How to Build Surrak, the Hunt Caller Commander Deck in MTG

Surrak, Call of the Hunt, is one of the commanders Magic: The Gathering's Foundation kit. This mono-green commander was originally released in the Dragons of Tarkir set in 2015 and returned to the fore with Foundations. Since Foundations is a set aimed at new players, Surrak, Hunt Caller is a great choice for a first commander.

Surrak, Hunt Caller is the kind of game where you will be playing a lot of creatures. This is a strategy known as “Stompy”, which is (mostly) mono-green decks that focus on building giant creatures with powerful abilities and stats as quickly as possible.

List of decks

List of decks
contains 38 creatures, seven sorceries, four instants, nine artifacts, seven enchantments, and 34 lands
. The deck focuses on creatures, so they take up most of the deck while the others either build up or boost you in combat for more damage.

Key cards

Surrak, Hunting

Surrak, the exclamation of the hunt is a deck commander and one way to improve yourself in combat. This gives the creature haste as long as you control a total power of eight. Surrak already has five, so you only need three more powers to make sure Surrak is always active.

With how combat oriented the deck is, the haste provided by Surrak, Hunt Caller is vital to dealing damage quickly. Other uses of Surrak giving mana dork (creatures that tap themselves to add mana) haste to help build up your larger creatures faster if you are unable to initiate an attack.

Unnatural growth

With Surrak, a Hunt Caller Commander deck, you are going to attack almost every turn you can. This is where unnatural growth comes in. This doubles the power and durability of your creatures at the start of each fight, making them threats with much higher stats to deal huge bursts of damage.

In particular, unnatural growth doubles yours creature statistics every fight, not just your own. This turns your creatures into excellent turn blockers for your opponents, helping to keep your life completely safe during all the fights you have on your turn.

Defiler of cheerfulness

Defiler of cheerfulness this is a creature you want on the battlefield ASAP. This helps bring out larger creatures faster, like you can pay two life instead of the green mana required in the creature's casting cost. With 40 starting life, this life loss is minimal and more than worth it.

With Defiler of Vigor, you can only pay two life once instead of multiple times. This means you can only replace one green mana. For example, for a spell that costs three green mana, you can pay two green mana and two life, but no more than that.

Each time you use green permanently, you gain a +1/+1 counter for each creature you control. Creatures are permanent cards, so every creature you create will continue to grow with every other creature you control. The casting cost does not matter, and the effect is not once per turnso multiple creatures will result in multiple +1/+1 counters.

Surrak and Horachok

Surrak has had several cards over the years, both Surrak and Goreclaw is a great addition to Surrak, the Hunt Caller deck. It will be have all your creatures trample, haste, and add a +1/+1 counter to a creature when it enters. This is a great backup commander that forces your opponents to deal with two accelerations instead of one.

Surrak and Mountain Claw's effect only applies to non-token creatures, so tokens created with cards like Paradox Zone and Elder Gargaroth won't gain haste or a +1/+1 counter. However, they will still be trampled as only the triggered ability will not affect your token creatures.

Surrak and Goreclaw also have great stats, especially when they get +1/+1 counters. Given the nature of the deck, you want to always be dealing damage. That's why the ability that gives trample to all other creatures is very importantthis helps ensure that you connect for damage every turn.

How to play a deck

Surrak, Hunt Caller Commander deck all about the fight. you want constantly swing your creatures and bring your opponents life total to zero as fast as possible. This is done with his large set of creatures, many of which have great stats, trample, or other ways to make closing games easier.

There are several cards that increase the stats of your creatures (permanently or temporarily) that you want to the battlefield as soon as possible. Unnatural growth and Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus both double the power and durability of your creatures at the start of each battle, so far The desecrator of cheerfulness, the great feathered wurm, and Railway brawler all put +1/+1 counters on your creatures.

Both Unnatural Growth and Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus have the same effect, so if both are on the battlefield you can stack both. This quadruples the stats of your creatures, as one will double the other.

The the main condition for the deck to win is natural combat. Because of how easy it is to give your creatures giant stats and trample them, you can easily lower someone's health while still staying safe with your giant creatures.

Also, you can win with Triumph of the Hordewhich gives all your creatures +1/+1 and infects. Infect will make your opponents gain poison counters instead of losing life, so you only need to connect for ten damage as opposed to 40 take someone out of the game.

The the deck's biggest flaw is its heavy reliance on creatures. Erasing the board can cause disaster and take you out of the game for several turns while you restore the board.

In addition, cards that affect cost a lot of manatherefore, in the early stages of the game, your battlefield is often ineffective. It takes some time to set up, but once you're set up with the creatures, it's very easy to start snowballing – especially with Surrak's ability to grant haste.