The 26 Best Group Hug Cards in Commander Ranked

Last updated on April 29, 2025

Collective Voyage | Illustration by Ricardo Bessa

As my 2-year-old son can attest to, there’s no wound that a hug can’t heal. That, or tummy time.

Group hug is a strategy that can really only exist in Commander. It takes the political side of this multiplayer format and gives it shape in the form of an entire archetype, supported by years of cards that looked terrible in 1v1 MTG formats, but got new meaning when Commander took over.

If you’re tired of beating down and making enemies in EDH, just take a note out of Creed’s library and embrace the table With Arms Wide Open.

What Is a Group Hug Card in EDH?

Promise of Loyalty | Illustration by Sara Winters

Group hug as a strategy employs cards that are designed to benefit other players, often in addition to benefiting you. These cards usually give a resource to each player at the table, though not always symmetrically.

Group hug as a Commander strategy has been around since the dawn of the format and recontextualized a lot of cards that were designed well before EDH was ever formalized. Nowadays, Wizards intentionally prints group hug commanders and cards to bolster the strategy. As a result, there are a lot of cards that fit this category, so I’ll have to do some narrowing down here.

First, I’m leaving off cards that I think are better classified as “group slug.” Descent into Avernus is a great example of a card that has that group hug feel by giving everyone Treasure tokens, but the card is really just there to kill everyone, which is more slug than hug. That’s not to say a group hug card must benefit everyone to qualify, just that group slug commanders and cards are a more distinct category.

The other caveat I want to make here is the distinction between good group hug cards and bad ones. Commander’s a fast format full of super-powerful decks these days. You can’t just play cards that accelerate your opponents’ mana and give them a ton of extra cards and expect to win unless you’re coming out on top somehow. I don’t believe cards like Prosperity and Heartbeat of Spring are good group hug cards unless you have combos built around them. Huggin’ for the sake of huggin’ only benefits the players with good decks, so either come with a plan for your universal effects or avoid them altogether.

Most entries on this list are what I like to consider “responsible” group hug cards. There’s an element of control over them. They either give you agency over how or when they benefit other players, or they’ll make sure you get more of a benefit than other players. In other words, the cards on this list let you play your group hug deck without settling for second place at best.

I won’t just be highlighting “cards that are good in group hug decks,” but rather cards that were designed with the express purpose of helping other players in some way.

#26. Phelddagrif

Happy hippo here is the Bant card () that introduced me to the concept of group hug. It honestly should just be an incarnation creature named “Generosity” or something given the way it plays. Phelddagrif isn’t good, actually quite terrible, but it’s a posterhippo for the strategy and what it stands for.

#25. Spectral Searchlight + Victory Chimes

Just to reiterate, I absolutely hate cards like Heartbeat of Spring and Mana Flare in group hug. If you’re not using them for nefarious purposes yourself, you’re just setting your opponents up with the mana they need to pull wins out of nowhere.

If I really want to play the role of generous mana-giver, I look at cards like Spectral Searchlight and Victory Chimes, which are generic mana rocks that can also gift mana to your opponents. Searchlight was printed at a time when mana burn still existed, but that angle’s no longer a factor.

#24. Skullwinder

Skullwinder would be a pet card of mine if my HOA allowed snakes. Eternal Witness with deathtouch is spicy, and an opponent of your choice will be much obliged by the free card you’re giving them back.

#23. Cybernetic Datasmith

Protection from robots? Take that, Transformers cards!

Cybernetica Datasmith is a very cool Warhammer 40,000 card, offering card draw and 4/4 beaters to players of your choice. You’ll probably target yourself each time, but there’s nothing stopping you from targeting two opponents on any given activation.

#22. Shadrix Silverquill

Similar to Cybernetica Datasmith, Shadrix Silverquill juggles different benefits for different players. Two differences though: First, you must choose an opponent each turn if able, so no holding back if you’re starting to pull ahead. Second, Shadrix is a massive double-striking flier that can get even bigger if you choose the +1/+1 counter mode for yourself, so you can make quick work of players, whereas most group hug cards are more slow and methodical.

#21. Forbidden Orchard

Untapped 5-color mana-fixing comes at a cost, and giving an opponent a 1/1 is quite the downside. But this 5-color land is also a hefty bargaining tool, since you can spot people a chump blocker or sac fodder on a whim. I’ve saved many an opponent at instant speed with this. Some of them turned around and killed me anyway.

#20. Parley Cards

Parley was a neat multiplayer mechanic from Conspiracy, though it’s appeared on less than 10 cards even with guest appearances in various Commander precons. It’s peak “responsible” group-hugging: Everyone draws a card, but you get some sort of bonus depending on the cards revealed. Selvala, Explorer Returned is the most popular parley card by miles.

#19. Avatar of Growth + Veteran Explorer

Mana is the most dangerous resource to be too laissez-faire about, but giving everyone some extra lands is certainly a way to make sure everyone gets to participate in the game. Veteran Explorer needs to die for this to happen, whereas Avatar of Growth simply needs to enter play, and it often does so for just 3 mana.

#18. Promise of Loyalty + Fortunate Few

Just ‘cuz you’re a group hug deck doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play board wipes. Promise of Loyalty and Fortunate Few are some of the more politically-slanted white wraths, and open up opportunities for fun and interesting discussions and deal-making. There’s also Tragic Arrogance, which gives you complete control over the situation, but that’s just an excellent card, not so much group hug-specific.

#17. Demonstrate Spells

This batch of spells from Commander 2021 introduced us to the demonstrate mechanic, which lets you double up on a spell by also allowing one of your opponents to copy that spell. It’s a great buddy-up mechanic that still favors you in the end, and it can help dig an opponent out of a hole.

#16. Bramble Sovereign

Bramble Sovereign is a great bargaining chip with open mana. If you read between the lines enough, you’ll notice that Sovereign can produce copies of anyone’s creatures entering. That concession was made for Battlebond to double up your teammate’s creatures, but it’s a great political tool in Commander as well.

#15. Gift Spells

Bloomburrow introduced us to an entire group hug mechanic with the gift ability. Here you’re able to get an amplified effect on a card by promising a gift to an opponent. Obviously, that’s a tough choice in 1v1 Magic, but a huge boon in multiplayer. The gift is usually just a card or a 1/1 token, but some of the more bombastic gifts include an 8/8 octopus with Octomancer or an entire friggin’ extra turn with Perch Protection.

#14. Howling Mines

This list could easily be composed of Howling Mine and 40 other variants, so I’ll save us the redundancy and lump them all together here. As Commander’s progressed, I’ve become less and less interested in universal card draw in my group hug decks, so I prefer Howling Mine variants that give you control over the card draw. That means playing something I can “shut off” if an opponent gets out of hand, like Temple Bell or Kwain, Itinerant Meddler.

#13. Ms. Bumbleflower

I’m actually pretty down on Ms. Bumbleflower after seeing it in action a bit. There’s this usual narrative with group hug where the help they're granting everyone is really just a ruse to mask their true intent of punishing everyone out of nowhere, but Ms. Bumbleflower gives up the gig right away. It just gets enormous so fast that people have to kill it, and it actually gets pretty sticky in 1v1 situations. It advertises group hug well enough, but it feels way more threatening than it should.

#12. Faerie Mastermind

Faerie Mastermind looks like a Howling Mine (also kinda looks like Yuta Takahashi, doesn’t it?), but you have complete control over when to grant everyone card draw. It’s also just a powerful card if you ignore the activated ability altogether, since its triggered ability just piggybacks off of opponents' extra card draw.

#11. Wishclaw Talisman + Scheming Symmetry

These two cards are pretty different, but they’re both in the spirit of dishing out tutors to other players. You can get crafty and work around the “downside” of either one or just play them straight up and make a friend out of another player. I don’t know about you, but I’m not attacking the dude who just gave me a free Vampiric Tutor.

#10. Eureka Cards

I’ll take “Cards That Backfire When I Play Them” for $1,000, Mr. Trebek.

There’s a whole category of cards that just let players dump things into play, and my experience is that it rarely works out for the person casting the card that lets them do it. Eureka and Show and Tell are classic examples, whereas Braids, Conjurer Adept is a blue commander with this entire focus in mind.

I couldn’t list them all, but suffice to say: Proceed with caution. All it takes is someone popping Omniscience or Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger into play and the game ends, with everyone looking at you for letting it happen. Honestly, my favorite line is to use Show and Tell to put a land into play and hope everyone else puts scary enough threats on board that they leave me alone and duke it out amongst themselves.

#9. Collective Voyage + Minds Aglow

I quite dislike the join forces mechanic in general, though I find Collective Voyage to be the real offender given how quickly it accelerates games out of control. Some group hug players are all about getting people their mana as soon as possible, so this fits a certain style of player more than others. Minds Aglow is less offensive, though this sorcery has the same issues of just giving tons or resources to everyone whether they contribute or not.

#8. The Hunted Creatures

Here we’ve got a cycle of creatures from Ravnica: City of Guilds (plus Hunted Bonebrute from Murders at Karlov Manor). Each has pushed stats but gives an opponent some tokens that are just shy of actually beating the creature head-to-head. Hunted Troll, for example, gives someone enough 1/1 Faeries to trade in combat, but regenerate means you win in the exchange. These got a whole new life in Commander, when you could actually start bargaining with them. My favorite is Hunted Horror, which just slams down a massive amount of power on turn 2 in Commander.

#7. Loran of the Third Path

Loran of the Third Path is a no-brainer. Everyone knows how good Reclamation Sage is, so tacking on vigilance and an extra, optional ability makes for a stronger card. You can ignore this white creature‘s card draw if it’s not to your benefit, but you’ll almost always use it to keep your hand full and foster goodwill at the table.

#6. Gluntch, the Bestower

I’m a Gluntch, the Bestower Stan and I’m not afraid to admit it. This Selesnya card () is beautifully crafted so that you can help out everyone except the player in the lead, which gives the rest of the table a great shot at catching up to someone who got too far ahead. Even if the pod’s gunning for you for some reason, you can usually divvy up the end step trigger in a way that’s not that detrimental to you.

#5. Rocco, Street Chef

Rocco, Street Chef gives everyone a free impulse draw each turn, but you’ll get a healthy serving of Food and +1/+1 counters as those cards come out of exile. You can also lean into the cast-from-exile nature of this Naya commander () and just accept that your opponents are getting a benefit along the way.

#4. Friend or Foe Cards

Another Battlebond triumph, the “friend or foe” cycle lets you get back at your enemies while also rewarding those who graciously accepted your group-hugging ways. Pir's Whim is actually just an incredible land tutor with upside, and each other card in the cycle has its moments, especially if an archenemy needs to be taken down a peg.

#3. Kenrith, the Returned King

The beauty of Kenrith, the Returned King is that all of its activated abilities can be aimed at opponents and their creatures as well, so you have a lot of agency in how you’ll play this 5-color commander. You can just, you know, try to win or go infinite or whatever, but reanimating an opponent’s creature on their side of the battlefield basically means they owe you for life.

#2. Everybody Lives!

This might be the most huggy card that ever hugged? It’s like casting Heroic Intervention on everyone and everything, and it ensures the game stays mostly locked in place for the remainder of that turn. It guarantees Everybody Lives! through an alt wincon like Thassa's Oracle, and at worst it can Fog a combat for a turn.

#1. Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis

I’m not going to pretend that Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis is a more powerful card than King Kenny, but K&T is group hug at its most quintessential. This card demonstrates exactly how you should play the archetype if you still want to win games. Everyone gets choice A or choice B, but you get both. That’s how it should be. And I’m always surprised by just how effective a 2/8 is in combat.

Best Group Hug Payoffs

Isn’t friendship the greatest reward of all?

No, no it’s not. I’m still trying to win some games, people! There are plenty of tangible rewards for playing group hug beyond just trying to politic everyone into having a good time.

The first and most common approach is to flip the script on your opponents and punish them for the resources you’ve been giving them all game. Again, this feels more “group slug” to me than traditional group hug, but it’s a viable way to weaponize your generosity. Think cards like Scrawling Crawler or Nekusar, the Mindrazer, which give people cards but hurt them as they draw. Folio of Fancies can become a wincon once players' hands have become too fat for them to empty out their cards.

Another common strategy is to gas up your opponents’ creatures with cards like Sheltering Ancient and Evolutionary Escalation, then turn around and use Mob Rule or Insurrection to close out the game.

Draw payoffs tend to play well in group hug decks, since many of your Howling Mine variants are already drawing you tons of extra cards. I’m partial to Psychosis Crawler and Proft's Eidetic Memory as ways to convert card draw into damage.

What’s the Point of Playing a Group Hug Deck?

Group hug is a lot of fun when played responsibly, at least in casual settings. It’s a great way to feel out a pod of unknown players if you think you’re going to be playing with those people for the rest of the night. The extra access to cards and mana usually means everyone gets to at least play the game, as you’ll often pull anyone out of mana screw in the early game.

The joke used to be that group hug was always aiming for second place, helping opponents kill each other and then essentially conceding to the final opponent. Group hug cards tend to drop off significantly in 1v1 settings since you can no longer politic your way around optimal game actions, like getting absolutely piled on by a board full of creatures. My experience is that group hug is supported enough and variable enough that you can actually win matches with the strategy if you’re good at politics, threat analysis, and deckbuilding.

Why Do Some People Hate Group Hug?

I have a lot of experience playing group hug in EDH, and I can say with confidence that no matter how friendly your deck is, some players will feel manipulated by this type of strategy and retaliate accordingly. The goal is to be inconspicuous and steal wins out of nowhere, after all, and a savvy player will sniff that out the second you start handing out free cards and land drops.

There’s also a sentiment that group hug can lead to “undeserved wins.” I don’t subscribe to this belief, but you can at least understand why someone who’s played well and taken the right actions to set up a win might feel “cheated” because a group hug deck started bolstering all their opponents with no actual input from those other players.

And of course, many group hug decks end up winning via alternate wincons like Approach of the Second Sun and Thassa's Oracle, which I wholeheartedly agree is super cheesy.

A Little Taste: My Group Hug Decklist

Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis | Illustration by Willian Murai

This is what a group hug deck would look like 5+ years ago. Dictate of Kruphix, Dictate of Karametra, or Kami of the Crescent Moon are enough reason for your opponents to keep you in play, but they tend to favor everyone equally and don't put you ahead. In fact, you might argue you're behind in the exchange, since you spent mana to deploy the effect that's treating everyone equally.

You see the usual pillow fort suspects here, like Sphere of Safety, Ghostly Prison, and Lightmine Field. Hopefully people won't want to attack the player directly benefitting them, but that's not always the case.

Tempt with Vengeance, Insurrection, Approach of the Second Sun, Helix Pinnacle, and Laboratory Maniac are your wincons, but they’re somewhat difficult to pull off so you need some real strategy to create your opportunity. It used to be that group hug decks were all about having fun, not winning, but there's no reason you can't do both.

It’s the Friends You Make Along the Way

Creative Technique | Illustration by Gaboleps

So that’s a little taste of what group hug has to offer. Again, I really boiled this list down to good, responsible group hug cards, ones that give you a chance of winning instead of throwing in the towel and saying “everyone gets to do what they want!” The key is having control over your own effects instead of playing universally beneficial cards that reward everyone equally. You’re spending the mana to cast your cards, you should get the best outcome from them!

If I can offer one piece of advice to a would-be group hug player, it’s to ditch all the Howling Mines and Heartbeat of Springs and play effects that give you agency over your own cards and who you help at any given time. That way, you’re not just gassing up a player with an already-broken deck.

How do you like to hug in Commander? Are you the type that likes to drop a Tempting Wurm and see what happens? Or do you play a more underhanded game and steal wins out from underneath your opponents? Let me know in the comments below, or on the Draftsim Discord/Twitter!

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