The Commander's Guide to Havoc and Pillaging

Commander / EDH Aggro Casual Tokens

stagnantcelerity

Creatures (31)

• 1x Beetleback Chief
• 1x Blight Herder
• 1x Bomat Courier
• 1x Captain Lannery Storm
• 1x Captain's Claws
• 1x Dragonmaster Outcast
• 1x Etali, Primal Storm
• 1x Fumiko the Lowblood
• 1x Goblin Assault
• 1x Goblin Matron
• 1x Goblin Rabblemaster
• 1x Goblin Welder
• 1x Hanweir Garrison  ^Meld
• 1x Inferno Titan
• 1x Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1x Krenko, Mob Boss
• 1x Legion Loyalist
• 1x Myr Battlesphere
• 1x Neheb, the Eternal
• 1x Oblivion Sower
• 1x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
• 1x Pia Nalaar
• 1x Prophetic Flamespeaker
• 1x Pyreheart Wolf
• 1x Release the Gremlins
• 1x Siege-Gang Commander
• 1x Smuggler's Copter
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Tempt with Vengeance
• 1x Thopter Engineer
• 1x Tilonalli's Summoner

Mess with opponents (2)

• 1x Fumiko the Lowblood
• 1x War's Toll

Interaction (14)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Crawlspace
• 1x Indomitable Creativity
• 1x Inferno Titan
• 1x Mizzium Mortars
• 1x Outpost Siege
• 1x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
• 1x Pyrokinesis
• 1x Release the Gremlins
• 1x Sentinel Totem
• 1x Siege-Gang Commander
• 1x Sudden Demise
• 1x Vandalblast

Card advantage and selection (9)

• 1x Bomat Courier
• 1x Etali, Primal Storm
• 1x Mask of Memory
• 1x Outpost Siege
• 1x Prophetic Flamespeaker
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Smuggler's Copter
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Vance's Blasting Cannons  ^Flip

Lands (41)

• 1x Flamekin Village
• 1x Forgotten Cave
• 1x Hanweir Battlements  ^Meld
• 1x Kher Keep
• 33x Mountain
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Smoldering Crater
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Tectonic Edge

Commander (1)

Extra mana (12)

• 1x Captain Lannery Storm
• 1x Curse of Opulence
• 1x Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip
• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Neheb, the Eternal
• 1x Oblivion Sower
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Sword of the Animist
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Make sure he triggers (8)

• 1x Bedlam
• 1x Break Through the Line
• 1x Eldrazi Monument
• 1x Legion Loyalist
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Pyreheart Wolf
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x War's Toll

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Maybeboard

Other (6)

• 1x Combat Celebrant
• 1x Disrupt Decorum
• 1x Dolmen Gate
• 1x Dualcaster Mage
• 1x Falter
• 1x Rakka Mar

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Grenzo has an intricate and rather powerful ability that incites chaos among the ranks. Here we plan to make most out of both modes.

The first mode applies the keyword Goad from conspiracy 2 (creatures you goad are forced to attack each combat until your next turn if able and to attack another player than you if able). The second mode exiles the top card of the opponent's deck and allows playing it until end of that turn using mana as if it were mana of any color. The ability is triggered by dealing damage to an opponent with any of our creatures, and accordingly, the deck is full of little creatures partnered with all sorts of evasiveness. Each connecting creature produces an instance of the ability and either mode can be chosen for each.

Playing the deck

The plan is simple: get Grenzo and some number of evasive creatures on the battlefield and start attacking, building influence with each trigger. Goading opposing creatures sends them at the right people (anyone but you) while further reducing their blocking possibilities. Exiling cards allows building continuous card advantage without expending too many of your own cards. Watch as the opponents' big dump bruisers start pummeling each other out. Steal their spells and laugh as their plans unravel. Do it again next turn.

Grenzo can be played meaningfully by either turning all your guys sideways and completely embracing the randomness, or like a surgeon, carefully sequencing plays and manipulating the board in your favor.

How does it win?

Unlike most aggressive decks, this particular build is low on actual damage. Rather, it's focused on the number of Grenzo's triggers and the challenge of figuring out how to win using mostly just them. In a more advanced game with other focused decks often the key to prevail is to point out the common enemy with the most dangerous endgame deck and team up with other more aggressive decks (or simply forcing their hand by goading). Play the best cards peeled off other players' decks and try to use their removal when needed. If there's a common enemy, your newfound friends may indeed even agree to give you no blocks to search for answers from the top of their deck. A cunning player shouldn't point out they have removal in their hand, but let the opponents' resources be used instead.

Because this build has no mass buff spells to increase the pain, we just have to send our small guys over enough times while goading to finish the game, unless we get lucky and happen to steal opponents' biggest haymakers. Even simply hitting land drops and ramping while steadily growing an army can sometimes out-resource less tuned decks.

Things to watch out for

• getting Grenzo removed. Sometimes the right move is to leave back a couple of blockers in case goading might not work. Frustrated opponents may want to keep Grenzo off the board forever. It's very important to keep developing your resources in order to always have enough mana to recast. Demonstrating your ability and willness to do so should eventually make opponents reconsider wasting their spot removal. Big mana rocks shine here, in addition to the obvious Lightning Greaves. Playing 40-ish lands, ramp, card draw and selection allows us to be relevant up to the endgame.

• Board wipes. Careful use of your resources help rebuild after one. This deck will almost never win fast against a whole table so it's ok to take it slow. Try to keep at least one creature producer in hand when you have extra.

• Propaganda effects. Extremely effective against us and almost impossible to get rid off in mono red, but luckily only stops you from attacking one opponent. Aim for the green/white player's deck or even better, ask them to remove it for you in exchange for pointing your attacks elsewhere. Likely at the player that used to have that propaganda.

• Bane of Progress. A good mono red build practically always includes a large number of utility artifacts and we use many enchantments too. Unfortunately there very is little to do here, this effect is always a beating. Try not to overextend when playing against decks with these effects and value your land drops highly when mulliganing or selecting cards. Torpor Orb may prove useful if you insist on playing heavy artifact decks against the green oppressor.

• Other token strategies. Hard to get through, ineffective to goad. Luckily red has many tools available against token armies. I've recently added Crawlspace, Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, Mizzium Mortars and Sudden Demise to have more play against them.

Player compatibility

You might enjoy this deck if you like to:

• kick things off immediately

• play others' cards randomly

• play politically

• skip to beats and goading if the politics didn't work

• force the action in your favor and control the pace of the game - towards aggression

• feel like being in control despite playing an aggressive deck

-just need a new twist to the aggro / tokens / chaos archetype in commander

This deck might not suit you if you like to:

• sit silent in a corner and hope nobody notices you

• control the game by playing reactive spells out of your turn

• just play your own game not having to constantly read the table

OR

• your playgroup sucks at threat assessment, jumping at the first annoying thing (this deck)

• you simply prefer a more straightforward approach

Card choices and key synergies

Edh Deckbuilding 101

For any multiplayer deck you need to consider how much longer games usually take when there's more than two people. Resource management becomes vital to stay relevant in games that tend to go 10-15 turns and biggest and flashiest effects are king when you need to take down multiple opponents.

Anyone who has played multiplayer has seen how most often the player with the most resources in the mid game takes an insurmountable lead by "snowballing" large amounts of mana to large amounts of cards and eventually wins with whatever they happen have put in their deck. To keep up with the pace of the game in all of its stages, every Edh deck needs to be able to develop its mana and refill its hand. The more you have resources, the more you get to play.

I usually go with around 50% of my deck being sources of mana including 38-ish lands and 12 or so ramp spells and 5-10 sources of card draw. Now I should almost never completely run out of things to play or mana to play them.

After covering these basics I choose from what I think are the best enablers for my desired strategy, and finally add 2-5 board wipes, a few spot removal spells and one or two graveyard hate cards. Every deck needs something to slow down opponents enough to have a chance to deploy its own strategy.

Most desireable cards are the ones that apply to multiple of these categories, freeing slots for more on-theme cards. For example a dragon that kills a creature fills both duties of spot removal and being a dragon in a dragon themed deck. If there are any slots left and the deck already functions in a satisfactory manner, I might add some silly pet card to try out for fun.

How to build Grenzo

Grenzo incentivises playing the small tricky guys that evade and take their friends along. He is the champion of the forgotten little people of EDH.

Many curious and unassuming cards become playable when Grenzo's at the helm. Break Through the Line, Bedlam and the like help to make goading smooth. His second ability can be abused with Lantern of Insight, and works to huge effect with Oblivion Sower because all land hits with the triggers remain exiled. Even Blight Herder becomes applicable!

Grenzo can embrace red impulsiveness. He fits fine in the helm of a more chaotic deck. For a theme, subtheme or just for a fun-slot fits stuff like The Countdown Is at One if your playgroup is ok with silverbordered cards, Fumiko the Lowblood, who is actally quite cool, or Scrambleverse, which can reverse an otherwise unbeatable board in the most hilarious way imaginable. Stories will be told about resolving this card. (Once I cast this when one of my opponent had 4 hornets and a Craterhoof Behemoth and a Blade of Selves. I got 3 of the fliers among the hoof and the blade and had exactly enough to equip because my manavault got untapped, and attacked for just a little over lethal. I run so many permanents now that this feels too bad to play.)

Finally, being a deck with little fellows who want to bring about the chaos is the perfect home for Curse of Opulence and the mostly forgotten Crown of Doom too bad the Daretti, Scrap Savant opponent is too eager to recycle this piece of beauty.

Cards to add. Please check first if you have a recommendation! Show

Cards for this strategy:

• Hangarback Walker Fights the coming boardwipe. Tokens evade.
• Berserkers' Onslaught might try again but honestly I just want more creature tokens to attack.
• Disrupt Decorum Does what the deck wants to do without Grenzo or a board presence. Maybe it's just better to have mana for Grenzo and creature cards instead since this is only a one-shot effect.
• Dolmen Gate Never have to sacrifice attackers anymore. Maybe good for heavy creature metagames?
• Falter Works on your opponents turns as well. Has been hard to find so cant try yet.

The usual red and artifact good stuff for final touches:

• Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle Solid extra removal. The deck has 30 basic mountains.
• Mana Crypt for extra explosiveness
• Ancient Tomb
• Gilded Lotus
• Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• Shattering Spree Why not to do what red does so well? The problem is it doesn't exactly reinforce the deck's theme.
• Gauntlet of Power and their ilk...

Etc.

Final thoughts

This Grenzo brew here is my first ever commander deck with the colour red, and I cincerely recommended trying him for his strong and enjoyable theme. Mono red provides ample aggression and randomness and Grenzo even makes up for red's traditional weaknesses by adding card advantage and removal options through pillaging information. With the help of Grenzo and a few big mana rocks we can even keep up surprisingly well in the endgame. A solid and enjoyable commander.

To my experiences Grenzo works best with a little more experienced group of players who aren't too affraid to take some early damage and are eager to form short alliances in order to defeat the more dangerous decks.

Please upvote if this guide helped you or it otherwise deserves to be on top of the Grenzo deck lists and commander lists in general. Thanks for reading.

Date added	7 years
Last updated	6 years
Exclude colors	WUBG
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 36 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 2 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.14
Tokens	City's Blessing, Dragon 5/5 R, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Elemental 1/1 R, Elemental 1/1 R w/ Haste, Goblin 1/1 R, Gold, Gremlin 2/2 R, Human 1/1 R, Kobolds of Kher Keep 0/1 R, Kor Ally 1/1 W, Myr 1/1 C, Ogre 3/3 R, Plant 0/2 G, Thopter 1/1 C, Treasure