[Re:Commanders] Grimgrin, the Evil Within

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Yatsufusa
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Post by Yatsufusa » 2 years ago

"There is no such thing as a stereotypical evil being in this world.
In a vacuum, all beings are ordinary by nature, looking out for themselves.
But tempt them and they may suddenly change. That is what is so terrifying about the living.
The only me is me. Are you sure the only you is you?"

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Introduction


Welcome to Grimgrin, the Evil Within. This is a pretty straightforward deck, a zombie-tribal deck with clones. Some decks of mine revolve around more niche strategies and/or Commanders, but sometimes one just got to have a simple, straightforward deck and that's what this deck is.

I've always been fascinated with undead in fantasy, zombies in particular, probably because of my inclination to look out for loopholes in systems and honestly the raising the dead is technically the fantasy equivalent of the "loophole in life & death" and zombies in particular are the most common in showcasing that explicitly (even the vampires of the undead variety usually don't focus on the "being raised from the dead" all that much).

Even when I started out in Magic, one of the cards that appealed to me most from flavor text was the 8th Edition Drudge Skeletons|22497 (and if I'm not wrong Mark Rosewater crafted that text in particular). Not enough for me to brute-force a Zombie deck when they were available but unviable in other formats, but after I started in Commander with Animar and started branching out into building decks of my own from scratch, I knew I wanted a Zombie deck.

If you have the luxury of listening to music whilst reading this thread, enjoy the appointed official song for Grimgrin, the Evil Within: Sweet Dreams.


Disclaimers

Same across all threads, skip ahead if you've read it elsewhere before)
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Grimgrin, the Evil Within is part of Re:Commanders, a suite of eight decks I've established since 2015 with the intent to "retire" from the game/format, with its stability permitting me to bling my own decks out as my own vanity project. I've written out these guides roughly with the primer style guide, but they are not meant to be primers. In fact, my updates will be sporadic as in recent years I've had less and less time to play the game due to commitments.

Generally, Re:Commander decks / guides follow these rules:

High-Powered Cards – When I started Re:Commanders in 2015 I was already sitting on 11 years' of collection, including 4 years within the format that already assembled a structural skeleton for most of my decks. My decklists often contain a lot of high-powered, cEDH-worthy cards that can be easily deemed unaffordable to the random viewer seeing the guide at any given time, but I do not feel the need to feature budget options as those change with the times, as my focus on presenting the guide is to establish an understanding of what role does a card play in the deck, and the discerning player with the understanding should be able to find their own substitutes for that role within their own budget/collection/time. I merely used my own high-powered examples because I have it, nothing more. The game is just way too big (and getting bigger faster every year now) for me to cite random alternatives nowadays, especially with prices also randomizing on their own scales.

Personal Quirks - I have some small aesthetic quirks, the most common easy example being I don't play off-color fetchlands and I don't play ABUR duals because they can't be foiled. A lot of these small factors go a ways to lower the power level of my decks in small doses. I also try to diversify card options across decks, so while there are staples I play across all decks (mostly colorless artifacts and lands), I try to keep a variety of colored cards (and for those I don't I even try to get different art/frames to compensate) across my decks. If some colored staple feels missing, that's likely because it's housed in another deck in the suite I felt was just better for it (or I just lack it in my collection, I don't have everything, after all).

Personal Definition of "75%" – My personal definition on a "75%" deck is essentially a singular deck is flexible enough to perform on both casual and competitive tables. They aren't completely "just built to win" like cEDH decks, they're first built thematically, and then built with two distinct functions – first, a way to win within context of the theme, then secondly all decks usually have an infinite outlet (or at least a substantially huge wincon) or combo or some sort because I believe that a deck should always have a way to close the game when the primary plan/theme fails. Even a bland infinite combo used as a last resort is a better game-closer than you durdling an entire game playing Kingmaker/trying to lose last.

I don't shy away from tutors. This combined with the combo aspect does really ramp it up to feel close to cEDH levels (and almost certainly pubstomping in the wrong cases), but ultimately I built the deck for me, myself as the pilot. The Commander RC has a policy of "build casually, play competitively", but due to my wide-range meta (that can contain anywhere from new players to cEDH players depending on time), I adopted a custom formula – "Build enough to face competitive opponents but without abandoning the theme, then play accordingly to the table in question".

I'm aware some people feel like it's an insult to not "play at maximum" at a table, but I just don't see that way, I have a thematic way to (attempt to) win that's not too far above the casual table and my combos are now my last resort game-closers, something I actively want to avoid having seen purely-casual tables lack it and end up playing a game of too-much-politics-and-kingmaking-trying-to-lose-last compared to actual Magic played when thematic plans fall apart.

Deck History


For a full-blown history of the establishment of Re:Commanders as a whole, as well as anything the deck might have within its context, please refer to the central hub of the Re:Commanders here.
Deck History
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One of my earliest builds was Thraximundar zombie deck with reanimator in it to represent all that fascinated me about the undead, but in practice it felt that the reanimator wanted to focus on goodstuff too much and overshadowed the Tribal component that I essentially transferred it to another deck which would eventually become Karador. Around that time, the meta was also beginning to start its speeding up and Thraximundar, while as a standalone will always be a awesome card, wasn't exactly pulling his weight fast enough, so I swapped him out for Lord of Tresserhorn.

That happened relatively briefly before I buckled down and set-up the Re:Commanders structure, so Lord of Tresserhorn didn't last too long, sadly. This deck is possibly the most blatant case of "color sacrifice" so I could sculpt the color (pairing) balance of Re:Commanders.

The Commander choice was obvious, even when I started off with Thraximundar my condition was that the Commander of my Zombie deck must be a Zombie itself (even if it didn't directly support the tribe). At that point of time, my only choices were Grimgrin, Corpse-Born and Dralnu, Lich Lord. While Dralnu is definitely an interesting card in its own right, it required moving a direction that I would feel take too much away from the Zombies like reanimator did all those years ago. Grimgrin, on the other hand, is right smack in the same lines as both Thraximundar and Lord of Tresserhorn.

Commander Analysis


Well, I explained why specifically Grimgrin in the last paragraph of the deck's history, but let's break the card down to see how the Gisa and Geralf's best creation fares. The deck is focused mostly around the Zombie theme and not exactly the Commander, so it's more important to see if the Commander can contribute to the overall theme outside of itself being one, before comparing with some alternatives.


Everybody's looking for something.

Enters the battlefield tapped and does not untap during its controller's untap step

Well, that's not good. But you're in the color of Minamo, so in a roughest sense of vacuum, you can make Grimgrin have an upkeep cost of UU somewhat if need be. Still quite a hefty drawback for a 5-mana 5/5.


Sacrifice a creature: Untap Grimgrin and put a +1/+1 counter on Grimgrin.

The built-in untap mechanism for Grimgrin to overcome his drawback. The cost itself looks hefty as well, requiring a creature sacrifice, but Zombie tokens are one of easier tokens to generate, especially in a Zombie tribal deck. Most Zombie tokens are 2/2s, but Grimgrin at least compensates with a +1/+1 counter, so you only lose 1/1 worth of stats to boost your Commander itself (and well, for it to actually even function as an attacker/blocker).

But the cost, while hefty to make the Commander function, is also the most coveted part of the card. It requires no other payment (mana or life) and many-a-combo in the format appreciate any card that can just function as an infinite sacrifice outlet and Grimgrin presents one in the Command Zone, even if the payoff of the card itself is relatively narrow. Arguably the "strongest" part of the card when looking at the deck as a whole.


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

Now we're talking, the mostly/all-upside ability of the card. It doesn't make it nigh-invincible, of course, but it means if there's only one credible blocker that can kill Grimgrin, Grimgrin can just get rid of it and either push through or be blocked by something else smaller that it will likely also dispose of.

It only targets a creature that the defending player controls, so outside of the typical shroud/hexproof stipulations stopping it, one also cannot take advantage of multiplayer games to attack one opponent to get rid of another opponent's creature, so Grimgrin isn't exactly that flexible (well it was already presented not to be from the start). In addition, the +1/+1 counter is only granted if there's a creature to destroy, if Grimgrin attacks to an empty board or the targeted creature was removed by other means before the trigger resolves, Grimgrin doesn't get to grow.

In a straightforward case where you sacrificed a creature to untap Grimgrin, then attacked and destroyed a creature and Grimgrin goes through, it would be a 7/7 on the first attack, which puts it on-par with the classic Elder Dragons on its first attack, requiring only 3 hits to win via Commander damage. Not too shabby.


Alternate Commanders
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Alternate Commanders
Thraximundar
The original Commander I had when I built the deck as one of the earliest EDH decks I've ever built. Very similar to Grimgrin in some ways, but not others. Forcing a sacrifice on attack instead of destroying a creature does bypass some weaknesses, but at the end of the day, the lack of choice usually matters more than the benefit of the bypass. Thraximundar also grows based on any sacrifices (even your own), unlike Grimgrin who only grows as a result of its own abilities, so the potential for Thraximundar to skyrocket in stats is there. Lastly, Thraximundar is fast, having haste unlike Grimgrin entering the battlefield tapped and needing a sacrifice/external help to get on its feet, so even the relatively loss of base stats (6/6 for 7 mana instead of 5/5 for 5 mana) isn't much.

Ultimately though, it's still the mana cost that did Thraximundar in. Even if it was faster and had more potential to skyrocket, combined with the mana cost (in colors that have less ramp) meant it was obvious you had to focus on it more as the Commander. Grimgrin, while much slower and less likely to succeed on the burst-front, could come out earlier and still function as a sacrifice outlet for other combos part of the whole Zombie theme.

Lord of Tresserhorn
The Commander that led the deck after Thraximundar before Grimgrin took the reins. Lord of Tresserhorn is more unique compared to the similarities than Thraximundar and Grimgrin share, it doesn't grow over time (nor burst), but provides it's hefty 10/4 for 4 mana stats upfront, except you also have to pay the other costs upfront as well. 2 life is negligible, 2 creature sacrifices is manageable in Zombie Tribal and provides immediate stat value, although at the cost of potential growth/burst later. Letting an opponent draw 2 can range from negligible to disastrous depending on meta and the specific opponent in question, but I'm just going to assume it's near-negligible in most smart-choice cases.

Ultimately I dropped it because I moved from UBR to UB, but ultimately I would say it would be still a much better choice than Thraximundar for those who want to run a Grixis mold of this deck, because as I said it was the sheer mana cost that did Thraximundar in ultimately and additional costs bother the deck a whole lot less in Lord of Tresserhorn's case, which my brief stint with it at the helm can testify.

That being said, if Grimgrin and Lord of Tresserhorn were in the same color identities, I would still prefer Grimgrin. Costing one mana more is less jarring than costing three mana more, the "additional" payments for Grimgrin can be paid later and also helps grow Grimgrin and being a sacrifice engine is much more valuable since Lord of Tresserhorn has to be timed (along with his other payments) if one intends to use it as a sacrifice outlet.

The Scarab God
Okay, the real big fish. Same stats for same mana cost, but basically with all upside abilities rather than the slow-moving engine Grimgrin is. To be honest, yes strictly speaking the same deck would probably fare better in a straightforward way with this than Grimgrin at the helm and the only reason why Grimgrin is in charge is because I wanted an actual Legendary Zombie in charge. You're unlikely to be paying repeated Commander taxes on a 5-mana Commander (maybe once), so even its self-recursion ability to help save on Commander tax is more useful than it would be redundant by the Commander system. The other abilities are self-explanatory. In fact, it's so good it's in my 99 even if it's not in the Command Zone.

So outside of my own niche requirement that the Commander is a Zombie, my only "counter-argument" that being such an outstanding Zombie Commander, the Scarab God will undoubtedly make you more of a target of attention in a game, much more then Grimgrin at the very least (even those who recognize a sacrifice outlet in a Command Zone as threatening must also realize that Grimgrin is still a relatively expensive sacrifice engine compared to Phyrexian Altar or Carrion Feeder in regards to being a sacrifice outlet).

If you can handle the attention (or is in a fierce meta where Scarab God Zombie tribal is considered the casual deck), go ahead and swap it with Grimgrin (and even take Grimgrin out for a cheaper sacrifice outlet in the 99).

Sakashima of a Thousand Faces + Tormod the Desecrator
The deck has a subtheme of clones and one of the wildest ways (that's unlikely to succeed) is to successfully clone an opponent's win condition and win their way instead (which is why the Zombie Tribal aspect exists, so clones can just double the efficiency of the best Zombie cards). With this in mind, any partner outside of Sakashima (arguably the best partner out there) is probably an insult. Tormod is the Zombie partner that generates zombie tokens based on something the deck does do reasonably enough (although I suppose if leading with this pair the deck does need tweaking to focus slightly more on making cards leave your graveyard) and Sakashima can double his job. If you're whacky enough, instead of Tormod one could partner Sakashima with Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools. Yes, Sakashima can't copy Szat, which forces one to focus on finding ways for Sakashima to copy other cards you control (while Szat just functions as a generally good value generator).

Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver
Honestly probably would lead for a smoother experience overall, being a draw engine in the Command Zone. He's also a zombie to boot, but to be really honest I'm not feeling him flavor-wise, he felt like he was just padded into the story because his precon was made, whereas I felt Grimgrin paid homage well enough to the typical "bulky chainsaw-wielding (mini-)boss zombie" archetype present in many forms of zombie media, since those tend to be the better creations of the mastermind and we know Grimgrin is one to Gisa and Geralf. I have no qualms using Wilhelt in the 99 and if the meta on a certain night demands it I wouldn't balk at using him at the helm either, but he will never usurp Grimgrin as the default Commander.


X
Not legal in regular play, would need permission from the playgroup, but arguably the ultimate expression of the "win with your opponents' cards" bonus goal. I let the Zombie Tribal overshadow this subtheme/bonus goal because once I tried Dragonlord Silumgar, but he costed way too much and needed still protection for a payoff not worth the effort. X would probably be the kind of card for a deck with more focus on that, but for obvious silver-bordered reasons he's just a fun side-gimmick based on permission.


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Theme Analysis

Is Grimgrin, the Evil Within a deck for you?
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With the knowledge of what Grimgrin is capable of, now we explore what my build for the deck features in its themes to support the Commander (and vice versa). If the following themes (combined preferably) appeal to you, then this deck might be for you!

Zombies – The primary objective of the deck. Attempt to swarm your opponents with the horde, and if that fails, either resort to a zombie-orientated combo or take infinite turns to swarm.

Clones – What's more scary than a zombie lord? 2 Zombie lords! Clones are also useful to replicate useful cards that your opponents have and are like the permanent versions of tutoring subject to what's available on the battlefield instead of your library.

Instants – The deck features a number of instant spells for mild control reasons. Once you've gotten the zombie horde up, you can leave mana up for either their activated abilities or instants, giving some flexibility later in the game.


However, no deck can cover everything the game can offer and Grimgrin does lack in multiple departments. Also, no deck comes completely without weaknesses. If missing any of these themes or having to deal with any of these weaknesses if a big red flag for you, this deck might not be for you.

Full-On Tribal – With the inclusion of clones and artifact/instant support, the deck includes perhaps less than what the average Zombie Tribal deck does in terms of Tribal support. Zombies are one of the tribes with strong support from the game across its many years and even a focused deck is likely missing some options solely from the lack of space. This deck, with its multiple sub-themes and following my own deckbuilding style, reduces available space even more and might lack a few of the better known Zombie Tribal options and hence might not appeal to people looking for a more Tribal experience.

Instants-Matter – The many instants in the deck mostly exist just for support/control/combo reasons. There are no "payoff" cards for using instants in this deck and as such this deck cannot be considered an "Instants-Matter" deck.

Wipes – While not fully devoted to either a tribal or instant-theme, the deck is primarily reliant on the creature board-state as that what Zombies do and hence are pretty vulnerable to board wipes in the initial swarm plans. While the instant support does come with counterspells to potentially prevent wipes, sometimes it's better to keep them for later protecting your game-closers instead as a Zombie horde is constant incentive for any opponent to perform a board wipe. If there's an opportunity to minimize losses (via sacrifice outlets), sometimes it's the better choice over hard-preventing the wipe with a counter that can be saved for later use.

Decklist


Now you've had a solid idea of whether you would enjoy the Commander/deck, I present you the decklist of Grimgrin, the Evil Within.

Grimgrin, the Evil Within

Enchantments (4)

Sorceries (4)

Approximate Total Cost:

Card Choices


My deckbuilding process goes in this sequence: Ramp → Draw → Removal → PRO (Protection, Recursion, Others) → Manafixing Lands. There are some specific processes that are done within/in-between, but I'll get into detail when as I move through this guide.

Ramp
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Magic games are fun because you can cast things, and the ability to be able to cast more things as the game progresses is vital. It's tremendously less fun to watch someone cast a huge spell a couple of turns earlier or cast 2 more spells than you did in your turn in the same cycle, or you to exhaust all your mana getting something out while everyone else could afford to leave mana open so they could interact with the game and turn it in their favor. Ramp is the backbone that solves all that, the cornerstone of decks everywhere.

In general, I recommend at least 15 ramp sources, around 10 of which are fast-to-mid options and the remainder could be slower or conditional ramp sources that hopefully synergize with the themes of the deck.

The Big Three
I don't even think I need to introduce/explain these three cards. As much as I love my diversity, I had to admit these three cards are also dubbed the "ubiquitous three" for me and exist in every one of my decks (and yes, you will see this exact section in every thread). They obviously account for 3 of the early ramp options of every deck hence.
I usually don't mention prices, but Mana Crypt is a standout I have to state due to my personal declaration of ubiquity here. As long as your meta isn't as high-powered as mine, you don't need Mana Crypt, you can replace it with a (basic) land. In fact, the overall land count in my decks could be said to be 1 below-average solely because Mana Crypt is powerful enough to justify it and you should put a land in-lieu of Crypt to get healthier numbers for a deck without one.

Fast Ramp
Fast ramp is defined by the ability to drop on turn 2 or earlier and have an immediate effect on casting spells.


Mid Ramp
Mid-ramp refers to a specific group that essentially come online by turn 3 or later in a vacuum.


There's a lot of colorless mana sources here, but as we're only a 2-colored deck (with ample color fixing from lands) without too many color intensive spells it doesn't really hurt as much, just keep usage of colorless mana for generic costs and it should be smooth-sailing. The diamonds are a tad slow, but they do fix color and we're limited for choices after using both the Talisman and Signet in a 2-colored deck. While I only run one, our Commander is 5 Mana, so 3-mana rocks aren't terrible substitutes as they can push a turn 4 Commander out in the case the early plays were smaller zombies and not ramp.

Ramp Auxiliaries
These cards are classified as such because ramping/providing mana and/or reducing costs isn't their primary/only objective, but they are more likely than not to act in favor of mana production as a byproduct in the process of performing their functions, or at least can function as an alternate mana source at the cost of their other/intended function. As ramp is considered paramount, their flexibility elevates them to this high position as opposed to just being classified as "Utility".
Card Draw
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Ramp may be the cornerstone of a deck, but there's no point in having mana if there's nothing to cast. Card draw is the axle-grease that keeps the deck capable of building upon itself in a game.

Like with ramp, I recommend at least 15 sources of card draw. It may sound excessive, but I personally classify a huge range of card effects under its umbrella, including cantrips, discard-draw effects and wheel effects. To me, the filtering provided by such effects to get to the correct cards you want to be casting at any given time qualifies them under the primary objective of drawing.

That being said, card advantage is an important factor, especially in a multiplayer game and as such between all sources of draws I recommend at the very least about 8 (preferably 10) of your draws are capable of generating card advantage, be it directly (one-shot draw multiples, or strong straightforward draw engines) or indirectly (can be cast multiple times by itself, or generates synergy with the deck's theme to do so like an on-theme conditional engine).
As most cards primarily placed for their drawing abilities are pretty straightforward, I will not be explaining each of the common sections and the choices that fall under them.

Single-Use

Repeatable Draw

Tutors
Not quite card advantage, but I like to categorize tutors under the branch of card draw as it surrenders advantage for precision. Due to said precision I will explain my choices briefly.


Both Vampiric Tutor and Mystical Tutor are premier tutors, but more importantly also part of the some of the deck's combos, therefore I decided to raise the power-level of this deck's tutoring by a slight notch as it's good to have redundancy pieces for combos.
Removal
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EDH games are not played in vacuum – as much as you're ramping, drawing cards and presenting threats, so are your opponents. Someone has to be faster than someone else in most games and it's unlikely you're always the fastest on board. The ability to dispose of threats that would otherwise end the game (or you from the game) should never be underestimated.

At the same time, there's only so much space you can afford for removal, especially having spent space for ramp and card draw and needing some for other utilities. I cannot you teach you the specifics as it differs game-to-game, but threat assessment is key skill in any EDH game, as it can easily seem that there are more threats than you have answers for, as there are three opponents. You need to identify which threats are the most dangerous to you, preferably as early as possible, but only dispose of them in a timely fashion, not necessarily as early as possible. If a threat has a chance to pose a bigger threat to another opponent, then it may be beneficial to either let it weaken said opponent first or let them notice the threat (even if it's blatant verbal politics) and spend their removal to get rid of a problem for you.

Removal is divided into two main catergories, Spot Removal, which are cards that remove usually one, but can be up to a few targets (and usually do use a targeting mechanic). The other is board-wipes, which refer to cards capable of removing an entire subset of cards (or almost) from every player (or opponent, but those usually cost more) in the game.

Counterspells for most part are almost always considered single-target removals, as the bulk of them are usually used to negate a singular threat before it manifests. There's some debate because there's an array of cards that exile entire graveyards, but I personally classify all grave hate to be single-target removal on the concept that most decks that don't rely on the graveyard as theme still do have some limited recursion options, and the reason one utilizes an entire graveyard exile is simply because the cards that perform them tend to be more cost-effective, and the real objective is usually a specific card. Sure, sometimes you hit a graveyard-reliant opponent and it feels like a boardwipe, but I don't feel that means I have to classify all cards that entire exile graveyards as wipes because they're opponent-dependent.

I recommend at least a minimum of 8 spot removals, with a reinforcement of 10-minimum if you're unsure about your threat assessment skills. Unless you have really good synergy with your removal options, generically around a cap of 12 spot removals should be ceiling, otherwise it'll pressure too little space for your utilities. Cover all your bases, make sure you have at least a way to get rid of graveyards and lands, as removals for those two are often overlooked while threats they present are no less dangerous than your usual culprits.

With board wipes my minimum recommendation is at least 3 and preferably 2 of those are capable of removing creatures, the most common permanent threat-type by nature of damage, but there should also be at least one option capable of handling artifacts and enchantments. Generally speaking mass land removal is socially frowned upon (especially if you're just going for walk-in games), so pay extra attention back to your spot removal to handle the notorious few problem-lands in the game.

Like with draw, the removal effects themselves are straightforward, with my emphasis already done on ensuring you have the diversity to deal with threats of varying natures being the actual important factor. Hence, I'm not explaining my specific choices in each deck and substitutes for this section are arguably the easiest to look for with any collection.

Graveyard Removal



Spot Removal



Board Wipes

Counterspells
PRO (Protection, Recusion & Others)
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With three pillars of any EDH deck settled, we move on to slightly less important parts (no part can be considered unimportant because an EDH deck is supposed to be a machine with all its part working in sync ideally). Protection & Recursion can be said to be two sides of a same coin, under a function of keeping other parts of deck intact so those could perform their duties. Basically the opposite of removal, the attempt to keep your threats intact (or returning/reusing them after they got disposed).

Protection & Recusion

Protection is pro-active and prevents a card of yours from either be removed, or at least it helps by hindering your opponents from doing so (so effects that grant shroud or hexproof qualify). This prevents the card from leaving the battlefield or get countered, so it's less vulnerable to grave hate options, but in exchange, protection requires timing and mana left open and can be tricky to maneuver, even more so than threat assessment. Some counterspells can function as protection, but for simplicity's sake I just classified them under removal due to my processing order, but take note if you already run counterspells they might be pulling double-duty as Protection.

Recursion, as I said, is the opposite of the same coin. It doesn't prevent the destruction, but bringing something back from the graveyard to the hand, deck or battlefield means there's no real timing restriction outside your own personal urgency. Likewise, it's vulnerable to gravehate, which is arguably the #1 factor that would provide a sense of timing urgency.

While they're distinct enough that I have to provide paragraphs establishing their roles, Protection and Recursion could be said to be one tier below the three pillars of deckbuilding (ramp, card draw & removal), as it's theoretically possible for a deck to just ignore it altogether and operate on "If it's gone, it's gone" principle) and still reasonably perform well if it's other components are settled well. This cannot be said for the three pillars (which would visibly affect performance significantly more if they were missing).

That being said, it definitely never hurts to have some countermeasures of your own against removals, especially if your deck's themes and/or combos are heavily reliant on one card with poor redundancies/substitutes. There's no real "guide number", but I'd recommend around 5 in total, divided any way you want between the two sub-types. Most preferably your choices have synergy with your Commander of deck theme, even if it means going all-in with one and ignoring another.

Protection

Recursion
Others
Actually more accurately referred to as Utility (but PRO sounded much better than PRU), this is the "last" section you fill in. But wait, isn't mana-fixing lands after this? Yes, which is why you need to do one thing before you starting filling this "last" section, which is to clarify your numbers.
Walls of Text, but Critical to Deckbuilding
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At this point you need to tabulate the total number of cards already in your deck. Then you need to determine the number of lands you need in your deck. It may feel like a contradiction to think how many lands you need before you got all your non-lands in to determine your mana curve/intensity, but blindly going in more-often results in people loving to stuff it to the gills only to find out they only have space left for 20 lands (which is a big NO-NO), which is why this guide even focuses on establishing numbers for all your three pillars and PR before moving to this Utility section, which is probably the most "fun" part of deckbuilding.

If you completely have no idea of what your mana curve/intensity would look like, the general recommendation for total land count is to be at 38 lands. If it's not your first time building a deck and you could sort of mentally preview your curve to be much lower than the average, there's an argument for cutting down up to 2 lands, and if you're running Mana Crypt like me, you could safely reduce the count by 1. That makes the absolute minimum land count 35 and even then you really must anticipate/know your mana curve accurately.

On the opposite path, if you know you're putting too much weight, you might want to up to count by a couple at most, and even then 40 lands does put you at a risk of land-bloating that I would whether recommend you keep a tight rein on both the 38 land count and the "calorie intake" of your card choices instead. The only exception is if your deck is a lands-matter deck, and assuming it's a main theme of the deck, the numbers are skewed to around 40-minimum-to-45-maximum with no real average. There are some other decks out there that really delve deep into the theme with 50+ lands that do work, but I don't specialize in that and will not elaborate further (and 99-land decks are their own thing).

Let's say you took the 38-land assumption (no Crypt) and booted up on the minimum/average recommended suggestions I made (15 ramp, 15 draw, 13 removal and 5 PRs). That brings the total to 86 cards. Not counting the Commander (and I'm assuming no Partners), that leaves a whooping total of 13 spaces left for your utility, "fun" stuff. Sounds incredibly small, sad and not enough space for all the awesome ideas you had for your deck but now can't fit in.

It'll be tempting to start trimming cards from the prior sections, but please do not, for that is the most common temptation newer/casual players fall for, only to find out their deck doesn't churn along because the pillars that keep the deck (including the "fun" parts) running just aren't up to the task.

But, now is the time to restore a bit of hope. It's time to check back on the cards already in the deck and see how many lands are already residing there. Did you use Ancient Tomb as ramp? Did you let War Room smooth out your draws? Did you file Buried Ruin under recursion because you didn't want to waste a spell slot to get back one important but not numerous artifact in the deck? Everyone land you already used counts under the land total, which means you free one more space for your utility fun.

But what happens if you found out you didn't have that many lands that helped you free up space? Then I'd recommend you start looking up for those lands to take over some of your nonland choices in these categories to create that space. The secret to a well-oiled EDH deck that has space for its luxury plays is the one that finds the most land openings to fill in the pillars of its own oiling, not just cutting the pillars off for luxuries that no pillars are around left to support.

When it's done you should have around 15 to 20 open spaces for your utilities/fun (I actually have less because I usually go a couple above the recommended minimum for my pillars). It can still feel "little", especially for newer players, but at this point I just have to say that's the sacrifice it takes to be able to get what you consider fun up-and-running in a 99-card deck format with so much variance, it certainly isn't just 60+ cards of fun and lands. That's why like how you find lands in your pillar card-choices to make space, it's in your best interests to find nonland cards in those sections as well that synergize better with your themes, so that your pillars are also fun to play with as well.
Another small beacon of light to look forward to, there are lands that are utility and/or fun, and like with all lands before them, they fall under the land total quota, so they don't eat up your remaining spaces. That Treetop Village that isn't really protection but just small utility? Doesn't eat up your remaining establish space.

One very important thing to note when distinguishing if a land actually falls under the land total. I do not consider lands that are incapable of producing mana by themselves in a vacuum to one, if they're in for a non mana-fixing reason (which is why I count those last) and can't produce mana on their own, they're functionally like 0-mana "non-land" cards in a way. Maze of Ith strikes as the most common example (and no, even if you run Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in the deck it doesn't just reverse this classification in the deckbuilding process, which usually favor in-a-vacuum status.
With the importance of juggling numbers in this section finally out of the way, let's briefly go through my miscellaneous card choices.
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Core/Finishers/Combo

As I said, Re:Commanders decks are almost always built with combo-ways to close the games in case the primary win condition style is rendered unachievable, hence the pieces for these combos are usually my first priority in filling out my utility spaces. As I have a section dedicated to explaining the combos, I'll leave this part as short as possible.

Utility

Minamo, School at Water's Edge is a fantastic support card for Grimgrin in particular, providing an alternate untap method.
The deck has quite the number of sacrifice outlets, and that demands fodders. To keep it on-theme, I've kept it to largely Zombie tokens.

Clones

The clone options in the deck. They pretty much can fill in any role, even of your opponent's, as long as they're on the battlefield to be copied. Otherwise there's really very little I can say about them, other than I believe I'm utilizing arguably the best generic clones in the game here. Necroduality and Sakashima are restricted to only my own cards, but the tribal synergy in the deck is strong enough support for them to qualify.
Color-Fixing Lands
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At this point you should be done with all your nonland cards, and with some lands slots already taken up, you should roughly have about 30 land slots left in a multicolored deck, or substantially less (around 25) for a monocolored deck. Mono-colored decks pretty much don't need color fixing, so it's basically all basic lands filling the remainder. For multicolored decks though, now is the time to get your color-fixing options in, so you can reasonably produce the colored mana for your needs at any stage of the game.

I seldom talk about budget alternatives (be it high or low), but lands are among one of the more-commonly spoken of topics when discussing about budgets, so I'm supplying some alternatives here.

"Fetchlands" Package
I don't run off-color fetches solely for aesthetic purposes and also don't run duals because of price reasons (and also aesthetic reasons of they can't be foiled), so that leaves me with a simple fetch-shock combination.

I have a strict policy for as little mana-fixing lands that only enter the battlefield tapped as possible for my decks, so Fetid Pools, while fetchable and has cycling applications simply does not make the cut. If you are more lenient with your mana-fixing base, it is not an unreasonable addition objectively speaking. In a 2-colored deck with 14 basic lands, I deemed that Sunken Hollow was an acceptable conditional land that could be fetched.

Unconditional Lands
Comes into play untapped unconditionally and generally fixes your mana. Command Tower is the obvious best, Underground River costs a life each use to fix colors while Clearwater Pathway locks you into one color (I considered categorizing the Pathway differently, but at the end of the day in a two-colored deck the chances of the locked-in color being detrimental is a minimal case, especially with so many other mana-fixing lands).

Conditional Lands
Well, considering the deck/thread was designed with multiplayer in mind, in practice Morphic Pool should be better than everything except Command Tower most of the time, but in a vacuum it does fall in this category. Drowned Catacomb and Choked Estuary are relatively straightforward, needing a land with the basic land types (duals included) either on the battlefield or revealed from hand to enter the battlefield untapped themselves, relatively easy conditions to meet.

Dependent Lands
Alone, these cards are pretty bad or don't perform at all. Sunken Ruins is at least a colorless land alone and while is extra-flexible when filtering while Darkwater Catacombs is unusable alone and only filters for a straight ub, but it's a singleton format and a 2-color deck can get by. Dimir Aqueduct enters the battlefield tapped and needs another land to function here, but the slight potential of being a double-producing land that bounces another land (which guarantees a land drop next turn) gives it the unique niche that has me putting it over the typical enters-the-battlefield-tapped duals.

Others
Dreadship Reef is very slow and terrible at mana-fixing as a result, but it has a unique aspect of being able to hoard mana and I have more lenient slots in 2-colored decks to give (especially when I don't run off-color fetches and ABUR duals) so it gets in as the niche/gimmicky slot (even moreso than Dimir Aqueduct at least that still consistently fixes color nicely one turn later).

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is a weird choice in a two-colored deck with more swamps to take advantage of Cabal Stronghold, but it still help fixes colorless utility land, islands and one half of a Pathway, so it's still good, just not as optimal. Plus it helps enable Zombie Master, possibly turning a horde of zombies into an unblockable finisher.

These are my choices for color-fixing lands, and we'll round the rest of the deck with Basic Lands. Every deck should always run some Basic Lands to "passively" combat nonbasic land-hate, especially the stax ones. As a general rule of thumb I calculate the mana symbols in all casting costs and non-mana abilities to have a rough gauge to determine how to divide the colors among my Basic Lands, with a cap that I should at least run 2 of each land type for coverage even if one color is played so little the formula results in recommending only 1 Basic.

Piloting the Deck

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I'm not going in-depth into this section (partially because I haven't had many actual games myself), but if you've established an understanding of how each card in the deck works, I don't think I need to overtly dictate specifically how any of my decks should play out in a game. Bluntly speaking, you need to ramp and set up draws as early as possible, and your starting hand should revolve around that set-up. General threat assessment usually means don't waste your removal on early "threats" that aren't lethal or overtly crippling (unless someone's super-aggro), you'll need to juggle around the mid-game and if you've resourcefully saved them could afford to be a little trigger happy nearer to the end-game.

Mulligan & Early Game (T1-T4)

Grimgrin is a pretty typical deck and with it basically requires the typical opening hand/plays, typically 3 or so lands with early ramp and draw with many open lines of play. You could go for an aggressive ramp strategy so you could get either Commander by Turn 4 (or even 3) or go for the 6-drop bombs like Grave Titan by turn 4. Or you could set up with the smaller Zombie set-up. Either way generally because of the draw the deck employs, hopefully by turn 4 you either set up one of the draw or recursion engines with a smattering of Zombies for blocking.

Mid-Game (T5-7/8)

By now hopefully some semblance of card-advantage engine is going on, even if it's just effectively recycling Zombies from the graveyard to build up board presence. Now it's simultaneously the time to expand the board should it be possible to go for the "aggro-plays" of either Zombie hordes or Commander damage (or even the Clone-strategy) Chances are it won't work but it should at least force the board to start to spending their removal/counters along with yours.

Meanwhile it's time to prioritize assembling combo pieces, making sure they're accessible from either your hand or graveyard. Some games the "aggro" plans might be made invalid, so more defensive plays favoring removal/counters while you're assembling combo pieces might be the game.

There's also the riskier strategy of just trying to combo-off within the mid-game, since the pieces are all relatively cheap and can be assembled during mid-game with sufficient early game ramp. Unlike the aggro strategy it essentially forces out all the answers/counters more effectively, but this also means your actual late-game plan of hording with the Zombies or Commander damage really needs to have had their counters all removed by your mid-game combo attempts.

Late-Game (T8+)

By now, the war of attrition should have dragged out and options from all players should have lessened, if not exhausted. Choose an optimal time to assemble the combos for the win, or bring out the Commander and/or Zombie horde protected in the attempt to overrun what is already a weakened board and life totals for the win.

The deck has multiple combos, and with some shared pieces and some pieces with redundancy copies, so even if some pieces do get removed (even back during the Mid-Game), it's still possible to scramble for another one pretty easily.

Remember, ultimately in a typical 4-player game where there can only be 1 winner, the odds are stacked against each player individually and the war of attrition is just a matter of who's the lucky one who managed to get his beatdown/combo down at the right moment when the other three exhausted all their immediate resources.

Combo Strategies


Gravecrawler(-esque) Combos
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Most of the deck's combos revolve around infinitely re-casting a Zombie (mostly Gravecrawler), then sacrificing it to trigger a drain effect, but there are other enablers so that it can be executed without Gravecrawler should it be exiled.

The most straightforward classic combo is to simply sacrifice Gravecrawler to Phyrexian Altar for B to cast itself from the graveyard while either Plague Belcher or Vengeful Dead is on the battlefield. Alternatively, Bontu's Monument can stand-in with its cast trigger instead, but you need to control another zombie to enable Gravecrawler.

This combo can also be conducted finitely with any other sacrifice outlet (like the Commander) instead of Phyrexian Altar, just requiring b payment each time. Likewise, Razorlash Transmogrant would cost an extra B each time (assuming its generic mana cost reduction condition is met).


Some of them want to use you.
Some of them want to get used by you.

Her -3 essentially turns all Zombie cards in your graveyard into Gravecrawlers, subject to their original costs. So it enables the likes of 1-mana zombies like Cryptbreaker to substitute for Gravecrawler's place for the classic combo (and likewise while this deck doesn't have 1B Zombies, with Monument they also can substitute in). With Nested Shambler it can also be used to generate extra and thus, infinite mana as well.

Even without 1-mana Zombies, it can also be conducted finitely subject to your ability to pay mana for your Zombie spells.


Sweet Dreams are made of This.

With Rooftop Storm though, it goes into overdrive, every Zombie spell can be cast for 0 from the graveyard (while generating mana with [card]Phyrexian Altar).
Acererak's Bizzare Ventures
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Well, technically just with Rooftop Storm, Acererak the Archlich would basically already go infinite. Also, Bontu's Monument will likely just drain your opponents dry before looping the other dungeons would accomplish anything.
Trapped in STEM for Eternity
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The infinite turn combo, cast Nexus of Fate, activate Isochron Scepter to tutor Nexus to be your next draw, take infinite turns. Your best bet if you really want to swarm everyone with zombies, but the combo is expensive to execute and prone to disruption (well, not during it, if no one could have stopped you from the start you'll likely already won, but it's basically a high alert siren from the start), so it's usually only done when opponents have already spent their resources trying to stop each other and/or the other combos earlier in the game.

Boseiju, Who Shelters All is a way to insure Nexus of Fate against counterspells and while Isochron Scepter is rightfully vulnerable we do have Academy Ruins to recur it plus clones like Mirrormade and Phyrexian Metamorph to clone it, so there's no real need to cling to it in your hand for the sake of the combo, this deck deliberately consists of many eligible utility spells so it can simply be used as a value machine if needed.

Closing


So with this, we've come to the end of the guide for Grimgrin, the Evil Within, basically a straightforward Zombie Tribal deck with clones and a smattering of combos to close the game with. Nothing really innovative, but sometimes you just got to have a deck just to "meet criteria". Honestly, as long as you have multiple decks or even if you only (intend to) have one deck but are constantly building to find "the one", you should have or at least tried to build a (common) Tribal deck once. It doesn't have to be Zombies, I simply picked what I preferred, and you can do the same with yours.

Even if (the common) tribal choices present blatantly obvious synergies you may find boring or think you figured it out, sometimes because of how easily it is to assemble smooth synergies it may sometimes open up ideas to smooth out the other more innovative decks you would have never thought of otherwise, or at least comfort you with its own when the innovative deck's relative volatility frustrates you.

Flavor

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Well, this is no primer, so instead of giving credits, I'm just going to the customized flavortown for the deck. (Actually the real reason is I sort of just absorbed random tidbits over the decades and can't remember all the specific sources I got, some I simply kept/forgot in my brain until years later, only randomly recalling the tidbit when I come up or have to refine my ideas/decks).

Mechanically this deck is just Zombie Tribal and whilst in the wider entertainment we've saturated to the point there are Zombies of all-kinds and may or not be named "Zombies" regardless of their "uniqueness", I just mish-mashed its flavor from mostly horror games I enjoyed that technically do not even include Zombies.

The Commander's epithet is literally taken from a video game series of the same name (directed by the creator of the Resident Evil series, Shinji Mikami). That game is more of a psychological horror than actual zombies, but I liked the idea of horror taking form within the mind as "Zombies" so that's how I see the deck as, as "Zombies" of the mind rather than physical ones (and allows me to roughly place the Clones as the other Horrors that don't take forms similar to the traditional "Zombie").

The deck's thematic quote/description is for most part, a modified quote from novelist Natsume Soseki. In his original quote he was referring to humans in real life, but I had it modified to fit the psychological horror-fantasy setting better, to make the distinction of why the undead is "better", in the same vein the 8th Edition Drudge Skeletons|22497 flavor text appealed to me. The last line though, was taken directly from P.T., the playable teaser for the cancelled Silent Hills game. I just thought it fit with the modified quote nicely to round it up, giving the deck itself "I am the master of psychological horror-zombies, are you?" feel (and hints at the clone/theft subtheme of the deck as well).



"Sweet Dreams" serves as the deck's theme song, alongside the 7 other songs (Each Re:Commander deck is assigned 8 songs, one as its own theme song and one that it shares with each of the other 7 decks of the suite). Links to each song are below, and disclaimer that it's safer to assume every link is NSFW than vice-versa so make sure you're in your safest environment before pressing any links.

(Theme Song) Sweet Dreams
(Song with Najeela) Great Escape
(Song with Freyalise) Requiem
(Song with Yorion) Utsukushiki Zankoku na Sekai
(Song with Extus) When It Falls
(Song with Ryusei) End Like This
(Song with Karador) Hollow Hunger
(Song with Animar) Apocalypse of Destiny

If you enjoyed this [Re:Commanders] thread and would like to see another one, feel free to visit either the main [Re:Commanders] hub or any of the other [Re:Commanders] threads linked below

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