In response to lethal, I win! [[Retired]]

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Artifact BR (Rakdos) Combo Control Goblins

resplendentobscurity

Land (35)

• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Flamekin Village
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Great Furnace
• 1x Hanweir Battlements  ^Meld
• 1x High Market
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Isolated Watchtower
• 8x Mountain
• 1x Opal Palace
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Spinerock Knoll
• 9x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Vault of Whispers
• 1x Zhalfirin Void

Goblins (13)

• 1x Beetleback Chief
• 1x Boggart Harbinger
• 1x Goblin Cratermaker
• 1x Goblin Trashmaster
• 1x Goblin Welder
• 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1x Krenko, Mob Boss
• 1x Mad Auntie
• 1x Marsh Flitter
• 1x Siege-Gang Commander
• 1x Skirk Fire Marshal
• 1x Skirk Prospector
• 1x Treasure Nabber

Removal (12)

• 1x Duplicant
• 1x Fulminator Mage
• 1x Goblin Cratermaker
• 1x Goblin Trashmaster
• 1x Merciless Executioner
• 1x Meteor Golem
• 1x Nihil Spellbomb
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Puppeteer Clique
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Skirk Fire Marshal

Utility (19)

• 1x Anger
• 1x Boggart Harbinger
• 1x Dualcaster Mage
• 1x Flamekin Village
• 1x Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• 1x Hanweir Battlements  ^Meld
• 1x Heartstone
• 1x Illusionist's Bracers
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Judith, the Scourge Diva
• 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1x Kuldotha Forgemaster
• 1x Mad Auntie
• 1x Marionette Master
• 1x Ogre Battledriver
• 1x Puppeteer Clique
• 1x Siege-Gang Commander
• 1x Spinerock Knoll
• 1x Summoner's Egg

Recursion (14)

• 1x Canal Dredger
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Epitaph Golem
• 1x Feldon of the Third Path
• 1x Goblin Welder
• 1x Junk Diver
• 1x Junktroller
• 1x Myr Retriever
• 1x Phyrexian Delver
• 1x Reito Lantern
• 1x Scrap Trawler
• 1x Whisper, Blood Liturgist

Sac (8)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x High Market
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Skirk Prospector
• 1x Soldevi Adnate
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Whisper, Blood Liturgist

Draw (5)

• 1x Jar of Eyeballs
• 1x Magus of the Wheel
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Teferi's Puzzle Box

Commander (1)

Mana (15)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Cathodion
• 1x Iron Myr
• 1x Isolated Watchtower
• 1x Leaden Myr
• 1x Palladium Myr
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Skirk Prospector
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Soldevi Adnate
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence
• 1x Treasure Nabber

Library Bottom (13)

• 1x Canal Dredger
• 1x Crystal Ball
• 1x Epitaph Golem
• 1x Isolated Watchtower
• 1x Jar of Eyeballs
• 1x Junktroller
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Reito Lantern
• 1x Teferi's Puzzle Box
• 1x Tel-Jilad Stylus
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Zhalfirin Void

Combo (6)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Judith, the Scourge Diva
• 1x Krenko, Mob Boss
• 1x Marionette Master
• 1x Ogre Battledriver

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Sideboard

Other (10)

• 1x Deathbringer Thoctar
• 1x Metallic Mimic
• 1x Mindclaw Shaman
• 1x Murderous Redcap
• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Perilous Myr
• 1x Priest of Gix
• 1x Priest of Urabrask
• 1x Thornbite Staff
• 1x Workhorse

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What does the Deck want to do?

Usually, get really, really lucky and win during another person's combat step. Also, use and abuse creatures over and over again by sacrificing and recurring them. But also just be really lucky like a greedy little goblin!

Originally, the deck was SUPER combo-y. The first time I took out for a spin, I won on turn 6 with Cathodion, Thornbite Staff, and Goblin Welder to infinitely exchange Cathodion and another artifact creature to generate infinite mana. I have since changed it to its current list, as I didn't want the deck to be oriented toward just comboing off as fast as possible. In the side board, you'll find the cards I took out.

Now, The deck is built to be oriented toward value and control, with a combo finish, both infinite and non-infinite. That said, I'd say it's a lot more fun for the way I want to play it with my playgroup. We're not opposed to infinites, but we also don't just want to race to see who can combo off first.

How does it achieve this

Through looping our creatures ETB abilites with the use of cards like Ashnod's Altar, and Epitaph Golemn.

With the ability to continually recur creatures like Metor Golemn, Ravenous Chupacabra, and Plaguecrafter we are often playing the control game, delaying our opponents until we can drain them out with Gray Merchant of Asphodel, or Marionette Master.

I have decided to go with a strict power 3 or less rule so that Grenzo never needs to be more than 3, in order to get as many successful flips as possible.

Also the reason for only 2 sorceries (one of which is recurable), no instants, or enchantments.

Non-creature artifacts suck to flip, but they are recurable, but I've also tried to limit the amount of these as possible as well.

Win Conditions

The main combo is:Ashnod's Altar+Epitaph Golem+Marionette Master or any other creature that creates 2 other creatures on ETB to generate infinite mana with Ashnod's Altar and dump all of our creatures onto the battlefield. From there, we can Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Marionette Master, or Judith, the Scourge Diva until our opponents are dead.

Krenko, Mob Boss+Ogre Battledriver+ a way to sac Krenko, and flip him back on the battlefield is a combat based win condition.

Skirk Prospector, Pitiless Plunderer, Pawn of Ulamog, and Cathodion all help to a create infinite and non-infinite win conditions.

Skirk Fire Marshal with a bunch of goblins on board.

The non-infinite win conditions all use the same creatures to get the damage in, we just don't always have the tools we need to create the infinite loop.

Finding the way to win without going infinite is one of the funnest parts for me. I like the puzzle.

I could just take out Ashnod's Altar for Phyrexian Altar to make it harder to go infinite, which is something I have considered.

Goblin Tribal??

Sort of. When putting the list together, I needed ways to sac creatures, creatures that are good to sac, remove other things, and make mana.

I discovered there are some great goblin synergies that let me do this. So I built toward cards like Skirk Prospector, Siege-Gang Commander, and Goblin Trashmaster. The deck is also basically all creatures, so having Skirk Fire Marshal let's me have access to a board wipe when needed. Generally, we create a board presence that requires a board wipe, but sometimes, we just need to nuke everything, and the fire marshal let's us do that, whilst being alternate win condition, and I've found the 5 goblin requirement pretty easy to meet.

Boggart Harbinger also lets us find some important pieces. Need a sac outlet? Get Skirk Prospector. Need creatures to sac? Krenko, Mob Boss is great. Need some recursion? Goblin Welder. Want to use other people's ramp? Treasure Nabber for the lols.

Strengths, weaknesses, and Hidden Gems

The number 1 strength of the deck is that plays at instant speed 90% of the time.

With that in mind, I put in Summoner's Egg, because it looked odd but kind of fun and I like trying new cards. It quickly became one of the MVP's of the deck. Because we generally don't care about the cards in our hand since Grenzo is both drawing us cards and 'casting' our creatures, we can end up with a full hand / have to choose between actually casting cards and using Grenzo. So, being able to loop Summoner's Egg can let us play the creatures in our hand at instant speed.

One of the greatest lines of play I've had with the deck involved using Summoner's Egg to sneak in a Shriekmaw with a Tel-Jilad Stylus in play in response to my friend who was attacking me with a huge Baloth Woodcrasher, and another huge trampling creature. It sounds like a small play, but it came off the back of multiple attempts to deal with me in various ways, but I was always able to do something in response thanks to Grenzo, and it was just like icing on the cake. It also highlights what this deck can do; i.e. have the threat of activation, which I have found can deter a lot of shenanigans coming my way.

The number 1 weakness is that it's heavily built around the commander, as there are just no replacements for what Grenzo does. That said, something like Cloak and Dagger or Lightning Greaves may make its way into the deck eventually to try and protect Grenzo.

There's also quite a lot of recursion in the deck to try and get that Grenzo redundancy. I'm also playing around with Magus of the Wheel because, again, sometimes it's just not efficient to re-cast Grenzo, and we need cards.

Notable inclusions and exclusions

Inclusions:

Judith, the Scourge Diva - admittedly, Deathbringer Thoctar would be better in this slot, but I opened a Judith at pre-release, and wanted to try it out. It also feels less broken than the Thoctar.

Kuldotha Forgemaster - our main combos involve artifacts. Sometimes we just need to search them out.

Jar of Eyeballs - a bit of an odd inclusion, but it gives us a draw effect, whilst stacking the bottom of the deck. Get enough eyeball counters and it can be like a janky Doomsday.

Magus of the Wheel - Grenzo is like having card draw in the command zone, so we run very little draw. That said, sometimes we just need to draw cards.

Dualcaster Mage - in here because we have some spell slinger decks around our meta. Plus, I've had the joy of using this in response to River's Rebuke and then lol, and lethal Banefire to draw the game to many lolz. Waiting to use it in response to Cyclonic Rift for all of the lolz.

Exclusions:

Goblin Charbelcher - I may try this at some point, but generally, I don't feel like this is what the deck is aiming to do.

Thornbite Staff - I have a lot of creatures that tap, but I found this just enabled so many combos, I have decided to replace with it Illusionist's Bracers.

Zealous Conscripts - I don't want to run kiki-conscripts. I may replace kiki with the conscripts, because that could be fun - but not going to run both.

Flayer of the Hatebound - strict 3 power or less rule.

Soldevi Digger - it only targets the top card. Great with combos. Very limited when it comes to just pure value, which is what I want more of.

Overall, I have had a lot fun and success with the deck.

Even though I have taken the deck a part it will still be one of my favorite decks. Always happy to talk Grenzo strats.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 37 - 4 Rares 29 - 6 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.35
Tokens	Copy Clone, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Goblin 1/1 R, Goblin Rogue 1/1 B, Servo 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders	My decks