Good Ol' Froggie
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 2 | 1 COMMENT | 105 VIEWS
Feb. 10, 2020
This deck is a classic Gitrog combo deck. The combo is: The Gitrog Monster + Discard Outlet on the board with Dakmor Salvage in your hand. This allows you to draw your entire deck because of the Eldrazi Titan's shuffling your graveyard into your deck when they are put into your graveyard, while netting cards because whenever a land is dropped into the yard it triggers The Gitrog Monster's ability. You either discard them (Eldrazi's or lands) or mill them via dredge. Then you play Lotus Petal infinite times (because it will shuffle back into your deck along with the Eldrazi Titans) to produce infinite mana and either cast Praetor's Grasp infinite times decking your opponents, or Torment of Hailfire where x = infinite to kill them with damage.
Some good hands to keep when playing this deck are hands that have fast mana to cast The Gitrog Monster on either turn 2 or turn 3 latest. If you are playing against faster combo decks, you might want 1 or 2 removal spells in your hand to start, that way you can trip them up when they try to combo off. Having many tutors in your hand can be good, but you don't want more than 1 land tutor ever. You want to be able to get Dakmor Salvage + a discard outlet ASAP, with an early The Gitrog Monster. This means that too many land tutors will make your hand awkward. I'd also recommend keeping around 2 or 3 lands in your hand since after you play The Gitrog Monster you can make another land drop, and preferably save fetches so you can draw a card or too. I wouldn't recommend trying to combo off unless you have Autumn's Veil or Veil of Summer in your hand with enough mana to cast it, because even 1 counter will spell your doom.
Sometimes being patient can be good as well, knowing that someone else thinks one of your opponents is a greater threat than you is sometimes your greatest ally. If you can sit in the corner and do your own thing without getting much attention, you will most likely end up running away with the game. So make sure you sit back and let other people drop their counters on your opponents. The best strength of this deck is the ability to win coming out of nowhere because your combo is only 2 cards and your commander, along with the fact that once the combo gets going, you can't really stop it.
A really strong card in the deck is: Emergence Zone. The reason this card will most likely be your best 2nd land tutor card (if you draw another land tutor), is because if you have it, your opponents won't be able to stop you from combo-ing off after you cast your Veil of Summer or Autumn's Veil. It gives you the ability to cast the lotus petal infinite times at instant speed if your opponent is threatening some kill pressure on either The Gitrog Monster or one of your discard outlets.
Thoughtseize, Collective Brutality, and Duress are really good cards to add in your deck when playing against faster combo decks, but this depends on your playgroup. Cards you would sub out are Force of Despair (since it's not that good a card), Gaea's Touch, Wall of Roots, and Nylea's Intervention. These cards are very strong and can really screw over your opponents. Another addition you can make is Reanimate. This is a really good card if you have a playgroup that is very interactive and likes to have slower paced cEDH games. If that is the case, then another good card to play is Finale of Devastation, which can tutor a discard outlet from your yard or deck. Sylvan Safekeeper is also really strong because it can constantly protect your creatures and it draws cards with The Gitrog Monster. Depending on your playgroup, Blast Zone can potentially be a serious threat to your opponent especially if they are playing a commander that is low CMC. On top of that, it can destroy lots of mana rocks/dorks/enchantments on the board at the same time.
The biggest worry for this deck is Praetor's Grasp. It can allow an opponent to take your only Dakmor Salvage which would force you to concede unless they play it (because you can Strip Mine or Wasteland it and then dredge it back). Try to tutor for Dakmor Salvage ASAP in order to avoid this. My decklist runs both Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre so that opponents can't just grasp either and make you lose when they don't find Dakmor Salvage. Similarly, you run both Torment of Hailfire and Praetor's Grasp because if 1 gets grasped, you can still win with the other. Most people won't think of grasping a lotus petal, but if they're good, they will. Therefore, your best way of combo-ing off is to have a single black mana and casting Dark Ritual infinite times to get infinite black mana and still win the game with the same options listed before. My decklist also has 5 different discard outlets so you won't need to worry about those getting grasped.
CARDS NOT TO RUN. I've seen a few The Gitrog Monster cEDH decks run really terrible cards in their decks, this is going to be a list that I will try to update when I see cards that I would NEVER run. To start the list, we have Necropotence, one of my personal favorite cards. People are always like "the card is just so broken I can't help running it," but the card is a real hard bait. You literally can't win through your own necro, since discarded cards get exiled because of its minor drawback. Another card I've seen people say is a "budgeted Eldrazi Titan" is Gaea's Blessing. This card seems like it works, but if you actually play it through, you can lose if you draw it instead of the card you need. Just play it out for about half an hour if you don't understand what I'm saying and you'll figure it out. Ayula's Influence, I ran this card once thinking it was just another discard outlet that got through cards like Linvala, Keeper of Silence or Cursed Totem. I couldn't have been any more wrong. This card feels terrible to play since it's GGG, and it can't discard Eldrazi Titans. Keep this card out of your deck if you know what's good for you.