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There can only be one alpha

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> Introduction

First, this deck is not competitive or something like that at all. It is a gruul werewolf tribal deck, which means, we will play some fluffy wolves over some 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 power level 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 oath breaker 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 werewolves, but there are some important things to know first.
Day and night are not just a name for the old transform mechanic, there are significant differences between the old and the new mechanic.

1. Day and night do 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 night bound creatures will enter the battlefield with their night side, where the old werewolves will still enter with their human side.

3. Bound means...bound, yeah it is pretty easy but essential to know. The new werewolves won't transform to cards like moonmist or geier reach bandit, so take care of it.

>Examples

Your board has the 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 all 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 player 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 transform into humans.

You see, kind of complicated. The 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

Can't transform is a stronger restriction than day bound. So, a werewolf on his night side can't transform to his day side if immerwolf is on the battlefield.

>Strategy

Well, it is a gruul werewolf tribal, so the strategy is pretty simple. Try to stomp your enemies with strong, buffed werewolves. Tovolar is the perfect commander for this kind of strategy, because we can transform our human werewolves into real beast, and we can draw cards if we make DMG to players. Also, we have a 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 of him.

One of the key abilities in this deck is trample. Why trample? Well, we want big stuff to 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 werewolves 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 absolute 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.
• 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 player to 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 surprise our enemies with attacks in the same turn.
• Ill-Tempered Loner // Howlpack Avenger: This boy in combination with some other creatures and Blasphemous Act is just another way to win a game. We can attack, make some DMG and then wipe our board to make again a lot of DMG to any target.

> 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 werewolves, 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.
• 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 cards in the strategy section. Some cards have comments

• Cemetery Prowler: Grave hate and cost reduction in one card. This card can exile some annoying stuff from a graveyard and reduce the cost of our cards, and it is a wolf.
• Ascendant Packleader / Wolfbitten Captive // Krallenhorde Killer: One drops are just for speed. We can easily build up our board and get our three wolves/werewolves to flip tovolar in the upkeep. Also, they 1 mana draw engines with tovolar!
• Howlpack Piper // Wildsong Howler: Dayside is just insanely strong. It is like an elvish piper which will untap and can be used plenty of times. The night side is just a card advantage.
• Volatile Arsonist // Dire-Strain Anarchist: Haste and Menace, and just a strong pinger. Overall, just a strong card especially in this deck.
• Avabruck Caretaker // Hollowhenge Huntmaster: High cmc high reward. The dayside is just nice, but the night side is really strong, hexproof for all our permanents and the buff at the beginning of our combat are bonkers.
• 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 of 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 late game 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.
• Return to Nature: Versatile removal and also grave hate if needed.
• Exploration: With tovolar we will draw a bunch of cards after our attack, so this card helps to use some 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 werewolves) and the trample effect is way weaker than triumph of the hordes.
• Pyreheart Wolf: impressive evasion, but this deck will concentrate on trample.
• Ulrich's Kindred: 4 mana to make an attacking creature indestructible 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 werewolf. 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 should try to draw our cards with tovolar or the other strong draw engines.
• Vandalblast: an excellent artifact removal but only sorcery speed and no enchantment removal.
• Sylvan library: not enough life link to use this card often. Also, we have a good draw engine in our command zone.
• 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.
• Whirlwind: Werewolves aren't strong against flying creatures, so this removal can help out, but if there is no deck with flying creatures this card is just useless, so depends on the meta.
• Berserkers' Onslaught: Strong finisher card in this deck, like Unnatural Growth. It will also let you draw your cards twice if you can make combat DMG. Still, Triumph of the Hordes and Unnatural Growth are the better cards for similar cmc.
• Kessig Cagebreakers: can be a good card but if you have nothing in your graveyard or not enough, this card is too expensive and not a werewolf 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 command zone.

> Weaknesses

• Problem with control decks with tons of mass removal.
• Stax pieces like tainted aether or humility can be a huge issue
• Not strong in combo environment.
• Decks with flying creatures are a pain in the a**. If there are many decks with flying stuff in your meta just change decimate with whirlwind.
• Werewolf tribal is not really strong at all, so check your playgroup and the power level if you want to have fun.

> Changelog

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