[CommanderCast Crossover] Grimgrin v Thrax : Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun

November is Crossover Month at Commandercast. Overlord Andy ordered his legion of writers to get out there onto the blogosphere, siteosphere and any other kind of -sphere they could find. Their mission: Spread the CommanderCast Word and send back writers to do the heavy lifting for them whilst they are chilling out as honoured guests on blogs such as The Crazy 99. My own Commander legionaire is Maxwell "Max" Kautsch, usually responsible for the Peasant Rebellion articles on the Commander mothership. 

Welcome Max!

Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun

For Crossover month, Owen and I planned to look at the state of tribal Zombies in Commander now that we have Grimgrin, Corpse-Born in our lives.  I was going to try to make a case for why you might play Zombie tribal with Grimmy rather than the defending multicolor Zombie champ, Thraximundar.  So I started with Cassidy’s sweet “Grimgrin’s Zompocalypse” build and make it a little less Zombie-heavy and a little more combo/control oriented. I’ve always loved Cloudstone Curio and couldn’t resist pairing that with Rooftop Storm.

Although the deck experienced some success, mostly on the back of Curio/Rooftop Storm/Grixis Slavedriver with a Vengeful Dead and Grimgrin on the field, the biggest issue the deck faced was classic B/U: no artifact or enchantment removal.  Even the best of the bounce spells (Venser, Shaper Savant/Cryptic Command) and colourless removal (Oblivion Stone/Karn Liberated) did not seem to be cutting it often enough, leaving me wanting for the red in Thrax’s color identity.  My inclination to just Thrax it up myself was bolstered by discussions on the intertrons resulting in the general consensus that Thrax is still the better Zombie general.  After all, Thrax has haste, a shroud-proof sac ability, and red means MUCH better artifact hate than what a B/U deck offers.  I’m not saying Zombie tribal with Grimgrin can’t be good; I mean, Cassidy’s awesome Future Sight/Rooftop Storm/Gravebane Zombie combo is easier to get into play because a U/B deck makes UUU more efficiently than a U/B/R one.  And his build seems amazing.  But as Cassidy himself mentions in the comments of that article, any truly desirable card in that deck, including Grimgrin, could just as easily be played in a Thrax build.  Yup, Owen, you were right.  :)

So the question is, if Grimgrin isn’t optimal to lead your Zombie army, and if it’s doubtful he can unseat Wrexial, the Risen Deep as a better general for a traditional B/U control build, does Grimgrin really have a place in Commander other than as an auto-include in a Thrax Zombie tribal deck?  

First, let’s remind ourselves why the two cards inspire comparisons.  This is the entirety of the rules text on Thraximundar, a 6/6 for 7:

Haste
Whenever Thraximundar attacks, defending player sacrifices a creature.
Whenever a player sacrifices a creature, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Thraximundar.

This is the third clause of rules text on Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, a 5/5 for 5:

Whenever Grimgrin attacks, destroy target creature defending player controls, then put a +1/+1 counter on Grimgrin.

Both cards cause opponents to lose creatures when they attack, and both get bigger for each creature that hits the yard.  This means that the decks are likely to share cards that derive a benefit from creatures dying.  Skullclamp, Grave Pact, Butcher of Malakir, Mimic Vat, and Nim Deathmantle would be probable includes in either.  Grimgrin’s ability only results in destroying a creature if it is successfully targeted, which makes the ability vulnerable in a format rife with Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots, while Thrax’s triggers a sacrifice that doesn’t care about targeting (although Grimgrin has the advantage against a token deck because he can snipe).  Grimgrin is cheaper, but ordinarily can’t swing until turn 6, where haste lets Thrax swing only a turn later.  Given Thrax is not disrupted by something as common as Greaves, along with haste and access to red, I would agree that the fight goes to Thrax.

Except that we forgot to mention the first and second clauses of Grimgrin’s rules text:

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born enters the battlefield tapped and doesn't untap during your untap step.
Sacrifice another creature: Untap Grimgrin and put a +1/+1 counter on it.

The knee-jerk reaction is to view these mostly as drawbacks.  Yes, it is generally disadvantageous for a creature to enter the battlefield tapped.  Yes, you are potentially looking at card disadvantage if you have to sacrifice one of your own creatures before Grimgrin can even attack.  Yes, it’s too bad Grimgrin can’t sacrifice himself to prevent himself from getting tucked.  What I find interesting about Grimgrin is not only that he first swings as a 7/7 and effectively gets two more +1/+1 tokens for each subsequent attack, but also that he is the only general in print who can control when he untaps.  

Hmmm.  For starters, Paradise Mantle on Grimmy results in a de facto Phyrexian Altar, a card with a track record of Commander viability.  After some Gathering, a deck started to come together; it just didn’t involve Zombies.  So rather than bore you with a Grimgrin Zombie tribal deck when you should just read Cassidy’s article or pull out your Thraximundar, I bring you Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun.

The deck really only needs three things to fire away, given adequate mana: Grimgrin (the gun), some tokens (ammunition), and Surestrike Trident (the pain).  The Trident got some love when infect came out, for obvious reasons, but otherwise doesn’t seem to show up a whole lot.  In addition to targeting your opponents, it gives the equipped creature first strike, which seems relevant for a general who can destroy creatures only if he risks a trip to the red zone.  But how about that second ability with a pumpable general?  

Turns out, the Trident and Grimgrin happily provide the deck’s win condition without ever getting near the red zone as long as Grimgrin isn’t summoning sick and there are enough creatures to sacrifice.  A couple of “shots” is usually all it takes, depending on how long Grimgrin has been allowed to accumulate counters or if the deck is in position to make him infinitely large (and no, you can’t use the Trident to inflict general damage).  

So how do we get there?  The Trident costs 4 to equip, a relatively expensive thing to do at sorcery speed, so land fetchers like Wayfarer’s Bauble and Pilgrim’s Eye, along with and mana rocks and Tezzeret the Seeker, help out a lot.  Ashnod’s Altar is great with tokens, and even better with Nim Deathmantle and an ETB token generating creature.  Paradise Mantle can come in handy, too, and you can of course search it out with the ubiquitous Trinket Mage.  Obviously the Mantle turns any old creature into a BOP, which is good, but the fun begins when it’s equipped to Grimgrin.  When Grimgrin is wearing the Mantle, sacrifice a token to untap Grimgrin and give him a +1/+1 counter.  He taps for mana, sac another creature, he untaps, gets another counter, and taps for another mana.  Rinse and repeat.

So, what if you resolve an Army of the Damned under these circumstances?  Means you get up to 13 sacrifice triggers, making Grimmy +1/+1 each time, while also making more than enough mana to tap him and unattach the Trident as many times as there are opponents.  And then you can look blankly at your opponents, channel your inner Brick Tamland, and say “I killed a guy with a trident.”  

Killing guys (or troublesome planewalkers, if need be) with a trident makes for good fun with Grimgrin’s untap mechanics, but are there alternative effects for his Gat?  Ultimately, only Banishing Knack makes the cut because it helps shore up the deck’s weaknesses against artifacts and enchantments.  Casting this at the end of someone’s turn yields a lot of targets (and yuks) for only 1 blue mana as long as Grimgrin is accompanied by some tokens on the field.  It is absolutely conceivable that you could bounce all your opponent’s non-land permanents right before your turn given enough tokens.

Which brings us to an obviously important component of a deck like this: where are we going to get the tokens to feed a hungry Grimmy, and overcome the “card disadvantage” otherwise inherent in his ability?  My personal favorite has always been creatures with ETB effects creating tokens, especially in black because of black’s ability to recur creatures and not much else.  Blue fails when it comes to generating tokens via creatures, both black and artifacts have some good choices:  

Grave Titan

Wurmcoil Engine

Marsh Flitter

Skeletal Vampire

Precursor Golem

Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder

For once Oona, Queen of the Fae is less combo finisher and more token generator, and cards like Reassembling Skeleton add to the stable of token-generating creatures for our “fodder” suite.  I also included persist baddies Glen Elendra Archmage and Puppeteer Clique because they can trigger two sacrifices in a pinch, in addition to their killer abilities.  Army of the Damned and Rite of Replication make oodles of guys, and watch out for the old kicked Rite on Precursor Golem.  Otherwise, ETB creatures such as Mulldrifter, Trinket Mage and Snapcaster Mage make for palatable sacrifices.  And then there’s the Mimic Vat, a “good stuff” addition that happens to be quite on-theme.  

    The final necessary component is cards that provide benefits when creatures go the the graveyard, all of which fit nicely in Thrax as discussed above.  The most important of those are of course Skullclamp and Gravepact.  The one card I really wanted to get in but couldn’t was Falkenrath Noble. Probably win-more, but you’d think it would have its moments in a deck where the general can sacrifice any other creature for free at instant speed.  

Otherwise, the deck’s choices were determined by its needs for card draw, control, and mana fixing/acceleration.  As you might expect, things like Consecrated Sphinx, Decree of Pain and Damnation made it. 

 Graveborn Muse has nice synergy with Grimgrin and what’s left of the Zombie flavor in Grave Titan, Nim Deathmantle and Army of the Damned.  Along with its ability to ramp, the aforementioned Ashnod’s Altar is one of a handful of sac outlets to help prevent Grimgrin from getting tucked; I also threw in High Market and Phyrexian Tower.   Other key lands include Coffers/Urborg for ramp, Academy Ruins, and Shizo, Death’s Storehouse to give Grimgrin evasion if he needs it.  Tolaria West searches out Pact of Negation, Maze of Ith or half of the Urborg/Coffers dream team.  

Finally, although the deck can’t deal with artifacts the way a red deck can, its ability to win without attacking allows for long range wins that may not require the same degree of removal as if the deck were forced to win with combat damage.  Even so, Kederekt Leviathan and Steel Hellkite join Karn to help with board control.  Life’s Finale rounds out the removal suite; love that card with Puppeteer Clique.

So maybe Grimgrin isn’t a better multicolored Zombie general than Thraximunder, but Cassidy showed he’s absolutely viable as the leader of a Zombie horde.  While my sub-Zombie theme failed as per Owen’s prediction, I have found that Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun v1.0 makes for fun games and a unique win condition.  I mean, if you don’t want to kill a guy with a trident....I don’t know what to tell you.

Deck list here:

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
Skullclamp
Lightning Greaves
Sword of Light and Shadow
Surestrike Trident
Paradise Mantle
Nim Deathmantle
Swiftfoot Boots

Tezzeret the Seeker
Karn Liberated

Cryptic Command
Venser, Shaper Savant
Banishing Knack
Pact of Negation
Damnation
Decree of Pain
Life’s Finale
Steel Hellkite
Kederekt Leviathan
Nether Traitor
Bloodghast
Reassembling Skeleton
Marsh Flitter
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Precursor Golem
Wurmcoil Engine
Grave Titan
Myr Battlesphere
Skeletal Vampire
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Mimic Vat
Glen Elendra Archmage
Puppeteer Clique
Army of the Damned
Rite of Replication

Wayfarer's Bauble
Expedition Map
Armillary Sphere
Memory Jar
Coalition Relic
Darksteel Ingot
Thran Dynamo
Sol Ring
Grim Monolith
Gilded Lotus
Pilgrim's Eye
Solemn Simulacrum
Ashnod's Altar
Dimir Signet

Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Rune-Scarred Demon
Bribery
Sensei's Divining Top
Consecrated Sphinx
Mulldrifter
Snapcaster Mage
Trinket Mage
Graveborn Muse
Butcher of Malakir
Grave Pact

4x Island
6x Swamp
Maze of Ith
Dreadship Reef
Phyrexian Tower
Watery Grave
Underground Sea
Ancient Tomb
Academy Ruins
Jwar Isle Refuge
Polluted Delta
Tolaria West
Bojuka Bog
Halimar Depths
Temple of the False God
Dimir Aqueduct
High Market
Volrath's Stronghold
Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Creeping Tar Pit
Shizo, Death's Storehouse
Seat of the Synod
Vault of Whispers
Reflecting Pool
Darkwater Catacombs
Drowned Catacomb
Strip Mine
River of Tears
Cabal Coffers
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Buried Ruin

EDIT: Here's the otherside of the crossover article over on Commandercast. Enjoy!

Finding the Key to the Zedruu Puzzle

Quick Shot.

I'm having a huge problem solving the Zedruu puzzle. That is, making a deck where she's important but the deck isn't just a lame donate duck. Mixing control with getting the engine going and eventually winning is quite a lot for that uneasy mix of colours.

I think I've found the key to the puzzle that allows Zedruu to give away crazy permanents ....... for benefit!

Confusion in the Ranks  effectively gives away almost every single non-land permanent you put into play. While your opponents will get the opportunity to fight over various permanents on the board, it's actually quite rare that, when your turn comes around, you're going to want to take one of your own permanents back. If your permanents fly back and forward between opponents, you don't care, it will still trigger Zedruu. Add in Norin the Wary and you're guarenteed to have Zedruu on your side of the board come your upkeep (if she's still alive) to pile up on those life points and free cards.

One obvious additional advantage to Confusion is that you don't need Bazar Trader, Donate or Zedruu to give away your nasty artifacts or enchantments, they just fly away automatically when they come into play. Other players are extremely unlikely to choose to pick up a Lich's Tomb or Illusions of Grandeur from some unfortunate victim which makes sure your gifts remain given.

Choosing the right Zombie general for you

Building a Zombie deck

So you’ve decided to build a Zombie deck. Who’s going to be your general? Let’s assume you’re not perverse and plumping a non-zombie, you have almost 14 legends to choose from. The reason you have “almost 14” instead of just “14” is that two of those legends are pointless to actually choose.

 

The first non-general is Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. He’s got good stats and a cool ability, allowing you to “zombify” knights in your graveyard back into play to fight for you after they have died the first time. The only issue with Haakon is his first line of rules text:

You may cast Haakon, Stromgald Scourge from your graveyard, but not from anywhere else.

Unfortunately this includes the Command Zone. All the viable workarounds are out of color which means that you have a general you can never cast. And there’s not that many Zombie Knights anyways (14 including himself), none of which are lighting up Commander tables anywhere. Add it all up and you’ve got an unplayable General who interacts with very few zombies.

 

Right behind Haakon is Phage the Untouchable. Her first line of text is even more restrictive than Haakon’s:

When Phage the Untouchable enters the battlefield, if you didn't cast it from your hand, you lose the game.

She may win you the game if she connects with an opponent during combat but you’ll never know as she’ll have killed you upon entering the battlefield. The reason she’s slightly more playable than Haakon is because there are work-arounds like Torpor Orb or Platinum Angel that will allow you to survive. Until you get those solutions to stick she’s stranded in your Command Zone doing her manicure. You’re also running the risk of some smart Johnny destroying your workaround in response to your spell eliminating you with your own Phage trigger.

Another reason to steer clear of Phage is that she’s not a “proper” Zombie. Initially she was a mere “minion”, only getting elevated to zombie status in The Grand Creature Type Update of 2007. (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/424a3) You don’t want a wannabe fan-girl with issues heading up your army of walking dead, do you?

Nah, didn’t think so.

After that you have a few choices. I’m going to break these down by color: mono-B (3), BG (2), BR (2), BU (2) or BRU (3). If you’re a little surprised, as I was, about the color breakdown, it’s interesting to note that Wizards, until Innistrad, considered Zombies to be essentially mono-Black and, to a large extent, they are. There are 35 multicolored Zombies in Magic, which accounts for just 14% of the 253 total zombie creature count (this excludes cards that make zombies but are not themselves zombies most of which are black anyway) but a staggering 64% of Zombie legends have an additional color and that’s including Phage and Haakon in that count! There seems to be a trend for Legendary Zombies to dabble in other colors, something of a mystery considering zombie’s, until recently, very strict mono-color adhesion. There’s clearly some housekeeping to be done to redress these numbers to something more along the lines of what Wizards claim their color alignment should be.

Keeping it real are Balthor Bob, Geth & Korlash. They represent the color of Zombiness and don’t make any apologies. In addition they are all pretty big hitters in their own way. Let’s meet the team:

 

First up is Balthor the Defiled. The little Dwarf Zombie who could, Bob, as a 2/2 for 4, isn’t going to be winning many general combat damage races any time soon but Balthor benefited hugely from the Command Zone rules in Commander. An exile ability in most other formats usually reads “one shot ability” but Balthor gets to do his thing and kick back in the Command Zone waiting for an encore. What’s great about Balthor is that he really gets Zombies.

Zombies die, they go to the graveyard and, in some very rare circumstances, can crawl out themselves or maybe a fellow zombie can give a helping hand to bring them back to your hand. Balthor takes all of your zombies out of your graveyard and puts them into play. Crawling out of graves and eating braaaiiiiiiiiins are pretty much the “raison d’etre” of Zombies. He takes care of part one and lets the shambling hoards takes care of part 2.

He also takes all of your other black creatures out of your graveyard too, he’s not picky. There’s a small catch in that he does it for your opponent’s creatures (and all red creatures, a cute flavor throwback to the living Balthor who was Red) but you can always rig it so that it’s a one sided effect, especially with cards like Noxious Ghoul. All you have to do is put zombies where they belong in the first place: into your graveyard.

The advantage to running Balthor over another zombie Legend is this repeatable Raise Dead ability that you can use at instant speed. If your deck doesn’t intend to take advantage of this ability multiple times, maybe he’s not the Legend for you.

Oh, he gives minions +1/+1 too.

 

Next we have Geth, Lord of the Vault, another general very interested in filling up graveyards but, in direct opposition to Balthor, he wants to fill up opponent’s graveyards. Here’s where I start having one of my many doubts about Wizards ability to correctly apply Zombie color alignment. Geth, while being a very black-aligned, lich zombie in the storyline, has been given a blue/black ability. The “XB: Zombify a creature or artifact” is nailed on black but the mill ability that follows is very blue. Yes, there have been occasional black mill cards, most notably the recent Shared Trauma, however Wizards have been explicit that the milling of cards is flavorfully blue. With the chance to express this on a Legendary Zombie, a design space that’s not been a stranger to gold cards, the card remains mono-black with the majority of support cards directly related to fueling his ability remaining mono-blue.

This incongruity aside, his ability is strong: you get your opponent’s creature or artifact under your control directly from his graveyard. Again, as with Balthor, it’s an ability that he can use at instant speed, gazumping the spells and abilities opponents use to target their own graveyards. Using his ability gives you more targets to re-use his ability which in turn gives you more targets etc. etc. While not a single card strategy to himself, he can take advantage of some very powerful cards that a mono-black deck just does not have access to. You just need to kill them or mill them first, not usually an issue in mono-black or with Geth. A lot less “build around me” than Balthor, Geth is more incidentally powerful and very suited to a big black control deck (even if he’s a closet blue card).

Oh, he has intimidate too.

 

Finally we have big, dumb Korlash, Heir to Blackblade. Where Balthor’s stats are stuck at 2/2 for 2BB, Korlash gets to go big, generally having power and toughness each equal to the number of lands you control as Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth has enabled all your non-swamps. I’d have added “Oh, he has 1B: Regenerate too” but it’s actually quite a big deal keeping your beefcake alive long enough to be a relevant force in the game. There is one huge drawback to Korlash, however flavorful and brawny he may be: He has no evasion.

0/1 goat tokens are chumping him all day. This means that, in addition to your dedication to playing Swamps, you also have to allow for some means to connect with your beat-stick. How much of the deck will that take up in addition to the common black staples? Do you really see him as a leader of men…. em, zombies?

Do you remember Goblin Goon? Korlash is a bit like that in some ways. He’s bigger and stronger than the others of his race but he’s really just a dumb beater when you get down to it. As one of many, he has a place but as the leader of your forces, he’s not going to provide you with either the army Balthor can or the pick of your opponent’s creatures that Geth can.

Being the Heir to Blackblade also doesn’t have anywhere near the cool cache that actually being Blackblade does. As if stealing the sword of some dead hero is enough, pwah!!

Next up is RB featuring an excellent Zombie for you if you happen to be running Dragons and an old-school Legends Legend that makes Demon tokens.

Bladewing the Risen may seem over-costed at 3BBRR for “just” a 4/4 but he has evasion and two relevant abilities, just not very relevant for Zombies. You get a free Zombify tacked on to that body and you get the ability to boost all your dragon creatures multiple times with his mana ability. All in all that’s an excellent package and I’d play him in a shot if all instances of “Dragon” were replaced by “Zombie”. Regrowing a Zombie and having a scalable boost effect? Excellent!!

Oh, it’s for Dragons? Crap.

 

The second RB Zombie legend is Boris Devilboon who suffers from being an old legend when legends weren’t always particularly aggressively costed. A 2/2 for 3BR needs a great ability but “2BR, T: Put a 1/1 Demon creature token onto the battlefield” wasn’t really what the doctor ordered. Occasionally the older legends are either flavorfully fun or actually good but Boris is not.

His art is vomtastic too.

Here’s where we’re going to take the hint from Boris and pause to reflect on the number of times the word “Zombie” appears in the rules text of each zombie Legend. I’ll actually save you the effort of checking because it’s exactly 0. Not one Zombie Legend actually gives a damn about any other zombies in your deck. That’s a huge fail no matter how you cut it.

 

U/B Zombies got a new toy to play with in Innistrad: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born. I suppose he cares about Zombies because he likes eating them to untap and grow, though he can just as easily eat rats or anything else that’s around. What tempered the initial furor about getting a cool new Zombie Legend was the smart-ass who posted the combo featuring Grimgrin and Elemental Mastery:

Step 1: Tap Grimgrin to get lots of hasty elemental tokens;
Step 2: Sac one hasty elemental token to untap Grimgrin;
Step 3: Repeat as desired netting +1 token each time;
Step 4: Profit!! (aka: “attack with infinite tokens and an infinitely huge Grimgrin.”)

Hurp durp, legend ruined.

Yeah, I suppose you could just run him and ignore the combo but there are a couple of UBR zombie legends out there and I’ve yet to see many players espousing their ballin’ new Grimgrin list. I’ve seen a lot of people posting more UBR lists, especially Thraximundar*, featuring the Grim/Mastery combo and very few are running Minamo, School at Water's Edge to work around his tapped drawback in a more consistent manner..

*May contain trace elements of Hurp Durp.

 

Moving in a totally different direction is a very interesting (though not at all zombie themed) legend: Dralnu, Lich Lord. A 3/3 for 3UB, this Zombie Wizard isn’t all that in the damage stakes, doubly so if you consider that if damage would be dealt to Dralnu, Lich Lord, you sacrifice that many permanents instead. Em, that’s terrible, what’s to like here?

While he’s particularly stinky on the attacking side of things, Dralnu is quite the control player’s friend allowing you to flashback a broken instant or sorcery from your graveyard with a mere tap. Balance out the potentially devastating damage drawback with the ability to play your instants and sorcerys twice and you have a control general worth spending mana on in colors that lend themselves very well to control.

Very “build around me”, not very “zombie” and hazardous for your health……if you like that sort of thing!

A very recent addition to the zombie legend stable is the Black/Green combination. This is actually surprising it’s taken so long given Wizards penchant for mixing the Zombie Legends in with other colors and the benefits green has to share. Dredge, the Golgari mechanic, suggested it already and Green fills a nice hole in fat, acceleration and resilience that black doesn’t cover very well alone.

Glissa, the Traitor was our first taste of BG Zombies, thankfully avoiding Infect and having the potent First strike & deathtouch combination to compliment her acceptably-costed stats. She’s hard to block, makes for a great blocker and, most importantly, has a triggered ability that’s synergistic with her keywords:

Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, you may return target artifact card from your graveyard to your hand.

Wizards put in the “opponent” clause to avoid her becoming an engine too easily, but with something as simple as an Executioner's Capsule and sufficient mana (and you’re in Green/Black, so that shouldn’t ever be an issue), she’s a machine gun. Add in a myriad of other small effects makes her deck tick over while there are always larger artifacts that you’re never unhappy about bringing back. In the unhappy event that your opponent doesn’t have any creatures for you to kill for her to trigger, throw a Forbidden Orchard or a Lifespark Spellbomb in and you’re ready to go again. The additional little joy to Glissa is that when someone wipes the board, Glissa, though dying herself, will “see” all the opponent’s creatures going to the graveyard and trigger allowing you to bring back that many artifacts to your hand.  A very “Build around me” general and as simple or as complex you choose to build her, she still doesn’t really care about zombies.

Well, apart from Nim Replica maybe.

 

Sliding in there beside Glissa is a new player from the Commander product: Skullbriar, the Walking Grave. I don’t want to be reductive but he’s just a glorified “slith”. He starts small, grows a little each time you deal combat damage to a player and has the added bonuses of having haste and occasionally not losing his counters if he’s removed. That’s cute but, short of Doubling Season being in play, is really not very Legendary.

He also has the rarely relevant ability of being a zombie…..ah, who am I kidding?! Glissa is 10 times the general Skullbriar tries to be and has 2 relevant creature types: “Zombie” and the sadly much more useful “Elf”. Skullbriar doesn’t gain anything more from his colors than Glissa and we all know that dumb beaters just aren’t enough if they don’t have a way to evade blockers or some form of protection or resilience.

That 50/50 split brings us to the end of BG and on to the last section: UBR

We saw how the addition of Red and blue gave us some nice legends if you like non-zombie combo, non-zombie control or Dragons (or demons), what happens when you add both colors to the mix?

 

First we have Sedris, the Traitor King. Let’s get on top of the flavor:

Sedris was once a good and righteous king of Vithia during the early years following the sundering. It is unknown when exactly he fell from grace, but when demons tempted him with dreams of power, he submited. Sedris handed thousands of innocents over to the demons, killed his own family and advisors, and performed a dark ritual that allowed his consciousness to continue into unlife.

This sort of shit doesn’t happen every day so you have to hand it to Sedris for going all in. Like Balthor, Sedris wants to see your graveyard full so that he can give everyone another go on the battlefield. Not as suited to armies as Balthor, Sedris is king of the big one-shot hitters, though he prefers them to be 2-shot hitters (for a mere additional 2B). Like Balthor, he’s not picky about creature type and Sedris expands on color a little allowing Colourless and Blue on top of Balthor’s Red and Black. He’s still “all in” on his ability because there are notably few ways to get around the drawback of Unearth in these colors so he does create a certain tension in your deck.

 

Released in the same block as Sedris, Thraximundar is an interesting choice. He’s a de-facto 7/7 Haste for 4UBR if you attack into a player with at least one blocker. After that he’s a sucker for sacrifice effects, not just ones you control or instigate but every Sakura Tribe Elder and Yavimaya Elder activation, as well as a myriad of others, will add to Thraximundar’s power. What’s appealing about Thraximundar and Sedris is that both allow you to build good stuff creature decks that may or may not have much direct interaction with your general. Sedris re-uses creatures while Thraximundar is the high-end threat in a deck that’s going to be looking to constantly apply pressure on your opponents.

About their only relevance as Zombies is to benefit from whatever Zombie-related effects that you choose to add to your stack, most notably the recently released Rooftop Storm. If you can play your Thraximundar for 0 instead of 4UBR, or 2 instead of 6UBR, more power to you. Unfortunately, much like Grimgrin from the same set, Rooftop Storm is looking to be broken more than just providing some occasionally free Zombies. Lists running the enchantment seem to be running Thraximundar more as an incidentally beneficial General than any real dedication to the Zombie Nation.

 

Our last Legend on the list is the flavor granddaddy of all Zombies: Lord of Tresserhorn. In a time where 2/2s for 5cmc or 6cmc were more common, occasionally Wizards broke the mould if they felt the drawback warranted it. At a mere 1UBR Lor of Tresserhorn weighs in at 10/4 and has regeneration for just B.

“Where’s the drawback?” you ask.

Yeah, I was just getting there: You lose 2 life, you sacrifice two creatures and target opponent draws two cards. Yikes!! That’s probably worth more than the difference in mana he would have cost. There are ways around these like, em, Life-gain, lots of tokens with Grave Pact and Underworld Dreams, but there’s no getting away from the fact that you need to build around him and he’s quite tricky to set up. The biggest drawback is probably the “sacrifice 2 creatures” requirement as any opponent can nix your general by killing one or both of the creatures you intended to use to pay his steep COTB triggers. You still lose the life, your opponent still draws 2 cards but you’ll end up sacrificing the Lord to his own effect essentially paying 4 to hurt yourself, help your opponent and add 2 to his cost. The Phage /Torpor Orb workaround is just as valid here allowing you to pay 4 with no drawback. I suggest you go that route!

He doesn’t really care about Zombies either but he’ll happily use some of the smaller ones as fodder knowing that they’ll eventually come back. The cool cache you get from running him and the mental hoops you need to jump through not only to build the deck but also to play him out repeatedly are probably worth the effort of choosing him as your general. It needs to be as, regeneration or not, he’s still vanilla as hell but in true flavor terms he comes onto the battlefield over the backs of his own slaughtered foot-troops and taunts opponents with additional cards. Will they be enough to defeat the Lord of Tresserhorn?


I’m not going to do a top 10 of these guys. You’ll have to choose one according to your style but, if you’re really serious about your deck being a Zombie deck with a Zombie Legend, there’s really not much of a debate, is there?

Swords of Schwing and Schwang - Musings & a Top 10

Swords of Schwing and Schwang.

I’ve never had a huge amount of time for Equipment in Commander. Some is obviously great, others are occasionally helpful but, on the whole, it just seems like a lot of effort to turn things sideways with benefit and I’m pretty opposed to just throwing things out into the Red zone with only the hope of Step 4 happening (Yes, that’s the “Profit” step). Up until recently the only equipment ever I really played were Jitte, Greaves & Clamp.

A very strange part of Commander is discovering that 100 cards is, in fact, not really a lot when you get down to it. Take the pre-build count of your average Commander deck, that being the obligatory 100 cards; slice off 40-ish cards for land & mana rocks; add a general; now take the entire history of magic and condense it into the kind of deck you want to play in just 60 remaining card slots……. You now have a deck.

The obvious problem here is that, in those 60 card slots, there’s really only so much you can do. You have your criteria for the deck you want to build and that’s going to form the greater part of these slots. If Equipment isn’t an integral part of that strategy, you need to have a very good reason to make room for it.

A lot has to come together to get "value" from equipment: A creature, the equipment and, usually, a successful attack step. Bearing in mind that the equipment (artifact) and the creature involved are the two most gunned-after card types in the format and there's a whole table of guys worried that whatever scariness you've cobbled together is coming their way. This makes for a very hostile environment.

Probably the most played equipment in Commander is Lightning Greaves. It’s cheap, equips for free and grants two excellent abilities: Surprise and protection. The only-slightly-less-exciting version that M12 gave us, Swiftfoot Boots, trades off an additional 1-mana equip cost for the ability to interact with your own creature. I expect Lightning Greaves to stay top dog in the equipment stakes because general-centric decks really, really need to protect their general and "Das Boots" does this. (Amusing sidebar: Lightning Greaves has long been nicknamed “Das Boots” despite actually being a pair of greaves. Now that we actually have a functionally similar pair of boots, will we have to dub them “Das Greaves”?)

Past fancy footwear, equipment is either incredibly niche or exceedingly high on the cost/benefit scale. Some form of protection or evasion is a minimum requirement and triggered abilities or granting some sort of stat/keyword that’s outside the usual remit of your colors is the bar against which successful EDH equipment is gauged.

This leads to a very short list.  

One of the inherent drawbacks associated with equipment, the congruence of all the favourable elements, was addressed with the Living Weapon mechanic in New Phyrexia. Suddenly you didn't have to make a guy and protect it while you played your Axe and paid to equip it. By giving you the token, weak as it may be, you're essentially making a mana saving of "X+Y" where "X" is the cost of the creature and "Y" is the cost of equipping the Living Weapon and a card saving of whatever creature you’d have attached the non-living weapon version to. Sure, the creature you're given is a 0/0 but even a 0/0 has it’s uses, including dying piteously should the situation require it, and it can still attack (all living weapons grant a toughness boost of at least +1). A 0/0 with +10/+10 is still a 10/10. While the initial popularity for Living Weapons seems to have tapered off, we are still left with 3 that are getting some serious play: Bonehoard, Lashwrithe & Batterskull; essentially a huge beater, a huge beater and a one-man army.

I have to admit that my main experience with equipment is Clamp, Greaves, Jitte and seeing small, cheap strength boosts, Banners and Jittes across the table in an aggressive deck or the occasional Sword in a 1v1 game but, on the whole, really nothing very overbearing.

Then I completed a trade that finally saw me getting my hands on a Sword of Fire and Ice and, about 2 days later, I cracked a Sword of War and Peace and thus completed the full set of Swords of One-thing and Something-Else. The only small issue was what to do with them now that I had them?

I initially thought about parceling them out between different decks or, possibly, constructing a new Voltron deck, though neither appealed to me all that much. In the end, time and utter laziness won over and I dropped them all into my Thada Adel deck, kicking out some of the less friendly artifact stuff. This was the only change I made to the deck overall so it was still theoretically a slow rolling artifact/control deck that can go big quick but generally turtles until it can swing some mid-game hay-makers and ride the tempo to victory. Needless to say, I didn’t expect the swords to make all that much difference to the deck as a whole.

What I didn't realise was that just adding 5 swords (with the possibility of a couple more in copy-artifact effects) turned Thada into an aggressive show stopper and it's all on the sholders of to those 5 Swords.

Case in point: Yesterday playing a 4-man against Ghave Combo-Tokens, Sapling Good-Stuff and Glissa. A little explosiveness on my part allowed an early Consecrated Sphinx (backed up with Reliquary Tower) which survived a couple of turns around the table before getting killed. Its demise coincided with Ghave landing Aura Shards and destroying every non-land permanent I controlled. A couple of turns later, I passed my turn after landing a Myr Retriever and a Maze of Ith and possessing pretty much nothing else but a precarious life total and a large hand filled with land and spells that had nothing to do just at that time.

Oh, and a Sword of War and Peace.

I then eliminated one player in each of my next three attack phases with that lowly 1/1.

Here's how it happened:
Ghave, after wrecking my board, fell low on life to a Massacre Wurm. Subsequent attack phases from Sapling and Glissa meant he would have perished before I untapped unless I saved him with my Maze of Ith, which I did.

Leaving him on 1 life and no board to speak of allowed me to untap and drop the sword onto the mighty Myr gaining a boatload of life courtesy of a Reliquary Tower and the earlier Consecrated Sphinx and, most importantly eliminating the Aura Shards from the game. I played a Memory Jar and passed the turn

Neither Sapling nor Glissa had the power on the table to finish me off on their turns and the turn came back to me. I cracked the Jar, drew into Sword of Feast and Famine and, with it, hit Glissa for exactly 12, enough to kill him. I untapped my land and added a second Sword of War and Peace in the form of a Sculpting Steel and passed the turn, recovering my exiled hand from the Jar.

Sapling saw the writing on the wall with 17 damage heading his way and no means to block and conceded the game.

Mighty Myr carried the day (and the Swords) with a victory that was facilitated in large part by a lot of card drawing but truly unlocked by the Swords themselves.

The subsequent game went in a similar vein with Swords flying around between whoever could hold them and proving too much advantage in the red zone. With the level of search and recursion the deck has for artifacts anyway, adding 5 equipment has proven to be a very aggressive step for Thada allowing resources to be sandbagged elsewhere while all the relevant colored generals around the table worry about lowly merfolk swinging swords.

I think I’m revising my stance about Equipment in Commander…..

I don't usually do Top 10s but I thought I’d do one here to see what I could come up with. How do you balance cards that have hugely varying power-levels depending on the deck they are in? For example, Jitte is great in a creature-heavy build but doesn’t particularly suffer against creature decks ether so can go in any build that has enough creatures to support it, whereas a sword of the incorrect combination for your playgroup could end up being just a +2/+2 for your opponents' defenders to chump all day.

10. Lashwrithe/ Bonehoard

I put these up last because they are “only” Strength boosts. Both fail on evasion and suffer on cost but make up for it with the potential to go big. If your target creature has evasion already, that's half the battle. Bonehoard is slightly weaker because of the necessity of playing graveyard hate in Commander but Lashwrithe has a color drawback that restricts its use. Even Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth won't turn your General's color identity Black! I hesitated long about putting Loxodon Warhammer in here but, in the end, the Living Weapon aspect gives these the edge.

9. Sword of Body and Mind
8. Batterskull
7. Sword of Light and Shadow


Being the least useful of the swords in commander (from a triggered ability rather than a protection standpoint), Sword of Body and Mind scores low in the top 10. It’s just behind Batterskull that scores on both resilience and Lifelink keywords but possibly loses out on cost. If you don't have either a lot of available mana or some means to cheat on costs, you're probably looking at a Time-Walk in anything but the late game and, while it may gain you some life, it doesn’t grant any protection. Rounding out this section is the Sword of Light and Shadow: It gains very relevant protections but once again the abilities are not as impressive as the other Swords. The ability to put a better creature than a 2/2 wolf back into your hand and subsequently into play is what gives it the edge over its blue/green brother.

6. Sword of War and Peace
5. Sword of Fire and Ice
4. Skullclamp  

Putting Swords of War, Peace, Fire and Ice into the Top 10 is a no-brainer but they have to be edged out by much, much better equipment as they are either huge on the damage stakes or huge on the card- / board-advantage stakes.


Here’s where it gets divisive: How do you relegate one of the most broken pieces of equipment to a mere 4^th on the list of best Equipment in a format? An advantage to Skullclamp is that you don’t really need to build your deck around it to benefit. Once you have a decent creature count, it can do its thing peacefully enough because your creatures will die often during a game. Having a deck built specifically to takes advantage of ways to abuse it is why it got banned in the first place and it speaks of a power-level in Commander that’s extremely high. What could possibly beat one of the best and most controversial equipment ever to the top 3 spots?


Why, more "best" and "controversial" equipment, of course!!

3. Sword of Feast and Famine
2. Umezawa’s Jitte
1. Lightning Greaves

This is roughly where everyone looks at the number one and says: "Holy-Moley!! He put Greaves in first!!" Simply put, it's not on the same power level as most of the rest of the top 10 but it's so ubiquitous, efficient and useful that it's hard not to put it into every single Commander deck you build. It protects your commander, it allows you to grant scary beasties haste and is generally one of the most annoying permanents in the early- to mid-game.

Coming hot on the heels of Das Boots are Sword of Feast and Famine and Umezawa’s Jitte. The Sword has been the subject of quite a lot of attention in recent Standard due to the ease of finding it with Stoneforge Mystic. It enables "double" turns by allowing you to play spells in your pre-combat main phase, attack and untap to allow you to play more spells either during your post-combat main phase or your opponent's turn. You got your cake and you ate it. 

Two very relevant protection colors added to this "double turn" ability make this sword just as potent in Commander as outside. The only small downside is the second triggered ability, discarding an opponent's card, can often actually facilitate his gameplan.

In compiling the list I had an issue not including things like Sunforger who’s restrictions are both color and build-based though, when you have those two combined, it’s very strong, arguably stronger than Bonehoard or Lashwrithe. Where do you think more specialised equipment like the Sunforger or, Loxodon Warhammer, Blade of the Bloodchief, Darksteel Plate, Swiftfoot Boots, Konda’s Banner, Nim Deathmantle, Skullclamp, Thornbite Staff & Umbral Mantle fit in on the list of top equipment?