Ladies & Gentlemen, Mister Konrad Twitty..

Commander / EDH Burn Competitive Goodstuff Mill Mono-Black Multiplayer Snow Value Engine

Metroid_Hybrid

Land (35)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Castle Locthwain
• 1x Dark Depths
• 1x Frostwalk Bastion
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Leechridden Swamp
• 1x Mortuary Mire
• 1x Mouth of Ronom
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Scrying Sheets
• 1x Sequestered Stash
• 18x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 2x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Witch's Cottage

Mana Rock/Dork (8)

• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Coldsteel Heart
• 1x Hedron Crawler
• 1x Leaden Myr
• 1x Magus of the Coffers
• 1x Manakin
• 1x Palladium Myr
• 1x Sol Ring

Recursion (4)

• 1x Demon of Dark Schemes
• 1x Doomed Necromancer
• 1x Magus of the Will
• 1x Oversold Cemetery

Bonus Multipliers (2)

• 1x Helm of the Host
• 1x Mimic Vat

Death & Destruction (11)

• 1x Blood on the Snow
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Dead of Winter
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Fleshbag Marauder
• 1x Merciless Executioner
• 1x Mire in Misery
• 1x Murderous Rider
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Mill (10)

• 1x Altar of the Brood
• 1x Angel of Suffering
• 1x Doom Whisperer
• 1x Dread Summons
• 1x Grindstone
• 1x Mesmeric Orb
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Morality Shift
• 1x Tortured Existence
• 1x Trepanation Blade

Defense (5)

• 1x Champion's Helm
• 1x Darksteel Plate
• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

Direct Burn (3)

• 1x Bloodchief Ascension
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Sanguine Bond

Eldrazi Titans (2)

• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

Commander (1)

Ramp (11)

• 1x Bontu's Monument
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Foundry Inspector
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Jhoira's Familiar
• 1x K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
• 1x Liliana of the Dark Realms
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Draw Engines (5)

• 1x Bolas's CitadelGC
• 1x Dimir House Guard
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Phyrexian Rager

Lifelink (3)

• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Whip of Erebos

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Maybeboard

Other (6)

• 1x Draugr Necromancer
• 1x Haunted Crossroads
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Sword of Body and Mind
• 1x Tormod, the Desecrator
• 1x Undertaker

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Mono-Black Graveyard Burn

Original introduction & broad outline

We mill ourselves & our opponents, and cause general death & destruction while Mr. Twitty is onstage to repeatedly inflict various amounts of damage to our opponents until they are dead..

Yes, this is a Burn deck in Mono-{B}, and in possibly the most in-color way possible: Burn via Graveyard manipulation..

The way that Syr Konrad, the Grim is worded is effectively: If any (other) Creature touches any Graveyard for any reason, OR if a Creature leaves my Graveyard (for any reason), Konrad pings everyone(else) for one..

That means that weird jank like Tortured Existence magically become ridiculous fountains of value (read as "{B}: Konrad Shocks each opponent")..

Mesmeric Orb & Mindcrank are absolute all-stars in how they passively generate chaotic, and often silly amounts of game-ending value with Konrad. Either are great by themselves, but to resolve both usually results a beautiful, burning avalanche of salt-inducing PAIN (Did I mention that Bloodchief Ascension is in here too?).

Coming back to the topic of obscure janky goodness. The most explosive Wincon here is Morality Shift. To resolve this with Syr Konrad, the Grim on the field and either Eldrazi Titan still in the Library, results in smashing every opponent in the face for up to 52 damage. Which in most cases would effectively spell: Game Over..

Speaking of which— because of the way Konrad functions, and the presence of the Annhilator Titans in the 99, means that any number of other Mill and/or other Graveyard-based shenanigans our opponents may be running can also unwittingly hand us the game.. (example: Any Phenax, God of Deception players at the table will effectively be your accomplice whether they like it or not)

On top of all of that, because the last two lines of Konrad's triggered ability reads "Syr Konrad, the Grim deals 1 damage to each opponent", our Commander is actually dealing damage to each individual opponent with each & every single trigger. Therefore, any early source of Lifelink quickly puts the deck into "Archenemy" territory. Naturally, I sought to double-down on this synergy, which eventually led to me sloting-in the infamous Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond combo that I had laying around (as this was the first deck I built where both cards provide value on their own)..

Finally, we've learned about how terrifying Syr Konrad, the Grim can be on his own, but what about if you were able to generate multiple copies? Helm of the Host says "Hi"..

What this deck is, and is not

Because Syr Konrad, the Grim can be built in many different directions, it is important to understand how this seemingly random list of cards evolved into what it currently is. So the first thing to ask is, 'where was this deck's starting point'?

This list was originally inspired by an early (budget) decktech from The Commander's Quarters. However, over time I have more & more moved away from that towards a more general, high value-based strategy. This particular list currently shares a total of 18 cards (<1/5) with the 'upgraded' CQ's list

This deck is NOT...

As mentioned previously, because of the wording of his (activated AND triggered) abilities, there are several different directions that Konrad can be legitimately built. Here are some of the major ones (and why I didn't take that path):

Self-Mill

Although it started out as such, I am just not a fan of that particular gameplay style. It always felt like a hindrance unless I was already set up, and therefore just felt janky AF..

TL;DR:

Aristocrats

I already have a strong & flavorful Mono-Black Aristocrat/Combo deck built around Yawgmoth, Thran Physician...

Reanimator/Control

My first (functional) brew in the format is/was such a deck headed by Liliana, Heretical Healer  /Liliana, Defiant Necromancer.

I don't need to have two MBC decks..

Infinite Mana

Syr Konrad, the Grim is one of the few Mono-Black Commanders that can win with Infinite Mana alone (Mill everyone out with his activated ability, and then if there are any survivors, pass the turn...). However this points to another type of deck that I try to avoid building for two general reasons:

1. (Preference) It would invariably lead to more & more predictable games, leading to both— becoming easier to time interaction against and more boring to pilot overall..

2. (Financial) This leads down the path of buying buying the more expensive Artifacts (like Grim Monolith et al.), and trying to stuff ¡ALL THE TUTORS! into a single deck (thus reinforcing point #1)..

Opposition Agent appears out in the wild as well..

This deck IS...

I didn't like the self-sabotage of self-Mill, or being dependent on what happens to hit an opponent's Graveyard, like a Reanimator deck tends to. I also didn't want to build a dedicated Combo either.

The result is a strange, multi-angled Chimera of sorts.

Once Konrad is out, the general strategy centers around manipulating Graveyards by various means. Therefore without any major linchpins to be targeted (outside of Konrad, and the Graveyard itself), most of the time your opponents will have a hard time knowing what to spend their Counterspells and other interaction on, and what to save for the rest of the table. The strange mixture thus allows the semi-passive, non-targeted, and extremely incremental damage from Konrad to build up over time, often resulting in a classic "Frog boil" scenario.

Game-ending/Insta-Win Combos

Because sometimes, you have to just "nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure"...

Generic combos

Any one of these turns up the heat immensely with this deck. Put them together to end the game

• 3 Quest counters + Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank

• Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond

Konrad-centric

• Morality Shift + Syr Konrad, the Grim + Eldrazi Titan in the Library

• Basalt Monolith + Mesmeric Orb + Syr Konrad, the Grim + Eldrazi Titan in the Library

...and Boom goes the dynamite...

Top Ranked	Achieved #2 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Burn 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Competitive 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Goodstuff 3 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	2 years
Exclude colors	WURG
Key combos	Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank Morality Shift + Syr Konrad, the Grim Basalt Monolith + Mesmeric Orb + Syr Konrad, the Grim
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 34 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.43
Tokens	Copy Clone, Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Energy Reserve, Marit Lage, On an Adventure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Mill Deck, commanders, commander, edh folder, probable decks, Inspiration, (Mono) Black love, Syr Grim, Favorite Builds, definitely