commander based cards are great and this one is a very strong red card.
• Deflecting Swat : Same like Jeska's Will
• Dockside Extortionist : This guy is a pretty bad boy for mana. If you use him correctly you will get a ton of mana. He isn´t a werewolf at all but absolutely strong in this deck.
• Noxious Revival : Nice card for recursion or to block enemies which are playing stuff like animate dead or necromancy with instant speed.

> Single Card Discussion

> Inclusions

See some of the cards in the strategy section. Some cards have comments

• Cindervines : This card is a great removal. It will make dmg and can get used instantly. I prefer this card over hull breach
• Veil of Summer : we need some protection for our commander or cards like triumph of the hordes and this one is the best option.
• In search of greatness : we will draw a lot of cards with our commander, and with this card we can sneak some of them into the battlefield for free.
• Return to Nature : instant removal for artifact, enchantment or something in graveyard. Gruul doesn't have a lot of graveyard hate options so this one is a flexible removal for a lot of situations.
• Village Messenger : not strong in lategame but a one drop card with haste which can draw you a card with tovolar and synergizes with all the other cards.
• Lightning Greaves : a haste and protection card, which can give tovolar the option to attack, draw and stay safe from spot removal.
• Decimate : Good removal for many threads, and in multiplayer the condition should be met easily.
• Rishkar's Expertise : expensive draw card but while our creatures are big, we can draw a bunch of cards and sneak in cards like Unnatural Growth or Ulrich of the Krallenhorde // Ulrich, Uncontested Alpha.
• Exploration : With tovolar we will draw a bunch of cards after our attack, so this cards help to use some of the drawn cards and play an additional land. It can also be a ramp just for 1 mana if you have this and 2 lands in your hand.
• Lands : See comments on cards

> Exclusions

• Blood Moon : Can be a nice stax piece which can block enemies to play cards and help to transform our wolves but I´m running too much non standard lands so this card can block me as well.
• Winter Orb : this card is just annoying and will make games boring.
• Waxing Moon : not strong enough, the transform effect is only for one creature (the old werwolves) and the trample effect is way weaker than triumph of the hordes.
• Pyreheart Wolf : nice evasion but this deck will concentrade on trample.
• Ulrich's Kindred : 4 mana to make an attacking creature indestructable is way too expensive
• Hull Breach : I decided to play cindervines because of the dmg effect.
• Lifecrafter's Bestiary : I decided to play in search of greatness because we will draw enough cards with tovolar.
• Worldly tutor : we have no combo piece or a createrhoof in this deck. The best thing we can go for is a werwolf. No need to tutor just draw cards.
• Harmonize : I decided to play Rishkar's Expertise, because it will be stronger in this deck. The creatures a strong and there are many anthem and buff effects in this deck.
• Defense of the heart : A strong card, but limited and not necessary. There are no combos in this deck so in best case it will bring just 2 strong werewolves.
• Fires of yavimaya : I decided to play Village watch, because of the synergy and because of its creature type. We need creatures to make dmg, so why not combine haste and a creature if it is possible?
• Beast whisperer : We shoud try to draw our cards with tovolar or the other strong draw engines.
• Vandalblast : a really good artifact removal but only sorcery speed and no enchantment removal.
• Sylvan library : not enough lifelink to use this card often. Also we have a good draw engine in our commandzone.
• Silverfur Partisan : is a nice card if we are focusing our creatures with some cards but in this deck it is not even worth to mention.
• Wolfir Silverheart : 5 mana for this effect is way too weak.
• Master of the Wild Hunt : Nice effect but too slow and his effect will tap all the wolves, so his removal potential is restricted. Also just one wolf at the beginning of the upkeep is not strong enough.
• Cult of the Waxing Moon : 5 Mana and it will do nothing till something transform. There are way better cards.
• Kessig Cagebreakers : can be a good card but if you have nothing in your graveyard or not enough, this card is to expensive and not a werwolf by his own.
• other werewolves : there are still a lot of werewolves which are not mentioned. This is because they are way too weak or they can only transform for mana like ulvenwald captive.

> Strengths and Weaknesses

> Strengths

• Big creatures with trample, so decks which want to swarm you have to think about the payback.
• It is aggressive so if you focus a combo deck you can kill him maybe fast enough to stop his combo (player removal)
• Strong against slow decks at all.
• Draw engine in the commandzone.

> Weaknesses

• Problem with control decks with tons of mass removal.
• Stax pieces like tainted aether or humility can be a huge problem
• Not strong in combo enviroment.
• Werewolf tribal is not really strong at all so check your playgroup and the powerlevel if you want to have fun.

> Changelog

See revision : https://deckstats.net/decks/118014/2218583-tovolar-dire-overlord-the-howl#show__revisions