Grenzo has probably one of the most unique designs we have in magic. I mean everybody has heard of top deck manipulation, but bottom deck manipultion? Interestingly there is a good number of effects with that ability. Scry is the most obvious, but far from the only one. But more on this a little furter down.
Grenzo's power comes less from the fact that you can cheat on the cmc. My deck has an average cmc of about 4 and runs 50 creatures, so when you blindly activate his ability, according to the laws of probabilty you will be about breaking even in that regard. His TRUE power comes from the fact that you will never run out of things to do with your mana.
Many Grenzo lists only run creatures with 2 or less power but I think you lose a lot of fun and power if you do that. Grenzo is a very efficient "Hydra" which is remarkable for his colors and in addition I run a number of cards that can pump his power to higher levels. Here I looked for cards that either have powerful secondary effects like Sword of Feast and Famine or don't require a mana investment to equip like Hero's Blade and Cloak and Dagger, so we can use all our mana to "look into the dungeon".
Of course I tried not to get too greedy when building the deck and so 5 and 6 power creatures were only included if they have a particularly powerful effect. That means a 4 power Grenzo is enough to dig out most creatures.
The deck features an artifact subtheme with Goblin Welder and Kuldotha Forgemaster to abuse it. In addition Buried Ruins and Myr Retriever can ... retrieve any noncreature artifacts that Grenzo unwittingly buries. Among those noncreature artifacts there are some powerful engines: Heartstone and Sword of Feast Famine essentially double the the number of Grenzo activations you can get in a turn which means double the amount of value he generates. Teferi's Puzzlebox is a particularly fun one. Most of you probably know it from those annoying Nekusar lists, but here it can be super degenerate: Assumung you have a hand of about 5-7 cards, it is highly probable that you almost always hit your landdrop and then put all creatures on the bottom your library in an order to suit you. Hitting landdrops is crucial for this deck since mana is the only restricting ressource with Grenzo out.
card]Clone Shell[/card], Hideaway lands (Spinerock Knoll, Howltooth Hollow), Junk Troller, Epitaph Golem and Tel-Jilad Stylus are more ways to make sure that you get what you want when activating Grenzo. Blightsteel Colossus is the only creature with a power greater than 6 and may look a bit weird, but it's just a big payoff card to cheat into play with the Summoner's Egg, Clone Shell, Hideaway lands or Kuldotha Forgemaster.
Further the deck features a lot of disruption and attrition, the most powerful of which is global hand destruction in the form of Mindslicer and Sire of Insanity. Apart from lands, most of the time there isn't very much incentive to play cards from your hand anyway when Grenzo is out, so losing our hand really doesn't bother us. Tree of Perdition,Purphoros and especially Flayer of the Hatebound are ways to close the game out in short order.
Weaknesses of the deck are Grafdigger's Cage, Torpor Orb and Hushwing Gryff, which is why we run Torch Fiend and Reckless Reveler. Further RB doesn't have many ways to interact with enchantments (I can discard them, blow them up or use my opponents cards (Mindclaw Shaman, Grenzo, Havoc Raiser, Gonti, Lord ofLuxury), so we have to be careful of that cardtype. Other than that the deck is hard to disrupt. If Grenzo gets killed over and over it's a bit annoying but we have the tools to fight an attrition war without Grenzo and thus navigate the game to a point where opponents run out of answers.
The deck is immens fun to play. It is a powerful, grindy deck that has this mad Rakdos feeling to it, since often even you yourself don't know what will happen next. On the other hand it really isn't a chaos deck. The randomness is balanced through careful deckbuilding and ways to manipulate the probability in our favor (hence "restrained Rakdos"). Rather than playing a lot of tutors, we try to find the right answers by the sheer number of cards we get to look at.
Anyway! There are still some rough edges that I'd like to smooth out and I need your help to do it. I think I have come as far as I can on my own with this deck and need your feedback to further improve it.
I hope you like it and I can only recommend to give this deck a spin, especially if you want some fresh spice in your commander experience.
Some cards to consider -- Mana Echoes, Cloak and Dagger, Treasonous Ogre, maybe Kiki-Jiki to go with your Zealous Conscripts, and perhaps some more reanimation effects like Necromancy, Animate Dead, and Dance of the Dead.
Also keep in mind that Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void do not stop Grenzo's ability, as Grenzo is tracking the card and it's attributes (the creatures power) and not the zone it ends up in; his ability states "put it onto the battlefield" and not "put it onto the battlefield from your graveyard" so his ability is able to track it between zones as long as it's a public zone (graveyard, exile, command zone etc). Interestingly enough, this allows Grenzo to circumvent Grafdigger's Cage if there is a Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void in play as well, as he is returning the card from exile and not from the graveyard so Grafdigger's Cage has no affect.
Something like Wheel of Sun and Moon does shut off Grenzo however, as the library is a hidden zone so his ability won't be able to track it. Containment Priest is also a nightmare for Grenzo.
Thanks for the rules clarifications, I didn't realize that
Also Cloak and Dagger seems tailormade for Grenzo, awesome suggestion, I will pick up a copy asap and find a slot for it. Kiki-Jiki is a card I'd like for multiple decks, however I wasn't able to trade for one so far and the price tag is a bit restrictive (however I just realized it isn't that it has come way down since I last checked). I'll definitely keep him in mind.
How does mana echoes help? The creature types aren't particularly homogenous in my list.
I thought about including more reanimation effects though more in the form of creatures like Phyrexian Delver or maybe Body Snatcher, since I want to keep the creature count as high as possible. I run Wake the Dead because it is incredibly efficient and can turn board states around completely and Fate Return because the scrying is extra valuable and an indetructibel Sheoldred, Mikaeus or Sire of Insanity or something like that is very powerful (and because I really like the card).
Grenzo has probably one of the most unique designs we have in magic. I mean everybody has heard of top deck manipulation, but bottom deck manipultion? Interestingly there is a good number of effects with that ability. Scry is the most obvious, but far from the only one. But more on this a little furter down.
Grenzo's power comes less from the fact that you can cheat on the cmc. My deck has an average cmc of about 4 and runs 50 creatures, so when you blindly activate his ability, according to the laws of probabilty you will be about breaking even in that regard. His TRUE power comes from the fact that you will never run out of things to do with your mana.
Many Grenzo lists only run creatures with 2 or less power but I think you lose a lot of fun and power if you do that. Grenzo is a very efficient "Hydra" which is remarkable for his colors and in addition I run a number of cards that can pump his power to higher levels. Here I looked for cards that either have powerful secondary effects like Sword of Feast and Famine or don't require a mana investment to equip like Hero's Blade and Cloak and Dagger, so we can use all our mana to "look into the dungeon".
Of course I tried not to get too greedy when building the deck and so 5 and 6 power creatures were only included if they have a particularly powerful effect. That means a 4 power Grenzo is enough to dig out most creatures.
The deck features an artifact subtheme with Goblin Welder and Kuldotha Forgemaster to abuse it. In addition Buried Ruins and Myr Retriever can ... retrieve any noncreature artifacts that Grenzo unwittingly buries. Among those noncreature artifacts there are some powerful engines: Heartstone and Sword of Feast Famine essentially double the the number of Grenzo activations you can get in a turn which means double the amount of value he generates. Teferi's Puzzlebox is a particularly fun one. Most of you probably know it from those annoying Nekusar lists, but here it can be super degenerate: Assumung you have a hand of about 5-7 cards, it is highly probable that you almost always hit your landdrop and then put all creatures on the bottom your library in an order to suit you. Hitting landdrops is crucial for this deck since mana is the only restricting ressource with Grenzo out.
card]Clone Shell[/card], Hideaway lands (Spinerock Knoll, Howltooth Hollow), Junk Troller, Epitaph Golem and Tel-Jilad Stylus are more ways to make sure that you get what you want when activating Grenzo.
Blightsteel Colossus is the only creature with a power greater than 6 and may look a bit weird, but it's just a big payoff card to cheat into play with the Summoner's Egg, Clone Shell, Hideaway lands or Kuldotha Forgemaster.
Further the deck features a lot of disruption and attrition, the most powerful of which is global hand destruction in the form of Mindslicer and Sire of Insanity. Apart from lands, most of the time there isn't very much incentive to play cards from your hand anyway when Grenzo is out, so losing our hand really doesn't bother us.
Tree of Perdition,Purphoros and especially Flayer of the Hatebound are ways to close the game out in short order.
Weaknesses of the deck are Grafdigger's Cage, Torpor Orb and Hushwing Gryff, which is why we run Torch Fiend and Reckless Reveler. Further RB doesn't have many ways to interact with enchantments (I can discard them, blow them up or use my opponents cards (Mindclaw Shaman, Grenzo, Havoc Raiser, Gonti, Lord ofLuxury), so we have to be careful of that cardtype. Other than that the deck is hard to disrupt. If Grenzo gets killed over and over it's a bit annoying but we have the tools to fight an attrition war without Grenzo and thus navigate the game to a point where opponents run out of answers.
The deck is immens fun to play. It is a powerful, grindy deck that has this mad Rakdos feeling to it, since often even you yourself don't know what will happen next. On the other hand it really isn't a chaos deck. The randomness is balanced through careful deckbuilding and ways to manipulate the probability in our favor (hence "restrained Rakdos"). Rather than playing a lot of tutors, we try to find the right answers by the sheer number of cards we get to look at.
2x Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
Creatures
5 Ingot Chewer
1 Goblin Welder
2 Myr Retriver
5 Shriekmaw
2 Nezumi Graverobber
2 Iron Myr
2 Leaden Myr
2 Reckless Reveler
2 Torch Fiend
2 Blood Artist
2 Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
3 Flehbag Marauder
3 Merciless Executioner
3 Burnished Hart
3 Paladium Myr
3 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Feldon of the Third Path
3 Bone Shredder
3 Grim Haruspex
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Disciple of Bolas
4 Olivia Voldaren
4 Anger
4 Crypt Ghast
4 Mindslicer
4 Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 Tree of Perdition
4 Junktroller
4 Summoner's Egg
5 Clone Shell
5 Zealous Conscripts
5 Sadistic Hypnotist
5 Puppeteer Clique
5 Mindclaw Shaman
5 Kuldotha Forgmaster
5 Epitaph Golem
5 Voldaren Pariah
6 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
6 Sire of Insanity
6 Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
6 Homamura, Human Ascendant
6 Duplicant
6 Steel Hellkite
6 Swift Warkite
6 Flayer of the Hatebound
6 Demon of the Dark Schemes
6 Godo, Bandit Warlord
7 Sheoldred, the Whisperig One
7 Kaervek, the Merciless
12 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Sol Ring
1 Tel Jilad Stylus
2 Hero's Blade
2 Cloak and Dagger
2 Mind Stone
2 Rakdos Signet
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Heartstone
4 Teferi's Puzzlebox
5 Possibility Storm
Instants
4 Dread Return
Lands
0 Command Tower
0 Blood Crypt
0 Smoldering Marsh
0 Dragonskull Summit
0 Bloodstained Mire
0 Bojuka Bog
0 Akoum Refuge
0 Myriad Landscape
0 Terramorphic Expanse
0 Tower of Phyrexia
0 Rakdos Carnarium
0 Temple of the False God
0 Tectonic Edge
0 Buried Ruins
0 Terrain Generator
0 Spinerock Knoll
0 Howltooth Hollow
11 Swamp
9 Mountain
Anyway! There are still some rough edges that I'd like to smooth out and I need your help to do it. I think I have come as far as I can on my own with this deck and need your feedback to further improve it.
I hope you like it and I can only recommend to give this deck a spin, especially if you want some fresh spice in your commander experience.
-Dimir House Guard
-Phalanx of the Underworld
-Rakdos Augermage
-Corpse Augur
-Shard Phoenix
-Malfegor
-Skullclamp
-Demonmail Hauberk
-Fated Return
-Wake the Dead
-Land
+Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
+Pilgrim's Eye
+Paladium Myr
+Tree of Perdition
+Voldaren Pariah
+Godo, Bandit Warlord
+Demon of the Dark Schemes
+Mind Stone
+Cloak and Dagger
+Possibility Storm
+Dread Return
GWKarametra - The MistveiledGW
GWR Marath - The Egg-laying Wool-Milk-Pig GWR
RBGrenzo - Restrained RakdosRB
UWRGBHorde of NotionsUWRGB
Retired: Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Rafiq of the Many | Animar, Soul of Elements | Maelstrom Wanderer
Also keep in mind that Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void do not stop Grenzo's ability, as Grenzo is tracking the card and it's attributes (the creatures power) and not the zone it ends up in; his ability states "put it onto the battlefield" and not "put it onto the battlefield from your graveyard" so his ability is able to track it between zones as long as it's a public zone (graveyard, exile, command zone etc). Interestingly enough, this allows Grenzo to circumvent Grafdigger's Cage if there is a Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void in play as well, as he is returning the card from exile and not from the graveyard so Grafdigger's Cage has no affect.
Something like Wheel of Sun and Moon does shut off Grenzo however, as the library is a hidden zone so his ability won't be able to track it. Containment Priest is also a nightmare for Grenzo.
Also Cloak and Dagger seems tailormade for Grenzo, awesome suggestion, I will pick up a copy asap and find a slot for it. Kiki-Jiki is a card I'd like for multiple decks, however I wasn't able to trade for one so far and the price tag is a bit restrictive (however I just realized it isn't that it has come way down since I last checked). I'll definitely keep him in mind.
How does mana echoes help? The creature types aren't particularly homogenous in my list.
I thought about including more reanimation effects though more in the form of creatures like Phyrexian Delver or maybe Body Snatcher, since I want to keep the creature count as high as possible. I run Wake the Dead because it is incredibly efficient and can turn board states around completely and Fate Return because the scrying is extra valuable and an indetructibel Sheoldred, Mikaeus or Sire of Insanity or something like that is very powerful (and because I really like the card).
GWKarametra - The MistveiledGW
GWR Marath - The Egg-laying Wool-Milk-Pig GWR
RBGrenzo - Restrained RakdosRB
UWRGBHorde of NotionsUWRGB
Retired: Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Rafiq of the Many | Animar, Soul of Elements | Maelstrom Wanderer