I think you should run Chains of Mephistopheles it helps you dig for dakmor, and wins with it and one other card with dredge in your yard/library

I also think doomsday is a very strong line to win in frog

if you want you can also check out my list Oh look its a resolved doomsday

@Brassmoose: Hey there man, first of all thanks for commenting.

Both Chains of Mephistopheles and Doomsday are cards that I've heavily considered running in the past. In regards to Chains, I don't think that Gitrog really needs it. I see stax cards as a way for slower decks to break card parity through "virtual" card advantage, and Chains is definitely an example of that here. However, you can break card parity just as easily (if not even more easily) with frog, and this is even when your opponents have draw engines of their own in the field. In addition, I really don't like the way the card limits my own game plan to almost pure dredge in the corner cases where I do land it, disallowing me from drawing into more lands to play with Gitrog and keeping my ramp game up.

As for Doomsday, it's mostly due to personal taste. I already have two Doomsday decks running rampant in my local meta, and it's started to become a fad of sorts for people to jam Doomsday in almost every combo deck with black. That's perfectly reasonable of course as the card is good, I just don't like reducing the "combo diversity" of my meta by jamming it in. Furthermore, I'd rather pursue other weird ways to win the game such as spam Sunscorched Desert infinitely than cut a card for Geth's Verdict or Ebony Charm for added Doomsday consistency. Finally, as I regularly face decks with Doomsday, I still have that line available to me through Praetor's Grasp if I feel like it. So that's a plus I guess! :P

Despite everything I said, I do recognize that both cards are definitely good in Gitrog. I encourage playing either or both if your meta/game plan/preference allows you to.

Regarding your list, I actually took a peek at it very recently through Discord. I can safely say I don't have much constructive criticism to add as it's already pretty good, but how's Boseiju been working with you so far? Thanks again for commenting!

The biggest reason I would suggest chains is that it lets you win through a cursed totem effect

That's something I haven't thought of, I don't come across Cursed Totem or Linvala, Keeper of Silence that often. I'll definitely keep that in mind in the future.

ive also been debating adding some small hate pieces, like torpor orb or null rod(which i see you already run), because i feel the combo is already pretty fast and resilient and could utilize putting others behind well, i just have a gut feeling it would be good, Just wanna know your thoughts on this idea

this deck is so complicated. how do i start to learn how to play this?

@vectral

I recommend starting by reading Razzliox's extensive write-up on Gitrog here:

http://www.5colorcombo.com/modern/2016/10/10/gitrog.html

The primer is a bit out of date, but it includes the 101 on how to combo off. Additional reads include:

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/758879-turbofroggy-the-gitrog-monster

and

Just Froggin' Around - The Gitrog Monster Primer

I think the last one has the most updated and concise ways laid out for how to combo off, so I think that's the most viable source of concrete information right now. Read through the first two write-ups and use the last primer to round it all up and jog your memory if you forget something.

Great info. I'll read into that.

Hey man I was jsut curious as to what the combo with necromancy is in this deck. i also play TGM but never found it nessesary as far as my list went. the list i have uploaded is my current list and ive found it to be extremely consistant. im still working on it. a few obvious cards come out a few go in... etc... im reall curios as to the purpose of necromancy and how your deck interacts with counterspells such as dissipate that exile spells. i noticed you where running disruption so opponents cant play spells on your turn, but is that really enough? also how dos LED feel in your deck is it also worth it? anyway let me know what you think of my list if you get a chance.

ThePrawnfessor necromancy is for making infinite green mana to kill with crop rotation on endstep with elvish spirit guide and reanimating rift sweeper at instant speed and abusing how the clean up step works, it's utility is nice too. Led also helps you make green mana while going off and helps power out a frog.

Ok so whats the infinite green loop then i still dont understand how that works.

@ThePrawnfessor

The links that are posted in the description should help you out with any questions you might have, but the main reason why Necromancy is so powerful in the deck is that it allows us to win at instant speed. This usually happens when we're on our discard phase and repeatedly dredging and discarding Dakmor Salvage down to hand size due to repeated discard phases (see Ending Phase: Rule 514.3a for additional information).

Let's say that we're in a situation that we have The Gitrog Monster on the table, Dakmor Salvage in hand as well as 7 other cards, but no discard outlet to play. We proceed to end phase and then to cleanup, but because we're discarding Dakmor down to hand size we get a draw trigger from Gitrog. This draw trigger gives a new priority cycle and allows us to dredge Dakmor back to our hand, drawing an extra card if we hit a land with the dredge. Because players received priority, another cleanup step begins after that and we discard Dakmor again and repeat this action until we have a hand that we like. So essentially, we're using our cleanup step as a discard outlet for Dakmor, discarding any extra cards we don't need while looking for the cards that we do.

When we've started looping the cleanup step, we're looking to draw the following:

• Skirge Familiar
• Necromancy
• Possibly any rituals, Elvish Spirit Guide and/or Crop Rotation to accumulate enough mana to cast Necromancy. A hand that you need to get if you have no other mana sources is Skirge Familiar, Necromancy, Elvish Spirit Guide, Dark Ritual and Crop Rotation so you can cast Rotation and get a land that produces black, then ritual into Necromancy and discard Familiar to reanimate it with the spell.

Alternatively you can flash in an Oblivion Crown to get a discard outlet online quicker, but you'll need Skirge Familiar in the part below where you make infinite black mana.

After getting Skirge Familiar into play, start looping Dakmor like normally and draw your deck, producing tons of black mana in the process (although not infinite, that comes next).

After drawing your deck, you can produce infinite black mana by doing the following:

1. Discard a land, putting Gitrog's "draw a card" trigger on the stack.
2. Before the trigger resolves (and kills you), discard Kozilek to shuffle it and the land back to your library.
3. Before letting the draw trigger resolve, discard and dredge Dakmor Salvage to Skirge, milling the land and Kozilek. This creates a draw trigger and a Kozilek shuffle trigger. Put the draw trigger on the stack first and then put the shuffle trigger on top so the shuffle resolves first, putting the land and Kozilek back to the library.
4. Resolve your two draw triggers, drawing your 2-card deck and netting you 3 black mana.
5. Repeat.

Also, to loop any other nonland card than Kozilek, we can play/discard our card + Kozilek and let them shuffle, then discard land cards to draw our nonlands + Kozilek again and use the loop above to draw our lands we discarded + Kozilek to get back to square one. This loop effectively makes our library, hand and graveyard essentially the same zone, allowing us to play any of our instant-speed spells infinite times assuming we have the mana for it. Some Gitrog decks end the game at this point by just repeatedly casting something like Ebony Charm or Geth's Verdict to drain the table out, but we're using Rath's Edge/Sunscorched Desert to win instead and this requires infinite green mana.

To get infinite green mana, you can do it in two ways. One way is to repeatedly reanimate (Necromancy) and sacrifice (Culling the Weak) our Riftsweeper to get Elvish Spirit Guide back to our deck, then draw and exile it repeatedly for green mana. The other way is to repeatedly cast Crop Rotation, finding any land that taps for two green mana or more (pretty much only Twilight Mire or Gaea's Cradle with two or more creatures on the field) and then tap it for more green to cast another Crop Rotation, sacrificing the same land to get it back untapped (to rotate into the same land, just shuffle it back with Kozilek before Rotation resolves).

Now that we have infinite green mana, we can start Crop Rotating for Sunscorched Desert or Rath's Edge to start pinging our opponents for 1 each time. With Sunscorched Desert the loop is the same as the loop above, but to win with Rath's Edge you need to have an extra land to sacrifice each time you use its ability. You can do this by casting Necromancy on a Dryad Arbor (as it is a creature!) to bring it back to play, then sacrifice the Arbor to the ability of Rath's Edge to ping one opponent for 1. Repeat for infinite damage.

As you can see, Necromancy has a ton of applications in the deck, and is definitely a must if we're looking to win at instant speed. For more concise and easy-to-the-eyes information, check the primer links in the description if you want to learn more or have further questions.

@n0bunga

Hello! texaslady's art indeed is very beautiful, not bad alters on your end either!

You're correct that Necropotence does exile cards when I discard them, but one thing to note is that the discarded cards each create a trigger that says "remove this card in your graveyard from the game", instead of exiling it outright via replacement effect. See the following ruling for the Necropotence:

6/8/2016: If the discarded card isnt put into your graveyard (due to an effect such as madness) or leaves your graveyard (perhaps because another effect returned it to your hand), it wont be exiled.

What this means in practice is that despite the popular belief, Necropotence doesn't disturb the combo we are running at all (unless you're trying to go off on your discard phase using it as your discard outlet, that requires changing phases). This is because when you discard Dakmor Salvage to an outlet with a Necropotence in play, you can stack the Gitrog draw trigger on top of the Necro's exiling trigger, dredging the land back to the safety of our hand before the exiling trigger from Necropotence resolves. Same applies for when we discard a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: putting the shuffle trigger on top of the exiling trigger just shuffles the graveyard back to the library before any exiling occurs.

Finally, if you for some reason did exile any wincon cards, you can just continuously reanimate and sacrifice a Riftsweeper as long as you still have Necromancy and Culling the Weak in the deck aside from the Dakmor loop. This reshuffles any exiled cards back to our library, allowing us to restore even a large amount of pieces back from exile.

Regards on Faith of the Devoted, here's my write-up on how the card works as an optional backup wincon for the deck:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveEDH/comments/6bkowu/state_of_the_deck_gitrog_dredge_posttournament/

@n0bunga

Each day you learn something new, and with Gitrog you might learn even more than one new thing per day! If it makes you feel better, even I recently learned that Lake of the Dead does not even hit the battlefield if you don't sacrifice a swamp, preventing any landfall triggers from occurring.

Lesson of the day: Gitrog is not a simple deck to pilot. :,D

That alt art Gitrog is gorgeous. The list looks tight too. It's a shame that there isn't Kozilek-esque ability with a lower CMC.

@enpc

Thanks! No kidding with the lack of a cheaper Kozilek, getting domed for 10 via Ad Nauseam is a kick to the curb and forces us to be more conservative with the card in comparison to other combo decks. You actually can use Gaea's Blessing as a shuffler by its lonesome, but it needs more dead cards like Golgari Brownscale and Grave-Shell Scarab to become functional. Additionally, having another shuffler that works as protection for targeted grave exile is incredibly effective when fighting grave hate, so Kozilek is here to stay until WotC brings a cheaper option.

@n0bunga

Pretty much all lands that do something are something to keep in mind when considering Gitrog. Scavenger Grounds was also something that I heavily considered, even though it mostly shoots ourselves in the foot.

Thanks for the praises. The reason why I'm skipping the faster ways to win is purely to minimize the amount of near-completely dead cards to zero. You can still use Praetor's Grasp as a 3-mana Mana Crypt or a tutor for Ad Nauseam in competitive tables, or if you want to be silly, take someone else's one-card wincon.

Speaking of Grasp, when people start consistently exiling your Dakmor Salvage face-down, that's when it's more advisable to start running a non-infinite wincon. Faith of the Devoted, or alternatively Aetherflux Reservoir can then be used to win by looping through your deck via Life from the Loam and Skirge Familiar. If you opponents run these cards (or something like Exsanguinate/Laboratory Maniac) themselves, then just Grasp them after comboing out and win with their win condition instead. For the record, that is incredibly satisfying to pull off. ;)

Why run an alternative wincon when you could recycle Grasp infinite times and have them lose on their draw step?

Leptys i think scavenger grounds is playable since you can dredge the important things out from your yard 'in response' as the sacrifice hapens first

What about Traverse the Ulvenwald?

Nice deck! I'll have to take a closer look when not at work, but very tight. +1

I'd appreciate your thoughts on my deck if you have a moment:

Everybody Loves Hypnotoad - The Gitrog [[Primer]]

Commander / EDH* Ender666666

SCORE: 316 | 338 COMMENTS | 38363 VIEWS | IN 130 FOLDERS

@RedReveng3

Traverse the Ulvenwald is not the worst card in our deck as we're better at getting to Delirium than other strategies, assuming we have access to something like Bazaar or a card with Dredge. After several revisions my list has had less and less cards that mill us save for the best few however, and this makes the card relatively situational in too many situations to warrant an include anymore. It's a cheap alternative tutor for budget builds and does work wonders when you're including more dredgers in the deck. It's just that my list doesn't really require or want it at the state it is right now.

@Ender666666

Thank you, an awesome-looking list on your end as well! I see it's tuned to a "high power" type of metagame, something that isn't 100% competitive but not far from it. The resiliency, card quality and the option of playing more than several gameplans at once when you play multiple combos are all great when you're going for the out-valuing plan, and I bet this list is good at keeping control-ish decks guessing in that sense. The deck has a relatively high average mana cost at 2.85 right now in relation to 100% competitive decks, mainly because of your diverse wincon package (Buried Alive Necrotic Ooze packages with Phyrexian Devourer and Walking Ballista/Triskelion work wonders in a high-curve deck like this!). The combo package is something that could be trimmed down if you ever have a problem with other decks being faster. I usually dedicate deckslots for about 1-2 combos for reference.

Adding 1CMC mana dorks will help in getting your board-state going faster as well, but I'd reckon' they are not the best option of ramping in a more control-oriented metagame where board wipes are common. I'd still consider trying out something like Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Dark Ritual and Wild Growth in the list as additional fast ramp to get Gitrog out early on if dorks aren't your thing.

Hopefully that was as at least somewhat helpful, cheers!

Wow, I can't believe you took all the time to write out the full combo! I thought I was the only one who knew how it worked (even if I didn't realize the infinite mana/card recursion bit until yesterday). You have my congratulations and +1!

@OneItsStarted

Thank you for the kind words! I tried to cover as much as humanly possible with the primer as there already are good primers out there, and to get more or less all the essential information I knew about Gitrog to one place. Good to see it included something for more experienced pilots like you as well, and I hope the write-up will serve you well in the future too!

How does this deck lose if it can beat instant speed grave hate?