This kinky EDH deck will bring all of your Fifty Shades of Grey fantasies to the cardboard dimension. Your opponents will hopelessly watch as you straight up cheat at MTG in front of their eyes. Put everyone else at the table in chains as you infinitely put cards from the bottom of your deck onto the battlefield.
Grenzo
You have the fortune of playing the most fun commander available. His ability, for all you dummies who cannot read the card, allows you to pay two mana, mill your bottom card, and play it if the card is a creature with power equal to or less than his; all at instant speed. This can lead to some interesting shenanigans when you declare no blocks to the large flyer coming at you, and instead kill it with the
Ravenous Chupacabra
you put on the bottom during your turn. You can also play heavy hitters like
Tree of Perdition
during your opponent's end step, so you can immediately start whipping those little pig boys like the dominatrix you are as soon as the next upkeep. Grenzo is also immune to some graveyard hate like
Rest in Peace
or
Leyline of the Void
, since the replacement effect does not impede the ability. Instead, it just changes the ability to "Put the bottom card of your library into exile. If it's a creature with power less than or equal to Grenzo's power, return it to the battlefield." The second part does not say anything explicitly about returning from the graveyard or needing to be in the graveyard.
Grafdigger's Cage
will prevent the ability, however, unless somebody decides to play
Rest in Peace
.
Scry
Since you care most about what's under your deck, it might be nice to put some utility down there.
Temple of Malice
and
Zhalfirin Void
let you scry upon entry. You can make the most of this by playing
Rakdos Carnarium
, which bounces one of these to your hand to use a second time. In addition to drawing two cards,
Read the Bones
allows you to scry 2; putting a creature or two to the bottom before helping you dig.
Shadows of the Past
is rather powerful in this deck, since it triggers when any creature dies and as you'll see later, we'll be sacrificing plenty of our own creatures. You may not have seen this card ever, but
Clone Shell
is a pimp in this deck.
Clone Shell
let's you exile one card from the top of your deck until he dies, and tuck three others. Even if you can't sacrifice him to cheat out a creature immediately, he can still place an important piece at the bottom of your library. In a turn that surprises nobody,
Viscera Seer
makes an appearance in this deck. Not only is he a sacrifice outlet, but he also let's you stack the bottom of your deck, which makes him a true homie. I know that
Mana Geode
is nothing special outside of it having a scry ETB, but it helps all the same. My personal favorite card in this group is
Crystal Ball
, which allows you to scry two at any time for the cost of one mana. I often find myself using this in my upkeep step to check the top before I draw.
Tuck
Sometimes creatures die and that makes us sad. But wipe that sad look off of your ugly high school drop out mug because we have answers for that. First on the scene is
Vessel of Endless Rest
. This simple mana rock allows you to tuck a value creature on ETB and turn it sideways to play that creature.
Epitaph Golem
,
Junktroller
, and
Reito Lantern
let you pay mana to tuck a card in the graveyard. While tucking creatures allows you to replay them, you can also tuck away a sorcery or two and shuffle your library with a fetch land.
Tel-Jilad Stylus
is another obscure card that allows you to respond to removal or save a blocker, but you can also tuck away ETB value creatures like
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
and replay them for repeated effects. It doesn't stop there, though. This puppy comes with some stack manipulation! In response to somebody attempting to
Terminate
Grenzo, activate him and hold priority. With Grenzo's ability on the stack, target him with
Tel-Jilad Stylus
, then resolve the stack. Grenzo will tuck away to the library (a hidden zone) and his ability will remember his power from the last time he was on the battlefield (a public zone), so he will be replayed via his own ability. Such fun!
Work It
While you may be able to out-value your opponents, it's not likely that you'll be able to kill someone with little bears. That's why this deck has combos. The primary combo being Epitaph Golem + Grenzo, Dungeon Warden + Workhorse
. Peeling all four counters off of
Workhorse
gives you four mana and sends it to the graveyard. From there you can spend the mana to tuck and play it again, allowing you to peel four counters and repeat the loop. This loop won't actually do anything on its own, but you can play cards like Judith, the Scourge Dive or
Blood Artist
to begin pinging infinitely.
Heartstone
helps this combo immensely by reducing the cost of
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
and
Epitaph Golem
's abilities by one mana, so you end up netting two mana for each step of the loop. You can reinvest this infinite mana into your deck to get even more value creatures, or put in an
Exsanguinate
or
Fireball
if that's more your style. This deck is also home to the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts
combo for added flare, since you can grab both creatures as long as Grenzo's power has been buffed by at least one.
Value Breakdown
Since the goal of the deck is to play your boys for free as much as possible, I've built this deck to be more of a toolbox. Due to the diverse nature of the deck, I'll point out a few of the individual cards in the deck and talk more about what they do for us.
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
: Gonti can slam dunk the competition by repeatedly stealing their important cards, or as I've done before, stealing their win-cons and playing them.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel
: We happen to have a fair amount of black in this deck, so he can gain you a substantial amount of life under the right conditions.
Judith, the Scourge Diva
: Not only can she ping stuff like I mentioned before, but she can buff Grenzo's power by one, allowing him to grab creatures with power three or less, without needing to put counters on him.
Priest of Forgotten Gods
: She's an awkward sacrifice outlet, but her payoff includes card advantage, edict effects, and mana that can go back into milling yourself.
Priest of Gix
and
Priest of Urabrask
: These two net you one mana when played from the bottom, but they can also be substitutes for
Workhorse
, provided you have
Ashnod's Altar
in play.
Ashnod's Altar
: This is a beast in this deck, since every creature you sacrifice pays for one activation of Grenzo's ability. You can sometimes go pseudo-infinite by sacrificing nontoken creatures as well as Eldrazi from
Pawn of Ulamog
to dig for your win conditions.
Heartstone
: This artifact doubles the amount of times you can activate your commander, improving your ability to fling cardboard.
Thran Turbine
: For one single mana, you can get two colorless at every upkeep that can't be used on spells, but it can go right into your commander for a free mill every turn.
Doomsday
: If you have enough mana available, resolving this spell can win the game on the spot. Simply stack your library with your infinite combos and watch everyone scoop!
Body Snatcher
: As far as reanimation is concerned, this is a card I really favor.
Phyrexian Delver
reanimates on ETB, but I prefer this guy since he lets me discard the creatures in my hand with high costs, and can even reanimate Grenzo himself. The worst-case scenario is grabbing this guy with a Grenzo activation and having nothing to discard, but you will often have sacrifice outlets available like
Viscera Seer
, so you can hold priority on the ETB and sac for some return on investment.
Thank you for observing the most fun Rakdos commander out there. In this house, we prefer cheating from the library, rather than repeatedly tapping some ugly vampire lady.
