A lot of people were asking for Grimgrin, so here he is!  Sorry I didn't get this out in time for Halloween last week, but you know, real life and stuff.

When I decided to put Grimgrin together, there was really only one question I asked myself:  Zombie tribal or not?  It's the rare deck that isn't zombie tribal using Grimgrin.  However, those decks tend to be solely combo decks.  I knew that I didn't want to go the combo route, but I wasn't creative enough to come up with another way of using Grimgrin.  So zombie tribal it is!  Here's the deck:

Grimgrin, Corpse- Born

A Commander Deck

Creatures 1 Blood Artist 1 Cemetery Reaper 1 Crypt Ghast 1 Death Baron 1 Diregraf Captain 1 Evil Twin 1 Fatestitcher 1 Fleshbag Marauder 1 Geth, Lord of the Vault 1 Grave Titan 1 Graveborn Muse 1 Gravecrawler 1 Havengul Lich 1 Jhessian Zombies 1 Lich Lord of Unx 1 Liliana's Reaver 1 Lord of the Undead 1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed 1 Noxious Ghoul 1 Phantasmal Image 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Reassembling Skeleton 1 Shepherd of Rot 1 Soulless One 1 Twisted Abomination 1 Undead Alchemist 1 Undead Warchief 1 Vengeful Dead 1 Withered Wretch 1 Zombie Master 30 cards Other Spells [Artifacts] 1 Dimir Signet 1 Eldrazi Monument 1 Mana Crypt 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Sol Ring 1 Skullclamp 1 Sword of Vengeance [Enchantments] 1 Call to the Grave 1 Coastal Piracy 1 Dark Prophecy 1 Endless Ranks of the Dead 1 Grave Pact 1 Phyrexian Arena 1 Phyrexian Reclamation 1 Rooftop Storm 1 Tombstone Stairwell [Instants] 1 Counterspell 1 Cruel Revival 1 Crypt Incursion 1 Cyclonic Rift 1 Intuition 1 Mana Drain 1 Soul Manipulation 1 Vampiric Tutor [Sorceries] 1 Army of the Damned 1 Damnation 1 Demonic Tutor 1 Living Death 1 Patriarch's Bidding 1 Rite of Replication 1 Sever the Bloodline 1 Time Spiral 32 cards

Lands 1 Bojuka Bog 1 Cabal Coffers 1 Command Tower 1 Dimir Aqueduct 1 Dreadship Reef 1 Drowned Catacomb 5 Island 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge 1 Miren, the Moaning Well 1 Mutavault 1 Polluted Delta 1 Reflecting Pool 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse 1 Strip Mine 1 Sunken Ruins 13 Swamp 1 Underground Sea 1 Unholy Grotto 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 1 Watery Grave 37 cards Sideboard 1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born 1 cards

Zombies!  I'm not gonna lie and try to say that this is the most innovative deck, because it's not.  Still, it has zombies, and that's what matters.

Deck Tech:

So yeah, zombies!  There isn't a whole lot to say about the deck honestly.  My biggest issue was really trying to keep the creature count high.  There were plenty of cards I wanted to include, but I didn't want to make my creature count go below 30.  As a matter of fact, I think it should really be closer to 34, but I couldn't make that work.

If left alone the deck can make a ton of  zombies.  In addition, a bunch of zombies will die, either from being Tombstone Stairwell tokens, or just getting fed to Grimgrin.  I wanted to really take advantage of those death triggers, which is why Blood Artist is in the deck.  Falkenrath Noble is another card that can be included but I couldn't find the room for it, but it serves as redundancy.

With Intuition, you almost always grab Gravecrawler and Reassembling Skeleton.  The third card is very situational, but if you have Phyrexian Reclamation in play it obviously should be another creature.  Flashback cards like Sever the Bloodline and Army of the Damned aren't bad decisions late game either.  I debated putting Academy Ruins and/or Crucible of Worlds so that the Intuition piles could be more diverse, but I really didn't think it was necessary.  Your mileage may vary.

If you have Tombstone Stairwell in play, or you're holding Patriarch's Bidding, don't be afraid to use Geth on yourself, or even Lich Lord of Unx depending on your life total.  Take advantage of your graveyard while you can.

Yes, there is an infinite combo in here with Rooftop Storm, Gravecrawler and Grimgrin.  It never came up for me, but it's worth knowing about.  Also,Dark Prophecy can be dangerous to play with, just be careful.  Zombie Apocalypse was considered, but the high casting cost, along with the fact that I was already running Living Death and Patriarch's Bidding, meant that I skipped it.

The deck can have some pretty strong starts, but I noticed that there were games where I had nothing going and was still targeted.  Maybe people don't like Grimgring that much?  Or my reputation may precede me.  Who knows.  So there's the deck!  Let's see it in action:

Game 1:

This one has just a little bit of chaos going.  Thraximundar does a good job of setting up some draw and defense, with Propaganda, Bitterblossom and Mystic Remora while Thassa gets card advantage with some little dudes.  Ashling plays Pyrohemia and I get some draw out with Dark Prophecy and Phyrexian Arena.  That's when Thrax plays Vicious Shadows.  And then, Ashling drops the bomb that is Thieves' Auction.

Ashling immediately goes for Vicious Shadows, while I go after mana and defense and the others go for card draw.  Going for draw seems like it might not be the best idea with Vicious Shadows out there and no one playing Green or White.  Ashling plays Wild Evocation, which helps me reduce my hand.  When Thrax plays Recurring Insight, Ashling makes her move, and uses her Pyrohemia plus the plethora of Faerie tokens to take out both Thassa and Thrax.  Luckily I have no cards in hand, but Ashling is pretty low on life.  She tries a last ditch effort Scrambleverse but doesn't get my Grimgrin, and I win. 

Game 2:

This one is a 2 headed giant game where I'm teamed up with a defensive Zur the Enchanter deck.  Interestingly, the Karona deck we are going up against is only Simic.  Zur tutors up and early Telepathy so we always know what's going on.  However Rafiq draws into Quietus Spike and uses it to knock us down to 18 life.  I put out Grimgrin knowing that Karona will try to Spin into Myth him so that I can Mana Drain it, even knowing that Karona has Spelltwine in hand to do it again.  However, the Mana Drain mana helps me cast a kicked Rite of Replication targeting my own Undead Warchief, making a bunch of huge dudes. 

Meanwhile Zur is trying to help us with some life gain in the form of extort from Blind Obedience, while Rafiq slows us down with Stoic Angel.  However eventually Zur gets Ethereal Armor along with Steel of the Godhead on it to take out Rafiq despite our low life total.  With Rafiq gone I can attack with all my Warchiefs, and Karona concedes.

Game 3:

So this game lacks anyone playing White, but it doesn't really matter.  Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker is a straight up mill deck, but also includes a couple of unusual card choices.  Specifically, he plays Illness in the Ranks, which is important because the Nath player gets nothing when he uses Vraska's ultimate.  I'm able to play Army of the Damned when Nath plays Sylvan Primordial, followed up by Erebos using Sepulchral Primordial to pull a Clone variant from someone's graveyard and copy the Sylvan, and me playing Evil Twin to copy the Sylvan.  This was enough to have Mirko concede.

I set my zombie horde to go after the Nath player, as they're pumped by Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, and he concedes when I knock him down to 18 after screwing up and not attacking him with my whole team.  Erebos uses Diabolic Revelation to search up Crucible of Worlds to get his Cabal Coffers from his graveyard but I have a Counterspell for that.  He then plays Elixir of Immortality, shuffling his graveyard back into his library, and searches up the Coffers with Expedition Map, then is able to cast and activate Mindslaver.  Before my turn I sacrifice the Evil Twin to my Grimgrin, and it comes back due to the undying from Mikeaus.  I think have the twin copy the Primordial again, blowing up his Coffers.  Luckily Erebos can't really do anything with my hand besides Living Death when he has no graveyard, and I win the next turn.

So there you go!  Zombies for the win!  Hope you guys like the deck.  Like I said, you can sometimes get some hate every once in a while, but if you aren't you have a pretty good shot of bringing forth the zombie horde.  Just like the Walking Dead!  Good times.

Leviathan, aka Tarasco on MTGO
mrmorale32 at yahoo dot com

CONQUEROR & COMMANDER ARCHIVE