It has been far too long since I did one of these. My play group has been pretty stable as of late, with none of us really brewing new decks. But, finally, one of my friends decided to take his long-existing Thraximundar deck in a bit of a new direction. It’s now slightly more of a “griefer” or “punisher” deck. Basically, this archetype is one that seeks to punish it’s opponents for doing normal Magic things, like casting spells, drawing cards, or even tapping lands. These decks also tend to force awkward or no-win choices on opponents, like “Oh, you cast a spell? Well, you either have to discard a card or lose 5 life?” You don’t like either of those options? Too bad.
That all said, the deck in question has some issues. It’s mana curve is very top heavy leading to some pretty non-interactive early games. It doesn’t have all that many creatures, and most of the ones it has are really expensive. It has a lot of really circumstantial cards, and cards that are rather un-synergistic with the overall aims of the deck. And finally, it doesn’t have a whole lot of defensive measures. This is a deck that, if it’s working as intended, it WILL draw a lot of hate from the rest of the table, so being able to deal with threats is essential.
But the core of the deck is already in place to make it a very obnoxious deck – which is the point, after all – but we need to focus it to make it a bit more reliable and resilient. I’ve seen this deck work and I’ve seen it fall apart. The cool thing about it is, win or lose, it tends to do both spectacularly, earning nearly as many laughs as it does groans and eye-rolls.
Creatures
Thraximundar
Clone
Fleshbag Marauder
Cunning Lethemancer
Vampire Nighthawk
Mortivore
Necrotic Ooze
Guiltfeeder
Geth, Lord of the Vault
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Butcher of Malakir
Rune-Scarred Demon
Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
Nemesis of Reason
Deathbringer Thoctar
Kaervek the Merciless
Blood Tyrant
Mindleech Mass
Prince of Thralls
Solemn Simulacrum
Psychosis Crawler
Spells
Cyclonic Rift
Copy Artifact
Twincast
Copy Enchantment
Cackling Counterpart
Rite of Replication
Vampiric Tutor
Bloodchief Ascension
Liliana's Caress
Blessing of Leeches
Megrim
Words of Waste
Underworld Dreams
Syphon Mind
Diabolic Tutor
Dread Return
Deathpit Offering
Syphon Flesh
Treacherous Urge
Exquisite Blood
Living End
Living Death
Liliana Vess
Painful Quandary
Beacon of Unrest
Life's Finale
Wild Ricochet
Reforge the Soul
Blasphemous Act
Dimir Signet
Izzet Signet
Rakdos Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Gilded Lotus
Lightning Greaves
Whispersilk Cloak
Bonehoard
Elixir of Immortality
Howling Mine
Otherworld Atlas
Skull of Orm
Memory Jar
Lands
Command Tower
Crumbling Necropolis
Darkslick Shores
Drowned Catacomb
Izzet Boilerworks
Jwar Isle Refuge
Rakdos Carnarium
Reliquary Tower
Salt Marsh
Steam Vents
Watery Grave
Mountain x5
Island x7
Swamp x13
Well, that’s the list as it stands now. We do have some constraints to work under. One, of course, is budget and availability. If a card is too expensive it’s probably off the table. Similarly, even cheap cards, if our local game stores don’t have copies, it’s probably off the table. Internet shopping is a thing, but for the purposes of this article it isn’t a viable option. So we have to get whatever we need locally, and on the cheap. Fortunately I have a deep enough card pool I can probably trade some stuff to the owner if need be.
The other constraint is sticking to the theme without pushing it too far. It’s a griefer deck, and these decks just simply aren’t meant to be nice. That said, there is a line in the sand, and that line will vary from playgroup to playgroup. I want to make this deck mean enough to satisfy the mission statement inherent in the list presented, but I don’t want to overdo it to the point that no one enjoys playing against this deck. This means avoiding cards like Stranglehold that are already known to be funwrecking cards in my group. So the trick is to find that delicate balance, give our opponents a fair amount of grief, but without smothering any and all fun out of the game.
We now have a starting point, an end goal, and the constraints under which we’re operationg, so let’s get to work and start gutting this thing.
Creatures
I’ll start with the creature base, cutting the following:
Mortivore, Necrotic Ooze, Kazuul, Nemesis of Reason, Mikaeus, Deathbringer Thoctar, Rune-Scarred Demon, Blood Tyrant and Mindleech Mass.
Dead Mike, Rune-Scarred Demon and Blood Tyrant are all acceptable cards, and I like them, but they don’t exactly push the deck’s theme or shore up any of its weaknesses. Thus, they are getting the axe for cards that will either help patch a hole or fit the theme and strategy of the deck a little better.
The other 6 cuts are more definitive - they are either too underpowered, lack any real synergy, or both. From looking at this list, and seeing the deck in action, I just don’t see what Mortivore, Kazuul or Deathbringer Thoctar add to the deck. Mindleech Mass and Nemesis of Reason have effects we probably would like, if they were reliable enough to actually impact the game before dying, but they basically never do. Necrotic Ooze can do crazy, cool things, but there aren’t really any ways to utilize within this deck, so it’s far too reliant on our opponents having relevant copyable abilities in their graveyards. That’s way to iffy, so it has to go.
These replacements will come in:
Mulldrifter, Shriekmaw, Mindclaw Shaman, Anathemancer, Dimir House Guard, Niv-Mizzet, and the three Gatecrash Primordials of appropriate color.
The Primordial trio – Sepulchral, Molten and Diluvian – are all well-positioned in this deck to be swingy, if not game-winning. Really, they don’t require much explanation beyond that. They’re good virtually anywhere, but this deck in particular should make great use of them.
Mulldrifter and Shriekmaw are boring but essential utility cards. They have a mildly interesting synergy with Thraximundar or Butcher of Malakir, but more importantly they give this deck some early plays that it was lacking before. Also they are great Mimic Vat targets, which will come up later…
Mindclaw Shaman, Niv-Mizzet and Anathemancer are all good “punisher” cards and fit the theme and mana curve nicely. The inclusion of the Firemind makes me want to go whole-hog on the “Draw 7” effects, but I don’t think Wheel of Fortune is in our budget. But there are a lot of other draw effects like Howling Mine or Memory Jar that make Niv-Mizzet downright essential. Anathemancer is just criminally underplayed in the format, and is great at punishing people for having more expensive mana bases than we do.
Finally, Dimir House Guard is a very versatile tutor, that moonlights as a sac outlet if needed. Yes, Demonic Tutor would just flat out be a better pick, but DHG does find a number of key spells, and we will be keeping Liliana Vess and Diabolic Tutor as unconditional tutors, so I am perfectly comfortable with his spot in the deck.
I still have a few more creatures in mind to add, so I’m going to have to cut a few non-creature spells to make room. This will increase the creature count slightly, but not significantly enough to make certain cards work. I’ll be cutting the following creature-centric cards:
Cackling Counterpart, Deathpit Offering, Living End, Blessing of Leeches
Blessing of Leeches and Deathpit Offering are just not very good. Offering can be cool if you build around it, but we aren’t so it has to go. Cackling Counterpart is awesome, but I don’t think we need or want it here. There just aren’t enough really good targets and this deck often doesn’t really focus on creatures sticking around. That said, it does have potentially awesome synergy with some of the EBTF creatures I have already added… but I still don’t trust the card not to be a virtual blank 50% of the time.
Living End, to put it bluntly, is a liability. Living Death can blow out a game, if we time it right, but forcasting it several turns in advance gives our opponents plenty of time to set up their board state so that when Living End does finally go off, it is almost always going to be in their favor, not ours. Factor that in, along with our lower-than-everyone-else’s creature count and LE will probably just lose games for us. Do not want.
Instead, we’ll beef up our creature count slightly by adding in:
Blood Artist, Shadowmage Infiltrator, Lightning Reaver, and Sheoldred, Whispering One.
Blood Artist could also be Falkenrath Noble or even Masscre Wurm, but I went with the lowest CMC option for now, because we already have a top-heavy mana curve. Shadowmage is just a really great early play that looks innocuous enough but will likely put us a few cards ahead before it finally gets swatted away. Lightning Reaver is a bit of a pet card of mine, but I suggest it hear because it is kind of a “punisher” card, it’s good for keeping Planeswalkers in check, and it has wicked art. This slot is definitely negotiable, though. Sheoldred is all but tailor made for decks like this. She kinda competes with Sepulchral Primordial, but they are still different enough that I think both are highly warranted.
Spells
In addition to those swaps, I think there are still a number of decidedly subpar cards left, so we’ll take care of those before moving on to the mana base:
OUT: Copy Artifact, Copy Enchantment, Dread Return, Syphon Flesh, Whispersilk Cloak, Bonehoard, Otherworld Atlas
Copy A and Copy E are cool, if we can double up on our griefer enchantments and artifacts. Having two Painful Quandaries in play would absolutely wreck almost any deck in our group. But how often will that actually happen? There are better ways to gain redundancy, and I think these two cards are just too circumstantial overall.
Syphon Flesh is just a bad card. I liked it on paper, but having seen it in action a number of times since the Commander decks came out, I am less and less enamored every time it gets cast. This slot becomes Barter in Blood which is almost always more powerful and more reliable. That it makes us sac two as well is likely to be irrelevant or at least a cost well worth paying 90% of the time.
The two Equipment I’m cutting are both just sorta “meh” in a deck like this. They’ll be irrelevant quite a lot, and only so-so when they are relevant.
Dread Return seems ridiculously unlikely to be flashback-able, and even if we do have 3 creatures in play at once, they’re not likely to be worth sac-ing to bring back one other. Simply put, we don’t have a lot of cheap expendable guys to throw away. This isn’t really a reanimator deck anyway, but we still have Beacon of Unrest and Sheoldred as stand-ins. Not to mention Geth and Sepulchral Primordial for their guys.
Otherworld Atlas is fine, and can probably stay in the deck – but I have a more techy option in mind…
Replacing these last 6 cuts will be these fine cards:
IN: Evacuation, Oppression, Barter in Blood, Slave to Bolas, Mimic Vat, Temple Bell, and Geth’s Grimoire
There are very few decks in EDH in which Mimic Vat is bad. Here, it seems absolutely fantastic. If all goes well, creatures are going to be dying right and left most games, and this gives us a theortically endless supply of creatures to make up for the lack of actual creature cards in the deck. It also makes us far less afraid to use a Wrath effect even when we have a really good creature on the table.
Slave to Bolas is always a great addition to any Grixis deck. Talk about “griefer”: Steal you guy. Hit you with it. Sac it so you don’t get it back. All on one card.
Oppression is oppressive. Nuff said.
Evacuation is both a concession to budget restrictions (Damnation, sadly, is probably off the table), but it’s also pretty tech-y with the right draw. I have always been a big fan of playing a mass-bounce spell like this, and following it up with a Reforge the Soul or similar effect.
As stated above, Barter in Blood is a straight upgrade from the weaker Syphon Flesh.
Geth’s Grimoire comes in for Otherworld Atlas. It has great synergy with all the other discard effects in the deck, notably Rix Maadi which will be showing up in the Mana section shortly. But because is a situational card, I also added the cheaper/faster version of Atlas, Temple Bell. I just like the Bell better because, as I said, it’s cheaper and faster.
Lands
So, now we come to the land. I want to keep this as budget-y as possible, but it definitely can be much improved without needing the most expensive duals on the market.
I’m going to cut 6x Swamps, 1x Island and 1x Salt Marsh, giving us 8 slots to fill up.
Dragonskull Summit, Blackcleave Cliffs and Dimir Aqueduct are all cheap and accessible, and help round out the duals already in the deck. (Adding Blood Crypt and Sulfur Fulls would complete the remaining triptychs but are likely out-of-reach at the moment).
Desperate Lighthouse and Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace are great utility lands that are on-them and on-color. Rix Maadi + Geth’s Grimoire is a great draw engine that also strips our opponents’ hands away. Sweet! It also, obviously has great synergy with Megrim and other such cards. Desperate Lighthouse is a bit expensive, but it is fantastic for smoothing out draws late game.
Temple of the False God is a must-run with our bloated mana curve. I did what I could to smooth that out, but it’s we still have a high number of 6+ mana cards, so Temple is much-needed ramp for us.
Finally, Terramorphic Expanse and Exploring Wilds obviously help color-fix. We’re skewed toward Swamps in the basic land department, so these two commonly-played lands will help us find out Islands and Mountains when we draw too much black mana. Pretty much every three-color deck should play at least one of these two, but with so many Basics, I think we really want both.
That’s it! We’re done tinkering (for now), so let’s put it all together and see what our finished list looks like:
CreaturesThraximundar
Clone
Mulldrifter
Diluvian Primordial
Blood Artist
Fleshbag Marauder
Cunning Lethemancer
Vampire Nighthawk
Dimir House Guard
Shriekmaw
Guiltfeeder
Geth, Lord of the Vault
Sheoldred, Whispering One
Sepulchral Primordial
Butcher of Malakir
Mindclaw Shaman
Molten Primordial
Anathemancer
Shadowmage Infiltrator
Lightning Reaver
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Kaervek the Merciless
Prince of Thralls
Solemn Simulacrum
Psychosis Crawler
Spells
Twincast
Twincast
Cyclonic Rift
Rite of Replication
Evacuation
Bloodchief Ascension
Vampiric Tutor
Liliana's Caress
Megrim
Words of Waste
Oppression
Underworld Dreams
Syphon Mind
Diabolic Tutor
Barter in Blood
Treacherous Urge
Living Death
Beacon of Unrest
Painful Quandary
Exquisite Blood
Liliana Vess
Life's Finale
Wild Ricochet
Reforge the Soul
Blasphemous Act
Dimir Signet
Izzet Signet
Rakdos Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Gilded Lotus
Lightning Greaves
Elixir of Immortality
Howling Mine
Skull of Orm
Mimic Vat
Temple Bell
Geth's Grimoire
Memory Jar
Slave of Bolas
Jwar Isle Refuge
Crumbling Necropolis
Command Tower
Steam Vents
Watery Grave
Drowned Catacomb
Dragonskull Summit
Blackcleave Cliffs
Darkslick Shores
Dimir Aqueduct
Izzet Boilerworks
Rakdos Carnarium
Desperate Lighthouse
Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
Reliquary Tower
Temple of the False God
Terramorphic Expanse
Exploring Wilds
Island x6
Swamp x7
Mountain x5
As always there were a number of cards that were considered and didn’t wind up making it in. Here are some suggestions for what could potentially come in if some of the suggestions above don’t pan out or aren’t readily available to us.
Jace’s Archivist
Nin, the Pain Artist
Massacre Wurm
Consuming Aberration
Parallectric Feedback
Manabarbs
Spiteful Visions
Vicious Shadows
Whispering Madness
Skull Rend
Phyrexian Tyrrany
Venser’s Journal
Teferi’s Puzzle Box
Nephalia Drownyard
Any of the above cards could absolutely be playable in this deck. I particularly like Spiteful Visions, Skull Rend and Parallectric Feedback. In fact, I think it was a mistake to leave Skull Rend on the bench. But ultimately it comes down to what cards we end up having available. Some of my proposed changes, I’m sure, will not be made simply because the card required is in another deck or something. So, this is a pretty good list of “alternates” that can sub in for preferred cards that aren’t available.
Similarly, there were a few obvious inclusions that I skipped for reasons:
Mindlock Orb/Stranglehold – My group would be okay with hosing Demonic Tutors, Survival of the Fittest and such, probably, but hosing Cultivates, too? Not fun. These are just too unfun to be worth it. Also Mindlock hoses several cards in this deck, so it’d be pretty bad.
Bottomless Pit – The “random” part of this is what really gets hackles up. I’ve seen this card induce nerd rage and rage quits enough to know better.
Uba Mask – I’ve done this before. It works, but it’s definitely on the wrong side of the line.
Well, that’s it folks. Enjoy!
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