The Gitrog Monster Seasons Past Control

Leviathan BG (Golgari) Combo Control Lands Ramp

Dumblewindow

Land (48)

• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Pit
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crystal Vein
• 1x Darkbore Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Glacial Chasm
• 1x Hickory Woodlot
• 1x Lake of the Dead
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Lotus Field
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Peat Bog
• 1x Petrified Field
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 5x Snow-Covered Forest
• 4x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Tranquil Thicket
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow

Sorcery (25)

• 1x Beseech the Queen
• 1x Casualties of War
• 1x Collective Brutality
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Duress
• 1x Edge of Autumn
• 1x Explore
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Hymn to Tourach
• 1x Inquisition of Kozilek
• 1x Languish
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Raven's Crime
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Restore
• 1x Search for Tomorrow
• 1x Seasons Past
• 1x Splendid Reclamation
• 1x Summer Bloom
• 1x Sylvan Scrying
• 1x Thoughtseize
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Instant (7)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Darkblast
• 1x Fatal Push
• 1x Golgari Charm
• 1x Veil of Summer

Commander (1)

Creature (10)

• 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1x Courser of Kruphix
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1x Elvish Reclaimer
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Primeval Titan
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Underrealm Lich
• 1x World Shaper

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Burgeoning
• 1x City of Solitude
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Heartless Summoning
• 1x Squandered Resources
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Wild Growth

Artifact (2)

• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Expedition Map

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The Gitrog Monster Seasons Past Control

Introduction

Hello! My name is Max, and this is a primer for The Gitrog Monster Seasons Past Control deck in Leviathan Commander format. This deck is a combination of a ramp, value, control and combo, all in one sweet mix. If you're interested in a more... explosive iteration of The Gitrog Monster, make sure to check out this list.

Reasons to play this deck

• The deck draws 2137 cards a turn while simultaneously ramping and chipping away on your opponent's resources.

• With certain draws the deck is capable of winning as soon as turn 4, even despite it's design as a slow contol deck.

• The deck is quite resilient against blue control decks, having the ability to grind value with Life from the Loam or Raven's Crime.

• The deck usually starts off the combo without the guarantee of winning. The odds can be different, sometimes you'll need to draw into a combo piece of two in the process, which I find particularly amusing and exciting.

• There are some particularly disgusting cards that you can play in this deck with no issues, like Glacial Chasm against aggro for instance.

Reasons to leave this deck alone

You don't feel like "screwing the combo together" across tens or hundreds of separate actions in a turn is something for you.

You prefer more linear strategies. This deck is not going to win with planeswalkers or combat damage most of the time, like a standard control deck would.

You can't afford a stable manabase. This deck is one of the most demanding when it comes to mana fixing among the two-coloured commanders. Bad news: Bayou is useful. Very useful.

The basic information

The Gitrog Monster is a (3BG) 6/6 legendary Frog Horror with deathtouch. She doesn't die to Lightning Bolt, she doesn't die to fatal Push or Dismember, overall she's not that easy to kill for some decks.

What makes Gitrog particularly interesting though, are her last 3 abilities. The first one states:

At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice The Gitrog Monster unless you sacrifice a land.

When you first read it you might think 'Okay, it's fair. She's an undercosted 6/6 with deathtouch, she has to have some downsides.' Well, when you read the second ability, you realise it's actually okay, because Gitrog has a built-in Exploration effect. Seems unfair already? Well, read this then:

Whenever a land is put into your graveyard from ANYWHERE, draw a card.

In case you didn't realise, this is absurd. With this beast on the battlefield, your fetch lands become cantrips as well, Lake of the Dead isn't as painful to play as before, and cycling lands become almost Ancestral Recalls, drawing 2 cards for 1 mana at instant speed.

Once we've covered the commander of the deck, let's take a look at the general strategy.

General Strategy

The deck is primarily focused around ramping out Gitrog (as soon as turn 2 with certain Exploration draws). Use discard spells to slow down control decks and help you cast Gitrog without fear of losing it to a Force Spike or other countermagic.

Once the Froggo hits the field, you can start grinding value with Raven's Crime or Life from the Loam against control or Darkblast against aggro. With all the fetchlands, land sacrifice effects and cycling lands you'll be able to draw a ton of cards and really make use of the dredge/retrace mechanics.

The way this deck wins though, is via a somewhat complex loop, which allows you to cast Collective Brutality an infinite number of times and drain your opponent to death.

The loop

For the loop to work, you need a couple cards available to you:

• Gitrog on the field
• Squandered Resources on the field
• Splendid Reclamation + Seasons Past + Collective Brutality + 3 or 5 CMC tutor (Grim Tutor or Dark Petition)

Don't worry, I know it looks like A LOT of pieces you need to have but the truth is, I often start comboing off with literally nothing but Gitrog, Squandered Resources and 4 or 5 lands on the battlefield, and just draw my way into the loop.

Loop is, as follows:

• Sacrifice all lands you control for mana using squandered resources (remember to count the mana you need, it is sometimes fine to start going off when you're one or two mana away from what you need, if you still have a land drop to make for example, so that you can draw into a land in the process and play it for 2 mana essentially, since Squandered Resources is on the field)
• Cast Splendid Reclamation to return all lands from your graveyard to the battlefield
• Cast Collective Brutality to drain your opponent for 2
• Cast Seasons Past returning both Splendid Reclamation and Collective Brutality to your hand
• Cast your tutor, fetching Seasons Past from the bottom of your deck back to your hand
• Repeat (note that you can return the tutor to your hand as well, thus allowing yourself to continuously fetch back Seasons Past)

NOTE: If you originally use Grim Tutor for the loop, switch to Dark Petition as soon as possible, since Grim Tutor will effectively make you lose 1 life each repetition of the loop. (-3 from Grim Tutor +2 Collective Brutality).

Why is this legal?

Underrealm Lich. Just look at it. If you just happen to have this bad boy and Gitrog on the field at the same time, your opponent should just scoop 'em up. Why? Whenever you would draw a card, you resolve the Lich's trigger instead. You choose the best out of 3, and put the other 2 into your graveyard. If one of them happens to be a land (which is quite probable with THIS land count), you repeat the process, since Gitrog's draw trigger hits the stack. This way you will often be able to search through your entire library in lumps of 3, choosing the best one of the 3 each time, and find your combo this way. The best thing about it though, is that Underrealm Lich does not allow you to deck yourself, so you don't lose the game while continuously putting draw triggers on the stack during the combo.

NOTE: Because, while comboing off, you'll keep sacrificing lands, make sure that after you've drawn all necessary pieces of the puzzle, either kill your own Gitrog so that you don't deck yourself in the process, or cast Underrealm Lich to give yourself immunity to decking.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Leviathan legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 51 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.52