That is the correct mana base. Originally mixed to get use out of tainted pact now there is no reason to change it because on the off chance someone plays extraplaner lense this assures that you will get the benefit from it. It does not hurt to have it that way and once in a blue moon it helps. The single mountain is incase you need your red to be basic, and because there are several fetches that can only get mountains and only having the two duals was not enough.
Insidious dreams with howl tooth is pretty neat. Grenzo is not reliably enough at three power to try and include it, if only howl tooth could send all four to the bottom then I could just do the normal stack. Going to look around and see if there is a cheap effect that can.
surging dementia or surging flame instead of howltooth hollow would allow for the full doomsday stack. It is a possibilty I am considering. Both are half way decent on their own and synergize well with grenzo even without insidious haxing.
Insidous for five is exactly how you do it, grenzo very often has lots of cards in hand, at least more often then he will be at three power. Of course the three power variant would still be an option. And the two cards I mentioned are good enough to go in the deck on their own. If insidous makes the cut one or both of them will as well.
If Insidious Dreams is not in your starting hand your typically going to want to cast grenzo on turn two, and then if you draw it, it goes from being a secondary doomsday to the worst tutor of all time. I do think it is amazing tech for the deck and I put it in along side with surging flame for the 5 discard version, I am sure the 3 card version will also be used often. Not sure if surging dementia will make the cut though. It also is decent tutoring for the faithless looting dday stack. Thanks for the idea spas.
(On a side note why does the deck list insist on putting that massive gap at the bottom?)
i never meant insidious dreams to be taken as a serious suggestion :P. on the one hand it can be worse than cruel tutor, on the other, it can be a better doomsday since it sets up your stack and you won't autolose if you screw up.
EDIT: oh you already mentioned the looting stack. I also think frenchjester is right that insidious for 5 is a much bigger deal than for 3. if you EOT insidious for 5, you need 6 cards in hand including the insidious. Notwithstanding mulligans, opponent's discard, your own proactive discard/removal, you would only be at 6 cards in hand if all you did up until turn 4 was play a land for the turn. Insidious has its own advantages of course...as far as I know it's the only tutor that lets you both discard dragon/grisel and tutor up an animate dead in one card if you have dragon/grisel in hand.
It can also be used for x=1 to tutor up Doomsday if you have kiki/zealous in hand.
Yup I agree, but surging flame was a solid card to add anyways. I just now have many different ways to use insidious, the faithless one being the most common and the reason I decided to go for it.
-imperial recruiter is pretty much better than goblin matron in this deck, unless you plan to play this deck in real life. i see no dark confidant or grim tutor, but i see wasteland, 7 fetches and badlands so i'm not really sure if you have a budget for this deck or not.
-apprentice necromancer seems mediocre unless you also run griselbrand.
-i also think liliana of the veil is really good in any grenzo build. you're always going to have cards you don't need anyway so the +1 is worse for your opponent, and in reanimator or combo grenzo she can discard a reanimate target.
overall your deck looks strong. i think the sweet spot for grenzo is between 30-36 creatures now. any more than that your chances of flipping get marginally better, but you lose power in terms of disruption and tutors. the less creatures you run, the better your opening hands are as well.
@lordgrimpow: In grenzo, anything that lets you rearrange X cards at the bottom of your library is almost as good as scry X. The more creatures you run, the closer it gets to being scry. I think at around 30 creatures, surging flame is better than magma jet, but surging flame is also a combo piece with insidious dreams (if you really want to insidious for 5 urgh) so its included in the deck.
I still feel going that high on the monster count hurts your other disruption/tutor package to much, but they are different play styles. I still really love the ripple four over the smaller scry even with my lower creature count. Also while I know it was my idea to do 5 card insidious I don't think it will ever actually happen, as the Faithless Looting stack is typically the one to go for, but it is nice to have the option on the off chance it does come up. Lili is amazing and I agree with running her, I personally currently run dystopia over her due to how I feel the meta is at the moment, she is amazing though.
Ah your building a budget version got ya, with that in mind I can help, I'll edit this when I get off work with my budget changes.
That guys deck is really close to my dedicated combo version, which is solid. There are three versions of the deck, good stuff(30+ creatures) and it is the strongest vs dedicated control but struggles against other fast paced combo decks like yisan, and marath. The dedicated combo control(less then 20 creatures) which wrecks those fast paced decks, but has a tougher time with control. And then there is my midrange version which is currently at 24 creatures and is well rounded with out any bad match ups, but is not as focused so the games are much closer rather then crushing certain decks and strugling vs others. All three versions are strong and are largely a playstyle/meta choice. So before I give suggestions, what version did you want to try for?
Your also missing gamble and cruel tutor, if combo is your focus you cant skimp on the tutors. I realize not everyone likes gamble and I get that, but it has won me so many games, your choice there. But cruel tutor is a must have.
I don't personally run lili, she is an amazing card and I can not argue against it, but I don't feel its a must have (she is expensive anyways), as the decks I struggle against really are not phased by her. Dblade is so narrow, and the instant speed is not important, dreadbores ability to hit plainswalkers makes it infinitely better. Dblade not hitting black is way more constraining*.
I am surprised you lost to disruption thrun, it is a horrifying deck, but grenzo only needs two or three mana to win. Sounds like bad luck, I've beaten a couple thruns.
So far the only things that really give me trouble are nin the pain artist and GAAIV. Both are beatable but they are hard matchups. Doran and Jenara can be tough match ups as well if they are heavy control variants, but they are not as bad as nin/gaaiv. Lucky for me Wydwen seems to be really underplayed but I suspect she would be just as brutal as nin and GAAIV, but I guess she folds to marath.
Yea I loose on occasion to other things but I have a positive ratio on every other deck I have come across. Monoblue just doesent have the removal to keep grenzo from wining with his ability, and they have to either spend their counters stopping grenzo or my combos but cant usually do both. Marath, Yisan, Animar and the like I do pretty well against due to having alot of disruption. Maelstorm is usually to slow and does not have counters. Geist tends to be alot easier then GAAIV because its more about trying to win with Geist then trying to control your opponent and it usually just does not have enough fuel to stop grenzo and my combos. Pretty much stomp all over most mono green/mono red decks due to being unable to disrupt me. Aggro in general is an easy match up as it usually cant stop my combos, and when I need to I can put bodies on the field to keep me alive. I have a faster more consistent clock then most combo decks and 5 color stuff.
I am setting this version up for a control heavy meta with nins and mariths in it so there is a major effort to improve the grenzo flips.
I cut the necrotic ozze combos since i felt it took up to much space in the deck as i would not want to play treskeleton or devourer. Necrotic ozze might be worth it since i have grisslebrand in the deck and a few other decent effects but still probably not worth it. http://deckstats.net/deck-4634137-5db60dba5d99a4497fd565d5f9536926.html
Trisk is such a good flip though, it is the decks best combo. Vs mara and nin you actually want the really creature light version (not my current version the dedicated combo one that has less then 20 creatures) with lots of board control, because game is over once nin or mara stick. More creature goodstuff version is for heavy w/u and w/b control stuff.
Best of luck though all three versions are strong options. I feel midrange or dedicated would be better for that meta though.
On a side note I am thinking of cutting mindclaw shaman again, with the discovery that you cant force counter spells to fizzle with him he seems less good now and I may swap him for shimian.
Any thoughts on Heartstone? It reduces his ability cost down to 1 mana, which seems pretty absurd.
Downside is that it comes down on turn 3, and it's not a creature of course.
It could be very strong turn three is pretty good time to cast it with the decks tempo, it would be really good in the goodstuff variant, certainly worth testing.
Im here to share my experience, playing this deck in a real tournament.
Last sunday we had a tournament with 60+ and it was my first time playing the deck for real (just got the cards like saturday) missed some fetches, wasteland, and ofc grim tutor even though i have a good performance, finishing 4x2.
My first match was against a maelstrom, game 1, i had the ooze combo in grave, just need 1 turn to reanimate, he casted wanderer, no LD , and when was my turn i won
game 2 he didnt even casted wanderer, t1 grenzo t2 doomsday t3 win.
my second game was with a storage owner (probably know his deck and the game way more than i do) and was a maelstrom again, and i was excited since won against at the first match
game 1 had the combo in grave, just needed a reanimate or tutor, waited for 3 turns, and didnt draw anything, that was gg for me,
at game 2 his opening hand was INSANE, he has exploration seething song fastbond that made maelstrom t3 and i couldnt do anything, that was gg and making me 1-1
match 3 was against a geist, was pretty bad, even though i controlled more than him, i was drawning nothing, even with 36 lands, i got flooded making me 1-2
since the lvl lowered after this i got a xenagos, was pretty bad, the guy didnt knew what he was doing, he was probably new, didnt had any dual fetch on the deck, was a pretty easy game, nothing to point out, making me 2-2
match 5: i got surprised an Iroas was 2-2 too,was a tight fight, since iroas is like t1 creature t2 creature creature t3 big creature t4 iroas, t5 gg and since we dont block... hopefully i could wipe his board at t3 in both games, giving me way more time,and combo'd with doomsday the both games. 3-2 for me
match 6
Ezuri
managed to wipe board a lot, killed ezuri 2 times and used dragon combo!
game 2, he was just too fast for me to catch up and an early craterhoff killed me
game 3 was just absurd for me, i opened with entomb chrome mox animate dead. so was grenzo t1, t2 entomb animate dead for inf and gg
Ofc we know being good at something need time, practice and effort, i didnt had any of this, like i said i shielded the deck up at sunday morning XP even though i got pretty happy with the result, and just like Vanmeter, won last SGC with his jund, after a lot of open's, i do believe i can do the same, after knowing the deck, pratcing o how to respond the field, and do better next tournament, maybe a 5-1 and making me a top 8 im actually happy.
Just to share my experience on a "netdeck" that i really liked and had a lot of fun, srsly when you buried alive for triskellion and ppl look at you like " wtf he is doing?where is grisel and those big stuffs to reanimate?" thats the best part for me, playing something fun, but competitive at the same time, and not being one more marath deck, or one more geist deck, and bringing something new to the field, something unexpected.
ALL credits for DA, for building the deck ( i would really mention this if i win) and thanks for spatiska, for helping me with the deck at the begining
just a side note, sorry for my english, im not native, and either, never went for english classes
hey firefox, nice matchup report! i assume you are using the combo-control version of grenzo, which is probably better in this metagame because of marath. but it has a hard time flipping with grenzo, so i am sticking with the goodstuff version for now, which is more fun for me
i played alot of games against marath today on cockatrice, using the goodstuff build (34 creatures). here are the replays for the first round, which i won, and which for me was the most memorable one. game 1 i got screwed by my own gamble when i tried to go for animate combo, and the opponent got ahead with marath and linvala, shutting me down before i could rebuild. game 2 i mulliganed to a shaky 5 card hand on the play with chrome mox for a turn 1 grenzo with only 2 cards left in hand, cabal therapy and dragon. i topdecked a hideaway land into redcap to kill his turn 1 dork, and the next turn flipped disciple of phenax, and used my cabal therapy twice with information from disciple, flashback-ing therapy to persist the redcap and shoot down his second dork and thoughtseize him 2 more times. so basically with 1 card (cabal therapy) and 2 arranged flips i took out 5 resources, and he never recovered =). game 3 was very tight but came down to a misplay where my opponent chose not to kill my magus with domri and fell behind while i flipped kiki-jiki and reanimated his zealous conscripts for the kill =D game 1 game 2 game 3
Played against a version that reanimated Griselbrand, is this usually played? A version that reanimates big monsters might be interesting, Sire of Insanity seems reasonable. Not even necessarily making the whole deck around it but just throwing a couple big guys into the deck might have merit, interesting to consider.
Insidious dreams with howl tooth is pretty neat. Grenzo is not reliably enough at three power to try and include it, if only howl tooth could send all four to the bottom then I could just do the normal stack. Going to look around and see if there is a cheap effect that can.
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
(On a side note why does the deck list insist on putting that massive gap at the bottom?)
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
in 2-power grenzo you can always insidious for x=3 for faithless looting, worldgorger dragon and animate dead assuming you have 5 cards in hand including insidious dreams.
EDIT: oh you already mentioned the looting stack. I also think frenchjester is right that insidious for 5 is a much bigger deal than for 3. if you EOT insidious for 5, you need 6 cards in hand including the insidious. Notwithstanding mulligans, opponent's discard, your own proactive discard/removal, you would only be at 6 cards in hand if all you did up until turn 4 was play a land for the turn. Insidious has its own advantages of course...as far as I know it's the only tutor that lets you both discard dragon/grisel and tutor up an animate dead in one card if you have dragon/grisel in hand.
It can also be used for x=1 to tutor up Doomsday if you have kiki/zealous in hand.
1. Jace High Tide Control
2. 5CC Horde Scapeshift
3. Selvala Channel Emrakul
4. Selvala GW Combo
5. Keranos Wildfire
Damia (EDH)
Niv-Mizzet (EDH)
Karador the Hermit Druid (EDH)
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
so much value!
1. Jace High Tide Control
2. 5CC Horde Scapeshift
3. Selvala Channel Emrakul
4. Selvala GW Combo
5. Keranos Wildfire
Damia (EDH)
Niv-Mizzet (EDH)
Karador the Hermit Druid (EDH)
Reveal the top 4 cards of your library and put them on the bottom != scry
C Kozilek C
GB Gitrog GB
G Titania G
WU Brago WU
GB MerenGB
Duel Commander Decks
UR Keranos UR
BRG Jund BRG
GR Tron GR GW Tron GW
C Eldrazi Tron (SB) C
BG Lantern Control BG
UW Control (SB) UW
-apprentice necromancer seems mediocre unless you also run griselbrand.
-i also think liliana of the veil is really good in any grenzo build. you're always going to have cards you don't need anyway so the +1 is worse for your opponent, and in reanimator or combo grenzo she can discard a reanimate target.
overall your deck looks strong. i think the sweet spot for grenzo is between 30-36 creatures now. any more than that your chances of flipping get marginally better, but you lose power in terms of disruption and tutors. the less creatures you run, the better your opening hands are as well.
@lordgrimpow: In grenzo, anything that lets you rearrange X cards at the bottom of your library is almost as good as scry X. The more creatures you run, the closer it gets to being scry. I think at around 30 creatures, surging flame is better than magma jet, but surging flame is also a combo piece with insidious dreams (if you really want to insidious for 5 urgh) so its included in the deck.
1. Jace High Tide Control
2. 5CC Horde Scapeshift
3. Selvala Channel Emrakul
4. Selvala GW Combo
5. Keranos Wildfire
Damia (EDH)
Niv-Mizzet (EDH)
Karador the Hermit Druid (EDH)
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
That guys deck is really close to my dedicated combo version, which is solid. There are three versions of the deck, good stuff(30+ creatures) and it is the strongest vs dedicated control but struggles against other fast paced combo decks like yisan, and marath. The dedicated combo control(less then 20 creatures) which wrecks those fast paced decks, but has a tougher time with control. And then there is my midrange version which is currently at 24 creatures and is well rounded with out any bad match ups, but is not as focused so the games are much closer rather then crushing certain decks and strugling vs others. All three versions are strong and are largely a playstyle/meta choice. So before I give suggestions, what version did you want to try for?
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
allmy games today were t2 demonic tutor for animate dead t3 buried alive t4 win LOL
Magus of the Moon is a must have, he can completely win games by him self, I am not fond of Soldevi Adnate and would trade those two out.
I would run [night's whisper or Phyrexian Arena over plunge into darkness
Your also missing gamble and cruel tutor, if combo is your focus you cant skimp on the tutors. I realize not everyone likes gamble and I get that, but it has won me so many games, your choice there. But cruel tutor is a must have.
Dreadbore and Defense grid are super solid, I would drop Doom Blade, and Surging Dementia for them.
Unmask is probaly the best hand disruption you can get, I would drop Despise for it.
I like ritual I dont know what to take out for it, I don't like blasphemous act.
Rest looks pretty good.
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
So far the only things that really give me trouble are nin the pain artist and GAAIV. Both are beatable but they are hard matchups. Doran and Jenara can be tough match ups as well if they are heavy control variants, but they are not as bad as nin/gaaiv. Lucky for me Wydwen seems to be really underplayed but I suspect she would be just as brutal as nin and GAAIV, but I guess she folds to marath.
Yea I loose on occasion to other things but I have a positive ratio on every other deck I have come across. Monoblue just doesent have the removal to keep grenzo from wining with his ability, and they have to either spend their counters stopping grenzo or my combos but cant usually do both. Marath, Yisan, Animar and the like I do pretty well against due to having alot of disruption. Maelstorm is usually to slow and does not have counters. Geist tends to be alot easier then GAAIV because its more about trying to win with Geist then trying to control your opponent and it usually just does not have enough fuel to stop grenzo and my combos. Pretty much stomp all over most mono green/mono red decks due to being unable to disrupt me. Aggro in general is an easy match up as it usually cant stop my combos, and when I need to I can put bodies on the field to keep me alive. I have a faster more consistent clock then most combo decks and 5 color stuff.
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
I cut the necrotic ozze combos since i felt it took up to much space in the deck as i would not want to play treskeleton or devourer. Necrotic ozze might be worth it since i have grisslebrand in the deck and a few other decent effects but still probably not worth it.
http://deckstats.net/deck-4634137-5db60dba5d99a4497fd565d5f9536926.html
Best of luck though all three versions are strong options. I feel midrange or dedicated would be better for that meta though.
On a side note I am thinking of cutting mindclaw shaman again, with the discovery that you cant force counter spells to fizzle with him he seems less good now and I may swap him for shimian.
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
Downside is that it comes down on turn 3, and it's not a creature of course.
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
Last sunday we had a tournament with 60+ and it was my first time playing the deck for real (just got the cards like saturday) missed some fetches, wasteland, and ofc grim tutor even though i have a good performance, finishing 4x2.
My first match was against a maelstrom, game 1, i had the ooze combo in grave, just need 1 turn to reanimate, he casted wanderer, no LD , and when was my turn i won
game 2 he didnt even casted wanderer, t1 grenzo t2 doomsday t3 win.
my second game was with a storage owner (probably know his deck and the game way more than i do) and was a maelstrom again, and i was excited since won against at the first match
game 1 had the combo in grave, just needed a reanimate or tutor, waited for 3 turns, and didnt draw anything, that was gg for me,
at game 2 his opening hand was INSANE, he has exploration seething song fastbond that made maelstrom t3 and i couldnt do anything, that was gg and making me 1-1
match 3 was against a geist, was pretty bad, even though i controlled more than him, i was drawning nothing, even with 36 lands, i got flooded making me 1-2
since the lvl lowered after this i got a xenagos, was pretty bad, the guy didnt knew what he was doing, he was probably new, didnt had any dual fetch on the deck, was a pretty easy game, nothing to point out, making me 2-2
match 5: i got surprised an Iroas was 2-2 too,was a tight fight, since iroas is like t1 creature t2 creature creature t3 big creature t4 iroas, t5 gg and since we dont block... hopefully i could wipe his board at t3 in both games, giving me way more time,and combo'd with doomsday the both games. 3-2 for me
match 6
Ezuri
managed to wipe board a lot, killed ezuri 2 times and used dragon combo!
game 2, he was just too fast for me to catch up and an early craterhoff killed me
game 3 was just absurd for me, i opened with entomb chrome mox animate dead. so was grenzo t1, t2 entomb animate dead for inf and gg
Ofc we know being good at something need time, practice and effort, i didnt had any of this, like i said i shielded the deck up at sunday morning XP even though i got pretty happy with the result, and just like Vanmeter, won last SGC with his jund, after a lot of open's, i do believe i can do the same, after knowing the deck, pratcing o how to respond the field, and do better next tournament, maybe a 5-1 and making me a top 8 im actually happy.
Just to share my experience on a "netdeck" that i really liked and had a lot of fun, srsly when you buried alive for triskellion and ppl look at you like " wtf he is doing?where is grisel and those big stuffs to reanimate?" thats the best part for me, playing something fun, but competitive at the same time, and not being one more marath deck, or one more geist deck, and bringing something new to the field, something unexpected.
ALL credits for DA, for building the deck ( i would really mention this if i win) and thanks for spatiska, for helping me with the deck at the begining
just a side note, sorry for my english, im not native, and either, never went for english classes
i played alot of games against marath today on cockatrice, using the goodstuff build (34 creatures). here are the replays for the first round, which i won, and which for me was the most memorable one. game 1 i got screwed by my own gamble when i tried to go for animate combo, and the opponent got ahead with marath and linvala, shutting me down before i could rebuild. game 2 i mulliganed to a shaky 5 card hand on the play with chrome mox for a turn 1 grenzo with only 2 cards left in hand, cabal therapy and dragon. i topdecked a hideaway land into redcap to kill his turn 1 dork, and the next turn flipped disciple of phenax, and used my cabal therapy twice with information from disciple, flashback-ing therapy to persist the redcap and shoot down his second dork and thoughtseize him 2 more times. so basically with 1 card (cabal therapy) and 2 arranged flips i took out 5 resources, and he never recovered =). game 3 was very tight but came down to a misplay where my opponent chose not to kill my magus with domri and fell behind while i flipped kiki-jiki and reanimated his zealous conscripts for the kill =D
game 1
game 2
game 3
1. Jace High Tide Control
2. 5CC Horde Scapeshift
3. Selvala Channel Emrakul
4. Selvala GW Combo
5. Keranos Wildfire
Damia (EDH)
Niv-Mizzet (EDH)
Karador the Hermit Druid (EDH)
Decks:
Grenzo
Jalira
Talrasha's Doom
Lazav's not here
Eldrazi Bookkeeper
"I shall pass."
Doom Warden
Jalira
UW Grand Arbiter UW
B Geth B
French EDH:
BR Grenzo BR
U Azami U
UW Arbiter UW
Legacy:
GW Enchantress GW
Pauper:
WUBRG 5-Color Mono-Green WUBRG
Modern:
UW Tron UW