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By: walkerdog, Tyler Walker
May 22 2012 8:35am
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Is that a pimple?Griselbrand, pictured to the right, is probably the most powerful creature of all-time.  I think that the back-story of this Original G is worth knowing.  Okay, so Liliana makes a deal with a devil demon (Or maybe it was three demons. I didn't pay much attention.).  This demon-thing is like... the source of evil or something on Innistrad?  Plus, there's like vampires.  Oh, and zombies are here, and Garruk is chasing Liliana because she totally stole his identity and ruined his credit, and then there are werewolves!  And Garruk is like a werewolf because he is a flip-card here. 

Then Sorin rolls up and is super-Gothy, and he had made this angel that protects Innistrad, and she is pretty Goth too!  But she was locked up with Griselbrand because they were Indian Wrestling and somehow fell into the Helvault, which wasn't much of a trap; it was just cardboard and had some tokens it in!  I'm not sure how it held someone as mighty as the OG and Avacyn, but it did.  Maybe it's a Miracle.

Liliana has to bust Griselbrand out of the prison because she needs to kill him to get out of her deal with the devil DEMON (why not just make him a devil I don't even okay I'll shut up I'm not JYalt).  She does and that lets out Avacyn and Griselbrand and foily judge promos, which they TOTALLY  DIDN'T HAVE AT MY STORE :(

Griselbrand like... fights someone and stuff and then Liliana kills him, and in a huge twist...

 

 

 

 

 

GRISELBRAND IS DIABO!  OH CROSSMARKETING! 

TWIST ENDING!  Good Golly Miss Molly!  What a great idea from Wizards and Blizzard!  So now that you know Griselblo's story, why should you care?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Griselbrand has four basic abilities.  One isn't exactly an ability, but when you combine it with the other three, it might as well be.  Let's examine the card:

Four colorless mana, Four Black Mana

This is quite the cost to pay, but it is not inconceivable that in a slower game (think block, commander, cube at times, and standard) that you might just play him on turn 6-7 and win from there. 

Legen (waitforit) Dary Demon

Being legendary sucks.  We can't resolve TWO!  And he does die to clone effects, which isn't irrelevant, but you probably will draw7 before you trade him with your opponents card, so that's not exactly awful.  If he is your only win-con though, an opponent with Karakas will probably lolcat you all day while they attack into you.  These things are relevant!  Being a demon means that if you're ever trying to attack past Baneslayer Angel, it may not work out for you in a great way!

"Oh, so we both gain li-"

"Nuuuuppppee.  I gain 5.  You get nothing.  Prot Demons, remember?"

Avoid this sort of awkwardness.

Lifelink

This is how you outrace aggro decks and how you draw your cards.  Great design, albeit probably the thing that actually pushes Grizzy over the edge.  Black generally doesn't get lifelink, but giving it to Black in a card like this seems both obscene and a perfect fit.

Flying

I would be curious to know how they decided on flying (yes, Grizzy has wings) instead of say, Trample.  Oh, wait, that's right, he's not Green so he is allowed to have real evasion.  Zing!

Pay 7 life: Draw 7 Cards

Really?  I mean, REALLY?  Yes, this is amazing.  You get to draw cards each time you hit the opponent, or block, or maybe right away if you have enough life. 

7/7

Being a 7/7 is kind-of an ability once you tack on flying and lifelink.  Seriously why couldn't Grizzy have cost 7 mana!  Honestly I wouldn't care if he was costed at BBBBBBB to make this work, since it's not like people are casting him fairly ever.

 Let's go youngest format backwards.  Once we hit Classic, we'll shift over to casual formats too!

 

FRites!
Shouta Yasooka's T16 deck from PTAVR
Creatures
4 Borderland Ranger
3 Falkenrath Aristocrat
4 Fiend Hunter
3 Huntmaster of the Fells
14 cards

Other Spells
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Angel of Glory's Rise
4 Cathedral Sanctifier
4 Griselbrand
4 Faithless Looting
4 Mulch
4 Unburial Rites
12 cards
 
Lands
4 Clifftop Retreat
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Woodland Cemetery
22 cards

Griselbrand

 

Ken Yukihiro took this to the T8, but I believe Shouta actually put the deck together.  The deck wants to cast Mulch and Faithless Looting, draw some cards, play some cheap humans, hit their lands, and kill you by casting Unburial Rites on either Griselbrand or Angel of Glory's Rise.  The deck can also hard-cast either card given the Mulchs and Borderland Rangers.

Standard also has a version of this deck, but let's look in another direction to keep things fresh:

 


Conley's GP Orlando deck seems like a solid shell for a Griselbrand.  We have quite a few solid finishers here, so it is likely that we would cut most (or all) of the Wolf Run package from this build in favor of Glimmerposts (to stay alive against aggro), but otherwise, this deck has the best of UB Control (a.e. the Black cards) and most of the best of the Wolf Run Ramp decks.  The only concern here is that Black Sun's Zenith is kind of a Non-bo against Undying creatures.  It is possible that more spot removal (even something like Skin Render who can pick off the non-undying creatures an opponent plays) is needed.

Griselbrand gives the deck a flying threat and a great way to gas up after dropping a fatty, plus it holds off aggression almost as well as Grave Titan.  Zealous Conscripts could really make this a bad day for us though...

We will Planeswalk back in time to modern now. 

 

 

This is an update to PonchowKow's list.  I added Faithless Looting and Griselbrand; two of the problems this deck has is that it cannot dig for the cards it NEEDS in every situation, and even when it does go off, if it's not done so by turn 4, it can just eat a Wrath of God or Day of Judgment and not win anyway.  Lootings allows you to dig much deeper than simply cycling, and Griselbrand gives you the option to draw a ton of cards when you go off, so even if they Wrath, you're already reloaded.  I'm pretty excited to see the impact of Griselbrand on Modern.  He is so powerful that he may warrant an entirely new deck being built around him, similarly to the way people were casting Gifts Ungiven for just Unburial Rites and Iona, Shield of Emeria in the last Modern season.

Legacy beckons, let us answer its call!  At SCG Orlando last weekend, Griselbrand made his impact felt!  

Both of the finalists were utilizing Griselbrand. 

 

 

I'm not certain how impactful Grizzy was over Iona (or just more Dredge cards) as a finisher, but it seemed to work!  His opponent in the finals, David McDarby, used Grizzy as a draw-7 with Sneak Attack. 

 

SneakShow
Drawing 7 for R - David McDarby
Creatures
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 cards

Other Spells
4 Lotus Petal
4 Sneak Attack
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition
2 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce
3 Griselbrand
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
4 Show and Tell
2 City of Traitors
35 cards
 
Lands
2 Island
1 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island
16 cards

Sneak Attack


As someone who hasn't played SneakShow, I can only say that this SEEMS very impressive.  Sneak Attack decks most frequently have problems that are similar to those suffered by Living End decks; running out of gas.  Grizzy keeps the flow comin'.  Three hits is enough to kill, and he lets you draw into your Emrakuls much more easily than previous fatties who could be devastating, but didn't keep the run going with 7 cards for "free".  Griselbrand seems like a great addition to the deck, and he can even be a profitable blocker; gain seven and then turn it into seven new cards to untap with and continue to Sneak into play.

 

 

This is a list from late last year; it was designed to kill "instantly" with Colossus poisoning the opponent to death, or Emrakul Annihilating the opponent's board.  The problem is three-fold: sometimes they have blockers for Colossus, sometimes they have a combo that kills you post-Emrakul, and most frequently you just don't hit a Dragon Breath.  This can be awful when they untap and do something unfair, or even uglier, when they just attack for lethal past your single blocker.  Cut the Colossus, mix in a little 'Bran' and eat up.

While Griselbrand may not kill the opponent QUITE as certainly as Blightsteel Colossus (in 1 hit), hitting the opponent and drawing 7 tends to slam the door almost the same.  In NON-Dragon Breath situations, Grizzy becomes much more effective than the Colossus.  He laughs in the face of Swords to Plowshares (Draw 7, gain 7, sweet!), blocks more effectively due to lifelink, and has actual evasion, and is STILL EFFECTIVE EVEN IF HE IS BLOCKED!  All in all, Grizzy is the shizzy!

So now that we have competitive plans for the OG, what about... COMMANDER!!!  Sadly, Sean McKeown already came up with a freaking absurd combo deck for the Gristle Meat.  In his article for Starcitygames, Sean regales us with a tale of abuse, pain, shock, and triumph.  Here is the choicest excerpt from the article:

He seemed pretty intent on proving it, too. On the play, he played so many mana accelerants that Kaalia of the Vast entered the battlefield on the first turn despite her triple color requirement. He went down to one card in hand to do it, though, putting all his eggs in one basket. My Thoughtseize stripped that card away and left him with a legendary 2/2 and the top of his deck to work with. After getting attacked three times, I used Blinkmoth Nexus to trade for his commander on the fourth swing, and on my fifth turn I ended it by drawing the missing ritual needed to cast Griselbrand and Tendrils him out.

The second game went better for him - on the play again he ramped so fast it hurt to think about, with Gilded Lotus as his turn-two play while he raced my Lotus Bloom and thus almost certain turn four win. His third-turn play was Iona, Shield of Emeria, with no tutoring to set it up or Kaalia to cheat on the cost - he just cast her. Unsurprisingly, with just two outs left in my deck and the tutor in my hand literally uncastable, he was able to take that one on the strength of Iona alone, beating the Bloom and casting a nine-mana spell the hardest of all possible ways.

The third game, he had a fast start as in the other two games, and while he trash-talked me I pointed out that in each of the three games we'd played, he'd started out with either Sol Ring or Mana Crypt and at least one other piece of acceleration. He claimed this was entirely typical for his deck, which suggested to me a lack of understanding of statistics, which is to say that drawing one of two cards out of 99 is by itself a statistically unlikely thing, no matter the remainder of the cards in his hand; just drawing one or the other three times running for turn 1 was pretty bonkers. He thought I was complaining and threw Kaalia and some hot Dragon action in my general direction to teach me a lesson.

I untapped and killed him. It wasn't close. Turn 4, easy peasy... if anything, that felt slow.

Sean's deck is listed in his article (Since I excerpted from it, hopefully you'll go read it, it is worth seeing), and while we don't have to be degenerate with Grizzy, it's kind of hard not to be very unfair with him in EDH.  EDH is a format that frequently is the least fun when a deck is viably built around a commander; for example, Uril, the Miststalker with lots of auras and things that play nicely with auras, or Azami, Lady of Scrolls + wizards.  Burying people beneath creatures that are hard to interact with, or packing your deck with 20+ counterspells, Wizards, and Azami are great ways to win, but also not a ton of fun to play with.  Griselbrand, by his very "draw 7" nature, seems likely to be degenerate almost every time you play him.

Last I'd like to talk about Griselbrand's price... He is at a very affordable $12 right now online.  He is going to shoot up.  This may not happen right away, or even while he is standard-legal!  The precedent for this?  Iona and the Eldrazi.  All were from a third (large) set, all are legendary hard-to-cast cards, and all have seen eternal play along with being huge hits in almost every casual format that they can be played in.  Grab your playset NOW! or expect to pay $20+ soon.
I hope you've enjoyed Griselbrand because you're going to be seeing a lot more of him, be it on MTGO, in paper, or as the boss fight in Diablo 3!  

 

10 Comments

Faithless Looting in the by ArchGenius at Tue, 05/22/2012 - 14:59
ArchGenius's picture

Faithless Looting in the Living End deck is very funny. Doesn't that just drastically reduce the consistancy of the deck?

I'm drawing a blank...what is by enderfall at Tue, 05/22/2012 - 22:51
enderfall's picture

I'm drawing a blank...what is it about Faithless Looting that makes the deck inconsistent? I'm not familiar with the Living End deck...

Well, generally when you cast by walkerdog at Wed, 05/23/2012 - 00:05
walkerdog's picture

Well, generally when you cast a cascade spell you want to hit Living End. Looting wouldn't be the end of the world, but it's not LE :(

I see now. Hadn't really by enderfall at Wed, 05/23/2012 - 18:38
enderfall's picture

I see now. Hadn't really considered cascade initially. Thanks.

It's the heart of the combo. by Paul Leicht at Wed, 05/23/2012 - 21:46
Paul Leicht's picture

It's the heart of the combo. Living End/Hypergenesis by themselves are just mediocre. Casting them for free at instant speed not so much.

Ohh crappp. It... kind-of... by walkerdog at Tue, 05/22/2012 - 15:14
walkerdog's picture

Ohh crappp. It... kind-of... does.

I mean, it will consistently loot OR LE, but...

It won't consistently do exactly what you want :/ I fail!

og stuff by BOBBAKAKE at Tue, 05/22/2012 - 15:38
BOBBAKAKE's picture
5

Good article. The story at the beginning was awesome. Where did you hear of this story? I am trying to find info on the Avacyn novel. I feel like the search for Avacyn is difficult. Maybe I should look in my Helvaut.

thanks! by BOBBAKAKE at Tue, 05/22/2012 - 19:16
BOBBAKAKE's picture

Nice, I feel caught up now. I like the stories. I hope they don't stop making the novels.

I feel like you are really by Paul Leicht at Tue, 05/22/2012 - 15:43
Paul Leicht's picture
5

I feel like you are really starting to warm up to this writing thing. Enjoyed the article despite the faithless looting faux pas. :D Since you are in green anyway maybe Harmonize is a better choice.