Grief

Creature — Elemental Incarnation

Menace

When this enters the battlefield, target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card.

Evoke—Exile a black card from your hand. (You may cast this for its evoke cost. If you do, this is sacrificed when it enters the battlefield.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (42)

nbarry223 on Viga-BOOM! (better mana)

2 weeks ago

I actually need to go through and finish updating the deck description once I settle on the manabase. I came up with some new tech after discussing with some folks to avoid the need to play a traditional “finisher” like Kessig Wolf Run with 2 amulets and can instead get away with a more complicated line involving Echoing Deeps and eventually transmuting into Cultivator Colossus to then draw into one of the many ways to get dryad into play to then go face with valakut triggers.

I would say we struggle the most with Blood Moon effects and Grief being scammed, tearing apart our hands.

Honestly, otherwise the deck is usually favored slightly.

Niko9 on Has Anyone Tried a Multi …

1 month ago

jethstriker That is very cool with the shadow and reanimator swap : ) I guess I meant more of trying games in modern or something where both players have 2 decks and they can start with either one or switch between games, but both players know the decklists of their opponent, and maybe with a stipulation that the two decks you are playing can have no nonland cards in common.

I'm just thinking of it as a way to both spice up games by adding a, which deck did the players start with, and how do they switch to counter each other.

It may not be the best solution either, just kinda throwing out ideas, but a problem I see sometimes is that side decking devolves to, make a good proactive deck and side in specific answers, then you win if you draw them or don't if you don't.

The big problem I'm thinking about is how rough it is to actually watch competitive play right now. Between Thoughtseize and Grief and The One Ring being a worse Time Walk plus a slow Ancestral Recall is that interaction feels like it's at an all time low because of hand knowledge, ring loops, and cascade or tron being able to break their playstyles by having tons of ways to stall until they explode.

So, my thought was, what if players had two decks they could switch in, but they also had the limitation of nonland cards can only be in one of the two. Could it create more interaction in games? I really have no idea : ) I'm sure someone has tried it.

Bazzul on Belzenlok, Godo's Ugly Cousin

2 months ago

I’m back after a long break. I guess I’ll answer months after the questions I did not reply to… Sorry to everyone.

igorforkst I am not a fan of Null Brooch the 2-mana price tag is not really viable as we rarely have 2 extra mana to spare when Belzenlok is cast. After Belzenlok ETBs, counterspells are not that much of an issue. We have hand disruption through Grief to remove them and if one goes through, we can still threaten a win next turn.

Nempek I added your suggestions. Specially Grief is the single best card that has been printed in the recent years for this deck. Hand disruption during the turn we combo off is huge. It also has a very effective interaction with Sibsig Muckdraggers giving us and additional cheap discard effect. Regarding your second question, I am almost certain that the deck list you linked has a typo. I believe the player used Dread instead of Dread Presence.

xenca Awesome line, honestly, I like the fact that it uses more efficient combo pieces (artifacts that tap for mana). If you don’t have artifact hate in your meta I would 100% try running this line instead of the regular ooze. Despite the more efficient components of this robot ooze, I still believe Necrotic Ooze should be used by default to avoid being shut down by Stony Silence and Null Rod. The other issue I have with it is that it doesn’t gain Skirge Familiar’s activated ability, thus if an opponent attempts to remove Trazyn the Infinite when Argivian Avenger’s haste ability is on the stack with say Path to Exile and you are out of mana you can’t add {B} by discarding and redo the loop.

capwner on turn 1 Iona, sheild of …

3 months ago

since you're using entomb and buried alive to tutor your big creatures, I would run just 1 iona not 4. same with any big creatures, you never really want her in hand, and having 1 of each bomb makes entomb really good because you can find the best creature for your situation. also note that the legacy version of this deck plays Troll of Khazad-dum and Grief, both very strong targets for reanimate.

Icbrgr on Card Discussion: Grim Discovery

3 months ago

Recently I have Been inspired to brew/play 8-Rack in Modern specifically due to all the hype/buzz generated around Scam decks.

In my brewing/research I came across an old primer off of MTG Salvation and a card that caught my eye was Grim Discovery.

This really seems like a neat card but to my knowledge sees virtually no play... I did a quick search on MTG Top8 Modern and found one deck back in 2011 that used it in a {BG} Vampires deck.

Does anyone else think this card is worth revisiting as a niche tech choice for today? I remember after the Fury ban people placed bets on {UB} scam being a thing... could this maybe do to Subtlety what Undying Evil/similar does for Grief? Or perhaps at its worst just get the elemental/creature back in hand and or recycle a fetchland?... maybe some sort of application in a Yawgmoth, Thran Physician brew?

legendofa on Dec 4th 2023 Ban announcement

4 months ago

Grief is the best turn 1 scam by far, in a tempo deck where play patterns matter. Fury was good because it had a pretty open window for targeting, and Solitude is kind of in the same boat. Fury's advantage there was that it could clear out a mid-sized target or a swarm of small targets, while Solitude removes one target, take it or leave it. Subtlety is fine, but highly reactive and has a narrow window of utility. Endurance has higher deck building requirements to make its (optional) ability relevant--a flashed-in 4/5 reach creature for {B} and a couple cards in hand is solid in a vacuum, but it's not on the same level as the other options.

I'm wondering if Esper Scam is a viable option. Lean harder into control, the {W} and {B} can be simply flash-evoked and sac'ed if needed (they're still free removal and pseudo-counterspells), and fill in with some of the go-to control cards. The color balancing would be a little harder to work with, but not impossible.

First pass, off the top of my head with minimal consideration:

23 lands

Scam set: 4x Grief, 2x Solitude, 2x Subtlety, 4x Not Dead After All, 1x Undying Evil, 4x Ephemerate

Control: 3x Teferi, Time Raveler, 3x Counterspell, 4x Thoughtseize, 4 Leyline Binding, 4x The One Ring

Finishers: 4x Orcish Bowmasters

Basically, take the Dimir and Orzhov Scam lists and add some of https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/wu-68d6e340-6601-4aab-9a70-4bdccc013e7e#paper.

nbarry223 on Dec 4th 2023 Ban announcement

4 months ago

Subtlety would not be used as a turn 1 clock, but as more of a control element. It would only be “scammed” as a 1 CMC 4/4 flier when used to still put a spell back into the deck.

Also, how the opponent chooses to put their spell gives free information about their hand and what they need in that moment of time, so it actually does some pretty powerful things in a control shell.

It actually requires timing and does more fair things than the rakdos version, so I’d be fine with it as an archetype. Turn 1 Grief scam just does too many good things to be passed up, so I can’t see it completely leaving the format. Hopefully I am wrong though, because I really don’t enjoy facing a turn 1 Grief scam because it doesn’t feel like you even get to play a game of Magic in a lot of cases.

legendofa on "Meta-less" format?

4 months ago

Okay, I dug a little deeper into the Legacy Reanimator lists on mtgtop8.com, and target cards like Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Archon of Cruelty, Grief, and Griselbrand, and support cards like Dark Ritual and Dauthi Voidwalker show up in almost every deck, but in different proportions. Still, that's a pretty condensed and consistent core. It's easy enough to see which cards get played, but the "meta-similar" rule is going to need more sophistication.