The new commander [[Hakbal of the Surging Soul]] is very strong. Like at least a decent margin stronger than the other commanders available in the precons. A lot of early YouTube content with the four precons show Hakbal winning pretty often. As a long time Fish player it's pretty exciting!

Nov 14, 2023 · Hakbal is going to put a ton of lands in your hand. [[exploration]] and/or [[burgeoning]] may serve you better than Glimpse the Core and Farseek. Hakbal definitely wants merfolk on the board before he comes down so I find that early game ramp gets in the way of the explore plan while the two aforementioned enchantments will put in far more work ...

Comparing Hakbal to Edric, I find Hakbal to be faster/can more easily finish the game with extra turns. Also, the top deck manipulation you get with Hakbal is insane with a few pieces on the board. My thought with Hakbal is that I dont need to draw a lot of cards, i just want to draw exactly what i need - which is done through explore.

Mar 25, 2024 · The purpose of Hakbal is to maximize the Explore mechanic, the more merfolk, the more deck filtering to get to a win condition. I would also highly suggest [[Emergence Zone]]. Move to combat, run through the explore triggers, get Triumph of the Horde on top.

Hakbal looks good for a low to the ground aggro build that can snowball value fast. Kumena is good as a midrange value deck that slowly "fishes" you for more merfolk to play on to the field for the cost of the value payoffs. Both are good in the 99 of either deck. Hakbal is definitely going to be a bomb inside of a Kumena deck.

Dec 10, 2023 · Hakbal’s ability is a trigger. Once it starts resolving it must finish resolving before any game actions can be taken by anybody including you. This means that Danny doesn’t draw cards till ALL your merfolk have explored and Nicanzil doesn’t drop …

Potential upgrades if Hakbal is a recurring threat in your pod are token doublers and tripplers. Especially with things like the Squad mechanic, giving insane valuable. The important thing is to get as many soldiers on the front line to take the hits as possible.

Whenever Hakbal of the Surging Soul attacks, you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield. If you don't, draw a card. 3/3 ---- What do you think of this new Merfolk commander? Is it better than [[Kumena, tyrant of orazca]]? Is it going to be more lands and landfall shenanigans oriented because of the explore mechanic?

May 18, 2024 · I will say the one thing I've noticed playing is that Hakbal does get picked on a lot. So I'll definitely add some protection for my boy. Cards I'm thinking about taking out are Nature's Claim, Azusa's Lost but Seeking, Filter out, and Scouting Trek. Gonna add Counterspell, Cyclonic Rift, Rhystic Study, and maybe add Heroic Intervention

Mar 19, 2024 · I've found [[Hakbal of the Surging Soul]]'s play style to be very linear and has not much going on asides from countering opponents spells and putting counters on merfolks. I just took the deck apart, hoping to integrate some of the +1/+1 counter synergistic cards into another deck in the future or just build a mono-blue merfolk deck with ...