MTG Salvation

Hello MTGSalvation,

I am Chief_of_Compliance, a long-time EDH enthusiast and lover of all things cEDH. I am very proud of this homebrew and I'm excited to present it to the cEDH community. This is my 3rd crack at building a competitive edh deck. I saw Gyrus as an interesting commander and this deck has been under construction since Commander 2018. While I still feel like its ability is nerfed as a result of R&D from being too cautious in designing this Jund commander, I wanted to focus on what the card could do and build around its restrictions rather than writing it off. I've harassed my playgroup for ideas, wonderful people on Discord for advice, and scoured the multitude of resources available online to hand-pick every single card on this list to maximize the potential of this deck. This deck tries to utilize as much interaction and ETB creatures for longevity while I search up win cons. Because this is a highly underused commander (even in casual lists), the strength of this deck is its ability to fly under the radar.

Quick Info
This deck has been in production since August 9th, 2018 (the release date for the Commander 2018 product). I bought each set, but this was the commander that spoke the most to me.Gyrus, as it seems, was largely criticized for its brutal double exile that prevents any real abuse of his ability. I largely wrote this deck off in its early stages, but thanks to Modern Horizons, the final piece that made me drag this out of the graveyard was Lesser Masticore. The deck is surprisingly resilient with different win conditions in the event of removal. This deck runs a Reanimator Hulk package and a suite of cards that positively interact with Necrotic Ooze.

Playing the Deck

The early game strategy is to "Jund 'em out". Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast against FlashHulk, Lightning Bolt against greedy Ad Nauseam players, and a suite of hate against artifacts, enchantments, and creatures. The strategy is to survive the first few rounds against faster decks that will look to take the game quickly. While at the same time, we can start setting up win conditions.

This deck runs both Hulk and Necrotic Ooze as our options to set up a win with a lot of ways to tutor for the cards we need. Getting cards in the graveyard is one of the most important lines of play here, either dealing with threats with an extra ETB removal using Gyrus or simply winning the game with infinite counters on Necrotic Ooze with Devoted Druid, Morselhoarder, and Walking Ballista in the graveyard. The most fun is playing with persist with Hulk, since when he dies, he tutors up the entire win condition with Disciple of the Vault, Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Lesser Masticore and a sac outlet like Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder.

Why Play This Deck?

This is a homebrew attempt at a competitive deck in colors that typically only run Prossh and uses a commander that will fly under the radar at most tables until you start machine gunning everyone. This deck can also win on the attack step using Gyrus after a Hermit Druid activation to make a token of Necrotic Ooze and win before damage is even dealt. So far, this deck has performed well against 75% pods and I continue to play test when I have the available time against hardcore cEDH groups.

Hello there. Was curious if you've done any gameplay as of late? Also have you tried yawgmoths will in here seems pretty good with the low cmc cost of the deck. Also could you see worldgorger being a part of the deck for another combo ?thanks

Hello there. Yawgmoth's Will is a card that I considered in the deck, but I do not have a good reason for its exclusion outside of the limitations of 99 card slots and the deck still being in its experimental phases. Worldgorger Dragon is a really good idea actually. It gives me a target in the event that Protean Hulk gets removed from the game. Blinking Murderous Redcap gives me a way to kill the table. I really dig this idea actually. Just not 100% what card to cut for it.