MTG Salvation

Soldier - "Sir, the line is crumbling, we have to have reinforcements now."
Captain - "Don't talk crazy, son. We've got this under control. I saw the vanguard crush their main force over an hour ago. Half their force is dead."
Soldier - "I saw that too, sir..... but...."
Captain - "So what's the problem?"
Soldier - "Sir...... they keep coming back."


Deck History:
My latest Zombie Tribal deck. Since I'm a huge fan of playing with dead things, I built a Dralnu, Lich Lord zom deck a long time ago, it eventually got taken apart for other things. Then I moved onto Glissa, the Traitor zoms. It just wasn't very satisfying. This build is turning out to be more fun so far, and appears that it will be my permanent Zombie Tribal deck.


How does it play/win?
Lots of playing, dying, re-playing going on. It mainly wins in one of three ways.
1) Commander damage with a huge, pumped Grimgrin
2) Alpha Strike with lots of zoms
3) Opponents losing life when lots of zoms leave play because of Vela the Night-Clad, Blood Artist, Vengeful Dead, or Diregraf Captain. Cycling Gempalm Polluter before they die is another variation/option.
There are a few cool combos and a big finisher or two as backup plans. There is a ton of interesting synergies going on.
I recently finished a game by cycling Gempalm Polluter with 16 zoms in play, then saccing 15 of them to Grimgrin while Vengeful Dead was in play.


All my decks try to adhere to these guidelines:
1) Be able to win.
2) Be mostly true to a flavor and a theme.
3) Be fun to pilot or to play against and interactive.
4) Have multiple paths to victory.
5) Have lots of cool interactions and synergy.
6) Play out differently every game to keep it fun over a long time.
7) Be streamlined and fast to play without excessive upkeep, time-consuming play or overcomplicated boardstates.
8) Integrate the Commanders abilities into the strategy at least a little, but be able to win without ever playing the commander.

Approx:
Deckstats Value = $136
Average CMC = 3.84

The Decklist:
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Wishlist:

• Entomb
  

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Chopping Block:

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Thinking About/Testing:

• Eldrazi Monument
  
• Blasting Station (for combo)
  
• Buried Alive
  
• Falkenrath Noble
  

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Changelog:
Too new for that


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Tips, Tricks, Combos, and just General Nastiness:


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Recommended Playlist:
"Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult
"Dead Man's Party" by Oingo Boingo
"All You Zombies" by Hooters
"Welcome To My Nightmare" by Alice Cooper
"Zombie" by the Cranberries
"Living Dead Girl" by Rob Zombie

This looks similar to my Grimgrin deck.

I would definitely add these:
Corpse Connoisseur - Helps with getting stuff in the grave for reanimating.
Havengul Lich - So great with Rooftop Storm tap 1 cast free zombie from the grave.
Vela the Night-Clad - Life Loss help.
Blood Artist - Life Loss help.
Eldrazi Monument - Can get insane if you can produce a lot of tokens.

Some of the cards i think are cut worthy are some of the lords as they generally don't do much for you in the long run. (i have tested this a lot, but it might be different in your meta). You can look at my deck in my signature for any ideas.

Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood can kill the table for an easy win if you want to go that route.

Feel free to look at my deck in my signature for any ideas/comments.

Will take a look, MaelstromX, thanks for the response. It's my newest deck, I've only played it a few times so far.

I'm especially liking the looks of Havengul Lich so far.

I have a zombie tribal deck as well, and there are some cards I think you could benefit from. Lim-Dul the Necromancer, Soulless One, Coffin Queen, Bone Dancer, Dread Slaver and Patriarch's Bidding are all good.

Quote from Toxic78

I have a zombie tribal deck as well, and there are some cards I think you could benefit from. Lim-Dul the Necromancer, Soulless One, Coffin Queen, Bone Dancer, Dread Slaver and Patriarch's Bidding are all good.

Lim-Dûl is too expensive considering that Grave Betrayal is similar and doesn't cost any additional mana (same goes for Dread Slaver).

Souless One is a big beater and can possibly one shot a player on its own if your able to get a lot of zombies and give it evasion.

Bone Dancer is almost like a creature version of Corpse Dance, hmm i may have to consider it for my deck...

Coffin Queen is awesome (but one should always have a sac outlet at the ready just in case).

Patriarch's Bidding is great but i find that Zombie Apocalypse can work better regardless of the fact that it cost 1 more mana and the creatures ETB tapped. And seriously who doesn't want to kill all humans?

I too have just started to conceptualize a Grimgrin, Corpse-born, zombie tribal deck. You are welcome to check it out HERE.

Otherwise, looks like a really good deck. Will keep my eyes peeled on this one...

Hey there Blackjack. I've seen a couple of your decklists before and they, including this one, are all pretty awesome. I've been playing Grimgrin as my head ever since he was released, and working with this kind of deck there's a good chance that you can run out of steam in the middle to late game areas. Here are some suggestions that may or may not help.

• Probe
  
• Compulsive Research
  
• Careful Consideration

These aren't so hard to cast, with the possible exception of CC having a CMC of 4, while also including double blue. The upside to these cards, aside from the obvious card draw, is that it also fills your graveyard for more recursion. Even better if you decide to kick Probe to have an opponent discard to feed stuff like Coffin Queen.

And my favorite inclusion to this card draw package... Unfulfilled Desires! It's a controllable Phyrexian Arena that you have to pay one for, but it helps when you have a bunch of crap in your hand, or want to discard something like Filth in a pinch.

How helpful has Archdemon of Unx been? How have you been getting enough non-zombies to keep him alive or is the plan to hope for Nim Deathmantle to already be out on the field?

Quote from Apollosban

How helpful has Archdemon of Unx been? How have you been getting enough non-zombies to keep him alive or is the plan to hope for Nim Deathmantle to already be out on the field?

I'm taking him out. I thought it would be a cute combo with deathmantle (and Rise from the Grave which I already took out), but it's just too unreliable, it's been useless so far. Meh, it was worth a try

Swapping him out in the list for Zombie Apocalypse now.

Edit... also swapped out Argivian Restoration (not enough targets) for Corpse Connoisseur
Still a lot of tweaking and testing to do on this one.

Hey Blackjack,

First thanks so much for all of your posts I always enjoy your decks and the writing style you use to put the posts together... I have a quick question on this deck, why no protection for grimgrin? Do you not go for general damage strikes? Seems like Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves, maybe even Draksteel Plate would all be very useful.

Quote from Winzzy

First thanks so much for all of your posts I always enjoy your decks and the writing style you use to put the posts together.

Thank you, I really appreciate that.

I have a quick question on this deck, why no protection for grimgrin? Do you not go for general damage strikes? Seems like Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves, maybe even Draksteel Plate would all be very useful.

I may very well put one or two equips in once Gatecrash releases (I'm putting off official deck changes 'til then). I didn't originally since, equal to Grimgrins usefulness as a beater, is the mass swarm of zoms the deck can generate and then do it's killing with mass dmg + Gempalm Polluter and Vengeful Dead style shenanigans. I didn't want to use up the card slots for equips.

Since I've been able to play the deck a few more times now, I'm going to make a few cuts and may free up enough slots to warrant an equip inclusion or two.

I still haven't completely scoured the Gatecrash spoiler for cards that would be good in here, if you spot any hidden tech, let me know.

I know that the guildgate and keyrune are going in, Coffin Queen and Havengul Lich (I've been liking him), Buried Alive, and probably Blasting Station.

Havengul Lich is for sure an all star...

Have you looked at Lich Lord of Unx? His second ability seems like it would be great for you deck. Also any deck that can make a ton of creatures will benifit from Opposition if it can run it. I really like Sculpting Steel as it becomes whatever I want/need and if your running Hinder, why no Spell crumple its better than Counterspell imo?

The other two cards I really like are Ashes to Ashes and Cyclonic Rift... Exile in black is just nice to have sometimes and well rift speaks for itself I think...

Quote from Winzzy

why no Spell crumple its better than Counterspell imo?

Only because I didn't have another copy and didn't think to order one. That's why Coldsteel Heart is in there too, I just ran out of better mana rocks.

Cyclonic Rift

Agreed, that will go in.

Have you looked at
Lich Lord of Unx
Opposition
Ashes to Ashes

Just when I thought I could cut enough cards to put in the new stuff I want, you come along with these and make my life difficult again.....

Quote from Blackjack68

Just when I thought I could cut enough cards to put in the new stuff I want, you come along with these and make my life difficult again.....

Thank you for the compliment

Quote from Snailking

Have you considered adding Haakon, Stromgald Scourge? It's nice to have him in the yard to cast Nameless Inversion as much as you want, since it counts as a knight!

Yeah, cool trick. I used this in one of my old zom decks. I used Buried Alive and corpse connoisseur to fetch him. Ah, if only Haakon said "zombies" instead of "knights". Still, he's always in the back of my mind.

Also, did you know that Ashnod's Altar, Nim Deathmantle and Grave Titan is an infinite sac/token combo? Cast titan, sac a token and the titan for 4 mana to bring back the titan with deathmantle etc.

It's actually infinite tokens and infinite mana both. I haven't had time yet to fully type out the tips/tricks/combo section. Here's the copy/paste from my Ghost Council deck.

Keep up the good work! Grimgrin was my first Commander and has alway been a lot of fun, even in the beginning when my deck was terrible

Thanks, man. This one is still pretty rough, I think it'll get considerably better with the upcoming batch of changes. So far, it's been a lot of fun, but just not quite deadly enough. I'm getting too many decks, so they're individually getting a lot less play/testing because of it. I guess I'll just have to pick up the pace on playing edh games a little

How often do you win off of Grimgrin? I ask because the list doesn't seem to leverage him too much. Is that something you care about trying to do?

Thornbite Staff - untap him any time a creature dies.
Intruder Alarm - untap him any time a creature ETBs.
Blade of the Bloodchief - double up on the counters he gets.
Fatestitcher - untaps him, is a zombie, can be unearthed. (There are lots of twiddles on sticks but this is imo the best one)
Bitterblossom - makes tokens for you to sac.

I've found that if the table lets you build Grimgrin even a little he turns into a one-shot right quick.

Of those Fatestitcher is the only one I have interest in as it can be used in other ways with the other lords out an I am really trying to keep my deck on theme...

Thornbite Staff - Its already pretty darn easy to untap him and this card does little for the deck other than with grimgrin, one dimensional.
Intruder Alarm - See above
Blade of the Bloodchief - Doesnt really help him stick around and its already really easy to get counters on him... maybe this one would be worth throwing in to test.
Bitterblossom - Shoot man when isn't this good in a deck... like ever.

Those are my thoughts at least...

The reason why I like the shroud/hexproof equips is that they can also be used to protect combo pieces not just our smiling commander.

I definitely agree, it's why I asked how much you want to focus on Grimgrin vs other zombies.

For my own deck I plan to use Grimgrin a little more than Blackjack seems to, but at the same time its not my sole plan. If I really focus on using him the whole table will make sure I never get a chance too (I run in a removal heavy meta...)

I want the ability to have multiple paths to victory; Grimgrin, Pseudo-combo, Zombie beats

Yeah, I haven't really focused much on commander damage, but I'm going to go a bit heavier that way with the new changes. I've won more just by using him as a sac outlet with Vengeful Dead or Diregraf Captain in play.

Quote from Winzzy

I want the ability to have multiple paths to victory; Grimgrin, Pseudo-combo, Zombie beats

That's the final goal for me.

Hands down, my favorite kills so far have come from having a big horde and cycling Gempalm Polluter a couple times. Especially nice when everyone has zoms in play from Tombstone Stairwell.

In the interest of provoking continued discussion because I am very interested in this general I will post my current list as it stands. I am interested in making a few more tweaks to it... Right now it favors mass removal over spot removal.

DECK 1/25/13

Here are the cards I am thinking about right now.

• Corpse Connoisseur
  
• Corpse Dance
  
• Geth, Lord of the Vault
  
• Ghoulcaller's Chant
  
• Nantuko Husk
  
• Skinrender
  
• Soul Manipulation
  
• Tendrils of Agony
  
• Tombstone Stairwell

^^ I think I'm putting in Rogue's Passage and probably Grave Betrayal.

Definitely taking out Corpse Dance now. It's my favorite recursion spell ever, but this deck doesn't really abuse etb abilities like my others and doesn't have nearly as many sac outlets to get around the exile clause with any consistency.

I'll be finalizing my changes and updating the list within a day or so. Tough decisions.

I just took out Sculpting Steel, Plague Wind, and Syphon Mind
Put in Phyrexian Metamorph, Liliana Vess, and Diabolic Revelation

Here is my reasoning;

Metamorph is an upgrade to sculpting steel because it can be artifacts or creatures and can be cast for the same cost if needed...

Plague Wind is 9 mana.... 9 freaking mana I deserve to win for that amount on one spell, so I changed it to tutor for X. Diabolic Revelation will win me the game if I am not disrupted, that being said I will watch it closely to make sure it doesn't become the, "lets combo asap" card it could be.

Finally Vess came in for Syphon Mind because she gets me what I want, can also mess others up, and in a rare ultimate is pretty sweet. Looking at maybe Liliana of the veil as well.

Updated with LOTS of changes

A little more ramp and mana fixing
Out with most Lords
More ways to sneak a pumped Grimgrin through
More ways to abuse ltb for life loss

Notable Additions:

• Phyrexian Metamorph
  
• Decree of Pain
  
• Cavern of Souls
  
• Swiftfoot Boots
  
• Blood Artist
  
• Cyclonic Rift
  
• Havengul Lich
  
• Vela the Night-Clad
  
• Coffin Queen
  
• Grave Betrayal

Your deck looks similar to mine too. Have you tried running Cruel Revival? It's removal and recursion at the same time! Sure it has a cmc of 5, but that's easy in EDH. Also, why not also use Liliana of the Dark Realms as mana fix? Keep up the good work.