Grenzo, Dungeon Warden - The Slot Machine of Value

[kenbaumann]

@Outcryqq @snowfox54119 Thanks so much for clarifying the Grenzo v. graveyard hate situation! This is very useful to show folks. And snowfox: thanks for the shoutout!

I've added Skirge Familiar but haven't flipped it yet. And I'm convinced by @ThePillowman's arguments for Olivia; will be trying her out (along with Skirge) shortly. If I encounter anything useful for our group with them, I'll post about it here.

[Toshi]

First off, i've been following this deck ever since Sally and i'm pretty sure my subconscience kicked in to build something similar, when i dismantled my Alesha, Who Smiles at Death deck.

I got a question though. Why is it that i rarely see Carnival of Souls in non-cutthroat Grenzo, Dungeon Warden lists?
I stumbled upon my copy when moving and slammed it into the deck instantly. It has been amazing ever since. Sure, it comes at a certain risk, but we're playing Rakdos after all, eh?
At least in my meta people went as far to drop multiple creatures in seperate main phases, just not to set me up.

Keep up the great work! Love the thread.

[kenbaumann]

@NoNeedToBragoBoutIt I suspect because Carnival is a dead flip, and we have no way to recur Enchantments in this deck. (For a similar reason, I had and then cut Fires of Invention–the one time I played it it got swiftly removed!) And since it's a one-of, you only have about an 8% chance to draw it in your opening hand; the chance of drawing an opening hand (of 8, including the first drawn card) which includes Carnival, three lands, and four other cards is only 2.3%! (The multivariate hypergeometric calculator I'm using is here.)

[ego]

I'm not entirely convinced that the deck doesn't need to draw more cards. Here's why:

• More cards means more lands. Only about 5.5 out of 15 cards are lands. That's not
  very many by turn 8. Because we can't ramp as well as others and Grenzo is very
  mana-hungry, consistently playing lands seems important.
• Sometimes Grenzo is not available. Without any additional sources of fuel in the deck,
  what happens when Grenzo becomes a tree on turn three.
• The more cards we see in a game, the more options we have. Sometimes those options
  include Heartstone.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt though, I've only been playing Grenzo against bad AI so far.

On another note, is there any particular reason to run Whisper, Blood Liturgist over Junktroller?
The latter stops opponents' reanimation.

[snowfox54119]

I got a question though. Why is it that i rarely see Carnival of Souls in non-cutthroat Grenzo, Dungeon Warden lists?

Hey @NoNeedToBragoBoutIt! As @kenbaumann stated, dead flips are always under harsh scrutiny. Noncreature cards need to have a severe impact to be worth running. It could be argued the two exceptions to this are Sol Ring and Rakdos Signet, and I wouldn't disagree with you. However, the points for them remaining are their ability to additionally ramp in the early game AND their ability to be recurred by other cards if they're deadflipped. Unfortunately for Carnival, if it's dead-flipped, it's gone forever. So I'd rather run something that doesn't mind sitting in our GY a bit if necessary. I'm willing to hear about your testing with it though!

Note: I probably need to take a look at Rakdos Signet and replace it with something like Arcane Signet. I've just kept the signet in there since I have it in foil.

I'm not entirely convinced that the deck doesn't need to draw more cards. Here's why:

• More cards means more lands. Only about 5.5 out of 15 cards are lands. That's not
  very many by turn 8. Because we can't ramp as well as others and Grenzo is very
  mana-hungry, consistently playing lands seems important.
• Sometimes Grenzo is not available. Without any additional sources of fuel in the deck,
  what happens when Grenzo becomes a tree on turn three.
• The more cards we see in a game, the more options we have. Sometimes those options
  include Heartstone.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt though, I've only been playing Grenzo against bad AI so far.

On another note, is there any particular reason to run Whisper, Blood Liturgist over Junktroller?
The latter stops opponents' reanimation.

Thanks for your input, @ego! I'm always willing to hear opposing arguments to my philosophy. I would retort that I really haven't had an issue with needing to draw cards in my 2.5 years of playing the deck. The amount of non-land ramp we have alongside the land base has always provided me enough mana to power through hate. I also wouldn't forget that the London mulligan is a weapon to be utilized in this deck. Mulligan until you get a mana heavy hand, and throw your choice of key creatures on the bottom to ensure your first couple of flips are successful.

In earlier versions, I did have more card-draw, but it became a bummer every time I flipped one since I would've preferred a more impactful creature that didn't put more creatures in my hand that I never planned on hard-casting.

I also find the before-game politicking extremely helpful. Mentioning that the deck is a casino/slot machine deck often puts you low on the priority list. He's a random chance-based commander? How dangerous can that be? Especially if you waste mana on a couple of dead flips, people are going to underestimate you, and that mentality will come back to haunt them once Grenzo gets a few good payouts. I do sometimes play games with people who know how dangerous Grenzo is, and in those games, I'm a little more careful about throwing Grenzo out on T3 and try to build up a base where I can flip several times after casting him. I hope that explains my philosophy, but I'll gladly answer more questions if needed.


As for Junktroller, I did have him in a previous list for the exact reasons you mentioned, but I found his effect pretty lackluster, and often flipping him wasn't that rewarding. He is still a good card worth considering though, and I'm surprised that I forgot to include him in my Alternate Picks List. I'll add him in.

Whisper, Blood Liturgist is in the deck for the redundancy of resurrecting creatures and being a semi sac outlet. He can also do some hilariously wild things with Thornbite Staff as he gets untap triggers with each activation, so you can easily create infinite goblins with Siege-Gang Commander or drain everyone with Marionette Master.

I just wish he was a shaman...if only ;_;

[ThePillowman]

Thanks for your input, ego! I'm always willing to hear opposing arguments to my philosophy. I would retort that I really haven't had an issue with needing to draw cards in my 2.5 years of playing the deck. The amount of non-land ramp we have alongside the land base has always provided me enough mana to power through hate. I also wouldn't forget that the London mulligan is a weapon to be utilized in this deck. Mulligan until you get a mana heavy hand, and throw your choice of key creatures on the bottom to ensure your first couple of flips are successful.

In earlier versions, I did have more card-draw, but it became a bummer every time I flipped one since I would've preferred a more impactful creature that didn't put more creatures in my hand that I never planned on hard-casting.

I also find the before-game politicking extremely helpful. Mentioning that the deck is a casino/slot machine deck often puts you low on the priority list. He's a random chance-based commander? How dangerous can that be? Especially if you waste mana on a couple of dead flips, people are going to underestimate you, and that mentality will come back to haunt them once Grenzo gets a few good payouts. I do sometimes play games with people who know how dangerous Grenzo is, and in those games, I'm a little more careful about throwing Grenzo out on T3 and try to build up a base where I can flip several times after casting him. I hope that explains my philosophy, but I'll gladly answer more questions if needed.

@ego I can confirm before and early-game politicking here to be the status quo, especially if you're sitting at a pod for the first time. All it takes is one flip of a swamp/mountain for the table to think the build is sub-optimal. It helps you avoid being the center of attention until its too late and you have one of your combos online.

To win, this build doesn't want to ramp as hard as our opponents. Realistically, getting to 6-8 total mana, across lands, rocks, and dorks, is enough to push us forward. With all the ETBs we derive a ton of value from those flips that consistently out-perform the 2 mana payment, so we're not gonna sweat missing the mid and late-game land drops for turn once we have a mana outlet online (SEE: Skirk Prospector, Ashnod's Altar, and pretty much everything in the "Payouts - More Mana" section).

I'd argue that drawing off the top is the least efficient way for this deck to go forward, and as a result, shouldn't be prioritized:
- We have a ton of resources to control what's on the bottom, which is where we want to play
- We have a ton of sac outlets to make sure we use our board how we want to
- We have graveyard interaction that gives us options
- We have (some) discard synergy from Olivia, Mobilized for War and Body Snatcher that ensure we can control our lines of play
- Also: we have a bunch of ways to fetch lands here. While it's been proven that fetching isn't statistically significant, this deck essentially doubles its thinning efficiency with its pulls from the bottom.

Yes getting lands is key, no argument. That's why @snowfox54119's point about the London Mulligan is so valuable - we can weaponize a scenario that's a penalty for everyone else.

In your play-testing, what are the scenarios like where you're needing more lands? If you have Grenzo and 4 mana available, this deck is online and gets really crazy, really fast.

@snowfox54119 is the flexibility of Arcane Signet that much more valuable than Rakdos Signet?

[Outcryqq]

@ThePillowman
Regarding Arcane Signet versus Rakdos Signet in this list. Though I'm not snowfox, I do have a version of this deck built, and I play tons of signets. The only situation where you really want Arcane versus Rakdos is for double-color spells. In this list, you generally just want to cast Grenzo and then activate, and in this list there are not many spells you want to cast early that have double mana symbols: The Cauldron of Eternity (depending on how quickly you can power it out), Dimir House Guard (transmute), Pawn of Ulamog. And you generally won't NEED to cast any of those three on curve. I'd estimate that the difference in this particular list is negligible.

[snowfox54119]

@Outcryqq
You may be right. I may be overvaluing the difference it makes.

@ThePillowman
As for Olivia, Mobilized for War, I can definitely say it's making it into the list. I got to play a few games with the update this weekend, and it felt really good. The ability to discard creatures in response to Phyrexian Delver hitting the field, giving a Goblin Engineer haste, or providing extra persist triggers on Puppeteer Clique felt phenomenal. The card was a bomb and I thank you for the arguments you provided that ultimately convinced me to give it a try!

[kenbaumann]

@ego: I'll pile on a bit with a simple defense of not-drawing-cards with this deck: I've played the hell out of this deck for about a year and I've only ever wanted to add cards that would let me discard cards.

Also, I recently cut Burnished Hart (for Olivia!)—I found that the Hart often felt too slow and mana-intensive to ramp. We'll see how this revision goes!

[ego]

Thanks for the in-depth responses everyone.

The mulligan is an important factor I have overlooked. I was playing
Crucible of Worlds and a bunch of fetch-lands to go with
that. As a result, I usually shuffled my library before activating
Grenzo. Cutting that package now.

I play with a very stable pod (a group of friends from school) whom
I expect to quickly learn the power of Grenzo, so politicking won't
get me very far.

I tried to quantify some of the things we're talking about:

First, I can't think of a good way to compare the efficiency of Grenzo
flips vs other sources of card advantage. To compare them, we'd want
to have a quantity that represents a card's "impact". Then we could
measure how much impact we get for one mana. For non-land cards, the
best approximation of impact I can think of is mana cost (and that's
pretty bad). For lands, I can't think of any. If anyone has any
suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

What I hope to measure is how much worse drawing a card becomes when
we get access to Grenzo.

Because the probability of an activation hitting is about 0.56, every
mana spent to cast cards from the hand has an opportunity cost of 0.28
cards. The efficiency of drawing a card after we gain access to Grenzo
is thus (1 - 0.28 * a), if we play cards with an average cmc of a. (We
subtract from the 1 card we draw the cards we pass up on by playing
the card we drew). It therefore seems reasonable to avoid playing high
cmc cards from our hand if we want to maximize our card advantage.
These cards we treat as dead draws. The following table contains my
results. Each column says how efficient drawing a card becomes if we
avoid playing cards that cost more than a given number of mana.

cmc	efficiency
0	0.35
1	0.39
2	0.44
3	0.46
4	0.44
5	0.40
6	0.37

For example, if we only play the 0 cmc cards we draw, drawing a card
becomes 0.35 times as efficient, because we incur no opportunity cost
to play them, but we can only play 0.35 of the cards we draw.

So, when deciding whether to run a source of card draw, keep in mind
that it has a ~0.4 modifier on the number of cards it draws when
Grenzo is out. Please check my reasoning.

Another interesting finding I have made is that a blind Grenzo
activation puts about 2.08 cards worth of mana onto the battlefield.
That means that flipping blindly is about as expensive as playing
cards from the hand mana-wise. (Ten flips save one mana.)

@ThePillowman I probably don't understand your question, because can't
really think of a scenario in which I don't need more lands.

Also, could you elaborate on why pulling from the bottom doubles
thinning efficiency? I don't see why it's relevant to thinning whether
we draw cards from the top or the bottom.

That aside, any thoughts on Sire of Insanity? It's a dead flip, but
this deck breaks the symmetry so much... Mindslicer is another card in
a similar vein.

[kenbaumann]

@ego This is an interesting analysis. Thanks for starting this line of thinking!

I see one problem with your general line of reasoning. It's a simple but important problem: activated abilities are much harder to interact with than spells.

If you added impulsive draw effects and/or tutors to this list, that would decrease the good odds of flipping a useful creature while also opening you up to more interaction in the form of counterspells.

And since Grenzo's ability can be put on the stack at any point, a no-draw list lets you flip cards that immediately provide you more resources that will allow you to keep flipping at the most advantageous time for you to develop your board, given the gamestate. This is not the case if you're casting spells from your hand. This strategic advantage—of consistently being able to win the game at instant speed because activated abilities are, frankly, busted—is immense.

You claimed that "Ten flips save one mana." Because of the high density of this deck's flips that become sources of more mana, anecdotally at least, I strongly disagree with this claim (not mathematically, according to your model, but experientially). Another consideration: many of this deck's creatures have double pips in their casting costs, which closes down lines of play in a way that spending generic mana to activate Grenzo does not.

A better way of measuring the impact of cards flipped and/or cast might be to see if they give you one or more of the following resources:
1. Card advantage (by either tutoring a card into your hand or into your graveyard, or returning a card from your graveyard to play or to your hand)
2. Mana, with some weighted multiplier based on how net-positive each card tends to be (e.g. Treasonous Ogre often gets you 10 so is 2.5x worth its weight if hardcast and 5x worth its weight of flipped; Dockside gets you let's say 5 treasure so is worth 2.5x its weight in mana either way; Pitiless Plunderer varies, but becomes explosive/gamewinning quite easily at least anecdotally so some number would have to be chosen; Heartstone is a dead flip but can be recurred with one of the deck's creatures and if it is it doubles the efficiency of flips; etc.)
3. Combo and/or win con lines (e.g. Kiki, because of its mana-intensive casting cost, can be flipped early for value but can also enable multiple winning lines, so its weight should be high)

Then maybe those weights could be weighted to reflect the the meta-weights between these categories—and if a card grants you multiple benefits, we would take that into account as well.

A complicated bit of work, but it would be interesting to see its fruits.

Alternately, and I recommend this approach: add some draw effects to your build, play it for a month or so, then revise your build to reflect snowfox's (at least in terms of creature density) and play that one for a month. Then tell us which build seems more resilient to hate, more responsive to board states, and generally more explosive.

[snowfox54119]

@ego

I appreciate your thoughtful analysis and your extreme detail of math in your response. I probably won't have as nearly long of a reply, but here are my two points that I hope you consider, and in testing the deck, I believe you will find them to be true:

1. As @kenbaumann has already mentioned, activated abilities are busted. Casting cards at sorcery speed is what most every deck is forced to do to accomplish their plans. Our plans are to ramp and then flip as much as possible. This, in turn, allows us to always play a reaction game where we can simply untap and pass every turn and wait until something requires a flip or the last opponent's turn ends (before ours). I can't tell you how many games I've played where the blue player realizes, to their chagrin, that literally nothing in their hand can stop what you're doing. Your actions are (practically) uncounterable, and you can continue to stack activations in response to attempted interference by your opponents. This also allows you to win at instant speed in ways that casting simply can't do. If you have to cast a Pitiless Plunderer, you provide your opponents with a large window to start removing creatures. If your opponent's allow Grenzo's ability to resolve, there's no window for them to respond between seeing the creature and it hitting the battlefield and immediately turning online. This reliance on the activated ability is the core philosophy of the deck and is what contributes to its immense resiliency.

Another interesting finding I have made is that a blind Grenzo
activation puts about 2.08 cards worth of mana onto the battlefield.
That means that flipping blindly is about as expensive as playing
cards from the hand mana-wise. (Ten flips save one mana.)

This analysis is taking into account the cost of casting a creature versus flipping it, but this thought-process omits the numerous important benefits that are gained via the activation. Can you cast a Goblin Engineer for two CMC? Yes, and I definitely would if it was in my hand. But here's what you ACTUALLY receive for the cost of two mana via Grenzo:

• "Draw" the creature. (assuming it's a good flip)
• Cast the creature without paying it's mana cost...
• ...cast at instant speed...
• ...this creature cannot be countered or responded to until it's "resolved".

Now that's power that can't be quantified purely by evaluating CMC cost. Even the one-drops are, at minimum, mana neutral with all of these included benefits. While it may seem via pure numbers that casting and flipping aren't much different, your inherent benefits through the activation are invaluable and are what contribute once again to the resiliency of the deck.

Casting also limits you to the cards in your hand, and drawing effects just wish for more of that same muddied and limited system that this deck isn't particularly concerned with. Grenzo is your card engine, so your hand size doesn't matter. And I think you'll find in your testing that the number of creatures in the deck that immediately increase your mana capacity has a tendency to snowball Grenzo way quicker than drawing cards could ever do.


2. Secondly, my weaker point, but one I do want to mention as it's a core component of the creation of the deck. I have put a lot of work into this deck to make it as strong as possible, BUT it will always first be a labor of love for an idea: a combo deck that's chaotic and different every game. I've gone through a lot of decks in my time playing magic. I've played commander since before it was even adopted by WotC as an official format. I've created and crafted countless decks, had my fun, and then torn them apart because they became boring. But Grenzo has been the one deck that I've never even considered deconstructing since his creation. I never know how each game is going to play out. I have no idea what order he'll stack things in and it constantly provides exciting new ways for me to maneuver to victory. The intentional chaos he provides from blind flipping off the bottom is the most fun magic I've ever played, and I try to protect that precious spirit of the deck which is why I typically turn down strong non-creature cards like Demonic Tutor or card draw sources. It's not what I want to do or what the deck was built to do. And in my time with the deck, I've been continually surprised by its power despite the lack of draw.

I still appreciate your insight and always am open to hearing contrary points to my thinking, but I definitely urge you to give the deck a try. Either way, it's a blast to play

[sampersand]

Made an account just so i could comment.

Why not run a murderous rider? It both provides a kill spell stapled onto a creature along with a "self-digger," which means you don't have to also have a digger in play for combos.

Also, as per the Tel-jilad stylus protection you mentioned, aren't you worried that someone might stifle grenzo's ability after he's already on the bottom of the library? I agree most of the time they probably wont, but without him it seems hard to use the deck

EDIT:
after thinking about it, unless you have hearstone and ashnod's altar out, all murderous rider could possibly give you is more ETB triggers. not appealing.

Some other card ideas:

- Cathodion is effectively a third copy of your priests
- Stadium Vendors is a worst priest, but hey, redundancy. Also, it helps with...
- Mana Echoes is absolutely broken. It goes infinite with so many of your cards (especially goblins) quite easily. Just imagine it and siege-gang.
- Sengir Autocrat is also a decent token producer; after thinking about it some more, however, it doesn't make goblins, which doesn't synergize nearly as well as it should.
- Krak-Clan Ironworks Effectively another copy of ashnod's altar, especially with calthodion/(mana dorks + anger/Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker)/Marionette Master (if you have a way to sacrifice the master)/any of the rock dorks/Solemn Simulacrum/etc...
- Liliana, Heretical Healer seems perfect. Not only does it trigger on a creature sacrifice (and gives you more fodder!), it also can reanimate things from the graveyard. It seems liek a slam dunk and a good replacement for Whisper, Blood Liturgist, especially because it provides a self-discard route as well.

I'm also not a huge fan of Zealous Conscripts in your deck. The only thing it does is combo with kiki jiki, mirror breaker, which already has a ton of other combos. If you flip it without kiki, you're stuck with a 3/3 that *might* steal something helpful.

Also, why not run more self-discard cards? I know it's not a major theme, but just olivia doesn't seem all that ideal. I was thinking maybe Mindless Automaton (as it oculd also fit into the krak-clan ironworks theme) or Scandalmonger (because it's hilarious in multiplayer, and if you get infinite mana, it's another place to dump it).

anyways, that's my 2¢ for now. I'm excited to build my take on grenzo!

[kenbaumann]

I'm also not a huge fan of Zealous Conscripts in your deck. The only thing it does is combo with kiki jiki, mirror breaker, which already has a ton of other combos. If you flip it without kiki, you're stuck with a 3/3 that *might* steal something helpful.

[…] Also, why not run more self-discard cards?

Hello! Welcome to the forum, first off.

A quick defense of Conscripts: I've been surprised at how often Zealous's ETB will untap something that I would love to be untapped. There are so many Artifacts and Creatures with activated abilities… In one recent game, I luckily flipped a Zealous to untap my hasty Lightning Crafter that was set to go off—but who was also about to get removed!—and that single untap gave me the game. Another recent gamewinning Conscripts ETB: I needed one more mana source to play Cauldron of Eternity and then recur with it an Emrakul's Hatcher to give me infinite creatures and infinite mana (I had a sacrifice outlet on board), so I flipped and found Zealous and stole an opponent's Swamp then won.

He's more versatile than you'd think.

On your other point, I've been experimenting with two discard outlets: Skirge Familiar and Olivia, Mobilized for War. I've only flipped Skirge so far, but it's been useful!

Finally, Mana Echoes would be a powerful card in this list, but my experience with other "this would be great!" Enchantments (like Fires of Invention) is that more often than not they get flipped and then are effectively dead—since Rakdos isn't able to recur Enchantments from the graveyard.

If you wind up building and playing Grenzo, please let us know what works and what doesn't work for you! And welcome to the casino floor…

[sampersand]

I've been playtesting it a lot online, and I've found that the mana echoes more than makes up for it's liability. If you have some bad sac outlet (maybe just your Dimir House Guard) and flip an Emrakul's Hatcher, you just net 16 mana. If you throw in the fact you usually have quite a few goblins in play, it fuels itself and gets out of hand quickly.

I see what you mean by the conscripts, I just had a hard time swallowing them; the rest of the cards in the deck seem very focused on one plan, and it felt like the oddball to me.

I had a pretty trashy Grenzo deck I built when he first came out, but I'm taking that apart now and replacing it haha

EDIT:

After explaining to someone that one of the interesting parts of grenzo, dungeon warden is that we don't need to cast cards from the hand, I relized that I could slot some powerful stax cards into my build! So I'm thinking about running my nether void (and maybe smokestack). While nether void is a dead card if it hits the graveyard, if you can cast it, your opponents are effectively screwed for at least a couple turns, during which time you can just take off. And they both curve off of X=1 Grenzo too!

[kenbaumann]

@sampersand You've got me considering Mana Echoes and Nether Void!

[snowfox54119]

@sampersand, welcome to the dungeoneers! And thanks for the suggestions! Here are my thoughts on all of the cards being discussed...


- Cathodion - Since the extra mana is only gained via it's death, it's never made the cut for me. Flipping this guy early with no sac outlet seems really bad. And then if Grenzo dies while this is still on the field and then it dies shortly after (or they both die via a boardwipe) the slot was effectively wasted.

- Stadium Vendors - Not terrible, but not great either. The greatest struggle I've had with this deck in the past few months is finding things to slot out and I honestly don't know what I'd take out of the current list for a do nothing creature that just pays for itself and nothing more. The priests at least come out mana positive with a body. I do see the argument with this and Mana Echoes.

- Mana Echoes - Definitely a card I've wanted to love, but one that I've consistently passed over. I'll start testing it out, but fear it will fall into a category of cards that I've consistently cut in my time with the list: aka the "This would be nice if I drew it right away, but very rarely happens" list.

- Sengir Autocrat - Due to the lack of other benefits from said tokens or the Autocrat himself, there's just better token producers to run. All of our other producers provide tokens with inherent benefits and most have an ability that feeds off of those tokens. Sengir's tokens just die when he does making it not great if an opponent kills your Sengir in response to an Ashnod's Altar cast.

- Krark-Clan Ironworks - Might test this one out too. It's been on my radar for a while, but it is much more restrictive once you start looking into looping things.

- Liliana, Heretical Healer - You're the 100th person to tell me this and I agree. It needs to be in the deck. It's the one planeswalker we can use, and she's just straight up great. Ordering a copy now.

- Zealous Conscripts - As @kenbaumann stated, this card is way more than it seems. This card has been a game-ender so many times for me (even excluding Kiki-Jiki). I've stolen other players' Ashnod's Altars, I've stolen a player's Leyline of Anticipation to force out their plays, and I've even stolen someone's Smothering Tithe with a Windfall on the stack. In a 4-player game, there's bound to be a lot of good things on the board that you couldn't normally include in your deck, and this card opens up so many other combos to be explored. Seriously, this card is an absolute bomb.

- Mindless Automaton - two issues with this card. First, it has a cost in it's activation. That cuts into Grenzo mana. Second, it's other effect draws us cards (Also not what the deck is trying to do).

- Scandalmonger - Actually pretty interesting, and might pick up a copy to see what happens with it. But it has the first issue as the previous mentioned card, an activated cost that I'd prefer not to use. I do like the politics it introduces with others being able to activate it though. Might consider adding it to the Alternatives list if nothing else. Just be aware that the sorcery-speed limitation can actually be pretty detrimental to the deck.

- Olivia, Mobilized for War - The reasons this creature has been so good in my testing is threefold. First, the discard trigger is free in response to any creature entering the battlefield. Second, the creature with the counter gets haste which just ensures redundancy in that department (Anger used to be our only source of haste). And finally, the +1/+1 counter has so many possible synergies with it. Adding additional triggers to Persist creatures, getting a Deathbringer Thoctar started or even using it to cast Grenzo for 1 less, it adds a lot of additional possibilities. I wouldn't count this card out either as in my recent testing, it's been very good.

- Nether Void - My only cause of concern is how this affects you if your opponents remove Grenzo. You're then stuck on casting Grenzo for an extra 3 which slows you down tremendously. But I'd be interested in hearing how your games go with it. Personally, I'll never own one nor will I probably include it in the primer's main list due to the prohibitive cost. I want the list to be as affordable as possible which is why I've also excluded cards like Mana Crypt.

[kenbaumann]

@snowfox54119 Out of curiosity, if you had no budget restrictions whatsoever for this list, what else would you consider adding?

[snowfox54119]

snowfox54119 Out of curiosity, if you had no budget restrictions whatsoever for this list, what else would you consider adding?

That's a great question, and one I'd probably have to give more thought to. The ones that come off the top of my head are Mana Crypt replacing Rakdos Signet and Goblin Settler to replace Avalanche Riders.

I actually do have a Mana Crypt, and Goblin Settlers isn't too expensive in the grand scheme of things, but I chose to exclude them to minimize the cost.

Next, I'd probably upgrade the mana base to include all possible fetches to even further mitigate the chance of flipping into a land. And then I'd throw in a Badlands cause it's better than a mountain. I'll look through the rest of the reserved list at a later point when I have some time and see if there's any other standout cards I can find.

EDIT: I might have to add an "Upgrading" section for those who want to optimize it with no cost restrictions.

[kenbaumann]

@snowfox54119 Interesting! I thought you kept fetches off your list because you didn't want to have to crack them (to not miss a land drop) when you didn't want to shuffle away what you knew was on the bottom. If we were to play and crack 4 fetchlands on the first four turns (fantasy land) then our first flip would hit 65.4% of the time (versus 62.5%)—so not too much of a difference.

As a Mana Crypt- and Badlands-includer, I'd love to see that Upgrading section!

[sampersand]

I guess the way I'm going about building my grenzo is slightly different than yours: Instead of embracing the "casino" theme you have, I've been trying to focus almost exclusively the infinite mana digger loop. 'cause of this, I've added a bunch of redundant sub-par cards to make sure I can consistently hit what I need.

Here's a few modifications I've made:

• Soldevi Digger is another digger for redundancy, and can be tutored with Goblin Engineer
• cathodion/Stadium Vendors/Rapacious Dragon all give mana on ETB/LTB, which is nice
• Mana Echoes singlehandedly allows you to go infinite. I've played down siege gang before, and each goblin made 11 mana. Jeeze!
• Phyrexian Altar/Krark-Clan Ironworks are both sac outlets that really improve consistency. As I'm running more treasure-creators & artifacts in general, I've rarely found that I have it in play and don't have some target.
• Sengir Autocrat is really good with both Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar, though since it doesn't hit Krark-Clan Ironworks, I think I'll look for a better replacement
• Myr Retriever allows me to get back key pieces that got milled. Plus, it can be recurred using our recursion goblins (and provides redundancy for Junk Diver)
• Skirge Familiar allows me to dump my hand. Since I dont need it anyways, it allows me to keep digging (no pun intended) for combo pieces
• Demonic Tutor gets us one of the numerous combo pieces we need for the package. I think it's well worth the inlusion even though it's not a creature
• Nether Void] is an absolute bear. They won't really HAVE a chance to cast removal for grenzo because it'll cost them so much mana. When they hit 7 for their wrath of god, we should have already assembled a combo. (Plus, sure, grenzo might cost 5+3 now. But everyone else will be in roughly the same boat with their commanders.) (I actually own one of these from an older stax deck I built, so I'm happy to find it another home)

As for Olivia, Mobilized for War, I'm definitely going to run her. Being able to put a goblin engineer into play, tutor up a soldevi digger, and then put it into play (possibly completing an infinite combo) in one turn is too good to pass up.

My biggest issue is I'm not sure what to cut! haha I'm at 104 cards now, and I've playtested about 10 times, and nothing really feels dead yet.

Also, what's the policy on linking decks?

[sampersand]

Another thing to note: Multiple times now i've hit a spinerock knoll that yields three lands and a creature. Whatever way you order it, you're still going to end up with at least two lands you have to dead draw through before you get to the rest of your deck; maybe consider cutting the card?

I definitely like the idea of adding fetches—we simply just don't have to crack the fetches if we have stuff on the bottom of the deck we like. If we don't know what's on the bottom (or, via spinerock knoll or scry creatures, if we don't like them), we just shuffle 'em away.

[oldmangrieves]

Howdy y'all,

I've been playing Grenzo for about 4 years now and it is by far my favorite deck. I have done value creatures, cutthroat Doomsday lists and finally settled on a flavourful, vorthos list that opts for maximum goblin flavor, flip probability and narrative.

The philosophy of this primer(back on salvation) has been my primary inspiration, so thank you Fox and all other commentators for guiding my way.

All that said, the reason I decided to finally post was to beg and plead y'all to give Mana echoes a chance. Aside from the Warden himself, it is the most powerful card in my deck. I completely understand the dead flip argument, in fact I think my list may be more creature heavy than any other posted here(58 creatures), but echoes gets a slot over barn burners like the cauldron of eternity. By way of illustration, I group the cards in my deck like so:

Facilities - lands

Prisoners - All the bad folk that do bad things

Guards - Custodians of the incarcerated. Primarily constructs but also includes the mysterious Necrotic ooze lurking in the deepest, forgotten cells.

Contraband - The few non-creature artifacts that were smuggled past proceeding

The Prison Industrial Complex - This is Mana echoes, the only enchantment in the list. If this thing is on the field and I have 2 mana the game is most likely over. Grenzos prison parade becomes a self sustaining, perpetual misery machine.

Sorry I got a little carried away there, but I looove this deck and Echoes is the all Star. Don't take my word for it, try it out yourself!

Here is the list if anyone is interested.

Grenzo's Prison Parade

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Prisoners

1 Anger

1 Blood Artist

1 Cabal Slaver

1 Chainer, Nightmare Adept

1 Dark Confidant

1 Dockside Extortionist

1 Frogtosser Banneret

1 Goblin Assassin

1 Goblin Chieftain

1 Goblin Chirurgeon

1 Goblin Cratermaker

1 Goblin Engineer

1 Goblin King

1 Goblin Lackey

1 Goblin Matron

1 Goblin Recruiter

1 Goblin Sharpshooter

1 Goblin Trashmaster

1 Goblin Warchief

1 Goblin Welder

1 Goblin Wizard

1 Imperial Recruiter

1 Judith, the Scourge Diva

1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

1 Krenko, Mob Boss

1 Mad Auntie

1 Mogg Fanatic

1 Moggcatcher

1 Munitions Expert

1 Murderous Redcap

1 Olivia, Mobilized for War

1 Pashalik Mons

1 Pawn of Ulamog

1 Pitiless Plunderer

1 Priest of Gix

1 Priest of Urabrask

1 Siege-Gang Commander

1 Skirk Prospector

1 Sling-Gang Lieutenant

1 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell

1 Treasonous Ogre

1 Treasure Nabber

1 Viscera Seer

1 Warteye Witch

1 Woe Strider

1 Wort, Boggart Auntie

Facilities

1 Arid Mesa

1 Badlands

1 Blast Zone

1 Blood Crypt

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Bojuka Bog

1 Cavern of Souls

1 Command Tower

1 Dragonskull Summit

1 Graven Cairns

1 Luxury Suite

1 Marsh Flats

6 Mountain

1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

1 Path of Ancestry

1 Phyrexian Tower

1 Polluted Delta

1 Prismatic Vista

1 Rakdos Carnarium

1 Scalding Tarn

1 Smoldering Marsh

1 Sulfurous Springs

3 Swamp

1 Temple of Malice

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1 Verdant Catacombs

1 Volrath's Stronghold

1 Wooded Foothills

Contraband

1 Ashnod's Altar

1 Crystal Ball

1 Heartstone

1 Sol Ring

1 Tel-Jilad Stylus

Staff

1 Epitaph Golem

1 Iron Myr

1 Junktroller

1 Leaden Myr

1 Manakin

1 Metallic Mimic

1 Necrotic Ooze

1 Palladium Myr

1 Pilgrim's Eye

1 Ravenous Chupacabra

1 Solemn Simulacrum

1 Workhorse

Commander

1 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

Prison Industrial Complex

1 Mana Echoes

Approximate Total Cost:

[ElevatorDreams]

I created an account on here specifically to say that I love all the collaboration going on in this decklist. I have been playing this deck for awhile and struggle to find things to cut from it to try out new toys. I am super interested to see this next deck update as it will help me decide what to cut.

[sampersand]

I've been playtesting, and Bridge from Below is an absolute truck. Holy hell. Not only does it give you a bonus zombie whenever you sacrifice something during a loop, but it ALSO gives a zombie whenever grenzo flips a creature—whee! lots of zombies everywhere lol. 100% recommend

Also, how's about Conflagrate? the flashback cost might work well with discarding unneeded cards, but i haven't looked into it.

EDIT: just realized that Birdge From Below only triggers on death, not on entering the grave from bottom of library. Sad times. Still, it might be something to consider?

Here's the current deck i'm working with. it's not 100 cards yet because I cant figure out what to cut D:

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander (1)

1 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

Trawlers (4)

1 The Cauldron of Eternity

1 Epitaph Golem

1 Soldevi Digger

1 Nim Deathmantle

ETB/LTB Mana (8)

1 Workhorse

1 Cathodion

1 Priest of Gix

1 Priest of Urabrask

1 Emrakul's Hatcher

1 Dockside Extortionist

1 Stadium Vendors

1 Rapacious Dragon

Triggered Mana (3)

1 Pawn of Ulamog

1 Pitiless Plunderer

1 Mana Echoes

Sacrifice Mana (4)

1 Skirk Prospector

1 Ashnod's Altar

1 Phyrexian Altar

1 Krark-Clan Ironworks

Other Sac Outlets (2)

1 Viscera Seer

1 Woe Strider

ETB Tokens (4)

1 Sengir Autocrat

1 Siege-Gang Commander

1 Goblin Marshal

1 Marionette Master

ETB Value (8)

1 Ravenous Chupacabra

1 Murderous Redcap

1 Duplicant

1 Solemn Simulacrum

1 Meteor Golem

1 Phyrexian Delver

1 Plaguecrafter

1 Zealous Conscripts

Death Triggers (3)

1 Blood Artist

1 Deathbringer Thoctar

1 Zulaport Cutthroat

Tutor (8)

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Corpse Connoisseur

1 Goblin Matron

1 Imperial Recruiter

1 Kuldotha Forgemaster

1 Moggcatcher

1 Fleshwrither

Artifact Recrusion (4)

1 Goblin Engineer

1 Goblin Welder

1 Junk Diver

1 Myr Retriever

Haste Granters (2)

1 Olivia, Mobilized for War

1 Anger

Combo Piece (3)

1 Heartstone

1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

1 Thornbite Staff

Other (6)

1 Metallic Mimic

1 Tel-Jilad Stylus

1 Liliana, Heretical Healer

1 Nether Void

Ramp (10)

1 Sol Ring

1 Rakdos Signet

1 Mana Crypt

1 Iron Myr

1 Palladium Myr

1 Leaden Myr

1 Treasonous Ogre

1 Soldevi Adnate

1 Skirge Familiar

Land (35)

1 Ancient Tomb

1 Buried Ruin

1 Drownyard Temple

1 Inventors' Fair

1 Zhalfirin Void

1 Arid Mesa

1 Marsh Flats

1 Scalding Tarn

1 Verdant Catacombs

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Wooded Foothills

1 Polluted Delta

1 Command Tower

1 Blood Crypt

1 Badlands

1 Graven Cairns

1 Luxury Suite

1 Mana Confluence

1 Sulfurous Springs

1 Temple of Malice

1 Tarnished Citadel

4 Mountain

1 Great Furnace

5 swamp

1 Dakmor Salvage

1 Phyrexian Tower

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1 Vault of Whispers

Approximate Total Cost: