Skullbriar rework

[Dunadain]

Skullbriar, the Walking Grave has a soft spot in my heart as the first commander that showed me how to make voltron fun.

I initially brewed the deck to be as fast as possible, but like most voltron decks, it was a glass cannon, where I either stomped the table in a few turns, or my commander got priced out and I sat around doing nothing the rest of the game.

So I slowed the deck down and really focused on survivability, between a hefty ramp package, and all the new ability counters Ikoria introduced, the deck was never truly out until it was dead. With all the open slots cutting all the fast cards provided, I filled up the deck with removal and tutors, turning the glass cannon into a slow, grindy control deck. This has been the formula for all my voltron decks goin forward (just look at my Ebondeath, Dracolich deck)

At the end of the day, however, the Skullbriar, the Walking Grave decklist was still suspect, there are only a handful of golgari cards that provide a keyword counter, and some of them have complicated hoops to jump through. Additionally, if you DO get a keyword on Skullbriar, then all subsequent cards that provide that keword are dead. So Skullbriar, the Walking Grave was retired.

However, a single new card has been spoiled that has prompted me to update the list: Scavenged Brawler. Not only is it so much more efficient than the cards I used to run (just compare this to Unexpected Fangs XD). But it adds 2 brands new keywords that were completely unavailable before, Vigilance and Flying, both of which are a big deal.

The deck was not a stranger to this kind of ability, I was already running Daring Fiendbonder.

So the question is what do I do now? I could just throw Scavenged Brawler into the old list and see what happens, but, as I said, the old list was rather unfocused. Since Scavenged Brawler is so much more powerful than the other options, I think I'm going to primarily focus on Scavenged Brawler with this new version.

So yeah, that's all I've got at the moment, We'll see what I come up with.

[pokken]

I really liked dredge as a heavy mechanic for skullb, because it goes so well with the various scavenge effects which are often pretty good with Skullb. So Life from the Loam Golgari Grave-Troll etc.

GGT is exceptional with The Ozolith effects and Greater Good too. So you can do some sweet dances where you like, dredge your entire deck out with GGT+Greater Good and jam a gajillion counters onto Skullbriar at the same time.

You can also use stuff like Volrath's Stronghold and Genesis and dredgey stuff to dig to powerful effects like Forgotten Ancient.

Any reanimatey stuff you have is also nice protection for Skullb, stuff like Dread Return and whatever can create some pretty surprising kills.

edit: to add, Varolz, the Scar-Striped is amazing in Skullbriar. sac outlet to protect him, gives dudes scavenge to give him counters, etc.

[DirkGently]

If you're already running a lot of tutors, you're already ahead of the game, since brawler is so insane and you'll want to draw it every game. I'm guessing you might already be running Entomb for the fiendbonder, but if you're not, that would be the easiest first inclusion. It's efficient enough that even if you're tutoring for the entomb and then tutoring for the brawler off that, it's still not that bad. Unmarked Grave is the much weaker version, though still fine. And then there's Buried Alive, Corpse Connoisseur, Vile Entomber, Oriq Loremage, and Disciples of Gix, depending on how bad you want to get.

The other thing I'd think about is that the build becomes a lot more glass cannony when you're (1) relying on the same card every game and (2) making a 5-mana sorcery-speed play that targets your creature. If someone blows up skullbriar in response to the activation, or bounces skullbriar after the activation, you're in a bad place. So I'd think about upping the protection and/or sac outlets to increase the odds of your buff going through, and staying there.