One game recently I got her to Ult with the blockers and removal i had available, and it was pretty much over on the spot as she gets all players creatures with her emblem <3
You've convinced me to test it out again! Even if it turns out to be too slow in the main list, I'm confident it will find a spot in my non-infinite version.
Thanks again for this awesome list man. Not sure if this works with Grenzo's activation but would Desecrated Tomb work as a value engine? Thanks again, I have built this deck recently and I'm super excited to play him
Hey stu.! It definitely works off of Grenzo's activation, but I left it out for two reasons:
It's effect isn't terribly powerful. We already have token generators off of Pitiless Plunderer and Pawn of Ulamog and their tokens translate directly into mana for more flips. So you need Ashnod's Altar to make the tomb good, and even then, I'd rather just get one of the previous two creatures I mentioned instead.
It's a noncreature artifact. So including it has the chance of messing up flips more and since the effect isn't all that powerful in and of itself (as described above) it's not worth muddying the waters for.
I hope this explains my reasoning for its exclusion. You'll have to let me know how your first couple of games with the deck goes!
I actually am pretty intrigued by Olivia, Mobilized for War. The biggest issue I've had with finding good discard outlets is that they miss one of the two criteria I need for them:
Free Activation
Useful Effect from the Discard
So far, Skirge Familiar has been the only one to come even remotely close to what I'm looking for, but I may play around with Olivia for a couple of reasons:
Haste is a useful secondary effect. I can't guarantee I'll always have Anger in the graveyard, so having another source of haste for our tap creatures is definitely useful.
The ability is free and the trigger is easy. Being able to freely and immediately discard a Deathbringer Thoctar in response to flipping a Phyrexian Delver can be a huge swing.
The +1/+1 counter is relevant. Whether it's getting your Deathbringer Thoctar started on pinging tokens or providing the additional power to Grenzo after a Tel-Jilad Stylus protection loop, I could see that +1/+1 counter becoming clutch in certain situations.
All that to say, I think the card is definitely worth testing. Thanks for the recommendation!
I have run into similar issues and have switched between a few cards to be able to dump my hand. Currently I have had luck with Liliana, Heretical Healer and Sadistic Hypnotist as they both cover multiple applications, although I am running Teferi's Puzzle Box in my list which seems to smooth things out for me if I can land it.
I do still need to grab a foil Liliana, Heretical Healer as I feel she needs another round of testing in my own list. Discard, recursion, and she exists as one of the only planeswalkers that Grenzo can actually flip.
Yessir! Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle are already busted by themselves; but together, they enable so many combos. I probably should include this in the combo section of the primer since it's relatively easy to assemble.
Interested in your non-infinite version, what you cut, how you still win...
Of course! For my casual version I took out all of the major combo enabling pieces and either replaced them with other cool cards or weaker versions of themselves. So essentially, the cards I took out were:
Phyrexian Altar - still strong, but much harder to abuse as quickly
Balthor the Defiled - had to bring this guy back in for the consistency since the deck is slower
Mindclaw Shaman - Since it's a more casual meta, I have a lot more fun with this card. Also, it feels really good to catch someone else's Merciless Eviction and hit all of the enchantments with their own card.
Silent Arbiter - My casual meta has a lot of token decks
Other than these changes, the list is all the same. It does slow down the deck a bit in the sense that you don't run into the "oops, I win" scenario as often; but the pace of excitement is still the same. The win-cons now become one of the three:
An infinite combo that requires Phyrexian Altar, Heartstone and a creature that creates 3+ tokens (if you let me get 4 pieces out and keep them, I don't feel bad for infiniting)
Last game I played, I still managed to flip through most of my deck and actually found that I got to see a lot more of it since I have to dig a lot deeper for the win sometimes. So I really enjoyed these changes and my meta appreciated the ability to to play longer games as well.
I really like Afflicted Deserter as repeatable artifact destruction. It's probably not fast enough for the current list, but I'm definitely going to add it into my more casual version (non-infinite, little slower).
Great list and congrats on the primer! Any thoughts on Drana, Liberator of Malakir?
Thanks stu! Drana, Liberator of Malakir probably wouldn't fit in this list as she doesn't directly feed into any combos or further our influx of flips. However, if you're running a more aggro list for Grenzo, this could definitely work.
Now I did come up with a couple others though. First, I'm gonna go way back and give you Marton Stromgald for his pop defense and attacking creature buffs. He's definitely included in my goblin themed version of Grenzo.
The second card we have is Lim-Dul's Paladin. He may also be a little slow and clunky, but is another way to get cards from your hand to the graveyard. I'm just mentioning him since there aren't to many options to do this...
Finally, I gotta say Herald of Leshrac is just downright filthy & evil, in this deck. I gotta get me one!
Marton Stromgald - This would definitely be another great piece in a more aggro version, but I could see the argument in buffing your defenses through the blocking trigger.
Lim-Dul's Paladin - The delayed and uncontrollable discard trigger seems a little slow. I'd recommend Skirge Familiar if you're looking for a powerful discard activation.
Herald of Leshrac - He is a lot of fun! He was included in my list a while back, but I dropped him for two reasons:
He's a huge target and directs all attention towards you. I like how the current list doesn't attract a lot of attention to itself until it's too late, so the sudden shift in aggro from other players was a problem.
He ends up being really slow. You have to wait until your turn to steal your first land and it doesn't untap, so an opponent can just tap their land in response to prevent you from using it. Granted, if you get him out as your first flip, it can be brutal. But typically your opponents still have their prime removal that early in the game anyways, so you can guess where it's being directed.
All that to say, Herald is a really fun card and I encourage trying him out! He just turned out to be a little less useful the more I played with him.
Thanks, MtG_Maniac! Always glad to see another dungeoneer join us. A lot of suggestions all in one post, so here are my thoughts/comments:
Sadistic Hypnotist - He was actually in my earliest build, but as the build became more and more combo-centric, it relied heavily on instant speed sac outlets. Unfortunately, while this guy's effect is powerful, he fails in this regard tremendously. I had several games where I flipped the Hypnotist in a situation where I needed an instant speed sac outlet and lost due to restriction. So I removed him and haven't looked back since. However, I wouldn't dissuade anyone else from running him. He's in my Alternative Picks list for a reason; he's super powerful.
Marsh Flitter - Not a bad creature by any means, but I'm not a fan of the restriction to saccing goblins. The only restrictive sac outlet I run is Skirk Prospector because he makes up for the restriction by translating directly to more flips.
Thopter Engineer - As a token producer, it seems lacking and the haste it provides to artifacts is alright, but doesn't seem impactful enough for me. I typically get Anger in the graveyard anyways, so I'm not sure an additional artifact-only source of hastiness is needed.
Cathodion - Never been a huge fan of mana payouts that require the creature's death. It's slow and ends up being a major loss if Grenzo is removed before you have a sac outlet to access the mana.
Hell's Caretaker - Once again, the speed restriction for me is a killer. I can't tell you how many games I've won with a Merciless Eviction on the stack. And in those situations, speed restrictions = dead flips which can result in lost games.
Apprentice Necromancer/Doomed Necromancer - I'm also not a fan of additional mana costs on creatures. I prefer to utilize all of my mana on Grenzo unless it's an extremely potent effect (i.e. tutoring with Fleshwrither or Moggcatcher). There's a lot of free graveyard recursive creatures that I would rather run.
Summoner's Egg - I actually am intrigued by this card, and might try it out for fun. My only concern is if I have no creatures in hand, it may feel like a wasted flip (which I try to avoid at all costs).
Grave Defiler/Thrumming Stone - These types of cards have fallen out of my favor due to bad experiences. I've had several occurrences where I've looked at the top 3-5 of my deck, saw all noncreatures, and had to put them on the bottom and screw myself over for that many flips. I've taken out multiple of these types of cards already from my original list and the only remaining one is Spinerock Knoll which at least allows me to exile a noncreature card and potentially play it. If you'd like to test out these kinds of effects, I'd recommend Clone Shell as another cool choice, but I personally choose to shy away from them.
Thanks for the thoughts, Hoboz! I think you're right in that Judith, the Scourge Diva is a subtle but powerful mini-engine. So I'll keep her in for now.
As for the other cards being discussed, I agree with the sentiments on Agent of Erebos and Vampire Hexmage. I think both are very solid inclusions if your meta dictates it, and both deserve to be on the Alternate Picks list.
Vampire Hexmage is much easier to cast than Thief of Blood and as others have pointed out, doesn't remove Grenzo's counters which can really mess up your groove.
First of all, congrats for your work on this deck. Insanely fun!
Second, I have a couple of questions:
1. No love for balthor the defiled? I see you got inspiration from Zervintz list, who plays it. I think it´s great for this deck (it won me a couple of matches last week).
2. How about your latest changes? (judith, the scourge diva, kuldotha forgemaster and emrakul's hatcher).
Thanks @manugl84! Here are my thoughts:
1. I love Balthor the Defiled. He was in my original list and has been in my alternative picks list since his removal. I just didn't have any luck with him for the first several games I had played with the deck, but I actually am considering putting him back in to give him another go.
2. Here are my thoughts on the recent changes:
Kuldotha Forgemaster - Love it. I just won with it in my most recent game by tutoring an Ashnod's Altar, then generating enough mana to recur the Forgemaster and re-activate it for a Heartstone; the game was super over at that point. It's terrifyingly fast, and if it can get off one activation, the game is typically over.
Emrakul's Hatcher - Much more effective than Priest of Gix. He allows me to store up the mana for later or provide additional creatures to our numerous death effects.
Judith, the Scourge Diva - Honestly haven't had the chance to test her out much. I still have yet to flip her, so she requires more testing. But if she doesn't perform up to par, I might put Balthor back in her place.
Got the deck put together, ready to play. Subbed in Hell's Caretaker as I love that card. Am also curious about Millikin... do you find it useful to get the random dump into the graveyard? Was thinking of swapping out Plague Myr for it.
I personally have found it pretty useful since our expensive creatures are much more accessible from the graveyard; but I don't think Plague Myr is a bad substitute. I just recently removed Plague Myr from my own list to test another card out, so up until recently I ran both.
From my experience, since we're curving into Grenzo on turn three it is nice to have some two-drops to add value to the board. This sets us up for the mid-game as each creature already present on the board adds to the strength of each flip.
It depends how hard you want to prioritize the drain life effects. I wouldn't see anything wrong with playing all three (though Zulaport Cutthroat is the essential one).
I agree with your assessment. It really depends on how important these effects are to you. The list is very flexible and can easily switch in different creatures for different needs. But I would place the following priority in including these creatures in a list: Zulaport Cutthroat > Blood Artist > Vindictive Vampire.
I typically prioritize life loss over damage as it goes through a lot more things, and Blood Artist is nice in that he sees all creature deaths. So you pinging down 20 tokens with Deathbringer Thoctar just netted you 20 damage to your opponent as well.
I am wondering if you have suggestions on how to tune this deck to play in no particular meta. I dont have a playgroup but go to a couple large stores in my area for FNM commander pods and some casual games. There are so many different people I end up playing with, its hard to pin down which cards should be a standard if I never know what im up against. Some people play really competitive, but others maybe 50%. I've flip-flopped on cards likeSilent Arbiter, Balthor the Defiled and Mindclaw Shaman though the deck always preforms really well. Its just tough when you know you dont happen to have a good answer for a specific problem when it comes up.
That's difficult and I understand that dilemma. I also have two groups I play with that hold differing philosophies (high-power tuned vs casual), and I've found my current list to meet both demands pretty well. I may occasionally place an additional restriction on myself in the casual group (like no infinite combos, delaying flips until turn 6-8), but I've found that in both metas it can do extremely well and not be oppressive.
Really it depends on what you run up against most often; if you see a lot of token decks, throw in Silent Arbiter. If you play against a Vial Smasher the Fierce, include Mindclaw Shaman. As stated above, the list is flexible to meet your needs, you just have to determine what is lacking from the list and what you feel is currently under-performing.
I'm back from the dead (the EU account deletion). Snowfox, I follow your primer of Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, and I'm very curious to see your decklist for Teysa, too. Can I ask you the list? Thank you!
Of course! I'll have to find some time later to share my own list since I'm swamped with work and school, but know that my list is very heavily based on Schondetta's. He's done an amazing job with this primer, so you'll probably see only a few differences between mine and his
My next iteration of the list has been updated! Check out all 6 changes I made on the initial post. Soon I will also be adding a budget list that someone can use to build the deck for less than $100, so that's exciting!
And one last point; with every iteration, the deck becomes a stronger and stronger force in my playgroup. My playgroup doesn't mind the deck, but they do know how lightning fast it can be. And through some brainstorming, I've come up with a theme-appropriate way to slow myself down; roll the dice and see what happens! I've selected an 8-sided die and plan to roll the dice prior to each game and place a corresponding restriction on myself in that game. Here's what I have so far:
1st negative triggered ETB targets a permanent I control
Grenzo X must = 2 all game
Only 3 activated abilities per turn
No casting until turn 4
Maximum of 5 creatures on the battlefield at all times
No flips until turn 6
After 7 lands, no more natural land plays
Play as normal
These "emblems" are all in an effort to slow my deck down a bit so it doesn't start steamrolling quite as fast. What are your guys' thoughts on this type of additional effect on myself? Is there a way I could do this better? Let me know your thoughts; and as always, happy dungeon-delving, friends!
You've convinced me to test it out again! Even if it turns out to be too slow in the main list, I'm confident it will find a spot in my non-infinite version.
Hey stu.! It definitely works off of Grenzo's activation, but I left it out for two reasons:
I hope this explains my reasoning for its exclusion. You'll have to let me know how your first couple of games with the deck goes!
So far, Skirge Familiar has been the only one to come even remotely close to what I'm looking for, but I may play around with Olivia for a couple of reasons:
All that to say, I think the card is definitely worth testing. Thanks for the recommendation!
I do still need to grab a foil Liliana, Heretical Healer as I feel she needs another round of testing in my own list. Discard, recursion, and she exists as one of the only planeswalkers that Grenzo can actually flip.
Yessir! Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle are already busted by themselves; but together, they enable so many combos. I probably should include this in the combo section of the primer since it's relatively easy to assemble.
I saw that! I'm always happy to see others find the joy of Grenzo.
Of course! For my casual version I took out all of the major combo enabling pieces and either replaced them with other cool cards or weaker versions of themselves. So essentially, the cards I took out were:
I then added:
Other than these changes, the list is all the same. It does slow down the deck a bit in the sense that you don't run into the "oops, I win" scenario as often; but the pace of excitement is still the same. The win-cons now become one of the three:
Last game I played, I still managed to flip through most of my deck and actually found that I got to see a lot more of it since I have to dig a lot deeper for the win sometimes. So I really enjoyed these changes and my meta appreciated the ability to to play longer games as well.
Thanks stu! Drana, Liberator of Malakir probably wouldn't fit in this list as she doesn't directly feed into any combos or further our influx of flips. However, if you're running a more aggro list for Grenzo, this could definitely work.
Marton Stromgald - This would definitely be another great piece in a more aggro version, but I could see the argument in buffing your defenses through the blocking trigger.
Lim-Dul's Paladin - The delayed and uncontrollable discard trigger seems a little slow. I'd recommend Skirge Familiar if you're looking for a powerful discard activation.
Herald of Leshrac - He is a lot of fun! He was included in my list a while back, but I dropped him for two reasons:
All that to say, Herald is a really fun card and I encourage trying him out! He just turned out to be a little less useful the more I played with him.
I love Petrified Field as a back up to flipping one of your powerful lands! Am definitely going to have to find a spot for this.
I'm not as confident about City of Shadows. Seems really slow to me, and super inefficient on first glance. You'll have to let me know how it plays.
As for the other cards being discussed, I agree with the sentiments on Agent of Erebos and Vampire Hexmage. I think both are very solid inclusions if your meta dictates it, and both deserve to be on the Alternate Picks list.
Vampire Hexmage is much easier to cast than Thief of Blood and as others have pointed out, doesn't remove Grenzo's counters which can really mess up your groove.
Agent of Erebos is an effective mass nuke for other GY shenanigan decks, and can easily be found through several of our tutors (Imperial Recruiter and Fleshwrither).
Thanks @manugl84! Here are my thoughts:
1. I love Balthor the Defiled. He was in my original list and has been in my alternative picks list since his removal. I just didn't have any luck with him for the first several games I had played with the deck, but I actually am considering putting him back in to give him another go.
2. Here are my thoughts on the recent changes:
I personally have found it pretty useful since our expensive creatures are much more accessible from the graveyard; but I don't think Plague Myr is a bad substitute. I just recently removed Plague Myr from my own list to test another card out, so up until recently I ran both.
I agree with your assessment. It really depends on how important these effects are to you. The list is very flexible and can easily switch in different creatures for different needs. But I would place the following priority in including these creatures in a list: Zulaport Cutthroat > Blood Artist > Vindictive Vampire.
I typically prioritize life loss over damage as it goes through a lot more things, and Blood Artist is nice in that he sees all creature deaths. So you pinging down 20 tokens with Deathbringer Thoctar just netted you 20 damage to your opponent as well.
That's difficult and I understand that dilemma. I also have two groups I play with that hold differing philosophies (high-power tuned vs casual), and I've found my current list to meet both demands pretty well. I may occasionally place an additional restriction on myself in the casual group (like no infinite combos, delaying flips until turn 6-8), but I've found that in both metas it can do extremely well and not be oppressive.
Really it depends on what you run up against most often; if you see a lot of token decks, throw in Silent Arbiter. If you play against a Vial Smasher the Fierce, include Mindclaw Shaman. As stated above, the list is flexible to meet your needs, you just have to determine what is lacking from the list and what you feel is currently under-performing.
Of course! I'll have to find some time later to share my own list since I'm swamped with work and school, but know that my list is very heavily based on Schondetta's. He's done an amazing job with this primer, so you'll probably see only a few differences between mine and his
Happy to hear it! Let me know how your games go when you get to test it out!
And one last point; with every iteration, the deck becomes a stronger and stronger force in my playgroup. My playgroup doesn't mind the deck, but they do know how lightning fast it can be. And through some brainstorming, I've come up with a theme-appropriate way to slow myself down; roll the dice and see what happens! I've selected an 8-sided die and plan to roll the dice prior to each game and place a corresponding restriction on myself in that game. Here's what I have so far:
These "emblems" are all in an effort to slow my deck down a bit so it doesn't start steamrolling quite as fast. What are your guys' thoughts on this type of additional effect on myself? Is there a way I could do this better? Let me know your thoughts; and as always, happy dungeon-delving, friends!