Page 1 of 1

Skullbriar: Back for Mor-Ikoria

Posted: Tue May 05, 2020 6:58 pm
by Hawk
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave has long been an intriguing Commander, but has gotten a huge shot in the arm from Ikoria. The ability to slowly but surely acquire trample, hexproof, menace, or lifelink (among other keywords) and keep them forever turns this ol vanilla Terminator into a truly fearsome and relentless Voltron commander. This is a pseudo budget build designed for my brother-in-law:
We are the Walking Grave
Approximate Total Cost:

- The idea is simple: Skullbriar is a constantly growing and rolling powerhouse. We eventually want to live the dream of having Skullbriar manage to pick up a Trample counter (from Titanoth Rex, Fully Grown, and Hornbash Mentor), a Deathtouch counter (from Void Beckoner), a Menace counter (from Blood Curdle), a lifelink counter (from Unexpected Fangs or Duskfang Mentor, and Unbreakable Bond), an Indestructible counter (from Daring Fiendbonder), and a Hexproof Counter (from Slippery Bogbonder).

- Because getting all of that, all at once, can be challenging we're using some old holdovers like Tuskguard Captain and Mer-Ek Nightblade and Rancor to pick up key abilities from elsewhere.

- There's a bit of a reanimator subtheme - there will come a point where it may make more sense to ship 'briar to the 'yard to cheat the Commander tax. It also is of course awesome to cycle Titanoth and then bring it back on turn 4 or 5.

- Like I said, the deck is a bit budget. A few key cards that would really take it to the next level would of course be Hardened Scales, Reyhan, Last of the Abzan, and better mana (from Overgrown Tomb, Birds of Paradise) as well as and especially The Ozolith which is totally bonkers - the wording is unintuitive but it effectively lets 'briar "Double" each time he dies since he retains his counters and also puts them all on Ozolith to either spread elsewhere or double back onto himself.

Re: Skullbriar: Back for Mor-Ikoria

Posted: Tue May 05, 2020 10:07 pm
by ZenN
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave is a very cool commander I completely forgot existed. Used to see this thing all over the place.

The Ikoria counters are definitely a neat upgrade. Dunno if they're enough to breathe new life into it, but cool anyway.

I'm looking forward to hearing how it works out.

Re: Skullbriar: Back for Mor-Ikoria

Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 2:02 pm
by WWolfe
Let me know how it goes. I have a Skullbriar deck I've ran basically since not long after he came out and I was initially excited about the possibility once we found out it was a mechanic, I just haven't found the keyword counters from Ikoria that exciting for the deck. If I pull any I'll likely try them out but Idk if they'll stick.