Is EDH too expensive for you? Wanna play a fun deck that doesn't cost a fortune? Then allow me to introduce you to....Poor Man's EDH. For under $75 you can own a cool, powerful, and fun EDH deck that isn't too limited. With this new series, I plan on trying to make some fun decks that can do great in the format without making it too hard to perform well. So...let's get this show on the road! Enjoy!
Gwafa Hazid is a master of profits, utilizing his ability to pick out the suckers from a crowd and take everything they've got with deceptive salesmanship, and his deck is no different. Your plan is to play the game by playing the players against each other and for you. Gwafa comes with plenty of political tricks in his deck to try and appear as friendly as possible. Gwafa brings cards like Prosperity and Vision Skeins to give everyone cards, while he himself offers bribes to players. By paying a bit of your mana, you put a bribery counter on a creature you don't control and it's controller draws a card....but the creature can't attack or block afterward. At first this seems like a poor decision, but when you bribe creatures with low power and toughness but great tap abilities, this becomes more of a good deal rather than the blatant scam it is. Gwafa plays on people's greed to pull of his profitting scheme, and by bribing players with card draw, you can slowly start piecing together your big turnaround victory.
While handing out cards is a valuable piece to making allies in-game, there are other ways Gwafa makes a friend or two. By placing careful counters or prevention spell, he earns trust and favor among people. For example, when Bob was attacked by goblins, Gwafa used Riot Control to save his life. Little did Bob know that the life gained by the spell would be the reason Gwafa outlasted Bob later and allow Gwafa to steal a win. Or the time Gwafa used a Hinder spell when Lisa tried to counter Max's Elvish Visionary, but put that counter back on top of the library as a sign of good faith. Later, Lisa and Gwafa teamed up to take down Max's army of Pegasus tokens....and Gwafa finished off Lisa after she took down most of the tokens at the cost of her creatures. Gwafa knows plenty of spells that are perfect for manipulating the game to insure victory in the end, and you can abuse them all you like....as long as no one's aiming for you.
The last bit of Gwafa's spells are defensive creatures like Plumveil to defend himself and Propaganda to prevent attacks on him, and his most powerful spells are a sight to behold. Mind Control steals a creature from another player, and it has 2 brother spells that Gwafa knows! Roil Elemental follows the theft ability, but he steals every time you drop a land! Godhead of Awe makes all other creatures 1/1, which shuts down any form of defensive your opponents can have! But the best creature in Gwafa's arsenal is Azor's Elocutors. Every turn, they conduct a filibuster, which builds counters over time, and when you get five filibuster counters, you win! If interrupted though, they lose counters, but preventing interruptions is what Gwafa does best. With all the bribes and powerful creatures, as well as a few artifacts that makes the Elocutors (or other powerful creatures he equips them too) hexproof and shroud, which makes them untargetable by opposing removal spells! After all the careful planning and manipulating, Gwafa can steal a win without even touching you!
Your best weapon playing this is your mouth. You have to make alliances to stay alive. So talk to the players. Use promises to stay alive and make friends. Tell them some things you can do to help them win! Politics is all about talking, and if you aren't talking, your letting potential threats grow. So use your words to ease into late game...and reap the rewards while your opponents stare blankly at the board you created.