*Note*: This primer is designed to build a deck largely centered on untapping Grimgrin and winning through general damage, or Voltron while having a strong control suite and sacrifice theme. It is primarily an voltron/control deck based on Grimgrin providing his own spot removal and encouraging you to swing in whenever you can. I am open to all suggestions and critiques as an EDH deck is always a work in progress. Feel free to ask questions for why I use certain cards and I would be happy to explain and review my choices. The deck does include infinite combos, but executing them is up to you. The combos are included for their synergy more than the combo potential. This deck is not built on a budget and is meant to be as fast and competitive as possible, even without using combos.
Deck History:
After constructing a Jenara list as my first foray into non-precon EDH, I decided to create a little more variety in my playstyle and try a color that I hadn’t used before in B. I ended up coming upon Grimgrin and really enjoyed his card design. I think he looks like a Chaos Space Marine, thus the deck's name and the custom alter I had done for him. I looked around at a lot of other Grimgrin decks and couldn’t find anything that I felt really used him in a way that I found engaging or efficient, so I decided to start from scratch.
Originally, as can be seen in the card options section of this deck, my first draft of this deck is probably 80% cut and replaced by cards that better fit the strategy. The first run through used too many high-CMC spells and the second iteration used too many zombies and slow tap ability creatures. I fell prey to wanting to stuff too many expensive spells in the list without the ability to play them and then the classic pitfall of building a quasi-zombie tribal with a zombie commander. For the most part, using Grimgrin properly revolves around good recursion creatures, cheap, playable spells, and not zombie lords. The early iterations of the list were either slow via high-CMC or slow because of a lot of tap abilities combined with minimal mana acceleration, which has been greatly improved.
Where I feel I really mastered the concept of this list is when I focused the strategy on having some relevant curve toppers and then pouring the rest of my resources into consistency, recursion, untapping, and control. The deck is at its best without too many expensive spells competing to be played each turn and having as many ways to execute our main strategy as possible. Needing more ways to win than just general damage, I included alternate win conditions that synergize well with Grimgrin since he is the deck's main strategy. It's important to utilize the core of the deck when trying to win different ways so that the list remains focused.
Most recently, in an effort to have a more robust gameplan/plan B, I have made changed about a third of the deck and made it a far more attrition-based strategy centered around sacrificing tokens and creatures, reanimating my cards, and symmetrical life-drain via things like Zulaport Cutthroat and Extort effects. Grimgrin is still a very viable way to kill via commander damage, but the attrition-based strategy is designed to have the whole deck support each other card in the deck with less goodstuff and pressure for Grimgrin to be the sole win condition.
Why Play Grimgrin?
What a handsome question. I am glad you asked.
This deck IS for you if:
-You enjoy blowing up opponents' creatures and punishing their resources through attrition
-You don't mind sacrificing your own creatures for extreme advantage
-You like a deck that has a strong theme around your general
-You enjoy an attrition-based strategy with voltron potential
This deck IS NOT for you if:
-You don't like playing creatures that you want to die
-You like a deck that doesn't need the general at all
-You think U/B is meant for control or mill and nothing else
-You think that having a zombie commander necessitates zombie tribal
Other Generals in UB:
Oona, Queen of the Fae: One of the strongest generals in the colors employing a token-mill strategy with a lot of tempo. Also a prominent combo-based general in UB.
Dralnu, Lich Lord: Designed for a spellslinger control build, but is generally a risky pick, especially against anything that can ping him with damage because of his clause that makes you sacrifice permanents when he takes damage.
Wrexial, the Risen Deep: An interesting general that we got in the original commander precons. He is strongest in a mill-aggro and theft strategy that can land splashy spells put in your opponents' graveyards via milling them. He has natural evasion for 2 of the most popular colors in the format, but can require a reliance on opponents running strong instants and sorceries to be at his best.
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind: A very strong and probably underplayed Dimir general. He works best in a mill/control list where you can win through general damage by increasing his power and giving him valuable abilities through triggers that can easily be gained through both milling your opponent and clearing their board. Lazav having hexproof makes him difficult to get off the board short of sacrifice effects and board wipes.
Sygg, River Cutthroat: One of the other strongest UB legends and a card advantage machine. Players lose life naturally and, in a multiplayer scenario, he will net you a ton of cards. He has a wealth of strategies accessible to him because of his broad ability that doesn't require any building around it meaning you can make him into any kind of deck that you want.
Bio:
My name is Ryan, I am 25 and from California. I have a B.A. in Political Science and am a second year law student. I was introduced to MtG back in 1998 by a couple of my friends playing mono green and mono red precons. I started playing seriously in 2009 where I started with the M10 core set. The first deck I built other than a casual mono-green list was a Alara-Zendikar Standard Jund list.
I got started in EDH when the first commander precons came out in 2011; we found them at a local hobby shop a week early and couldn’t believe our luck. We took them home and started playing immediately. It wasn’t long before we discovered our love for the format and never looked back. I started with a Riku deck that has since been retired. After looking around for colors that I really wanted to play and a General I could get behind, I found Jenara. Having a bit of EDHD, I decided to branch out and build a deck of my own design with Grimgrin. I also have fairly competitive Omnath and Narset lists (links to all current lists can be found in my signature).
As a player, I am a little of everything (Timmy/Johnny/Spike/Vorthos). I enjoy flavor, fun combos and synergy, big, flashy spells, and building my lists as efficiently and semi-competitively as possible.
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born: The main focus of the deck. The ultimate goal is to pump him and be able to win through general damage. There are a number of cards in the deck designed to generate tokens to sacrifice, recur creatures from the graveyard, provide power boosts, untap him without sacrificing creatures, and create evasion to get in for lethal damage. He is also his own pump and removal spell since he shoots a creature and pumps himself each attack and sacrifice making him very big, very fast.
Deck Strategy
Combo Options
Weaknesses
Card Options:
This is a collection of every card that is in the deck, has been in the deck, or has been considered in the deck. Bolded Cards are cards that are currently in the deck and each has a description of what role it would play in the list. Feel free to ask about why I don't run a certain card or ask to see one included on the options list!
Creatures:
Bloodghast: A free creature every landfall. Even if you don't draw a creature or token producer, a land still gives you a creature you can sac to untap and pump Giggles.
Nether Traitor: Similar to Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, and Reassembling Skeleton. Comes back for B whenever a creature you control dies. Very easy to accomplish with Grimgrin.
Gravecrawler: Pay B whenever Grimgrin is on the field and you have an easy creature to sac. Play him for free and pump Grimgrin infinite times with Rooftop Storm on the field.
Bloodline Keeper: Generates a token every turn and can turn into a very dangerous force if he gets to flip making his own personal army.
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder: Great for pumping Grimgrin just by playing other creatures. Just be careful to sac tokens before a creature resolves that would put you above 7.
Skeletal Vampire: Generates 2 tokens with evasion immediately with the potential to make more.
Grave Titan: A 6/6 body with deathtouch that makes 2 zombie tokens when it enters play and every time it attacks. Perfect for continued token production. Can be a house on his own.
Vela the Night-Clad: Great synergy to wear down your opponents by taxing their life while utilizing your sac outlets normally. Good body with intimidate, can carry a sword, and causes Grimgrin to deal damage even without getting through.
Havengul Lich: Pay 1 and you can cast a card from a graveyard. Doesn't have to be your own and it gets its activated abilities until end of turn. Creature that is cast can be used as sacrifice fodder.
Nezumi Graverobber: Graveyard hate and makes it so it has to be answered or you can start playing any creature for only 4B. Goes great with Bojuka Bog.
Puppeteer Clique: Brings back an opponents creature for stuff that Lich can't hit due to mana types. Has persist. Is abuseable with the deathmantle.
Snapcaster Mage: Awesome snap recursion for a counter or sorcery. A Blue Staple.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed: Gives everything in this deck undying besides Grimgrin. Very good. Gets double value out of sacrificing nontoken creatures.
Sheoldred, Whispering One: Brings back a creature every one of your upkeeps. Makes opponents sacrifice creatures on theirs.
Consecrated Sphinx: Draws two cards every time an opponent draws one. Usually good for at least 4 extra cards. Also a 4/6 flying body. If you play him late game where opponents are low on removal, he can draw you into victory.
Bloodgift Demon: A good 5/4 flyer and draws you one card every turn. Typically a low perceived threat level so you can get some good CA off of him.
Evil Twin: Removal on a Clone. Lots of versatility
Duplicant: Colorless creature removal. Plus, it exiles.
Solemn Simulacrum: Ramp in colors that struggle in that area. Also recurrable with Academy Ruins.
Phyrexian Metamorph: Amazing card, a staple in blue. Incredibly versatile, but does not fit in with any one particular strategy.
Cemetery Reaper: Zombie Lord who can function as slow graveyard hate and generates tokens. I found him to be too slow for the aggro style of the deck. May be functional in a more control build.
Thopter Assembly: Great token generation, but I opted for a Skeletal Vampire in order to get tokens immediately instead of waiting and risking removal.
Dimir Infiltrator: Is unblockable, which is beneficial for sword use. Also transmutes for 2 CMC tutoring for several of the decks major pieces. Was replaced with Demonic Tutor for better flexibility
Corpse Harvester: Was in the list to dig up Grimgrin if he becomes tucked. Can be decent, reusable tutor in a zombie tribal list.
Fatestitcher: Untaps Grimgrin and other permanents you control or taps other permanents. Good utility.
Zombie Master: Gives Grimgrin and all other zombies evasion. Works wonders with Urborg on the field.
Lord of the Undead: Returns a zombie from your graveyard to your hand for 1B. Excellent recursion due to a decent amount of zombies in the decklist.
Lich Lord of Unx: Makes a zombie token every turn for UB and can cause opponents to lose a lot of life with his second mana ability. Additionally provides more targets for Necrotic Ooze, Havengul Lich, etc.
Necrotic Ooze: Gains all activated abilities of all cards in all graveyards. Mostly useful for producing tokens or other amazing things. Very versatile.
Sepulchral Primordial: Really good high-cmc bomb. Gets a creature from each opponent's GY and becomes more effective the more players there are. Instant value.
Crypt Ghast: Great mana generation on a creature and extort allows for pinging opponents and gaining life.
Thassa, God of the Sea: Provides unblockable for Grimgrin or any creature for 1U, also gives top-deck manipulation. Indestructible is hard to deal with, she is cheap coming in at 2U, and if she gets devotion, it's just a bonus.
Burnished Hart: An excellent ramp creature in colorless. Nets you two lands into play. Potentially recurrable with Academy Ruins.
Reassembling Skeleton: Recurrable abuseable creature to use as repeatable sacrifice fodder.
Geth, Lord of the Vault: Gets artifacts or creatures from opponents graveyards and fills them for more targets.
Steel Hellkite: Removal for permanents that U/B struggles with, a flying beater, pumps itself to potentially do more damage.
Clever Impersonator: An all purpose clone. Probably the best clone in the game as far as versatility.
Bloodsoaked Champion: very close to Gravecrawler as far as cost and functionality, but the "one of your creatures must have attacked this turn" to bring him back from the yard is a bit narrow. It encourages you to pump after combat, which I don't like very much and it costs 1B to cast him instead of just B. He's still a quality creature to abuse sacrifice triggers and would likely be in the list if I feel I need another one.
Phenax, God of Deception: By giving Grimgrin a tap-to-mill ability, it enables some of our graveyard recursion to have more reach and also gives us mill as an alternate win-con. Since Grimgrin can untap himself with a sacrifice trigger, we can repeatedly tap him with this ability and potentially deck a person without anywhere near infinite mana.
Ophiomancer: Triggers a token every upkeep. Token has deathtouch for use as a blocker if necessary and can be used as sac fodder multiple times before it gets back to your turn.
Enchantments:
Bitterblossom: makes 1 token every upkeep. The life loss is negligible only paying 1 per turn.
Phyrexian Reclamation: Gets back a creature from your graveyard for 1B and 2 life. Excellent for anything you need badly in your hand.
Phyrexian Arena: Bloodgift Demon on an enchantment. Typically a lot more resilient to wrath and removal.
Grave Pact: Amazing synergy in a deck where you willingly kill your own creatures. You profit while everyone else suffers.
Black Market: With all the creatures dying just on your side of the field, this card can produce a TON of mana. This deck operates on being able to abuse our recursion engines so having a lot of mana lets us have a faster clock.
Rooftop Storm: An amazing card in this deck. Enables you to just play Grimgrin for his general tax making him much easier to have die and bounce back. Also sets up amazing synergies with a number of the zombies in this decklist, especially Gravecrawler.
Tortured Existence: Good for creature recursion, but Phyrexian Reclamation was a much better option.
Dictate of Erebos: Gravepact with flash giving it a lot of surprise and utility.
Attrition: Easily attainable cost and repeatable removal. Excellent for dealing with a large amount of threats.
Instants:
Lim-Dûl's Vault: Let's you fish for an answer if needed and place it on the top of your deck and is an instant. Can cost a considerable amount of life to do so, best used as top-deck manipulation, but redundant with SDT in the list.
Entomb: Cheap, instant speed tutor to put any card you want in your graveyard. Works great if you need a card with flashback, have a Snapcaster in hand, or need to fish up one of our 4 easily recurrable guys to sac to Grimgrin. Simply amazing card.
Cryptic Command: Amazing counter. the UUU is a pretty easy feat in a 2 color deck.
Hinder: Counter with a tuck. Goes to graveyard. Less effective to have in the list now that the tuck rule is gone. Still useful to keep things out of the graveyard that you don't want there. It is better to force someone to use a tutor to go get a card that you tucked than have it in the graveyard for any player to use.
Spell Crumple: Counters, tucks, and goes back into your deck. Less effective without the tuck rule. See Hinder above for full explanation.
Capsize: Bounces a permanent to it's owners hand with buyback. Simply amazing utility for all kinds of situations.
Dissipate: Counters and exiles. Without the tuck rule, this is one of the best counters in the game. Exiling is always the preferred removal.
Twincast: Can be a functional counter or a copy of anything an opponent plays.
Sudden Spoiling: Split Second that makes all creatures opponent controls a 0/2 with no abilities. Blanks alpha strikes and gets around strong board states/indestructibility.
Cyclonic Rift: Bounces all permanents you don't control or is good single target bounce. Relevant at all stages of the game and can be a game winning spell.
Artifacts:
Throne of Empires: Makes a token every turn for 1 colorless. Has a low threat level and is more resilient as an artifact token producer.
Batterskull: Comes with a token that is just perfect to be sacrificed. Then it gives +4/+4 and Vigilance. A one card equipment powerhouse making Grimgrin a 10/10 that doesn't tap before he attacks.
Thousand-Year Elixir: Untaps Grimgrin for 1. Very effective with a lot of activated abilities in the deck as well.
Mimic Vat: can make a token every turn, additionally, can abuse ETB or other effects prior to being sacrificed to Grimgrin.
Nim Deathmantle: Saves a creature any time it is sent to a graveyard for 4. Gives +2/+2 and makes it a zombie as well.
Sword of Light and Shadow: Brings a creature back from graveyard to hand every time it connects. Also gains 3 life, which counteracts the other life loss cards in the deck.
Skullclamp: Perfect for drawing cards while you sacrifice tokens.
Swiftfoot Boots: Equips for 1, but gives hexproof instead of shroud and haste.
Sword of Vengeance: Gives first strike, vigilance, trample, haste and a power boost. This card lets Grimgrin get in for a ton of damage.
Mind's Eye: Fairly resilient as an artifact. Found to be a bit slow, requires decent mana investment for good returns in addition to it sticking around.
Phyrexian Altar: Sac outlet for colored mana. Allows for infinite black mana with Gravecrawler and Rooftop Storm.
Trading Post: Token generation and a ton of utility.
Gilded Lotus: Excellent mana rock producing triple U/B.
Mind Stone: Cheap colorless mana rock, has card draw to pop when you need or in case of board wipe.
Coldsteel Heart: Colored mana rock CitP as whichever you need U/B.
Thran Dynamo: A solid, big mana rock. Cheaper alternative to Gilded lotus, but gives 3 colorless instead of colored.
Vorac Battlehorns: Good equipment if you face a lot of token/swarm decks with a lot of blockers. Gives trample and ensures that you get in. Can potentially make them throw their large creatures in front of Grimgrin to reduce damage taken.
Darksteel Plate: Gives indestructibility, one of the best sources of creature resilience.
Tormod's Crypt: Excellent, reliable, and free graveyard hate and can be brought back with Academy Ruins.
Sorceries:
Army of the Damned: 13 zombie tokens with flashback. Can put Grimgrin at lethal power immediately or be a huge wall and a wincon on its own, but they to CitP tapped.
Living Death: Wrath and recursion all in one. Sacrifice all your creatures in response and get them all back. Better in decks with more creatures.
Recurring Insight: Nets huge card advantage because of the Rebound. Cheaper than Mind's Eye in the long run and probably gets more cards.
Decree of Pain: Can be cycled to wrath little guys at instant speed or save you from lethal damage or be used to wrath everything.
Sever the Bloodline: Exile in Black and a Maelstrom Pulse equivalent for just creatures.
Demonic Tutor: Cheap, amazing tutor. 1B and get any card you want.
Increasing Ambition: Tutor with flashback. The flashback option justifies the 5 CMC as opposed to running Diabolic.
Diabolic Tutor: Tutor without drawbacks, pricy at 4 mana for no additional use.
Syphon Flesh: Opponents sacrifice and you get zombies. Perfect sacrifice fodder.
Curse of the Swine: Exile in U/B is amazing and it can be used on however many targets you need.
Exsanguinate: Excellent lifegain spell and can outright win the game with infinite(or just a lot) of mana. Great lategame spell to keep you in it or win.
Rite of Replication: Excellent clone spell and can be a complete blowout in a game if you hit a breaking ETB ability.
Planeswalkers:
Karn Liberated: Allows for spot removal for permanents that these colors do not have.
Liliana Vess: Tutors twice if left alone and still lives.
Tezzeret the Seeker: Tutors for artifacts. Can hit most of the ones in the deck with the exception of Batterskull.
Sorin Markov: Can bring an opponent to 10 life. In EDH that is amazing. Helps to out-aggro opponents.
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver: Great for decks with more of a reanimator/mill theme, although he is the only one that can hit the cards he gets rid of.
3/6/2012 Cemetery Reaper -> Sorin Markov: Sorin is as close to a one shot card as you can get in EDH. His down ability makes all the difference. Cemetery Reaper is too slow and depends on other graveyards most of the time to be good because we don't want to exile our own creatures. Dimir Infiltrator -> Demonic Tutor: Swapped the Transmute tutor for a strictly better tutor. Pretty self explanatory. Same CMC. Thopter Assembly -> Skeletal Vampire: Skeletal Vampire makes less tokens over 2 turns, but makes tokens immediately and has the potential to keep himself alive and make more tokens. Thopter Assembly was too slow having to wait a full turn for tokens. Corpse Harvester -> Fact or Fiction: Needed more card draw and Corpse Harvester was a bad tutor in case Grimgrin was tucked. Tortured Existence -> Phyrexian Reclamation: A strictly better swap. Paying 2 life is far easier than discarding a card.
3/12/2012 Crypt of Agadeem -> Swamp: Not enough Black creatures in my graveyard to make it useful. Lord of the Undead -> Sword of Vengeance: Not enough Zombies to justify his ability besides abuse with Grimgrin. Can possibly go back in for a graveyard strategy. The sword gives vigilance, trample, and haste so it is very pertinent to the strategy. Zombie Master -> Entomb: Until I can pick up an Urborg, the Master isn't that great in the deck. I picked up a Graveborn set and got entomb which makes it easy to feed a Gravecrawler into my graveyard at instant speed. Lich Lord of Unx -> Nether Traitor: With creatures dying all the time he is easily recurrable and the Lord only makes tokens, and slowly, because I have a low count of zombies in the deck. Fatestitcher -> Puppeteer Clique: Excellent recursion and more easily abuseable than untap effects. Persist gives him more resilience as well so I get multiple uses. Lim-Dul's Vault -> Capsize: Was a poor tutor compared to the others added to the deck. Capsize will have some excellent flexibility in the deck. Phyrexian Altar -> Throne of Empires: Cheap, resilient token production. The general is a sac outlet himself so having two altars was a little redundant.
3/28/12 Necrotic Ooze -> Dissipate: Needed more counters in order to respond to threats because these colors have a lot of problems answering non-creature permanents. Syphon Flesh -> Twincast: Token production in the deck has been fine. More interactions on the stack and being able to hijack other player's spells to help with threats etc. that can be especially good in a variety of situations Swamp -> Homeward Path: Helps protect me from people stealing my creatures. Swamp -> Temple of the False God: Provides a bit of ramp in colors that are starving for it.
8/18/13 Sorin Markov -> Vela the Night-Clad: Sorin is great for the 1 shot potential, however, I needed to find a spot for Vela as she has much better overall synergy with the deck's strategy. Currently testing her to see how she works out. Darkslick Shores -> Secluded Glen: Don't currently own a Darkslick so Secluded is serving as a functioning substitute. Cabal Coffers -> Swamp: Don't currently own Urborg. Cabal is kinda useless without it. Swamp will be its placeholder for the time being. Mind's Eye -> Recurring Insight: Nets me better CA without the need for it to stick around. The up front card draw should really help this deck not lose steam, many players in my current meta keep large hands and this should help me keep pace and net at least +10 off of the cast.
5/23/14 Sheoldred, the Whispering One -> Sepulchral Primordial: Should draw less hate and give me a more immediate board impact. Skeletal Vampire -> Crypt Ghast: Skeletal was expensive and was still expensive to create more tokens once he was out. Crypt Ghast should give me some pinging ability and excellent mana production. Throne of Empires -> Trading Post: Trading Post gives me roughly the same token production and more utility. Should be a strict upgrade. Black Market -> Gilded Lotus: Should make the deck faster and generate more reliable mana. Also needed more mana rocks in the deck. Underground River -> Watery Grave: Strict upgrade of land base. Twincast -> Exsanguinate: Traded a niche utility card for a bomb/kill card that I'd been meaning to add for a while. Living Death -> Curse of the Swine: I consider exile in U/B to be a premium and Living Death just never seemed to net me in front of my opponents when I was the one casting it.
6/8/14 Unholy Grotto -> Darkslick Shores: Never found myself using grotto, so added another dual. Havengul Lich -> Darksteel Ingot: Needed more mana rocks and always felt as though Lich was a dead draw for me most of the time, he was also higher on the CMC so it was easier to cut.
6/21/14 Halimar Depths -> Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Was a slow mono-colored land that helped me top-deck manipulate once. Traded it for a card I'd been meaning to get for ages that will really enable this deck to do some degenerate things with mana. Swamp -> Cabal Coffers: The other half of the Urborg combo, had it for a while, but left it out of the deck until I could get an Urborg. Army of the Damned -> Thassa, God of the Sea: Really slow and expensive spell in AotD because they come in tapped. Flashback was impractical and it had to table for me to do anything with them, they also couldn't function as simple blockers because of the CitP Tapped. Thassa gives topdeck manipulation in a minor way, but really helps to end games by her ability to make creatures unblockable. Also way cheaper on the CMC. Butcher of Malakir -> Dictate of Erebos: Butcher was really expensive. Dictate is still at 5CMC, but it flashes in and can be devastating to an opponent's board. Enchants are also harder to deal with for a lot of players.
7/8/2014 Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder -> Sudden Spoiling: He was providing slow tokens since you have to cast creatures after already paying his cost, meaning he typically had to table. Sudden spoiling is a great solution to a lot of indestructible or lethal board states. Split Second just makes it even better. Also plays well with Decree of Pain. Phyrexian Reclamation -> Cyclonic Rift: Never found myself paying life with this card to get back creatures so it was usually a dead draw. It may find its way back into the deck in the future, but Cyclonic Rift is a potentially game winning spell, but also lets you play defense with it. Overall great spell and utility.
7/19/2014 Mimic Vat -> Sorin Markov: I don't have a whole lot of ETB creatures that I get to abuse with the Vat, although I love the card in other lists. Additionally, I really needed to find a spot for Sorin to go back in. I experimented with him being out of the deck, but the list certainly missed him. Bloodline Keeper -> Burnished Hart: Keeper gave me slow tokens, but was cheap and consistent. Eventually, his slot just became less efficient than what it could be. Burnished Hart is some of the best colorless ramp I've seen printed and definitely deserves a spot in the list. He is also replayable with Academy Ruins. Shizo, Death's Storehouse -> Cavern of Souls: I see a lot of Black in my meta make this card less effective than it could be. There are some zombies that can be played with Cavern and it protects me from counters when I try to roll out Grimgrin. Overall a pretty strong upgrade. I didn't want to lower my swamp count and couldn't find a colorless land that was cuttable.
7/21/2014 Bloodgift Demon -> Steel Hellkite: A flying body that I never wanted to swing with because of its effect for a flying body that I do want to swing with for the effect and scales into the late game better as well as handling difficult permanents for U/B. Thousand-Year Elixir -> Darksteel Plate: Needed indestructibility in the deck and I have less and less need for anything except for the untap effect on Elixir, which I have plenty of other ways to do in the deck.
2/20/2015 Evil Twin -> Ophiomancer: Evil Twin is about on par with targeted removal meaning he doesn't do much to help me with hexproof and I never have much spot removal challenge for creatures. His removal being a tap ability is also very slow. The clone effect was nice, but it has been replaced by Clever Impersonator in the list. Ophiomancer should give me more reliable tempo and, at worst, provide me with a good rattlesnake as a blocker. She's a great value for a multiplayer format since I can sac the snake at each end step and the token having deathtouch is a bonus. Vela the Night-Clad -> Clever Impersonator: Vela always felt like a dead card for me when I was even or behind and a winmore card when I was ahead. I never found a spot where she was particularly amazing for me so I figured it was time to move on. Clever Impersonator is just plain goodstuff and his utility can come in handy making him essentially another Phyrexian Metamorph. Liliana Vess -> Black Market: I only ever really used tutor ability. While I love tutors, getting the card the next turn and only having one guaranteed activation from her for 5 mana is pretty steep. Black Market has been in the list before and I feel like it will have much more opportunity to provide me with a lot of mana in my current iteration. This deck thrives when it is able to generate a lot of mana and with more efficient sacrifice creatures and token producers than I've ever had in this list, I really think that it will be an improvement in the slot, but only testing will tell. Dissipate -> Counterspell: I've had an obsession with cutting more expensive cards for cheaper ones lately. In this case, the difference is less stark, but having to hold up that extra mana for a counterspell can make a huge difference. I love the exile ability, but a fully functional counter for UU will always be good and should help the deck play a bit smoother. Nezumi Graverobber -> Tormod's Crypt: Nezumi was pretty expensive to activate costing 2 per exile. Tormod's Crypt is a 0 cost artifact that hits the whole yard and can be abused with Academy Ruins. Since I never really flipped Nezumi and he was purely a graveyard removal spell, I see this as a strict upgrade for my graveyard hate. Agent of Erebos is a pretty great card as well and the constellation gives it some further utility, but I am worried about someone cloning or reanimating him and ruining my own graveyard plans, which can be devastating. Jwar Isle Refuge -> Polluted Delta: Refuges are basically budget duals and they come in tapped. When speed is a concern, having a fetch that can grab a shock or whatever mana I need is an upgrade in the slot. Diabolic Tutor -> Phenax, God of Deception: Phenax has been in the list for a couple months now as I felt I didn't need the tutor. If I put another tutor in the list, it would likely be a copy of Diabolic Intent. We'll see how Phenax pans out as I like his ability to mill as an alternate win-con or, at the worst, stock graveyards.
8/1/2015 Spell Crumple -> Dissipate: With the change to the tuck rule, exiling any card is a better alternative to it being put back into the player's deck. Tuck is still preferable to putting a spell in the graveyard at times, but Dissipate just took a huge bump in power level as far as counters are concerned.
5/29/2016 Secluded Glen -> Sunken Hollow: The battle lands are great, especially in 2 color decks where they essentially become a ABU dual with how many basics you generally run. This was a pretty simple upgrade over the 1 faerie card I have in the deck. Darwater Catacombs -> Command Beacon: Grimgrin is a 5 cost general who has no protection. It is in my best interest to have ways that I can cast him again for his 5 mana cost or he quickly becomes impractical to replay, even at 9 mana. Decree of Pain -> Damnation: I was able to pick up a copy of the best black board wipe a few months ago before it spiked in price, again. I can't even remember a time where I cast Decree because 8 mana is just ridiculous. With an aggressive Marath tokens player in the meta, I needed a better boardwipe earlier in the game. Duplicant -> Hero's Downfall: Downfall is just a great removal spell. This was an effort to cut CMC and give me more instant responses. Sword of Light and Shadow -> Viscera Seer: Light and Shadow seemed to be a bit of chaff in the list and Viscera Seer gives access to some combos and a sac outlet is always going to be valuable, especially in the retooled list. Vela the Night-Clad -> Zulaport Cutthroat: Vela got taken out a bit ago (she is back in as you see below) because Cutthroat is an effect I've been wishing WotC would print for years. This is the poster child for token-sac attrition decks. Think of it like extort for sacrificing things. Tormod's Crypt -> Dimir Signet: With Kalitas and needing my graveyard myself, I felt this could go for some more mana acceleration. It's a great card, but just not something I found was pulling its weight in my meta. YMMV. Nether Traitor -> Bloodline Keeper: This is a blast from the past with this list. Keeper was in my first draft when I made Grimgrin shortly after he released. He is an efficient token producer, I have many more Vampires in my list now than I used to giving his transformation more reach, and I needed ways to reliably generate more tokens for a minimal investment. Traitor was just not as efficient at being part of my "recursion package" as I wanted it to be and was always an inferior option to Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, and Skeleton. Nim Deathmantle -> Wayfarer's Bauble: An expensive equipment to try and keep Grimgrin alive. I found it very difficult to keep the mana up for it while still furthering my gameplan and not wasting my turns for fear that someone would play some spot removal. Bauble is a recurrable artifact that gets me ahead on lands, which can't be underrated in U/B. It isn't glamorous, but it does its job. Recurring Insight -> Read the Bones: This card digs so deep and is such a great, efficient draw spell. Probably one of the best draw spells in either of my colors. The cheap CMC means it lets me get good CA early on. Increasing Ambition -> Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: I was so excited for Kalitas when he was spoiled. Enemy grave hate while creating tokens, being a good beater, and a sacrifice outlet on his own is just so much value on one card. Probably one of my favorite cards in the deck.
3x Island -> 3x Swamp: These changes made the deck very black heavy, this change reflects that. Island -> Unholy Grotto: With cards like Gary and multiple Zombies that enable my engine, including getting my General back from the yard, this card drew back in as a slightly less amazing Volrath's, which is still a pretty good thing to be. Gilded Lotus -> Gray Merchant of Asphodel: Gary is a zombie allowing me to abuse him a number of ways, fits perfectly with Kokusho and the other attrition cards that I have in this new attrition/life-drain/sacrifice list. He's an MVP for sure and can just win games in the way this deck is trying to win. Perfect synergy card that is a win-con and endless value. Darkslick Shores -> Westvale Abbey: This card sacrifices cards on my board in order to make an excellent beater in Prince Ormendahl and also generates tokens, even if they are a bit more expensive. Token creation on a land is just invaluable to what this list is trying to do and this card is incredible, even without transforming. Steel Hellkite -> Relentless Dead: Steel Hellkite was played with fear of me getting beat by Enchantments I couldn't remove or be a overly expensive colorless answer to permanents that I couldn't deal with. It was never quite realized to fit the role that I envisioned for it and with a card like Relentless Dead coming out, which is super abusable in this list and, more practically, is just a reliable piece of sac fodder, I had to make this swap. Consecrated Sphinx -> Wurmcoil Engine: Wurmcoil is a better card in this deck. Sphinx is great, but I felt like I needed something that was going to push for a win at 6 mana rather than giving me more cards. The flexibility and resilience for Wurmcoil is something you can't really get elsewhere in MtG. Snapcaster Mage -> Blood Artist: Snapcaster may find a way back in, but right now I'm trying to fully commit to my strategy and see what happens. Blood Artist just goes along with the attrition theme, even if Snapcaster is a good utility card. While focusing more on sacrificing, however, I don't think that it fits as well as it used to in the current dynamic. Thassa, God of the Sea -> Vampiric Rites: I have to get card draw back somehow right? Thassa was really only a scry bot and would rarely result in me needing to use it for unblockability. I want every card in this list to be truly impactful and being able to gain life and draw cards for sacrificing tokens and creatures that I want to be sacrificing seems like a cheap, reliable way to gain value even through board wipes. Capsize -> Arcane Denial: One of the better cards available these days. Gives me CA while trading 1 for 1. Allowing an opponent to draw is not as important as giving myself gas with a non-conditional counter that replaces itself. Tezzeret the Seeker -> Phyrexian Delver: A Zombie that Reanimates for my own graveyard. This one just seems to further my strategy where Tezzeret wasn't doing as much for the strategy as he is more of a goodstuff card. To make a conditional general like Grimgrin work, you need to commit to his ability and this is another step in that direction. Curse of the Swine -> Vela the Night-Clad: Vela is great and is the more important part of Zulaport Cutthroat while letting me have some evasion with Intimidate on my creatures. She's always been an amazing card for this type of strategy and one I am glad to be able to find a slot for as she has been on the fringe of my cuts and adds for a long, long time. With this change in deck direction, she is a perfect fit. Curse of the Swine is a decent, targeted multi-creature removal spell that does exile, but it just isn't needed with the changes I've made. Rite of Replication -> Attrition: Another card that I've been looking at using for a long time. With the change in deck direction for more tokens and more sacrificing, Attrition is a repeatable removal option that punishes my opponents more than myself, always. Rite is a great card and has literally one me games on several occasions, but in an effort to truly commit to my strategy, I'm dropping goodstuff for more focused cards to see how it works out. I expect this to be a profitable swap as having more answers will give this deck longevity and make sure players think twice about swinging towards me just because they can if I can remove their creatures at will. Sever the Bloodline -> Diabolic Intent: Sever is a favorite of mine that I've run for a long time. With the other removal I have now, it wasn't as necessary. Diabolic Intent might as well be a second Demonic Tutor in this list and is far too strong to not run as it becomes a copy of whatever card I need. Darksteel Plate -> Reanimate: The best reanimate spell in the game. Period. This card is very strong, helps get my general back from the yard to keep from recasting him from the command zone and gets back any of the creature attrition pieces I need like Gary, Kokusho, Wurmcoil, Vela, etc. Darksteel Plate just became something not as crucial when it is usually exile spot removal that hits Grimgrin or I am forced to sacrifice him because of some edict effect. It was a fringe Voltron card that I'm just not happy with what it was doing. I'd rather focus on my strategy rather than worry about avoiding narrow removal. Phyrexian Metamorph -> Dread Return: Metamorph is a goodstuff card, but I have Clever Impersonator which is a better fit for this list and, in the interest of focusing on my strategy, Dread Return goes right into the reanimate package. Sorin Markov -> Animate Dead: Swapping for the same reasons as the other two reanimation cards. Sorin, however, is a great card because putting someone to 10 life can just end the game/kill that player. Sorin is probably the most likely card to come back in that's been cut, just because of his power to take one player out of the game for 6 mana. Sword of Vengeance -> Mind Slash: Targeted discard is something that is valuable at the highest levels of play. I considered Sadistic Hypnotist in this slot, but it was more expensive and let them discard any two cards. This is an excellent card against combo decks or making sure that players can't kill you or stop you from winning. The power here is deceptive and really should let this deck control the game.
Wow, this is exactly what I was looking for! All the other Grimgrin lists are either focused on infinite combos or anything with the word "ZOMBIE" in it. This, on the other hand, is just full of good cards. Great start.
Couple cards that I'm not quite sure about:
- Thopter Assembly, because I hate waiting for my next turn before I get something out of it (compared to something like Skeletal Vampire, which just gives you the bodies right away, and can still make more next turn).
- Nezumi Graverobber: every time I reach for this guy, I end up with Withered Wretch instead.
Also, I would try out Diregraf Captain and Falkenrath Noble. Their "when another creature dies" triggers are, well, to die for. (boo)
Wow, this is exactly what I was looking for! All the other Grimgrin lists are either focused on infinite combos or anything with the word "ZOMBIE" in it. This, on the other hand, is just full of good cards. Great start.
Couple cards that I'm not quite sure about:
- Thopter Assembly, because I hate waiting for my next turn before I get something out of it (compared to something like Skeletal Vampire, which just gives you the bodies right away, and can still make more next turn).
- Nezumi Graverobber: every time I reach for this guy, I end up with Withered Wretch instead.
Also, I would try out Diregraf Captain and Falkenrath Noble. Their "when another creature dies" triggers are, well, to die for. (boo)
Thanks for the feedback! I am really happy that I could create something people want. Additionally, could have slapped a giant "FIRST" at the beginning of your post (You can edit it, I won't tell anyone).
So to start with, You are very right with Thopter Assembly and Skeletal Vampire would probably be a better decision, I just hadn't found a spot for it yet. I'll have to playtest both and see if having to wait that one turn is hurting me more times then not.
As far as Nezumi Graverobber, I really like him. The graveyard hate is slightly more expensive, but he can be a threat on his own which is something I really like. If Withered Wretch pumped himself like Scavenging Ooze It would be a different story, but currently I feel like that extra colorless is worth it, especially when my meta isn't incredibly graveyard dependent at the moment.
Falkenrath Noble and Diregraf Captain are both excellent cards. In my early development of the list, I had the Captain in here, but as my cuts steadily made it less tribal, I was going to get greater profit out of the other Zombie Lords I am running because not many tokens I sacrifice will cause opponents to lose life. The Noble is one card that I will take a close look at and see if I can find a spot for him. His CMC is relatively low which would help to make this deck faster and the potential for lifegain from sacrificing tokens is pretty tempting.
Ok some interesting things going on in here... First of all I think you have too many slow rolling zombie lords. In my opinion value should be dervied quickly from cards and a creature who only comes in and starts generating creatures one at a time next turn is soooo not good enough.
CUTS: Corpse Harvester (slow) Dimir Infiltrator (bad tutor, replace with a good tutor) Fatestitcher (why...) Lich Lord of Unx (slow tokens. Get faster ETB token production instead. Expect a wrath on average every 2-3 turns in EDH) Cemetery Reaper (too slow of tokens. Get an ETB effect or if he is in for grave hate swap him to something faster.) Thopter Assembly (this was bad in my mono red token deck... I really wouldnt use it here.) Sheoldred, Whispering One (strictly worse than Braids, Cabal Minion. I have seen her attempted a few times and I can tell you she has never made it arround the table a whole turn.) Evil Twin (I guess it is better than a plain Clone however there are better clones in my mind.) Bloodline Keeper (again slow tokens. Do something faster.) Necrotic Ooze (hummm I guess you might have a combo in there for him but otherwise I dont see a purpose here.) Tortured Existence (ehhhh Phyrexian Reclamation is just better.)
Potential ADDS: Phyrexian Reclamation I would pay life for a return over a card every time. Attrition great removal card and while it does still specify nonblack it gives some great reach for your recursion guys. Contamination amazing lock piece to combo with your recursive guys. You will also be stuck with only black mana but you are a 2 color deck and will be able to execute it when you want. It fits the theme well too which I like. Mind Slash I have had some mixed feelings towards it but with so many recursive guys it could be amazing. You can just go around the table stripping wraths from opponents hands if need be or just beat someone down. Really rough on opposing combo players as well. Sadistic Hypnotist great for stripping entire hands from opponents. The sorcery speed is a downer however you will still hit someone really hard with this plus if they use a removal spell that is down 3 cards for them. Demonic Tutor basic amazing tutor Vamperic Tutor basic amazing tutor Fact or Fiction basic amazing card draw Diabolic Intent great tutor for a sac style of deck. Entomb you have several recursive guys and I think paying 1 mana at instant speed is totally equivalent to just drawing them most of the time. Really solid but not cheap. Smokestack it fits your theme of sac based and it can scale up. It is really rough but it is really strong too. Braids, Cabal Minion fits the theme and she costs so much less mana than Sheoldred. Honestly I have never seen Sheoldred make it a turn around the table so why overpay for it? Braids can come in much much sooner and work off of your recursive guys if need be. Braids also draws a little less hate as you wont be rezing things on your turn off of it. Sorin Markov for a black agro deck he just wins games. Taking up to 30 life off of someone is huge for an agro deck. It might be a dick move but it isnt a direct kill in one shot. I understand if he is a bit "cheap" though.
I could go into explanations if you would like. However you need card draw and thigns to abuse sacrifice creatures to. The slow rolling zombie legends just wont cut it in my own opinion either as their value is too slow. If you like having some tokens to abuse then consider like Skeletal Vampire or something else that brings guys in right away.
I personally really like Nezumi Graverobber over the Wrech due to additional versatility. He isn't just grave hate however if you need JUST grave hate then he is inferior. I find that there are matches where I prefer to have graverobber though based upon what sort of deck my opponents plays though.
@ISB: Some of your points are pretty accurate, however, the fact that he includes two pieces of hasty equipment and several ways to dig them up does make some of these slower guys a little faster. If he can reliably get one of those on any of the aforementioned lords, it makes them a lot better.
That being said, I would say that there needs to be a little more cheap acceleration in this list. My meta is 99% dominated by Primeval Titan, and the only time that Grimz was able to compete with that was when I was able to get an early mana rock or two going, even something as simple as a Signet or a Talisman.
More mana stones seem like they are in order as well... It looks like you will have some slow starts. Generally speaking if I am not running a high amount of ramp I will also up my land count closer to 40 lands.
The haste outlets will make some of the token guys faster... But I dont like relying on them in a deck with little for equipment tutors. If I were to blow a good black tutor on haste I would feel a bit silly.
Mind's Eye -> Recurring Insight seems like a worthwhile swap as well. You will end up paying more mana for less cards with the Eye and any good players will blow it up relatively quickly.
Ok some interesting things going on in here... First of all I think you have too many slow rolling zombie lords. In my opinion value should be dervied quickly from cards and a creature who only comes in and starts generating creatures one at a time next turn is soooo not good enough.
CUTS: Corpse Harvester (slow) Dimir Infiltrator (bad tutor, replace with a good tutor) Fatestitcher (why...) Lich Lord of Unx (slow tokens. Get faster ETB token production instead. Expect a wrath on average every 2-3 turns in EDH) Cemetery Reaper (too slow of tokens. Get an ETB effect or if he is in for grave hate swap him to something faster.) Thopter Assembly (this was bad in my mono red token deck... I really wouldnt use it here.) Sheoldred, Whispering One (strictly worse than Braids, Cabal Minion. I have seen her attempted a few times and I can tell you she has never made it arround the table a whole turn.) Evil Twin (I guess it is better than a plain Clone however there are better clones in my mind.) Bloodline Keeper (again slow tokens. Do something faster.) Necrotic Ooze (hummm I guess you might have a combo in there for him but otherwise I dont see a purpose here.) Tortured Existence (ehhhh Phyrexian Reclamation is just better.)
Potential ADDS: Phyrexian Reclamation I would pay life for a return over a card every time. Attrition great removal card and while it does still specify nonblack it gives some great reach for your recursion guys. Contamination amazing lock piece to combo with your recursive guys. You will also be stuck with only black mana but you are a 2 color deck and will be able to execute it when you want. It fits the theme well too which I like. Mind Slash I have had some mixed feelings towards it but with so many recursive guys it could be amazing. You can just go around the table stripping wraths from opponents hands if need be or just beat someone down. Really rough on opposing combo players as well. Sadistic Hypnotist great for stripping entire hands from opponents. The sorcery speed is a downer however you will still hit someone really hard with this plus if they use a removal spell that is down 3 cards for them. Demonic Tutor basic amazing tutor Vamperic Tutor basic amazing tutor Fact or Fiction basic amazing card draw Diabolic Intent great tutor for a sac style of deck. Entomb you have several recursive guys and I think paying 1 mana at instant speed is totally equivalent to just drawing them most of the time. Really solid but not cheap. Smokestack it fits your theme of sac based and it can scale up. It is really rough but it is really strong too. Braids, Cabal Minion fits the theme and she costs so much less mana than Sheoldred. Honestly I have never seen Sheoldred make it a turn around the table so why overpay for it? Braids can come in much much sooner and work off of your recursive guys if need be. Braids also draws a little less hate as you wont be rezing things on your turn off of it. Sorin Markov for a black agro deck he just wins games. Taking up to 30 life off of someone is huge for an agro deck. It might be a dick move but it isnt a direct kill in one shot. I understand if he is a bit "cheap" though.
I could go into explanations if you would like. However you need card draw and thigns to abuse sacrifice creatures to. The slow rolling zombie legends just wont cut it in my own opinion either as their value is too slow. If you like having some tokens to abuse then consider like Skeletal Vampire or something else that brings guys in right away.
I personally really like Nezumi Graverobber over the Wrech due to additional versatility. He isn't just grave hate however if you need JUST grave hate then he is inferior. I find that there are matches where I prefer to have graverobber though based upon what sort of deck my opponents plays though.
First of all, thanks ISB for stopping by. This is some great feedback and I really appreciate it. (I also appreciate the design for the primer )Let's start with the cards you picked to cut and work our way down.
Corpse Harvester, I agree. He was really only included to get back Grimgrin if he was tucked. A tutor can do this much better. He will be cut. Dimir Infiltrator I like because he can carry a sword and get it guaranteed no matter what. His transmute for 2 also fetches up several key pieces. I will playtest and see if cutting him for a spell tutor is more worth it. Fatestitcher is there to untap Grimgrin. I felt that this was an important aspect especially if I run low on things to sacrifice. Playtesting would be good here. Seems like a terrible card, but his synergy with Grimgrin is awesome. Cemetery Reaper I agree. He'll be coming out. Thopter Assembly probably coming out for Skeletal Vampire. Sheoldred, Whispering One draws a lot of hate. Braids could work out a little better. I'll try both. If she sticks though, it's good game. Evil Twin I like for the potential removal aspect. I'll look for a better replacement. Bloodline Keeper makes a lot of tokens for free (no mana) and he is a low perceived threat in my playgroup. I think he is going to stay. Tokens with flying is a plus too. Necrotic Ooze I've been trying to playtest him and see how well he works out. My best friend raves about him so I'm trying to give it a shot. I figure the deck has a lot of activated abilities. Can't go wrong.
Moving on to your add list:
Phyrexian Reclamation, I hadn't seen this card. It's going to be a straight swap. Love it. Attrition Has potential. I'll try to find a place. Contamination definitely a lot of potential. Currently we have games where all of my opponents have decks with a lot of black so it may not be as effective. Definitely going on the watch list if the meta changes. Could be very mean. Mind Slash could be awesome. I'll take a look at it. Sadistic Hypnotist Love it. He is a definite add. Fact or Fiction too good. going in. Entomb is awesome, but expensive. It'll go on the buylist. Smokestack is a little rough. I'll consider it. Sorin Markov I feel a little silly not having considered him earlier. He's going to find a slot for sure. Mind's Eye->Recurring Insight Seems like a pretty good swap. Saves me from having to swap over another card from Jenara as well.
The tutors are all good. It's just a matter of making the space for all of them and buying some of the more expensive ones.
Thanks for the suggestions, I will definitely take most of them into consideration and I hope you will continue to contribute as the deck progresses.
I was just about to mention the Pawn, so I'll just second it as being something that Grimz definitely wants. Anything that reads "when a creature dies" is likely a very good card in here.
On the other hand, I don't think we want to get too carried away on sac outlets. It's hard enough to keep things alive in this format as is, and Grimz eats at a pretty good clip by himself, so I think more focus on making fodder and less on eating it is the way to go. Hence, I might cut Attrition to make room for the Seer.
Corpse Dance may be a really good addition to your deck, as it combos well with your general and triggers ETB and LTB effects (can produce tokens, flashback spells, clone kill, and more if you build your deck around cards like that.
Corpse Dance may be a really good addition to your deck, as it combos well with your general and triggers ETB and LTB effects (can produce tokens, flashback spells, clone kill, and more if you build your deck around cards like that.
Corpse Dance is worth a look. I had Fleshbag Marauder a while back, but swapped it for Syphon Flesh as it allowed me to actually get token profit off of my removal (in my multiplayer games that is about 3 2/2 zombies.
Dimir Infiltrator was a transmute tutor for Greaves, Boots, Bloodghast, and Skeleton, but he has been replaced with Demonic Tutor.
Thanks for the input! Please let me know if you have any more thoughts!
Updated the Primer with my Change Log and created a Card Options section to include cards that have been cut, considered, or should be mentioned.
Thanks everyone for the feedback so far and I hope we can keep this going.
If you are also making Grimgrin feel free to ask for suggestions, more budget friendly cards, or just share your experiences and things that have worked well for you!
Played several games with Grimz last night, just wanted to share some thoughts on individual cards:
- Slow tap lords like Lich Lord of Unx, Cemetery Reaper, Lord of the Undead, etc: As much as it pains me to say it (since I recently traded for some of these in foil), although I cast them over and over again, but I never got to activate them. Usually they either died too fast or they wanted to attack, but either way, I never used their abilities.
- The only exception was Coffin Queen. I managed to drop her on turn 3 and then proceeded to steal an Oracle of Mul Daya.
- Lords like Death Baron and Undead Warchief that had no other abilities were OK, but only because I had several Zombies on the table at once.
- The exception here was Diregraf Ghoul, because of his trigger on other Zombies dying.
- One game that I managed to win was a heads-up match in which I managed to get Ashnod's Altar and Living Death in the same draw. That combination worked very nicely. Obviously Living Death is already a great card, but having a FREE sac outlet was very useful. I would highly recommend both Ashnod's and Phyrexian Altar for this deck.
- The MVPs of the night for me were all enchantments. Bitterblossom provided a nice, steady stream of fodder, Phyrexian Arena and Rhystic Study kept the gas flowing, Endless Ranks of the Dead made a lot of fodder very quickly, Grave Pact turned Gravecrawler into Plague Wind, Call to the Grave managed to remove some key creatures, and Rooftop Storm was just amazing (I think I saved about 50 mana on Zombies over the course of two turns). My biggest question is this: are there any reliable ways to bring back these enchantments once they get killed?
Some cards I wish I had in my list:
- Loxodon Warhammer, Sword of Vengeance. Grimz REALLY needs trample, end of story.
- Cheap, efficient mana rocks: Most of the spells in my list were 3 or 4 mana, and I always started out the first two turns with nothing but a land-drop. A Coldsteel Heart or a Mind Stone or something like that would have made a big difference.
- More recursion. Zombies are known for dying early and often. Even though I ran Gravedigger, Ghoulraiser, and Phyrexian Delver, I still wanted more creatures with effects like that (not instants/sorceries like Zombify or Makeshift Mannequin, but other creatures).
- EDIT: Some hasty equipments like Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, and the previously-mentioned Sword of Vengeance would have been very nice as well. Having to wait a turn for everything was really difficult.
May I recommend Myr Battlesphere? I always find him valuable in token based decks. Also, where is your Urborg, Tomb of Yawgamoth to match the coffers? Phyrexian Rebirth is either, A, in the wrong section, or B, missed named. I assume B, as it is white ;p. Have you considered damnation in O.Stones place? Rhystic study in minds eye place? How many creatures do you have on the field normally? Minions' Murmurs can be okay.
Once again, thank you for your input and I really hope you continue to contribute!
@Ted Elderhi, first I would like to welcome you to the thread, and thank you for your feedback. I value everyone's critiques very highly and I hope you continue to drop by. On to your comments, I wasn't specifically looking for enchantment recursion. I haven't had too many issues with all my enchants being in the graveyard, but in the event I do, I will take those adds into consideration as getting a Grave Pact back would be quite the thorn in an opponent's side.
Myr Battlesphere is definitely a card I have considered. It was in my original list, but in an effort to cut down on my average CMC I cut it for other cheaper token producers. Damnation is a card I would love to have, but it is expensive and a little hard to come by in trade. I would not want to replace OStone with it only because these colors have no way to get around some permanents like enchantments and artifacts so this is a way to do that on a mass scale. Minion's Murmurs wouldn't help as much since I am usually saccing creatures to my General of the Black Legions and my creature count isn't especially high. I also don't like having to depend on board presence for the card to be good. I have a Rhystic Study and I've learned that opponents tend to pay the 1 and stop me from drawing. It is great early game, but late game it is a dead draw and relatively no CA. Mind's Eye, which I've been pondering as a cut for Recurring Insight, typically gets me much better CA off of it.
I like the changes thus far, though I believe some of the stuff on your watch list, like Spine of Ish Sah should go in post-haste. I also really like having more tutors in black, such as Beseech the Queen and Rune-Scarred Demon. Though you do have a pretty good amount at the moment, it feels like you have a lot of cards that you need more often than not, so having a way to grab them more consistently would be good.
Interesting deck. Minor suggestion, Bloodgift Demon should probably be Graveborn Muse, because it's cheaper and gives you the opportunity to draw multiple cards because of your general and other zombies.
Thank you both for the input; here are my thoughts on your suggestions for the deck.
Rune-Scarred Demon is an awesome tutor, but he does cost 7. I'd like to find room for him, but cuts are very difficult to make at the moment, especially since I am going to have to put Zombie Master back in when I get Urborg.
Beseech the Queen is a pretty good one. Once again it is the problem of finding room.
Spine of Ish Sah is amazing removal. If I find I am struggling against enchantments and artifacts I will definitely find a slot for it. It's just something I hadn't gotten to yet.
Graveborn Muse is definitely a great card draw engine, but with the amount of zombies that I frequently have on the field. Especially with a couple of them being essential to my strategy, I feel that it would do more harm than good.
In other news, UPDATES: Card Options, Deck List, and Watch List have all been updated.
One of the main goals of these cuts were to help improve my early game. I feel the tutors are improving the consistency and the more token producers I can get, the better. The creature count has gotten a little low, but with the amount of recursion, I feel that won't be a problem. A concern I have been having is: Can this deck win without Grimgrin? This is a question that I'm sure playtesting will answer shortly. Since it is going the way of a token strategy, cards like Akroma's Memorial and Eldrazi Monument may be necessary adds in case Grimz gets tucked (or I could just tutor him up because Lord knows I have more tutors than they have tuck spells).
I added Capsize to the deck. It should be a lot of fun to play around with. Considering adding a few reanimator spells if I could ever find the room since I have a Graveborn set sitting around now (went 50/50 with a friend on it so he could have Crosis and I could get Entomb).
Everyone has been a great help so far and I hope you are all enjoying the progress that this list is making.
I'm going to have to disagree for a couple reasons. First because the cards you'll draw are more valuable than the life unless you're really low or about to die. Second your general is a sac outlet if it does become and problem. Third I've run her in a deck that's all zombies, (look at the walking dead deck in my sig) and never had her kill me or lead to me dying. In your mind it looks scary but in real life it's not as bad as you think.
I'm going to have to disagree for a couple reasons. First because the cards you'll draw are more valuable than the life unless you're really low or about to die. Second your general is a sac outlet if it does become and problem. Third I've run her in a deck that's all zombies, (look at the walking dead deck in my sig) and never had her kill me or lead to me dying. In your mind it looks scary but in real life it's not as bad as you think.
Well, I'll take your word for it on this one. I'll try out the muse in place of the demon and see how it goes. The only reserves I have on this is that I should never want to sacrifice a creature because it is becoming detrimental to me, I should sacrifice it because I need to in order to gain advantage. Regardless, playtesting is the only way to find out so she'll have a shot.
In all the times I've played her, and it's been too many to count, I've only had to sac her once and it was because I played living death and had enough zombies to be lethal coming into play, I won that game too. A phyrexian arena that draws 2-4 cards a turn is incredible. I find a lot of times smart opponents will kill her though.
Well I certainly thank you for your adamant case. I see her being most beneficial with drawing 2 extra cards per turn and I can definitely see the value there. First time she gets me killed though I swear....
She'll be getting some playtesting time in the next week or so here and i will definitely be posting with how that goes.
EDIT: Any thoughts on how good Glen Elendra Archmage could be in here? Counters are always nice and her persist is an interesting mechanic to utilize with Grimgrin. That, and Mikaeus gives her an infinite counter lock.
EDIT #2: Have an amazing new banner for the Primer thanks to .handslikeguns
I definitely recommend him to anyone else looking for art. Great response times, easy to work with, takes almost any request, and excellent quality of work!
So it's been a while and I figured I would give everyone an update on how this deck is going. There haven't been any major changes. I have managed to pick up multiples of several staples for this deck to reduce the amount of cards I share between Jenara and Grimgrin.
After some more playtesting, I have started to find my groove with Grimgrin, setting up defenses and playing the war of attrition until I can bring in Grimgrin and use him as a finisher instead of an initiator.
Necrotic Ooze, a pet card of mine, has been cut in order to play more counter spells. Without the ability of these colors to really handle enchantments and artifacts, counterspells, and many of them, are really the only way to handle non-creature spells that make problems for this deck.
Twincast is a card that I am testing out at the moment in order to add some flexibility, maintain interaction with other players, and being a functional counter when necessary. Bitter Ordeal is a card that I've been considering. It has the definite ability to be an infinite combo, but it is also a great option in order to diffuse threats before they are played and it can target multiple players, with a different one for each copy. In a deck where I am frequently destroying creatures, it is an excellent card even when the combo is not infinite.
A couple things that I am still trying to do is getting some mana rocks into the deck in order to increase my acceleration. Thran Dynamo, Darksteel Ingot, Mind Stone and Coldsteel Heart are all within consideration, but I am having difficulty finding spots for them. Any suggestions would be great.
Credit to .handslikeguns for the amazing banner!
*Note*: This primer is designed to build a deck largely centered on untapping Grimgrin and winning through general damage, or Voltron while having a strong control suite and sacrifice theme. It is primarily an voltron/control deck based on Grimgrin providing his own spot removal and encouraging you to swing in whenever you can. I am open to all suggestions and critiques as an EDH deck is always a work in progress. Feel free to ask questions for why I use certain cards and I would be happy to explain and review my choices. The deck does include infinite combos, but executing them is up to you. The combos are included for their synergy more than the combo potential. This deck is not built on a budget and is meant to be as fast and competitive as possible, even without using combos.
Deck History:
After constructing a Jenara list as my first foray into non-precon EDH, I decided to create a little more variety in my playstyle and try a color that I hadn’t used before in B. I ended up coming upon Grimgrin and really enjoyed his card design. I think he looks like a Chaos Space Marine, thus the deck's name and the custom alter I had done for him. I looked around at a lot of other Grimgrin decks and couldn’t find anything that I felt really used him in a way that I found engaging or efficient, so I decided to start from scratch.
Originally, as can be seen in the card options section of this deck, my first draft of this deck is probably 80% cut and replaced by cards that better fit the strategy. The first run through used too many high-CMC spells and the second iteration used too many zombies and slow tap ability creatures. I fell prey to wanting to stuff too many expensive spells in the list without the ability to play them and then the classic pitfall of building a quasi-zombie tribal with a zombie commander. For the most part, using Grimgrin properly revolves around good recursion creatures, cheap, playable spells, and not zombie lords. The early iterations of the list were either slow via high-CMC or slow because of a lot of tap abilities combined with minimal mana acceleration, which has been greatly improved.
Where I feel I really mastered the concept of this list is when I focused the strategy on having some relevant curve toppers and then pouring the rest of my resources into consistency, recursion, untapping, and control. The deck is at its best without too many expensive spells competing to be played each turn and having as many ways to execute our main strategy as possible. Needing more ways to win than just general damage, I included alternate win conditions that synergize well with Grimgrin since he is the deck's main strategy. It's important to utilize the core of the deck when trying to win different ways so that the list remains focused.
Most recently, in an effort to have a more robust gameplan/plan B, I have made changed about a third of the deck and made it a far more attrition-based strategy centered around sacrificing tokens and creatures, reanimating my cards, and symmetrical life-drain via things like Zulaport Cutthroat and Extort effects. Grimgrin is still a very viable way to kill via commander damage, but the attrition-based strategy is designed to have the whole deck support each other card in the deck with less goodstuff and pressure for Grimgrin to be the sole win condition.
Why Play Grimgrin?
What a handsome question. I am glad you asked.
This deck IS for you if:
-You enjoy blowing up opponents' creatures and punishing their resources through attrition
-You don't mind sacrificing your own creatures for extreme advantage
-You like a deck that has a strong theme around your general
-You enjoy an attrition-based strategy with voltron potential
This deck IS NOT for you if:
-You don't like playing creatures that you want to die
-You like a deck that doesn't need the general at all
-You think U/B is meant for control or mill and nothing else
-You think that having a zombie commander necessitates zombie tribal
Other Generals in UB:
Oona, Queen of the Fae: One of the strongest generals in the colors employing a token-mill strategy with a lot of tempo. Also a prominent combo-based general in UB.
Dralnu, Lich Lord: Designed for a spellslinger control build, but is generally a risky pick, especially against anything that can ping him with damage because of his clause that makes you sacrifice permanents when he takes damage.
Wrexial, the Risen Deep: An interesting general that we got in the original commander precons. He is strongest in a mill-aggro and theft strategy that can land splashy spells put in your opponents' graveyards via milling them. He has natural evasion for 2 of the most popular colors in the format, but can require a reliance on opponents running strong instants and sorceries to be at his best.
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind: A very strong and probably underplayed Dimir general. He works best in a mill/control list where you can win through general damage by increasing his power and giving him valuable abilities through triggers that can easily be gained through both milling your opponent and clearing their board. Lazav having hexproof makes him difficult to get off the board short of sacrifice effects and board wipes.
Sygg, River Cutthroat: One of the other strongest UB legends and a card advantage machine. Players lose life naturally and, in a multiplayer scenario, he will net you a ton of cards. He has a wealth of strategies accessible to him because of his broad ability that doesn't require any building around it meaning you can make him into any kind of deck that you want.
Bio:
My name is Ryan, I am 25 and from California. I have a B.A. in Political Science and am a second year law student. I was introduced to MtG back in 1998 by a couple of my friends playing mono green and mono red precons. I started playing seriously in 2009 where I started with the M10 core set. The first deck I built other than a casual mono-green list was a Alara-Zendikar Standard Jund list.
I got started in EDH when the first commander precons came out in 2011; we found them at a local hobby shop a week early and couldn’t believe our luck. We took them home and started playing immediately. It wasn’t long before we discovered our love for the format and never looked back. I started with a Riku deck that has since been retired. After looking around for colors that I really wanted to play and a General I could get behind, I found Jenara. Having a bit of EDHD, I decided to branch out and build a deck of my own design with Grimgrin. I also have fairly competitive Omnath and Narset lists (links to all current lists can be found in my signature).
As a player, I am a little of everything (Timmy/Johnny/Spike/Vorthos). I enjoy flavor, fun combos and synergy, big, flashy spells, and building my lists as efficiently and semi-competitively as possible.
The Deck:
5 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
Creature (22)
1 Gravecrawler
1 Viscera Seer
2 Blood Artist
2 Bloodghast
2 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Relentless Dead
2 Zulaport Cutthroat
3 Burnished Hart
3 Ophiomancer
4 Bloodline Keeper
4 Clever Impersonator
4 Crypt Ghast
4 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
4 Solemn Simulacrum
5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
5 Phyrexian Delver
5 Puppeteer Clique
6 Grave Titan
6 Kokusho, the Evening Star
6 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
6 Vela the Night-Clad
6 Wurmcoil Engine
Enchantment (9)
1 Vampiric Rites
2 Animate Dead
2 Bitterblossom
3 Attrition
3 Mind Slash
3 Phyrexian Arena
4 Grave Pact
5 Dictate of Erebos
6 Rooftop Storm
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
2 Dimir Signet
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Swiftfoot Boots
3 Darksteel Ingot
3 Oblivion Stone
3 Phyrexian Altar
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
4 Trading Post
5 Batterskull
Sorcery (7)
1 Reanimate
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Diabolic Intent
2 Exsanguinate
3 Read the Bones
4 Damnation
4 Dread Return
Instant (10)
1 Entomb
2 Arcane Denial
2 Counterspell
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Muddle the Mixture
3 Dissipate
3 Hero's Downfall
3 Sudden Spoiling
4 Cryptic Command
4 Fact or Fiction
7 Karn Liberated
Land (37)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Command Beacon
1 Command Tower
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Homeward Path
3 Island
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Strip Mine
1 Sunken Hollow
1 Sunken Ruins
12 Swamp
1 Temple of Deceit
1 Tolaria West
1 Unholy Grotto
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Watery Grave
1 Westvale Abbey
3 Liliana, Heretical Healer
4 Disciple of Bolas
4 Falkenrath Noble
4 Smokestack
6 Pontiff of Blight
6 Sorin Markov
8 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Strategy:
Using The General of the Black Legion:
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born: The main focus of the deck. The ultimate goal is to pump him and be able to win through general damage. There are a number of cards in the deck designed to generate tokens to sacrifice, recur creatures from the graveyard, provide power boosts, untap him without sacrificing creatures, and create evasion to get in for lethal damage. He is also his own pump and removal spell since he shoots a creature and pumps himself each attack and sacrifice making him very big, very fast.
Card Options:
This is a collection of every card that is in the deck, has been in the deck, or has been considered in the deck. Bolded Cards are cards that are currently in the deck and each has a description of what role it would play in the list. Feel free to ask about why I don't run a certain card or ask to see one included on the options list!
Creatures:
Bloodghast: A free creature every landfall. Even if you don't draw a creature or token producer, a land still gives you a creature you can sac to untap and pump Giggles.
Nether Traitor: Similar to Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, and Reassembling Skeleton. Comes back for B whenever a creature you control dies. Very easy to accomplish with Grimgrin.
Gravecrawler: Pay B whenever Grimgrin is on the field and you have an easy creature to sac. Play him for free and pump Grimgrin infinite times with Rooftop Storm on the field.
Bloodline Keeper: Generates a token every turn and can turn into a very dangerous force if he gets to flip making his own personal army.
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder: Great for pumping Grimgrin just by playing other creatures. Just be careful to sac tokens before a creature resolves that would put you above 7.
Skeletal Vampire: Generates 2 tokens with evasion immediately with the potential to make more.
Grave Titan: A 6/6 body with deathtouch that makes 2 zombie tokens when it enters play and every time it attacks. Perfect for continued token production. Can be a house on his own.
Vela the Night-Clad: Great synergy to wear down your opponents by taxing their life while utilizing your sac outlets normally. Good body with intimidate, can carry a sword, and causes Grimgrin to deal damage even without getting through.
Havengul Lich: Pay 1 and you can cast a card from a graveyard. Doesn't have to be your own and it gets its activated abilities until end of turn. Creature that is cast can be used as sacrifice fodder.
Nezumi Graverobber: Graveyard hate and makes it so it has to be answered or you can start playing any creature for only 4B. Goes great with Bojuka Bog.
Puppeteer Clique: Brings back an opponents creature for stuff that Lich can't hit due to mana types. Has persist. Is abuseable with the deathmantle.
Snapcaster Mage: Awesome snap recursion for a counter or sorcery. A Blue Staple.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed: Gives everything in this deck undying besides Grimgrin. Very good. Gets double value out of sacrificing nontoken creatures.
Sheoldred, Whispering One: Brings back a creature every one of your upkeeps. Makes opponents sacrifice creatures on theirs.
Consecrated Sphinx: Draws two cards every time an opponent draws one. Usually good for at least 4 extra cards. Also a 4/6 flying body. If you play him late game where opponents are low on removal, he can draw you into victory.
Bloodgift Demon: A good 5/4 flyer and draws you one card every turn. Typically a low perceived threat level so you can get some good CA off of him.
Butcher of Malakir: Grave Pact on a creature. A bit pricy at 7CMC.
Evil Twin: Removal on a Clone. Lots of versatility
Duplicant: Colorless creature removal. Plus, it exiles.
Solemn Simulacrum: Ramp in colors that struggle in that area. Also recurrable with Academy Ruins.
Phyrexian Metamorph: Amazing card, a staple in blue. Incredibly versatile, but does not fit in with any one particular strategy.
Cemetery Reaper: Zombie Lord who can function as slow graveyard hate and generates tokens. I found him to be too slow for the aggro style of the deck. May be functional in a more control build.
Thopter Assembly: Great token generation, but I opted for a Skeletal Vampire in order to get tokens immediately instead of waiting and risking removal.
Dimir Infiltrator: Is unblockable, which is beneficial for sword use. Also transmutes for 2 CMC tutoring for several of the decks major pieces. Was replaced with Demonic Tutor for better flexibility
Corpse Harvester: Was in the list to dig up Grimgrin if he becomes tucked. Can be decent, reusable tutor in a zombie tribal list.
Fatestitcher: Untaps Grimgrin and other permanents you control or taps other permanents. Good utility.
Zombie Master: Gives Grimgrin and all other zombies evasion. Works wonders with Urborg on the field.
Lord of the Undead: Returns a zombie from your graveyard to your hand for 1B. Excellent recursion due to a decent amount of zombies in the decklist.
Lich Lord of Unx: Makes a zombie token every turn for UB and can cause opponents to lose a lot of life with his second mana ability. Additionally provides more targets for Necrotic Ooze, Havengul Lich, etc.
Necrotic Ooze: Gains all activated abilities of all cards in all graveyards. Mostly useful for producing tokens or other amazing things. Very versatile.
Sepulchral Primordial: Really good high-cmc bomb. Gets a creature from each opponent's GY and becomes more effective the more players there are. Instant value.
Crypt Ghast: Great mana generation on a creature and extort allows for pinging opponents and gaining life.
Thassa, God of the Sea: Provides unblockable for Grimgrin or any creature for 1U, also gives top-deck manipulation. Indestructible is hard to deal with, she is cheap coming in at 2U, and if she gets devotion, it's just a bonus.
Burnished Hart: An excellent ramp creature in colorless. Nets you two lands into play. Potentially recurrable with Academy Ruins.
Reassembling Skeleton: Recurrable abuseable creature to use as repeatable sacrifice fodder.
Geth, Lord of the Vault: Gets artifacts or creatures from opponents graveyards and fills them for more targets.
Steel Hellkite: Removal for permanents that U/B struggles with, a flying beater, pumps itself to potentially do more damage.
Clever Impersonator: An all purpose clone. Probably the best clone in the game as far as versatility.
Bloodsoaked Champion: very close to Gravecrawler as far as cost and functionality, but the "one of your creatures must have attacked this turn" to bring him back from the yard is a bit narrow. It encourages you to pump after combat, which I don't like very much and it costs 1B to cast him instead of just B. He's still a quality creature to abuse sacrifice triggers and would likely be in the list if I feel I need another one.
Phenax, God of Deception: By giving Grimgrin a tap-to-mill ability, it enables some of our graveyard recursion to have more reach and also gives us mill as an alternate win-con. Since Grimgrin can untap himself with a sacrifice trigger, we can repeatedly tap him with this ability and potentially deck a person without anywhere near infinite mana.
Ophiomancer: Triggers a token every upkeep. Token has deathtouch for use as a blocker if necessary and can be used as sac fodder multiple times before it gets back to your turn.
Bitterblossom: makes 1 token every upkeep. The life loss is negligible only paying 1 per turn.
Phyrexian Reclamation: Gets back a creature from your graveyard for 1B and 2 life. Excellent for anything you need badly in your hand.
Phyrexian Arena: Bloodgift Demon on an enchantment. Typically a lot more resilient to wrath and removal.
Grave Pact: Amazing synergy in a deck where you willingly kill your own creatures. You profit while everyone else suffers.
Black Market: With all the creatures dying just on your side of the field, this card can produce a TON of mana. This deck operates on being able to abuse our recursion engines so having a lot of mana lets us have a faster clock.
Rooftop Storm: An amazing card in this deck. Enables you to just play Grimgrin for his general tax making him much easier to have die and bounce back. Also sets up amazing synergies with a number of the zombies in this decklist, especially Gravecrawler.
Tortured Existence: Good for creature recursion, but Phyrexian Reclamation was a much better option.
Dictate of Erebos: Gravepact with flash giving it a lot of surprise and utility.
Attrition: Easily attainable cost and repeatable removal. Excellent for dealing with a large amount of threats.
Lim-Dûl's Vault: Let's you fish for an answer if needed and place it on the top of your deck and is an instant. Can cost a considerable amount of life to do so, best used as top-deck manipulation, but redundant with SDT in the list.
Fact or Fiction: Amazing card draw.
Entomb: Cheap, instant speed tutor to put any card you want in your graveyard. Works great if you need a card with flashback, have a Snapcaster in hand, or need to fish up one of our 4 easily recurrable guys to sac to Grimgrin. Simply amazing card.
Cryptic Command: Amazing counter. the UUU is a pretty easy feat in a 2 color deck.
Hinder: Counter with a tuck. Goes to graveyard. Less effective to have in the list now that the tuck rule is gone. Still useful to keep things out of the graveyard that you don't want there. It is better to force someone to use a tutor to go get a card that you tucked than have it in the graveyard for any player to use.
Spell Crumple: Counters, tucks, and goes back into your deck. Less effective without the tuck rule. See Hinder above for full explanation.
Capsize: Bounces a permanent to it's owners hand with buyback. Simply amazing utility for all kinds of situations.
Counterspell: The original cheap counterspell.
Dissipate: Counters and exiles. Without the tuck rule, this is one of the best counters in the game. Exiling is always the preferred removal.
Twincast: Can be a functional counter or a copy of anything an opponent plays.
Sudden Spoiling: Split Second that makes all creatures opponent controls a 0/2 with no abilities. Blanks alpha strikes and gets around strong board states/indestructibility.
Cyclonic Rift: Bounces all permanents you don't control or is good single target bounce. Relevant at all stages of the game and can be a game winning spell.
Throne of Empires: Makes a token every turn for 1 colorless. Has a low threat level and is more resilient as an artifact token producer.
Batterskull: Comes with a token that is just perfect to be sacrificed. Then it gives +4/+4 and Vigilance. A one card equipment powerhouse making Grimgrin a 10/10 that doesn't tap before he attacks.
Thousand-Year Elixir: Untaps Grimgrin for 1. Very effective with a lot of activated abilities in the deck as well.
Mimic Vat: can make a token every turn, additionally, can abuse ETB or other effects prior to being sacrificed to Grimgrin.
Nim Deathmantle: Saves a creature any time it is sent to a graveyard for 4. Gives +2/+2 and makes it a zombie as well.
Sword of Light and Shadow: Brings a creature back from graveyard to hand every time it connects. Also gains 3 life, which counteracts the other life loss cards in the deck.
Skullclamp: Perfect for drawing cards while you sacrifice tokens.
Sensei's Divining Top: An EDH staple. Need I say more?
Ashnod's Altar: Great for avoiding wrath and getting mana or avoiding exile which is very heavy in my meta.
Oblivion Stone: Blows up all permanents. Great mass removal to get out of a jam and is recurrable.
Sol Ring: EDH Staple. Needs no introduction.
Lightning Greaves: Equips for 0, gives haste and shroud.
Swiftfoot Boots: Equips for 1, but gives hexproof instead of shroud and haste.
Sword of Vengeance: Gives first strike, vigilance, trample, haste and a power boost. This card lets Grimgrin get in for a ton of damage.
Mind's Eye: Fairly resilient as an artifact. Found to be a bit slow, requires decent mana investment for good returns in addition to it sticking around.
Phyrexian Altar: Sac outlet for colored mana. Allows for infinite black mana with Gravecrawler and Rooftop Storm.
Trading Post: Token generation and a ton of utility.
Gilded Lotus: Excellent mana rock producing triple U/B.
Darksteel Ingot: Indestructible colored mana rock.
Mind Stone: Cheap colorless mana rock, has card draw to pop when you need or in case of board wipe.
Coldsteel Heart: Colored mana rock CitP as whichever you need U/B.
Thran Dynamo: A solid, big mana rock. Cheaper alternative to Gilded lotus, but gives 3 colorless instead of colored.
Vorac Battlehorns: Good equipment if you face a lot of token/swarm decks with a lot of blockers. Gives trample and ensures that you get in. Can potentially make them throw their large creatures in front of Grimgrin to reduce damage taken.
Darksteel Plate: Gives indestructibility, one of the best sources of creature resilience.
Tormod's Crypt: Excellent, reliable, and free graveyard hate and can be brought back with Academy Ruins.
Army of the Damned: 13 zombie tokens with flashback. Can put Grimgrin at lethal power immediately or be a huge wall and a wincon on its own, but they to CitP tapped.
Living Death: Wrath and recursion all in one. Sacrifice all your creatures in response and get them all back. Better in decks with more creatures.
Recurring Insight: Nets huge card advantage because of the Rebound. Cheaper than Mind's Eye in the long run and probably gets more cards.
Decree of Pain: Can be cycled to wrath little guys at instant speed or save you from lethal damage or be used to wrath everything.
Sever the Bloodline: Exile in Black and a Maelstrom Pulse equivalent for just creatures.
Demonic Tutor: Cheap, amazing tutor. 1B and get any card you want.
Increasing Ambition: Tutor with flashback. The flashback option justifies the 5 CMC as opposed to running Diabolic.
Diabolic Tutor: Tutor without drawbacks, pricy at 4 mana for no additional use.
Syphon Flesh: Opponents sacrifice and you get zombies. Perfect sacrifice fodder.
Curse of the Swine: Exile in U/B is amazing and it can be used on however many targets you need.
Exsanguinate: Excellent lifegain spell and can outright win the game with infinite(or just a lot) of mana. Great lategame spell to keep you in it or win.
Rite of Replication: Excellent clone spell and can be a complete blowout in a game if you hit a breaking ETB ability.
Karn Liberated: Allows for spot removal for permanents that these colors do not have.
Liliana Vess: Tutors twice if left alone and still lives.
Tezzeret the Seeker: Tutors for artifacts. Can hit most of the ones in the deck with the exception of Batterskull.
Sorin Markov: Can bring an opponent to 10 life. In EDH that is amazing. Helps to out-aggro opponents.
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver: Great for decks with more of a reanimator/mill theme, although he is the only one that can hit the cards he gets rid of.
Academy Ruins: Recurs artifacts.
Bojuka Bog: Graveyard hate.
Cabal Coffers: Mana doubler.
Creeping Tar Pit: Man-land.
Homeward Path: Returns stolen creatures.
Minamo, School at Water's Edge: Untap engine.
Reliquary Tower: Unlimited hand size.
Shizo, Death's Storehouse: Gives fear.
Strip Mine: Destroys troublesome lands.
Temple of the False God: Colorless ramp, more or less.
Tolaria West: Tutors for any land or 0 drop.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Black color fixing, combo with Cabal Coffers.
Unholy Grotto: Can get back zombie cards from GY. Great in more tribal builds.
Halimar Depths: Provides top-deck manipulation when it CitP
Cavern of Souls: Stops Grimgrin (and all zombies) from being countered. Excellent utility card to ensure that you can play him reliably in big spots.
Volrath's Stronghold: Great utility land to get creatures back into your hand.
Temple of Deceit: Scry 1 on a dual land, one of the better CitP Tapped lands in the list.
Thanks everyone for reading. I really hope for this to be a resource for anyone interested in playing Grimgrin. All feedback is appreciated!
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
Deckstats can be found here.
Last updated: 5/29/2016
Change Log:
3/6/2012
Cemetery Reaper -> Sorin Markov: Sorin is as close to a one shot card as you can get in EDH. His down ability makes all the difference. Cemetery Reaper is too slow and depends on other graveyards most of the time to be good because we don't want to exile our own creatures.
Dimir Infiltrator -> Demonic Tutor: Swapped the Transmute tutor for a strictly better tutor. Pretty self explanatory. Same CMC.
Thopter Assembly -> Skeletal Vampire: Skeletal Vampire makes less tokens over 2 turns, but makes tokens immediately and has the potential to keep himself alive and make more tokens. Thopter Assembly was too slow having to wait a full turn for tokens.
Corpse Harvester -> Fact or Fiction: Needed more card draw and Corpse Harvester was a bad tutor in case Grimgrin was tucked.
Tortured Existence -> Phyrexian Reclamation: A strictly better swap. Paying 2 life is far easier than discarding a card.
3/12/2012
Crypt of Agadeem -> Swamp: Not enough Black creatures in my graveyard to make it useful.
Lord of the Undead -> Sword of Vengeance: Not enough Zombies to justify his ability besides abuse with Grimgrin. Can possibly go back in for a graveyard strategy. The sword gives vigilance, trample, and haste so it is very pertinent to the strategy.
Zombie Master -> Entomb: Until I can pick up an Urborg, the Master isn't that great in the deck. I picked up a Graveborn set and got entomb which makes it easy to feed a Gravecrawler into my graveyard at instant speed.
Lich Lord of Unx -> Nether Traitor: With creatures dying all the time he is easily recurrable and the Lord only makes tokens, and slowly, because I have a low count of zombies in the deck.
Fatestitcher -> Puppeteer Clique: Excellent recursion and more easily abuseable than untap effects. Persist gives him more resilience as well so I get multiple uses.
Lim-Dul's Vault -> Capsize: Was a poor tutor compared to the others added to the deck. Capsize will have some excellent flexibility in the deck.
Phyrexian Altar -> Throne of Empires: Cheap, resilient token production. The general is a sac outlet himself so having two altars was a little redundant.
3/28/12
Necrotic Ooze -> Dissipate: Needed more counters in order to respond to threats because these colors have a lot of problems answering non-creature permanents.
Syphon Flesh -> Twincast: Token production in the deck has been fine. More interactions on the stack and being able to hijack other player's spells to help with threats etc. that can be especially good in a variety of situations
Swamp -> Homeward Path: Helps protect me from people stealing my creatures.
Swamp -> Temple of the False God: Provides a bit of ramp in colors that are starving for it.
8/18/13
Sorin Markov -> Vela the Night-Clad: Sorin is great for the 1 shot potential, however, I needed to find a spot for Vela as she has much better overall synergy with the deck's strategy. Currently testing her to see how she works out.
Darkslick Shores -> Secluded Glen: Don't currently own a Darkslick so Secluded is serving as a functioning substitute.
Cabal Coffers -> Swamp: Don't currently own Urborg. Cabal is kinda useless without it. Swamp will be its placeholder for the time being.
Mind's Eye -> Recurring Insight: Nets me better CA without the need for it to stick around. The up front card draw should really help this deck not lose steam, many players in my current meta keep large hands and this should help me keep pace and net at least +10 off of the cast.
5/23/14
Sheoldred, the Whispering One -> Sepulchral Primordial: Should draw less hate and give me a more immediate board impact.
Skeletal Vampire -> Crypt Ghast: Skeletal was expensive and was still expensive to create more tokens once he was out. Crypt Ghast should give me some pinging ability and excellent mana production.
Throne of Empires -> Trading Post: Trading Post gives me roughly the same token production and more utility. Should be a strict upgrade.
Black Market -> Gilded Lotus: Should make the deck faster and generate more reliable mana. Also needed more mana rocks in the deck.
Underground River -> Watery Grave: Strict upgrade of land base.
Twincast -> Exsanguinate: Traded a niche utility card for a bomb/kill card that I'd been meaning to add for a while.
Living Death -> Curse of the Swine: I consider exile in U/B to be a premium and Living Death just never seemed to net me in front of my opponents when I was the one casting it.
6/8/14
Unholy Grotto -> Darkslick Shores: Never found myself using grotto, so added another dual.
Havengul Lich -> Darksteel Ingot: Needed more mana rocks and always felt as though Lich was a dead draw for me most of the time, he was also higher on the CMC so it was easier to cut.
6/21/14
Halimar Depths -> Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Was a slow mono-colored land that helped me top-deck manipulate once. Traded it for a card I'd been meaning to get for ages that will really enable this deck to do some degenerate things with mana.
Swamp -> Cabal Coffers: The other half of the Urborg combo, had it for a while, but left it out of the deck until I could get an Urborg.
Army of the Damned -> Thassa, God of the Sea: Really slow and expensive spell in AotD because they come in tapped. Flashback was impractical and it had to table for me to do anything with them, they also couldn't function as simple blockers because of the CitP Tapped. Thassa gives topdeck manipulation in a minor way, but really helps to end games by her ability to make creatures unblockable. Also way cheaper on the CMC.
Butcher of Malakir -> Dictate of Erebos: Butcher was really expensive. Dictate is still at 5CMC, but it flashes in and can be devastating to an opponent's board. Enchants are also harder to deal with for a lot of players.
7/8/2014
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder -> Sudden Spoiling: He was providing slow tokens since you have to cast creatures after already paying his cost, meaning he typically had to table. Sudden spoiling is a great solution to a lot of indestructible or lethal board states. Split Second just makes it even better. Also plays well with Decree of Pain.
Phyrexian Reclamation -> Cyclonic Rift: Never found myself paying life with this card to get back creatures so it was usually a dead draw. It may find its way back into the deck in the future, but Cyclonic Rift is a potentially game winning spell, but also lets you play defense with it. Overall great spell and utility.
7/19/2014
Mimic Vat -> Sorin Markov: I don't have a whole lot of ETB creatures that I get to abuse with the Vat, although I love the card in other lists. Additionally, I really needed to find a spot for Sorin to go back in. I experimented with him being out of the deck, but the list certainly missed him.
Bloodline Keeper -> Burnished Hart: Keeper gave me slow tokens, but was cheap and consistent. Eventually, his slot just became less efficient than what it could be. Burnished Hart is some of the best colorless ramp I've seen printed and definitely deserves a spot in the list. He is also replayable with Academy Ruins.
Shizo, Death's Storehouse -> Cavern of Souls: I see a lot of Black in my meta make this card less effective than it could be. There are some zombies that can be played with Cavern and it protects me from counters when I try to roll out Grimgrin. Overall a pretty strong upgrade. I didn't want to lower my swamp count and couldn't find a colorless land that was cuttable.
7/21/2014
Bloodgift Demon -> Steel Hellkite: A flying body that I never wanted to swing with because of its effect for a flying body that I do want to swing with for the effect and scales into the late game better as well as handling difficult permanents for U/B.
Thousand-Year Elixir -> Darksteel Plate: Needed indestructibility in the deck and I have less and less need for anything except for the untap effect on Elixir, which I have plenty of other ways to do in the deck.
8/5/2014
Frost Marsh -> Temple of Deceit: Simple upgrade in land base. Scry is incredibly good.
8/6/2014
Temple of the False God -> Volrath's Stronghold: Great utility card. Helps me find more ways to recur creatures. Wanted to swap out for another colorless source.
2/20/2015
Evil Twin -> Ophiomancer: Evil Twin is about on par with targeted removal meaning he doesn't do much to help me with hexproof and I never have much spot removal challenge for creatures. His removal being a tap ability is also very slow. The clone effect was nice, but it has been replaced by Clever Impersonator in the list. Ophiomancer should give me more reliable tempo and, at worst, provide me with a good rattlesnake as a blocker. She's a great value for a multiplayer format since I can sac the snake at each end step and the token having deathtouch is a bonus.
Vela the Night-Clad -> Clever Impersonator: Vela always felt like a dead card for me when I was even or behind and a winmore card when I was ahead. I never found a spot where she was particularly amazing for me so I figured it was time to move on. Clever Impersonator is just plain goodstuff and his utility can come in handy making him essentially another Phyrexian Metamorph.
Liliana Vess -> Black Market: I only ever really used tutor ability. While I love tutors, getting the card the next turn and only having one guaranteed activation from her for 5 mana is pretty steep. Black Market has been in the list before and I feel like it will have much more opportunity to provide me with a lot of mana in my current iteration. This deck thrives when it is able to generate a lot of mana and with more efficient sacrifice creatures and token producers than I've ever had in this list, I really think that it will be an improvement in the slot, but only testing will tell.
Dissipate -> Counterspell: I've had an obsession with cutting more expensive cards for cheaper ones lately. In this case, the difference is less stark, but having to hold up that extra mana for a counterspell can make a huge difference. I love the exile ability, but a fully functional counter for UU will always be good and should help the deck play a bit smoother.
Nezumi Graverobber -> Tormod's Crypt: Nezumi was pretty expensive to activate costing 2 per exile. Tormod's Crypt is a 0 cost artifact that hits the whole yard and can be abused with Academy Ruins. Since I never really flipped Nezumi and he was purely a graveyard removal spell, I see this as a strict upgrade for my graveyard hate. Agent of Erebos is a pretty great card as well and the constellation gives it some further utility, but I am worried about someone cloning or reanimating him and ruining my own graveyard plans, which can be devastating.
Jwar Isle Refuge -> Polluted Delta: Refuges are basically budget duals and they come in tapped. When speed is a concern, having a fetch that can grab a shock or whatever mana I need is an upgrade in the slot.
Diabolic Tutor -> Phenax, God of Deception: Phenax has been in the list for a couple months now as I felt I didn't need the tutor. If I put another tutor in the list, it would likely be a copy of Diabolic Intent. We'll see how Phenax pans out as I like his ability to mill as an alternate win-con or, at the worst, stock graveyards.
8/1/2015
Spell Crumple -> Dissipate: With the change to the tuck rule, exiling any card is a better alternative to it being put back into the player's deck. Tuck is still preferable to putting a spell in the graveyard at times, but Dissipate just took a huge bump in power level as far as counters are concerned.
5/29/2016
Secluded Glen -> Sunken Hollow: The battle lands are great, especially in 2 color decks where they essentially become a ABU dual with how many basics you generally run. This was a pretty simple upgrade over the 1 faerie card I have in the deck.
Darwater Catacombs -> Command Beacon: Grimgrin is a 5 cost general who has no protection. It is in my best interest to have ways that I can cast him again for his 5 mana cost or he quickly becomes impractical to replay, even at 9 mana.
Decree of Pain -> Damnation: I was able to pick up a copy of the best black board wipe a few months ago before it spiked in price, again. I can't even remember a time where I cast Decree because 8 mana is just ridiculous. With an aggressive Marath tokens player in the meta, I needed a better boardwipe earlier in the game.
Duplicant -> Hero's Downfall: Downfall is just a great removal spell. This was an effort to cut CMC and give me more instant responses.
Sword of Light and Shadow -> Viscera Seer: Light and Shadow seemed to be a bit of chaff in the list and Viscera Seer gives access to some combos and a sac outlet is always going to be valuable, especially in the retooled list.
Vela the Night-Clad -> Zulaport Cutthroat: Vela got taken out a bit ago (she is back in as you see below) because Cutthroat is an effect I've been wishing WotC would print for years. This is the poster child for token-sac attrition decks. Think of it like extort for sacrificing things.
Tormod's Crypt -> Dimir Signet: With Kalitas and needing my graveyard myself, I felt this could go for some more mana acceleration. It's a great card, but just not something I found was pulling its weight in my meta. YMMV.
Nether Traitor -> Bloodline Keeper: This is a blast from the past with this list. Keeper was in my first draft when I made Grimgrin shortly after he released. He is an efficient token producer, I have many more Vampires in my list now than I used to giving his transformation more reach, and I needed ways to reliably generate more tokens for a minimal investment. Traitor was just not as efficient at being part of my "recursion package" as I wanted it to be and was always an inferior option to Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, and Skeleton.
Nim Deathmantle -> Wayfarer's Bauble: An expensive equipment to try and keep Grimgrin alive. I found it very difficult to keep the mana up for it while still furthering my gameplan and not wasting my turns for fear that someone would play some spot removal. Bauble is a recurrable artifact that gets me ahead on lands, which can't be underrated in U/B. It isn't glamorous, but it does its job.
Recurring Insight -> Read the Bones: This card digs so deep and is such a great, efficient draw spell. Probably one of the best draw spells in either of my colors. The cheap CMC means it lets me get good CA early on.
Increasing Ambition -> Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: I was so excited for Kalitas when he was spoiled. Enemy grave hate while creating tokens, being a good beater, and a sacrifice outlet on his own is just so much value on one card. Probably one of my favorite cards in the deck.
3x Island -> 3x Swamp: These changes made the deck very black heavy, this change reflects that.
Island -> Unholy Grotto: With cards like Gary and multiple Zombies that enable my engine, including getting my General back from the yard, this card drew back in as a slightly less amazing Volrath's, which is still a pretty good thing to be.
Gilded Lotus -> Gray Merchant of Asphodel: Gary is a zombie allowing me to abuse him a number of ways, fits perfectly with Kokusho and the other attrition cards that I have in this new attrition/life-drain/sacrifice list. He's an MVP for sure and can just win games in the way this deck is trying to win. Perfect synergy card that is a win-con and endless value.
Darkslick Shores -> Westvale Abbey: This card sacrifices cards on my board in order to make an excellent beater in Prince Ormendahl and also generates tokens, even if they are a bit more expensive. Token creation on a land is just invaluable to what this list is trying to do and this card is incredible, even without transforming.
Steel Hellkite -> Relentless Dead: Steel Hellkite was played with fear of me getting beat by Enchantments I couldn't remove or be a overly expensive colorless answer to permanents that I couldn't deal with. It was never quite realized to fit the role that I envisioned for it and with a card like Relentless Dead coming out, which is super abusable in this list and, more practically, is just a reliable piece of sac fodder, I had to make this swap.
Consecrated Sphinx -> Wurmcoil Engine: Wurmcoil is a better card in this deck. Sphinx is great, but I felt like I needed something that was going to push for a win at 6 mana rather than giving me more cards. The flexibility and resilience for Wurmcoil is something you can't really get elsewhere in MtG.
Snapcaster Mage -> Blood Artist: Snapcaster may find a way back in, but right now I'm trying to fully commit to my strategy and see what happens. Blood Artist just goes along with the attrition theme, even if Snapcaster is a good utility card. While focusing more on sacrificing, however, I don't think that it fits as well as it used to in the current dynamic.
Thassa, God of the Sea -> Vampiric Rites: I have to get card draw back somehow right? Thassa was really only a scry bot and would rarely result in me needing to use it for unblockability. I want every card in this list to be truly impactful and being able to gain life and draw cards for sacrificing tokens and creatures that I want to be sacrificing seems like a cheap, reliable way to gain value even through board wipes.
Capsize -> Arcane Denial: One of the better cards available these days. Gives me CA while trading 1 for 1. Allowing an opponent to draw is not as important as giving myself gas with a non-conditional counter that replaces itself.
Tezzeret the Seeker -> Phyrexian Delver: A Zombie that Reanimates for my own graveyard. This one just seems to further my strategy where Tezzeret wasn't doing as much for the strategy as he is more of a goodstuff card. To make a conditional general like Grimgrin work, you need to commit to his ability and this is another step in that direction.
Curse of the Swine -> Vela the Night-Clad: Vela is great and is the more important part of Zulaport Cutthroat while letting me have some evasion with Intimidate on my creatures. She's always been an amazing card for this type of strategy and one I am glad to be able to find a slot for as she has been on the fringe of my cuts and adds for a long, long time. With this change in deck direction, she is a perfect fit. Curse of the Swine is a decent, targeted multi-creature removal spell that does exile, but it just isn't needed with the changes I've made.
Rite of Replication -> Attrition: Another card that I've been looking at using for a long time. With the change in deck direction for more tokens and more sacrificing, Attrition is a repeatable removal option that punishes my opponents more than myself, always. Rite is a great card and has literally one me games on several occasions, but in an effort to truly commit to my strategy, I'm dropping goodstuff for more focused cards to see how it works out. I expect this to be a profitable swap as having more answers will give this deck longevity and make sure players think twice about swinging towards me just because they can if I can remove their creatures at will.
Sever the Bloodline -> Diabolic Intent: Sever is a favorite of mine that I've run for a long time. With the other removal I have now, it wasn't as necessary. Diabolic Intent might as well be a second Demonic Tutor in this list and is far too strong to not run as it becomes a copy of whatever card I need.
Darksteel Plate -> Reanimate: The best reanimate spell in the game. Period. This card is very strong, helps get my general back from the yard to keep from recasting him from the command zone and gets back any of the creature attrition pieces I need like Gary, Kokusho, Wurmcoil, Vela, etc. Darksteel Plate just became something not as crucial when it is usually exile spot removal that hits Grimgrin or I am forced to sacrifice him because of some edict effect. It was a fringe Voltron card that I'm just not happy with what it was doing. I'd rather focus on my strategy rather than worry about avoiding narrow removal.
Phyrexian Metamorph -> Dread Return: Metamorph is a goodstuff card, but I have Clever Impersonator which is a better fit for this list and, in the interest of focusing on my strategy, Dread Return goes right into the reanimate package.
Sorin Markov -> Animate Dead: Swapping for the same reasons as the other two reanimation cards. Sorin, however, is a great card because putting someone to 10 life can just end the game/kill that player. Sorin is probably the most likely card to come back in that's been cut, just because of his power to take one player out of the game for 6 mana.
Sword of Vengeance -> Mind Slash: Targeted discard is something that is valuable at the highest levels of play. I considered Sadistic Hypnotist in this slot, but it was more expensive and let them discard any two cards. This is an excellent card against combo decks or making sure that players can't kill you or stop you from winning. The power here is deceptive and really should let this deck control the game.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
Couple cards that I'm not quite sure about:
- Thopter Assembly, because I hate waiting for my next turn before I get something out of it (compared to something like Skeletal Vampire, which just gives you the bodies right away, and can still make more next turn).
- Nezumi Graverobber: every time I reach for this guy, I end up with Withered Wretch instead.
Also, I would try out Diregraf Captain and Falkenrath Noble. Their "when another creature dies" triggers are, well, to die for. (boo)
Yeva (88/92 foils)
Raff
Scarab
Rakdos
Wort ($50 budget, 94/97 foils)
Trostani
Thanks for the feedback! I am really happy that I could create something people want. Additionally, could have slapped a giant "FIRST" at the beginning of your post (You can edit it, I won't tell anyone).
So to start with, You are very right with Thopter Assembly and Skeletal Vampire would probably be a better decision, I just hadn't found a spot for it yet. I'll have to playtest both and see if having to wait that one turn is hurting me more times then not.
As far as Nezumi Graverobber, I really like him. The graveyard hate is slightly more expensive, but he can be a threat on his own which is something I really like. If Withered Wretch pumped himself like Scavenging Ooze It would be a different story, but currently I feel like that extra colorless is worth it, especially when my meta isn't incredibly graveyard dependent at the moment.
Falkenrath Noble and Diregraf Captain are both excellent cards. In my early development of the list, I had the Captain in here, but as my cuts steadily made it less tribal, I was going to get greater profit out of the other Zombie Lords I am running because not many tokens I sacrifice will cause opponents to lose life. The Noble is one card that I will take a close look at and see if I can find a spot for him. His CMC is relatively low which would help to make this deck faster and the potential for lifegain from sacrificing tokens is pretty tempting.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
CUTS:
Corpse Harvester (slow)
Dimir Infiltrator (bad tutor, replace with a good tutor)
Fatestitcher (why...)
Lich Lord of Unx (slow tokens. Get faster ETB token production instead. Expect a wrath on average every 2-3 turns in EDH)
Cemetery Reaper (too slow of tokens. Get an ETB effect or if he is in for grave hate swap him to something faster.)
Thopter Assembly (this was bad in my mono red token deck... I really wouldnt use it here.)
Sheoldred, Whispering One (strictly worse than Braids, Cabal Minion. I have seen her attempted a few times and I can tell you she has never made it arround the table a whole turn.)
Evil Twin (I guess it is better than a plain Clone however there are better clones in my mind.)
Bloodline Keeper (again slow tokens. Do something faster.)
Necrotic Ooze (hummm I guess you might have a combo in there for him but otherwise I dont see a purpose here.)
Tortured Existence (ehhhh Phyrexian Reclamation is just better.)
Potential ADDS:
Phyrexian Reclamation I would pay life for a return over a card every time.
Attrition great removal card and while it does still specify nonblack it gives some great reach for your recursion guys.
Contamination amazing lock piece to combo with your recursive guys. You will also be stuck with only black mana but you are a 2 color deck and will be able to execute it when you want. It fits the theme well too which I like.
Mind Slash I have had some mixed feelings towards it but with so many recursive guys it could be amazing. You can just go around the table stripping wraths from opponents hands if need be or just beat someone down. Really rough on opposing combo players as well.
Sadistic Hypnotist great for stripping entire hands from opponents. The sorcery speed is a downer however you will still hit someone really hard with this plus if they use a removal spell that is down 3 cards for them.
Demonic Tutor basic amazing tutor
Vamperic Tutor basic amazing tutor
Fact or Fiction basic amazing card draw
Diabolic Intent great tutor for a sac style of deck.
Entomb you have several recursive guys and I think paying 1 mana at instant speed is totally equivalent to just drawing them most of the time. Really solid but not cheap.
Smokestack it fits your theme of sac based and it can scale up. It is really rough but it is really strong too.
Braids, Cabal Minion fits the theme and she costs so much less mana than Sheoldred. Honestly I have never seen Sheoldred make it a turn around the table so why overpay for it? Braids can come in much much sooner and work off of your recursive guys if need be. Braids also draws a little less hate as you wont be rezing things on your turn off of it.
Sorin Markov for a black agro deck he just wins games. Taking up to 30 life off of someone is huge for an agro deck. It might be a dick move but it isnt a direct kill in one shot. I understand if he is a bit "cheap" though.
I could go into explanations if you would like. However you need card draw and thigns to abuse sacrifice creatures to. The slow rolling zombie legends just wont cut it in my own opinion either as their value is too slow. If you like having some tokens to abuse then consider like Skeletal Vampire or something else that brings guys in right away.
I personally really like Nezumi Graverobber over the Wrech due to additional versatility. He isn't just grave hate however if you need JUST grave hate then he is inferior. I find that there are matches where I prefer to have graverobber though based upon what sort of deck my opponents plays though.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
That being said, I would say that there needs to be a little more cheap acceleration in this list. My meta is 99% dominated by Primeval Titan, and the only time that Grimz was able to compete with that was when I was able to get an early mana rock or two going, even something as simple as a Signet or a Talisman.
Yeva (88/92 foils)
Raff
Scarab
Rakdos
Wort ($50 budget, 94/97 foils)
Trostani
The haste outlets will make some of the token guys faster... But I dont like relying on them in a deck with little for equipment tutors. If I were to blow a good black tutor on haste I would feel a bit silly.
Also... Yawgmoth's Will could be great in here.
Mind's Eye -> Recurring Insight seems like a worthwhile swap as well. You will end up paying more mana for less cards with the Eye and any good players will blow it up relatively quickly.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
First of all, thanks ISB for stopping by. This is some great feedback and I really appreciate it. (I also appreciate the design for the primer )Let's start with the cards you picked to cut and work our way down.
Corpse Harvester, I agree. He was really only included to get back Grimgrin if he was tucked. A tutor can do this much better. He will be cut.
Dimir Infiltrator I like because he can carry a sword and get it guaranteed no matter what. His transmute for 2 also fetches up several key pieces. I will playtest and see if cutting him for a spell tutor is more worth it.
Fatestitcher is there to untap Grimgrin. I felt that this was an important aspect especially if I run low on things to sacrifice. Playtesting would be good here. Seems like a terrible card, but his synergy with Grimgrin is awesome.
Cemetery Reaper I agree. He'll be coming out.
Thopter Assembly probably coming out for Skeletal Vampire.
Sheoldred, Whispering One draws a lot of hate. Braids could work out a little better. I'll try both. If she sticks though, it's good game.
Evil Twin I like for the potential removal aspect. I'll look for a better replacement.
Bloodline Keeper makes a lot of tokens for free (no mana) and he is a low perceived threat in my playgroup. I think he is going to stay. Tokens with flying is a plus too.
Necrotic Ooze I've been trying to playtest him and see how well he works out. My best friend raves about him so I'm trying to give it a shot. I figure the deck has a lot of activated abilities. Can't go wrong.
Moving on to your add list:
Phyrexian Reclamation, I hadn't seen this card. It's going to be a straight swap. Love it.
Attrition Has potential. I'll try to find a place.
Contamination definitely a lot of potential. Currently we have games where all of my opponents have decks with a lot of black so it may not be as effective. Definitely going on the watch list if the meta changes. Could be very mean.
Mind Slash could be awesome. I'll take a look at it.
Sadistic Hypnotist Love it. He is a definite add.
Fact or Fiction too good. going in.
Entomb is awesome, but expensive. It'll go on the buylist.
Smokestack is a little rough. I'll consider it.
Sorin Markov I feel a little silly not having considered him earlier. He's going to find a slot for sure.
Mind's Eye->Recurring Insight Seems like a pretty good swap. Saves me from having to swap over another card from Jenara as well.
The tutors are all good. It's just a matter of making the space for all of them and buying some of the more expensive ones.
Thanks for the suggestions, I will definitely take most of them into consideration and I hope you will continue to contribute as the deck progresses.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
He could have some great interactions such as if you set up a loop with one of your rez creatures.
EDIT: Viscera Seer also fits the theme very nicely and allows you to manipulate your way to your next card draw.
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[Modern] Allies
On the other hand, I don't think we want to get too carried away on sac outlets. It's hard enough to keep things alive in this format as is, and Grimz eats at a pretty good clip by himself, so I think more focus on making fodder and less on eating it is the way to go. Hence, I might cut Attrition to make room for the Seer.
EDIT: I might also cut Attrition for Dimir House Guard. It tutors for some very important cards (Grave Pact, Tombstone Stairwell, Falkenrath Noble, Solemn Simulacrum, Phyrexian Metamorph) and it has its own sac outlet.
Yeva (88/92 foils)
Raff
Scarab
Rakdos
Wort ($50 budget, 94/97 foils)
Trostani
Fleshbag Marauder is also a good choice for creature control.
Also, why is Dimir Infiltrator in the deck?
Corpse Dance is worth a look. I had Fleshbag Marauder a while back, but swapped it for Syphon Flesh as it allowed me to actually get token profit off of my removal (in my multiplayer games that is about 3 2/2 zombies.
Dimir Infiltrator was a transmute tutor for Greaves, Boots, Bloodghast, and Skeleton, but he has been replaced with Demonic Tutor.
Thanks for the input! Please let me know if you have any more thoughts!
Updated the Primer with my Change Log and created a Card Options section to include cards that have been cut, considered, or should be mentioned.
Thanks everyone for the feedback so far and I hope we can keep this going.
If you are also making Grimgrin feel free to ask for suggestions, more budget friendly cards, or just share your experiences and things that have worked well for you!
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
- Slow tap lords like Lich Lord of Unx, Cemetery Reaper, Lord of the Undead, etc: As much as it pains me to say it (since I recently traded for some of these in foil), although I cast them over and over again, but I never got to activate them. Usually they either died too fast or they wanted to attack, but either way, I never used their abilities.
- The only exception was Coffin Queen. I managed to drop her on turn 3 and then proceeded to steal an Oracle of Mul Daya.
- Lords like Death Baron and Undead Warchief that had no other abilities were OK, but only because I had several Zombies on the table at once.
- The exception here was Diregraf Ghoul, because of his trigger on other Zombies dying.
- One game that I managed to win was a heads-up match in which I managed to get Ashnod's Altar and Living Death in the same draw. That combination worked very nicely. Obviously Living Death is already a great card, but having a FREE sac outlet was very useful. I would highly recommend both Ashnod's and Phyrexian Altar for this deck.
- The MVPs of the night for me were all enchantments. Bitterblossom provided a nice, steady stream of fodder, Phyrexian Arena and Rhystic Study kept the gas flowing, Endless Ranks of the Dead made a lot of fodder very quickly, Grave Pact turned Gravecrawler into Plague Wind, Call to the Grave managed to remove some key creatures, and Rooftop Storm was just amazing (I think I saved about 50 mana on Zombies over the course of two turns). My biggest question is this: are there any reliable ways to bring back these enchantments once they get killed?
Some cards I wish I had in my list:
- Loxodon Warhammer, Sword of Vengeance. Grimz REALLY needs trample, end of story.
- Cheap, efficient mana rocks: Most of the spells in my list were 3 or 4 mana, and I always started out the first two turns with nothing but a land-drop. A Coldsteel Heart or a Mind Stone or something like that would have made a big difference.
- More recursion. Zombies are known for dying early and often. Even though I ran Gravedigger, Ghoulraiser, and Phyrexian Delver, I still wanted more creatures with effects like that (not instants/sorceries like Zombify or Makeshift Mannequin, but other creatures).
- EDIT: Some hasty equipments like Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, and the previously-mentioned Sword of Vengeance would have been very nice as well. Having to wait a turn for everything was really difficult.
Yeva (88/92 foils)
Raff
Scarab
Rakdos
Wort ($50 budget, 94/97 foils)
Trostani
RB[Primer] Olivia VolDOOMenBR
URJhoira of the Get YouRU
UWRZedruu the GoatheartedRWU
May I recommend Myr Battlesphere? I always find him valuable in token based decks. Also, where is your Urborg, Tomb of Yawgamoth to match the coffers? Phyrexian Rebirth is either, A, in the wrong section, or B, missed named. I assume B, as it is white ;p. Have you considered damnation in O.Stones place? Rhystic study in minds eye place? How many creatures do you have on the field normally? Minions' Murmurs can be okay.
Once again, thank you for your input and I really hope you continue to contribute!
@Ted Elderhi, first I would like to welcome you to the thread, and thank you for your feedback. I value everyone's critiques very highly and I hope you continue to drop by. On to your comments, I wasn't specifically looking for enchantment recursion. I haven't had too many issues with all my enchants being in the graveyard, but in the event I do, I will take those adds into consideration as getting a Grave Pact back would be quite the thorn in an opponent's side.
Myr Battlesphere is definitely a card I have considered. It was in my original list, but in an effort to cut down on my average CMC I cut it for other cheaper token producers. Damnation is a card I would love to have, but it is expensive and a little hard to come by in trade. I would not want to replace OStone with it only because these colors have no way to get around some permanents like enchantments and artifacts so this is a way to do that on a mass scale. Minion's Murmurs wouldn't help as much since I am usually saccing creatures to my General of the Black Legions and my creature count isn't especially high. I also don't like having to depend on board presence for the card to be good. I have a Rhystic Study and I've learned that opponents tend to pay the 1 and stop me from drawing. It is great early game, but late game it is a dead draw and relatively no CA. Mind's Eye, which I've been pondering as a cut for Recurring Insight, typically gets me much better CA off of it.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
RB[Primer] Olivia VolDOOMenBR
URJhoira of the Get YouRU
UWRZedruu the GoatheartedRWU
Thank You Rivenor/Miraculous Recovery Studios!
GGGSKamahl's Band of Monstosities SGGG
RRRSFreaki-Kiki, The Goblin DoucheSRRR
BBGGNath, Raper of Hands and Spewer of Tokens!GGBB
BUGDamia, Sage of AnswersBUG
WIPs
BBBXiahou Dun, the Bitter Stax Enabling BastardBBB
On Break
BBBSKagemaro, First to RetireSBBB
BBBThe Walking DeadBBB
UUUSTeferi Combo PrimerSUUU
Rune-Scarred Demon is an awesome tutor, but he does cost 7. I'd like to find room for him, but cuts are very difficult to make at the moment, especially since I am going to have to put Zombie Master back in when I get Urborg.
Beseech the Queen is a pretty good one. Once again it is the problem of finding room.
Spine of Ish Sah is amazing removal. If I find I am struggling against enchantments and artifacts I will definitely find a slot for it. It's just something I hadn't gotten to yet.
Graveborn Muse is definitely a great card draw engine, but with the amount of zombies that I frequently have on the field. Especially with a couple of them being essential to my strategy, I feel that it would do more harm than good.
In other news, UPDATES: Card Options, Deck List, and Watch List have all been updated.
One of the main goals of these cuts were to help improve my early game. I feel the tutors are improving the consistency and the more token producers I can get, the better. The creature count has gotten a little low, but with the amount of recursion, I feel that won't be a problem. A concern I have been having is: Can this deck win without Grimgrin? This is a question that I'm sure playtesting will answer shortly. Since it is going the way of a token strategy, cards like Akroma's Memorial and Eldrazi Monument may be necessary adds in case Grimz gets tucked (or I could just tutor him up because Lord knows I have more tutors than they have tuck spells).
I added Capsize to the deck. It should be a lot of fun to play around with. Considering adding a few reanimator spells if I could ever find the room since I have a Graveborn set sitting around now (went 50/50 with a friend on it so he could have Crosis and I could get Entomb).
Everyone has been a great help so far and I hope you are all enjoying the progress that this list is making.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
Thank You Rivenor/Miraculous Recovery Studios!
GGGSKamahl's Band of Monstosities SGGG
RRRSFreaki-Kiki, The Goblin DoucheSRRR
BBGGNath, Raper of Hands and Spewer of Tokens!GGBB
BUGDamia, Sage of AnswersBUG
WIPs
BBBXiahou Dun, the Bitter Stax Enabling BastardBBB
On Break
BBBSKagemaro, First to RetireSBBB
BBBThe Walking DeadBBB
UUUSTeferi Combo PrimerSUUU
Well, I'll take your word for it on this one. I'll try out the muse in place of the demon and see how it goes. The only reserves I have on this is that I should never want to sacrifice a creature because it is becoming detrimental to me, I should sacrifice it because I need to in order to gain advantage. Regardless, playtesting is the only way to find out so she'll have a shot.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
Thank You Rivenor/Miraculous Recovery Studios!
GGGSKamahl's Band of Monstosities SGGG
RRRSFreaki-Kiki, The Goblin DoucheSRRR
BBGGNath, Raper of Hands and Spewer of Tokens!GGBB
BUGDamia, Sage of AnswersBUG
WIPs
BBBXiahou Dun, the Bitter Stax Enabling BastardBBB
On Break
BBBSKagemaro, First to RetireSBBB
BBBThe Walking DeadBBB
UUUSTeferi Combo PrimerSUUU
She'll be getting some playtesting time in the next week or so here and i will definitely be posting with how that goes.
EDIT: Any thoughts on how good Glen Elendra Archmage could be in here? Counters are always nice and her persist is an interesting mechanic to utilize with Grimgrin. That, and Mikaeus gives her an infinite counter lock.
EDIT #2: Have an amazing new banner for the Primer thanks to .handslikeguns
I definitely recommend him to anyone else looking for art. Great response times, easy to work with, takes almost any request, and excellent quality of work!
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
After some more playtesting, I have started to find my groove with Grimgrin, setting up defenses and playing the war of attrition until I can bring in Grimgrin and use him as a finisher instead of an initiator.
Necrotic Ooze, a pet card of mine, has been cut in order to play more counter spells. Without the ability of these colors to really handle enchantments and artifacts, counterspells, and many of them, are really the only way to handle non-creature spells that make problems for this deck.
Twincast is a card that I am testing out at the moment in order to add some flexibility, maintain interaction with other players, and being a functional counter when necessary. Bitter Ordeal is a card that I've been considering. It has the definite ability to be an infinite combo, but it is also a great option in order to diffuse threats before they are played and it can target multiple players, with a different one for each copy. In a deck where I am frequently destroying creatures, it is an excellent card even when the combo is not infinite.
A couple things that I am still trying to do is getting some mana rocks into the deck in order to increase my acceleration. Thran Dynamo, Darksteel Ingot, Mind Stone and Coldsteel Heart are all within consideration, but I am having difficulty finding spots for them. Any suggestions would be great.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU