I've liked Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves since War of the Spark came out, so now that wolf tribal has gotten most of its pieces I've been thinking a lot about decks to build from it.

It seems obvious that the core of the deck is 4x Wicked Wolf, 4x Nightpack Ambusher and 4x Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves. You can remove the Nightpacks and just rely on the other two for their useful fight triggers alone, but then I don't think you're really playing a "wolf deck" anymore.

All three are powerful cards on their own, but together they combine into an (almost) unstoppable force that just eats your opponent alive. It really can make you feel sorry for your opponent when you curve turn 3 Wicked Wolf, into turn 4 Tolsimir, into flash in Nightpack, into pass, make a 3/3 wolf token, then flash in another Nightpack - eating each and every one of your opponent's creatures along the way.

Nightpack Ambusher is great because it can flash in and eat an attacker, it can flash in end-of-turn to avoid sorcery-speed removal, it can generate an army all on its own, and it's a wolf lord that buffs all of your wolves.

Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves is great because he makes two bodies, fights something, and then sits in play as a holy general for the wolf army gaining you 3 life every time you play another wolf pal. I've seen some lists run only 3 copies, likely because he's Legendary, but I don't think you should include any less than the full 4. He simply offers too much offensive and defensive capability (putting a huge target on his back anyway) and he really helps to hold the deck together through the constant life gain he offers.

Wicked Wolf is great and one of the most slept-on cards from Eldraine - provided that you have ways to make Food in your deck. A 3/3 for 4 that fights something when it enters play is fine, but Voracious Hydra is better if that's all you want him for. When you add Food, suddenly he becomes a hybridisation of both Adanto Vanguard (he can make himself indestructable in response to removal as many times as you have Food) and Ravenous Chupacabra (he can eat Food until he's big enough to kill any creature with his fight trigger), which is a really potent, well-rounded threat.

So that's the core. There are a couple of ways to go from there, but I'll just list what I've chosen:

Ramp: Gilded Goose, Paradise Druid

In a deck with so many impactful 4 and 5-drops it makes sense to include ramp creatures, and these two are the most obvious choices. Goose is a source of Food, and druid being hexproof makes it harder for opponents to stop you from ramping out a turn 3 Ambusher or Wicked Wolf.

Instant-speed package: Vivien's Arkbow, Assassin's Trophy, Murderous Rider

Looking at all of the wolf cards available, Nightpack Ambusher is probably the single most powerful card in a vacuum thanks to Flash and its ability to make more wolves whenever you pass the turn without casting a spell. It makes sense to lean into this, which means playing cards that you can cast (or use) at instant-speed so that you get to have your wolf cake and eat it too.

Trophy and Rider are both just solid removal pieces, but Vivien's Arkbow allows you to find and continue adding creatures to the board on the opponent's turn even in spite of none of the other creatures in the deck having flash. It gets around counter magic, doesn't count as casting a spell when you use it, and with 28 creatures in the deck it's hard to miss at X=4 or X=5. It's not wrong to run 4 copies of the Arkbow, but I've chosen 3 because the deck doesn't revolve around it and it lets me play another land.

Additional Food sources: Savvy Hunter

In order to maximize Wicked Wolf's effectiveness you need to have it so that Food is always lying around, which I don't think Gilded Goose is really able to pull off on its own. The obvious choice for an inclusion here is Oko, Thief of Crowns which is why there are some 4-color wolf decks going around. However, Oko is a $35 mythic, whereas Savvy Hunter is a bulk uncommon, so...

But really, Savvy Hunter seems fine. It's a 3/3 threat on its own, it generates Food on offense and defense, and it even allows you to draw cards, which is something Oko doesn't do. It helps keep the manabase simple, as well.

High-end: Garruk, Cursed Huntsman

Before Throne of Eldraine came out wolf decks were running Arlinn, Voice of the Pack as a high-end wolf planeswalker, however now her toes have been thoroughly stepped upon with the release of Garruk, Cursed Huntsman. Garruk's synergy with Tolsimir is just disgustingly good, as you can often kill two of your opponent's creatures, gain 6 life, and then have a Garruk that's ready to ultimate on the very next turn. I think he's definitely worth including in a wolf deck, however he's still a 6-mana planeswalker, so I reckon 2 copies makes a lot more sense than the 3 that a lot of lists I've seen have had. You don't want too many copies clogging up your hand.

And that's the deck! Thanks for checking it out.