It's so sad that Steve Jobs died of Vren Poisoning

Commander / EDH* Aristocrats Battlecruiser Forcefeed Midrange Rats Theme/Gimmick Tokens UB (Dimir) Wither

GrimlockVIII

Creature (19)

• 1x Amphin Mutineer
• 1x Archetype of Finality
• 1x Archfiend of Depravity
• 1x Ascendant Evincar
• 1x Ayara, First of Locthwain
• 1x Bloodghast
• 1x Boggart Trawler  ^Flip
• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 1x Clackbridge Troll
• 1x Corrosive Mentor
• 1x Cybernetica Datasmith
• 1x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
• 1x Lord Skitter, Sewer King
• 1x Maha, Its Feathers Night
• 1x Massacre Girl, Known Killer
• 1x Midnight Banshee
• 1x Ruthless Deathfang
• 1x Sinister Concierge
• 1x Spark Double

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Amphibian Downpour
• 1x Bad Moon
• 1x Case of the Stashed Skeleton
• 1x Cultist of the Absolute
• 1x Curse of Disturbance
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x March of the Machines
• 1x Revenge of Ravens
• 1x Tribute to Horobi  ^Flip

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Gruesome Realization
• 1x Make an Example
• 1x Necromantic Selection
• 1x Ravenform
• 1x Swarmyard Massacre
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Land (36)

• 1x Barad-dur
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Creeping Tar Pit
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 10x Island
• 1x Memorial to Folly
• 1x Mudflat Village
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 12x Swamp
• 1x Swarmyard
• 1x Tainted Isle
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Underground River

Artifact (11)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Genesis Chamber
• 1x Heraldic Banner
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Jinxed Idol
• 1x Mirror of Life Trapping
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Tarrian's Journal  ^Flip
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Commander (1)

Instant (16)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Black Sun's Twilight
• 1x Consumed by Greed
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Lazotep Plating
• 1x Lethal Scheme
• 1x Negate
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Resculpt
• 1x Sauron's Ransom
• 1x Strix Serenade
• 1x Sudden Spoiling
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Szat's Will
• 1x Vona's Hunger

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Maybeboard

Creature (19)

• 1x Accursed Marauder
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Braids, Arisen Nightmare
• 1x Custodi Lich
• 1x Dauthi Voidwalker
• 1x Drana, Liberator of Malakir
• 1x Ertai Resurrected
• 1x Glen Elendra Liege
• 1x Grave Titan
• 1x Hostage Taker
• 1x Indulgent Tormentor
• 1x Malevolent Hermit  ^Flip
• 1x Mirkwood Bats
• 1x Phyrexian Obliterator
• 1x Piper of the Swarm
• 1x Rankle, Master of Pranks
• 1x Rottenmouth Viper
• 1x Spellskite
• 1x Tetzimoc, Primal Death

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Curse of Shallow Graves
• 1x Curse of the Restless Dead
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Fealty to the Realm
• 1x Insight
• 1x Marchesa's Decree
• 1x No Mercy
• 1x Pestilence
• 1x Promise of Aclazotz
• 1x The Phasing of Zhalfir

Artifact (4)

• 1x Crowded Crypt
• 1x Crown of Gondor
• 1x Strionic Resonator
• 1x Wishclaw Talisman

Land (2)

• 1x High Market
• 1x Phyrexian Tower

Instant (8)

• 1x An Offer You Can't Refuse
• 1x Darkness
• 1x Fell the Profane  ^Flip
• 1x Lethal Scheme
• 1x Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip
• 1x Plumb the Forbidden
• 1x Saruman's Trickery
• 1x Soul Manipulation

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Asinine Antics
• 1x Awaken the Erstwhile
• 1x Blight Grenade
• 1x Death Cloud
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Ringsight
• 1x Swarmyard Massacre

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Introduction

Been brewing with the new Vren, the Relentless and someone pointed out how you don't need to explicitly run rat tribal to make him work. Instead I decided to focus on cards that help kill my opponents' creatures en masse as well as cards that give them creatures that I can continuously "kill" for Vren's trigger.

The main gimmick of this deck is somewhat similar to another deck I built: It's so sad that Steve Jobs died of Silumgar.

I am well aware of this redundancy, so I decided to take this opportunity to pivot to Vren because I've been struggling to get my Silumgar deck to do anything useful before turn 6 or 7, and even that only depends on very ideal opening hands.

With Silumgar, running french vanilla changelings in the modern commander landscape, even in casual pods, is just not effective enough. Most real Dragons in Dimir colors are also huge mana investments that I can only pump out one at a time. Relying on Maskwood Nexus and Arcane Adaptation to turn all my non-dragons into dragons is a very fragile combo that can blow up in my face if I'm not careful. I can clone Silumgar, but he's a six drop so I'd just be sandbagging the clones in my hand while I set up and play control in the early game, and I want to take a more proactive approach with this strategy. I also think the amount of non-legendary cloning effects in the format has gotten out of hand and has made the concept kind of boring.

By pivoting to Vren, Im hoping to create a more consistent and more deadly version of massacre/removal tribal. Another strength of Vren is that he's his own payoff in the command zone, allowing me to focus on loading my main deck with the means to kill things, whereas with Silumgar I usually struggled to find the right death payoffs as he sat there and did nothing.

I've also taken this opportunity to see if working with Vren would actually help improve my Silumgar deck, as I've found several cards that can actually crossover into Silumgar's domain with a few extra tweaks to the overall strategy.

Wither Away and Diminish

Five cards that specifically come to mind are Massacre Girl, Known Killer, Midnight Banshee, Ascendant Evincar, Corrosive Mentor, and Maha, Its Feathers Night. Each one of these creatures helps weaken the overall toughness of my opponents' creatures to help them die faster and trigger Vren's potential for massive rat token generation. In the case of Silumgar, they would each make it easier for a single dragon to wipe out my opponents' boards.

Amphibian Downpour and Sudden Spoiling also provide mass diminish effects that can nullify my opponents' boardstates and creature effects.

Force-Feeding Creatures

This section contains a removal/counterspell package similar to my Silumgar deck, with stuff like Curse of the Swine, Amphin Mutineer, Pongify, Resculpt, Rapid Hybridization, Ravenform, Swan Song, and Strix Serenade. The nifty thing is that this replacement removal package provides my opponents with non-black creatures that are susceptible to Ascendant Evincar and Midnight Banshee.

In addition to this removal package, I've also included Genesis Chamber, Tribute to Horobi  , Forbidden Orchard, Clackbridge Troll, Cybernetica Datasmith (another returning guest from my Silumgar deck), and Curse of Disturbance. These pieces help feed my opponents creatures that I'd really like to kill in the near future while also providing additional utility.

Start Your Death Engines

These cards provide consistent ways of making sure more creatures just die one way or another, whether it be my own or my opponents' creatures.

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born is emblematic of both subsets of this strategy. He kills things whenever he attacks, but he also requires me to sacrifice my own things for him to untap and grow stronger.

The sacrificial aristocrat subset of this strategy is important for enabling Grave Pact, Butcher of Malakir and Ruthless Deathfang. So as I'm continuously sacrificing my own creatures, I am forcing my opponents to sacrifice theirs. You can add Dictate of Erebos as well, but I've already stretched myself budget-wise. I would replace Ruthless Deathfang for it, though I personally like having the effect on another body even if it's ultimately less potent and more narrow.

Other sac outlets include Tribute to Horobi   when transformed into Echo of Death's Wail  , Tarrian's Journal  , Ashnod's Altar, Jinxed Idol, Cultist of the Absolute, and Ayara, First of Locthwain

Archetype of Finality, Clackbridge Troll, Archfiend of Depravity, and Evil Twin provide reliable and consistent ways to instantly kill my opponents' stuff without the help of the Grave Pact effects. Evil Twin, in particular, will mainly be used to keep dangerous commanders under control since I can just tap him after an opponent replays the commander he copied.

Lambs for the Slaughter

These cards provide fodder for my sac outlets to consume.

Szat's Will can double as a semi-removal should the need arise, but it can also generate Thrulls while hating on graveyards

Bloodghast is just a body that comes back for free whenever I play a land

Genesis Chamber and Curse of Disturbance can produce Myrs and Zombies for myself as well as my opponents

The modality of Boggart Trawler   lets him be a graveyard hater on a stick or a land in case I've already hated on enough graveyards throughout the game.

Case of the Stashed Skeleton gives me a skeleton and acts as a tutor once I sacrifice the skeleton

Sinister Concierge exiles a creature into suspend on a potentially repeatable basis, directly triggering Vren

Lord Skitter, Sewer King produces rats and hates on graves

Fountainport can generate fish.

Technically I can make Cybernetica Datasmith generate Robots for myself, though I mainly want to give my opponents Robots

Grenades and Nukes

Necromantic Selection and Toxic Deluge are nukes that can potentially let me keep Vren around either by reviving him or by selecting a value of x that's less than Vren's toughness.

Vona's Hunger and Make an Example are grenades that, while not able to kill all of my opponent's stuff, will definitely kill a decent chunk of my opponent's stuff in one solid go.

Gruesome Realization's second mode can definitely hit hard if I've weakened my opponents' stuff enough, but it can also be card draw in a pinch.

Protection and Recovery

Vren is definitely one of those kill-on-sight commanders. And because he's so pivotal to the game plan, I've made room for some protection and recovery for him specifically. Ward 2 is definitely not enough for the little fella.

Lazotep Plating is there for mass hexproof. Plus it provides a little zombie army token for me to sacrifice or chump with.

Cultist of the Absolute gives Vren an additional bit of Ward as well as some extra power and toughness.

Black Sun's Twilight and Consumed by Greed are both pieces of spot removal that double as recovery if I can meet their requirements

Mudflat Village and Memorial to Folly are lands that are mainly around to recover Vren should he kick the bucket too many times

Swarmyard can regenerate Vren should he be hit with direct damage or destruction.

By transforming Tarrian's Journal  , I can cast Wren and other creatures from my graveyard.

Misc Tech

I decided to add Mirror of Life Trapping for the spice and chaos factor. It triggers Vren without needing to kill anything, and it can double some etb effects

I tried using March of the Machines in my Silumgar deck, but I ultimately cut it due to it constantly underperforming. I'm hoping it can find a home in Vren though, as it definitely hoses noncreature artifact tokens and makes regular noncreature artifacts vulnerable to creature removal. This is especially important for Dimir, as the color pair otherwise struggles to deal with noncreature artifacts.

Revenge of Ravens is Black's Propaganda. I chose it over Propaganda for the potential life gain insurance and because said lifegain can outpace my opponent's weakened creatures, though they're honestly interchangeable. Marchesa's Decree and No Mercy are also acceptable substitutes.

I know I complained about too many non-legendary clone effects taking over Commander, but I added Spark Double as a one-of just to have around.

Heraldic Banner is a mana rock with a pseudo anthem effect for all my Black creatures.

Bad Moon is here for that sweet and simple anthem effect as well.

I featured Jinxed Idol in my death engine section already, but I wanted to include it here too because of how atypical it is for a sac outlet. Once I pass it off to an opponent, it'll be doing constant chip damage, and even if they can just sacrifice a useless token to pass it onto someone else, that sacrifice will still fuel Vren one way or another. It should ideally add some chaos and politics to the game as well.

Warning

Keep in mind that Vren's effect to make your opponents' creatures go into exile when they die overwrites death triggers. Not only will this piss off all of your aristocrat opponents, but it also means that any death payoffs you might think of adding to your own version of the deck are pretty much nombos with Vren. Stuff like Massacre Wurm and Blood Artist simply won't recognize your opponents' creatures dying while Vren is out and doing his thing.

I mean, you can still add Blood Artist since you're saccing your own stuff a lot too and Vren doesn't overwrite your own death triggers, but he/she/they (I don't know if the original art is a guy or not) will still only be half as effective with Vren out.

Vren is your one and only payoff for all the death you distribute.

Top Ranked	Achieved #6 position overall 2 months ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Aristocrats 2 months ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Battlecruiser 2 months ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Midrange 2 months ago
Date added	2 months
Last updated	1 month
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.11
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Bird 1/1 U, Bird 2/2 U, Boar 2/2 G, City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Elemental 4/4 UR, Foretell, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Goat 0/1 W, Myr 1/1 C, Orc Army, Rat 1/1 B w/ Can't Block, Rat 1/1 B w/ Kindred, Rat Rogue 1/1 B, Robot 4/4 C, Skeleton 2/1 B, Spirit 1/1 C, Squirrel 1/1 G, The Ring, The Ring Tempts You, Thrull 0/1 B, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Army 0/0 B
Folders	something, edh, Commander fun, Commander/EDH, Dimir