If you love the Grishoalbrand model but find it to be too frail, slow, weak, or inflexible, then look no further. This deck is extraordinarily fast, winning 50% of the games on turn one, and the other times between two and four. In the odd chance you cannot prevail you will know it by turn four, but I've hard cast Griselbrand and won late game so to say this deck can only win early game is not true.
I'll now explain some of my unique choices for what I think make this deck shine.
Note that this is in fact a five color deck, using only the five color modern lands. Gemstone Caverns is the usual suspect for an early win but is definitely not needed in my current model, essentially any land will do and having one to two out will be plenty in most cases. Next is Serum Powder , this card is what wins the game in most cases. Anytime you have Griselbrand or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn , and a Serum Powder in you're openig hand, mulligan, just do it. The next step will be using Pull from Eternity , a card that I truly love and puts Griselbrand where he belongs. After that it's a matter of you're new hand having Gemstone Caverns or any land, Chancellor of the Tangle or Simian Spirit Guide and then of course good ole' Goryo's Vengeance to scoop Griselbrand into play. We all know what happens next, Griselbrand feasts on both the souls of the living and you're library, putting all of you're cards snugly into you're hand and then onto their powerful overlord where they belong. The circle of life.
Other extremely powerful moves are in place to help and protect Griselbrand until his (or you're) last breath. Nourishing Shoal hits Chancellor of the Tangle and Borborygmos Enraged at any time for some sweet sweet life, but this life is even sweeter when Griselbrand is out letting him drink both you're deck and you're opponents life total.
Faithless Looting is the second best way to get off this combo and allows for more card advantage also, the only problem is that it can only go off on you're turn making it harder to win on turn one this way. Borborygmos Enraged and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn are some pretty strong alternate wins but trust me, it's more fun to flip you're whole deck onto the stack with Griselbrand and for this reason there is no better creature for the job than he.
Not strong enough yet? Fury of the Horde ignores you're ignorance and shatters faces with any giant Legendary in the deck. What if my guy still isn't strong enough? Assault Strobe doesn't understand the question and even states "I'm good enough to have a Legendary kill MULTIPLE enemies!" (I've taken out three to five players on several occasions by turn three).
So now you have an idea of how this deck works, it is very hard to figure out initially and you may find yourself taking many mulligans but this is all part of the plan!
My choices for the sideboard are unique as well and I'll describe why I chose them. Not of This World is better for this type of deck for long game purposes over Pact of Negation because paying the mana just won't happen, for this reason I have also added Cloudshift to ensure any Legendary I drop except Emrakul can survive multiple turns and thus make them that much more threatening. Noxious Revival is an obvious choice in coalition with Faithless Looting or Gitaxian Probe . Spoils of the Vault actually goes off with Nourishing Shoal very well and can let you grab Pull from Eternity , Griselbrand or whatever you need to win. Fling may seem like a joke but it has won me multiple games in which I could not attack. Lastly and my strangest choice is Nicol Bolas . I find him very effective as an alternate Legendary against ANY deck that abuses hand sizes or even another Griselbrand deck, his body is also big enough to kill with the Assault Strobe and Fury of the Horde combo and he's red which aids to exiling cards for a free Fury of the Horde , another reason Borborygmos Enraged is so good in here.
So overall this deck is out for blood and doesn't like to lose. Play this deck if you absolutely want to win, all the time, no matter what! It's weak against Blood Moon and there's nothing that can be done about this short of using Pact of Negation which as I've said before, isn't my favorite. It is strong against all sorts of removal thanks to Pull from Eternity and Noxious Revival so really all that's left is to kill, kill, KILL!!!
Enjoy yourselves and I would love constructive criticism and advice, this deck is by no means perfect, but in my opinion is the sturdiest Griselbrand hybrid out there. Thank you for looking!
