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Carrion, My Wayward Swarm (Grist Insects + Song)

Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) Budget Insect Jank Mill Reanimator Sacrifice Scry Theme/Gimmick Tokens

Gattison

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Insects (32)

Removal (4)

Lands (36)

Ramp (12)

Win (6)

Commander (1)

Commander: Grist, the Hunger Tide

Draw Manipulation (13)

Recursion (10)

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Black/Green EDH/Commander Grist, the Hunger Tide Insect Tribal Reanimator (Oops, 50% Creatures)
BG Golgari +1ing Grist

Also, I think this may actually be, as the kids say, "The #1 Grist, the Hunger Tide deck on TappedOut!" Cool, huh? It's probably because of the song.... No other Grist, the Hunger Tide deck has a theme song. Yeah, that's definitely it....

"Carrion, My Wayward Swarm," by Kansasdesh
The following is a parody of "Carry On, My Wayward Son," by Kansas

Carrion, my wayward swarm
There'll be days when food's not warm
They say clearly we're all pests  
Don't you scry no more

Once I scavenged in the Blighted Woodland
Just to recur a colossal chameleon
I was filling up my graveyard
With my Mortuary Mire
I can see my topdeck without scrying
I can revive all my creatures that are dying
I share the morsels when I'm eating
With a Giant Adephage

Carrion, my wayward swarm
There'll be days when food's not warm
They say clearly we're all pests  
Don't you scry no more

Masquerading as a man in trenchcoat
On the shoulders of a Phantom Nantuko
But like that one scene in Constantine
I'm just a bunch of millipedes
In a graveyard full of insects and changelings
Paying mana for artisanal fiending
I resurrect a simulacrum
And I hear sad robot say

Carrion, my wayward swarm
There'll be days when food's not warm
They say clearly we're all pests  
Don't you scry no more (No!)

(buzz)

Carrion, you will always Dismember
Carrion, like an Infestation Expert  
Now your grave's no longer empty
Surely BUGs don't need no

Carrion, my wayward swarm
There'll be days when food's not warm
Conspiratorially we're all pests  
Don't you scry no more (don't you scry in those colors!)

Yes, Grist, the Hunger Tide is legal as a Commander in EDH. The card does not say so specifically, but it DOES say that Grist is a creature AT ALL TIMES except for when he is on the battlefield. This means that when Grist is in your hand, he is officially a creature. The same is true for when Grist is your graveyard, library, command zone, exile zone, in your collection, in an unopened pack or on an uncut sheet of cards, because the official ruling is that Grist's first ability is active during the deckbuilding process, before the game even starts.

Grist is a 3-drop who wants to be cast and used as early as possible. Grist likes having creatures in the graveyard, and he prefers those creatures to be insects, but it's not strictly necessary.
+1: Create an insect token, then mill a card. If you mill an insect card, then +1 Grist and repeat. You'll find that most often these tokens are your main board presence, while most of the actual insect creatures in the 99 will end up in your graveyard to strengthen Grist's "ultimate" ability.
-2: Destroying creatures (and planeswalkers) is pretty easy since Grist can do it himself, at the cost of a single token. Beyond that you'll need a handful of removal for other permanent types, like enchantments and artifacts.
-5: Once your graveyard has a bunch of creatures in it, you can start ultimating Grist repeatedly, because he often can end up receiving more than one loyalty counter per turn. You should be able to use this almost like a finisher and hit the whole table for 10 or more damage multiple times, or else after a big swing.

Grist likes putting and having creatures in his own graveyard. When you +1 him, you get an insect token, then mill a card. If the milled card is an insect card, repeat; so obviously there are as many insect creatures in here as a I could fit. Insects are pretty janky, so a lot of them are really not worth mentioning, but there are some worth noting.

There are big beaters, like Giant Adephage, Carrion Grub, Scute Mob (sometimes) and Crash of Rhino Beetles. There are decent utility creatures like Caustic Caterpillar and Xantid Swarm. We've even got some okay changelings (because they are technically also insects) such as Chameleon Colossus and Graveshifter.

Beyond insects, there are other creatures included just for their synergy, not including a bunch of mana dorks for ramping (which will be covered below in the Ramp section). Izoni, Thousand-Eyed is a great card for this deck when played mid or late-game, and can also provide card advantage. Old Rutstein is sort of like a mini-Grist that can also help with card draw. Other, non-insect-producing creatures will be covered below in their respective categories.

I've found that you don't really want to "simply" draw cards with this deck, however. Instead you will find yourself wanting to manipulate the top of your deck so that you can ensure you get the cards you need in hand, but also ensuring you can re-trigger Grist reliably. To that end we've got cards like Viscera Seer, Bontu the Glorified and Woe Strider that allow you to scry. Additionally, cards like Vivien, Monsters' Advocate and Descendants' Path are used for even more control of the top of your deck.

Since you want all your creatures to be insects, we've got Conspiracy and Maskwood Nexus, which are literally the only two Magic cards in all of existence that do anything like this. When in play, each of these permanents will essentially turn all the creatures in your deck into insects, making Grist much more reliable. Finally, in order to help you find these cards quicker we've also got a bit of tutoring power with the classic Demonic Tutor, as well as Fiend Artisan.

Since Grist will be dumping so much of your stuff into the trash, you'll find yourself wanting to get some of it back. This is perfectly reasonable, and a good idea actually. Do so with utility creatures like Eternal Witness, Graveshifter and Moldgraf Monstrosity, or with utility lands such as Mortuary Mire, Haunted Fengraf, Memorial to Folly or Bala Ged Recovery  . Or get it done the old fashioned way, with "spells" like Animate Dead or Treasured Find.

There is no Sol Ring in this deck, or any mana rocks at all, really. This is because Sol Ring does nothing for me while sitting in my graveyard, which is probably where it's going to end up half the time. On the other hand, if I use a simple little Fyndhorn Elves dork instead of a mana rock, then Grist can actually make use of that creature later with his Ultimate. Therefore I ended up abandoning artifact-based ramp completely in this deck so I could focus on more creature-oriented approaches. The two non-creature "ramp" cards I included--Growing Rites of Itlimoc   and Cryptolith Rite--both should synergize much more strongly with the rest of the deck than a single dork/rock.

Grist can handle a lot of threats himself, and what he can't, he can rely on Beast Within, Tel-Jilad Justice or Caustic Caterpillar for. Also, we've got In Garruk's Wake because every EDH deck needs at least one board wipe.

Blex, Vexing Pest   isn't jaw-droppingly amazing or anything, but he can basically double the power of your insect tokens. Meanwhile Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat and especially Syr Konrad, the Grim all punish your opponents even more whenever you keep doing whatever this deck wants to do normally, like mill insects.

Nothing truly ground-breaking going on here either, but is important to note that I included as many "land-fetch-lands" (Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Blighted Woodland and Myriad Landscape) as I could, so that I can strip a few lands out of the deck and increase my odds for a Grist trigger by however much.

Also, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood is a notable include that can double the power of your Insect token army.

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Top Ranked
Date added 3 years
Last updated 8 months
Exclude colors WUR
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

6 - 0 Mythic Rares

28 - 0 Rares

25 - 0 Uncommons

20 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.39
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Blood, Copy Clone, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Insect 1/1 BG, Insect 1/1 G, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch, Shapeshifter 2/2 U, Treasure
Folders Gattison's EDH/Commander Decks, EDH Decks (Budget), Awesome Decks, grist hungry boi, Decks for Comparison, The List, Tribal, Future Deck Building Ideas, Memes from Other Spheres, Cool EDH Decks
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