Hello, and welcome to 50 Shades of Grenzo, I will discuss the pros and cons of playing Grenzo, Dungeon Warden but of course once again I'll give you the history I have with the Dungeon Warden.

It was only a few years ago back when I was starting to make more tuned decks did I want to make a good Rakdos() deck. I looked through the Generals available at the time and most of them did not catch my interesting until I laid eyes on Grenzo, Dungeon Warden and immediately knew I wanted to build that deck. His effect seemed so interesting and kind of different from any other Rakdos commander at the time.

It quickly became one of my favorite decks and still is to this day.

Who is Grenzo, Dungeon Warden ? well Grenzo is 2 cost 2/2 costing and . Paying into Grezno's allows Grenzo to enter with more +1/+1 counters, Grenzo's unique casting cost is a big strength due to his activate ability.

Grenzo's activated ability costs putting the bottom card of our library into our graveyard, if it's a creature with lower power then Grenzo or equal to it we immediately put it onto the battlefield. This effect is absolutely bonkers playing well with things such as Teferi's Puzzlebox or the recently introduced London Mulligan. You can also respond to Grenzo's effect if someone tries to remove him, or stifle the affect to use it again to get the desired card, making him very versatile.

Pros:

-Low CMC

-Many lines and combos for wins

-Can be difficult to interact with

Cons:

-Some wins require set up and patience.

-May need to hold mana to protect Grenzo/to allow him to go off.

-Has very risky plays that can result in you being removed from the game.

Grenzo has many combos he can play around being Rakdos colors gives him tons of options in this department!

Animate Dead + Worldgorger Dragon this results in infinite mana and infinite etbs of every permanent type you control, until we either remove Worldgorger ourselves or we target a different card in our graveyard. Using this infinite mana we tunnel through our deck with Grenzo until we hit a combo.

Unfortunately this can also effectively remove us from the game if an opponent responds at the right time removing Worldgorger we have literally nothing on the board. As such we must be 100% certain we can win or we have Imp's Mischief in hand so we can attempt to redirect the spell to another target if there is one available.

Priest of Urabrask + Soldevi Digger + Ashnod's Altar + Grenzo, Dungeon Warden , how this combo works is Urabrask enters giving us once this is done we sacrifice it to Ashnod's and use the produced to activated Soldevi putting Priest on to bottom of our library.

We then use 2 of the to activate Grenzo's effect and put priest into our graveyard, since its power is equal to Grenzo's we put it into the battlefield we continue this until we make infinite mana and then tunnel through our deck for our combo pieces.

This combo can also work with Priest of Gix .

Now these are just some of the normal combos. The other Combos will be listed in another heading due to their interactions with a particular card, understand these other combos CAN be used outside of these interactions but require setup and other factors to allow themselves to be executed successfully.

Now we get into what Grenzo plays best with a little card called Doomsday . This card is one of the riskiest approaches in the game, due to certain interactions potentially causing us to outright LOSE if we don't set up appropriately.

Unlike other lists I want to explain Doomsday and how it works, many people are already familiar with the card itself but I still think there is some precedent in explaining it.

Doomsday is a 3 cost spell costing . When cast you pay half your life, rounded up and then put your graveyard and library together.

Then you select five cards and remove the rest of your library from the game entirely, we then put those specific 5 cards in any order and they become our new library. Doomsday is the ultimate all-in card, this is throwing caution to the wind with a willingness to let yourself get destroyed if it can allow to gain victory.

There are several lines we can use for this, but understand once we have five cards in our deck and we start using Grenzo's effect to move them to our field we CAN be targeted with an instant speed draw spell and lose the game if we have no cards in our library as such we have two avenues to victory.

One is our standard "Safe" Doomsday pile.

Priest of Urabrask , Priest of Gix , Skirk Prospector , Metallic Mimic , and Murderous Redcap .

To explain we assume we have a limited amount of mana available to us after we Doomsday, we must set up so we can activate Grenzo's effect at the minimum 2 times depending on if we have Dark Ritual or Desperate Ritual in hand.

The first activation puts the first Priest into play giving us either 3 or 3 allowing us another activation we then activate Grenzo again to get the next Priest then activate him 3 more times to play Prospector, Mimic, and Redcap. Now we're completely out of Mana but we have our combo on the field.

Skirk Prospector + Metallic Mimic + Murderous Redcap this allows us to sacrifice Redcap and have it reenter with a -1/-1 counter but due to Mimic with us having chosen the Goblin type for its effect gives Redcap a +1/+1 counter canceling out its persist effect. This allows us to do infinite damage to the entire board, and also allows us to avoid some pesky cancellation of damage effects.

Since Prospector's effect is a mana ability it does not use the stack, meaning the combo is more airtight. People can respond to the Mimic and Redcap triggers, but luckily we are making mana off these sacrifices giving us the potential to interact and protect our combo depending on the cards in our hand.

Alternatively, Viscera Seer , or Carrion Feeder can also be put into the Doomsday pile, or if you have Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar on the field or in hand they can also be substituted out.

The other pile is our risky pile .

Priest of Urabrask , Priest of Gix , Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker , Mad Auntie , and Zealous Conscripts .

Now you can alternatively tech out Mad Auntie if Grenzo is a 3/3 but assuming he is not you essentially do the same steps as before.

Use Grenzo's effect twice to play both of the priests then Kiki, tap Kiki to make another Priest and then use the new mana to play Auntie and Conscripts. This will put our combo out onto the field.

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts

The combo works as so Conscripts will target Kiki and untap him allowing him to make another Conscripts and essentially make infinite Conscripts which we use to overrun our opponents.

Now this is a riskier play because we HAVE to go to combat to win the game, which means any sort of targeted instant speed draw spell, or fog effect causes us to lose the game. So we can only execute this if we 100% are confident we can win the game.

Now there are ways to avoid an unwinnable scenario, the card Recoup and a sac effect will allow us flashback Doomsday to put together our pile again, although we can only do this ONCE and if we fail after that, that's it.

Now otherwise we can also use these combos by hard casting them or potentially reanimating a piece they are a bit hefty in mana cost so that's usually a last resort.

Its also possible to have pieces in our hand when we Doomsday so its a good idea to plan accordingly for that such as finding a way to structure our mana so that we can still go off by casting from our hand.

So now that we understand our combos how do we assemble them? Well since we're playing Rakdos we have access to a great Tutor suite,

Demonic Tutor , Diabolic Intent , Beseech the Queen , Diabolic Tutor , Sidisi, Undead Vizier , and two special cases. These two special cases are Dimir Machinations and Praetor's Grasp .

Dimir Machinations allows us to search for a 3 cmc card, which is usually Doomsday now this allows our opponents to see we have it, but also its not a cast so it can't be countered as easily allowing us a very safe option to getting Doomsday or any other 3 cmc card we want.

Praetor's Grasp is a different story, we exile a card from an opponent's library and we can cast it, so we can use Grasp to target an opponent playing Black and take their tutors, or potentially if we're lucky they might be running a piece in their deck. Since this exiled card we can cast as long as it remains in exile, we can hold it all game as effectively an extra card in our hand.

Alternatively targeting a blue player can lead to us getting, Pact of Negation giving us an extra layer of protection if we try to combo off.

There is another tutor option and that's Liliana Vess well her second loyalty ability is really just a non-instant speed Vampiric Tutor combining it with a draw effect allows us to get a card we need. She's not really the best option but since we have a healthy amount of card draw I think we can make decent use of her effect.

As I mentioned above we run healthy amounts of card draw.

Skullclamp is on of our most reliable since we have a few reoccurable creatures with 1 toughness, these include, Reassembling Skeleton and Squee, the Immortal now Squee I think is the most efficient because he can't be removed at all but he costs more mana to use 4 per clamp compared to Reassembling's 3. Its a 1 mana difference but 1 mana can allow us to make a play off of that clamp. Its also worth nothing Reassembling can also be returned to field on an opponent's turn which is really really helpful, but Reassembling is still prone to graveyard hate and being exiled by a mass wipe or some other effect. Where as Squee can survive being exiled but can only be played on our turn outside of us obtaining mass Flash somehow.

Erebos, God of the Dead acts as an indestructible greed effect unfortunately he also is known to draw hate but eh small price to pay.

Filigree Familiar has interesting interactions with Ashnod's Altar , Soldevi Digger , and Grenzo, Dungeon Warden essentially it allows us to reoccur Familiar for only 2 mana giving us 2 life and drawing us one card. Its a decent draw engine and it also allows us to gain a healthy amount of life.

Solemn Simulacrum also works with the above although it also gets us basic lands which works actually better since it also thins our deck, expands our mana pool and gives us draw.

Phyrexian Arena the bread and butter of any deck containing black, giving us one card on upkeep for the low, low price of 1 life.

Dark Tutelage This is an interesting card one I want to go into depth on. Lets look at what Tutelage does.

Well for we get an enchantment that says, at the beginning of our upkeep, we reveal the top card of our library and put that card into our hand. We then lose life equal to its CMC. This card sounds really familiar, that's because it exists already in the form of a creature called Dark Confidant .

Confidant is a powerful card that plenty of decks run, it gives card advantage and it comes out quickly. Now Tutelage is the enchantment version of Confidant and is arguably the worst version, it can't be sac'd to present ourselves from burning out and its likely not going to get hit since it can kill us. But you know what's funny? That's its biggest strength.

You won't believe how many games this card has won for me, I've had both it and Arena out at the same time and someone has removed Arena because it generates, more value and hurts me less. Well true it hurts less, our average CMC in Grenzo is 2.80 meaning on average we only take about 3 life per card which isn't that big a deal, especially since its not a draw. This allows Tutelage to avoid things like, Notion Thief , Narset, Parter of Veils , or any other card that caps our ability to draw cards at only one per turn.

Generally people just leave it around and you're just adding two cards to hand every single turn. Yes you will lose more life more often but the trade off is worth it for it being a target most people will just shrug at. Which is why I love it, this card is viewed as so underwhelming that it just gets glossed over as you are slowly adding more and more cards to our hand.

A Typical game of Grenzo is to hit Doomsday as fast as possible. The earlier the better since the earlier we use Doomsday the more viable the more risky line is.

As such we need to ensure our opening hand contains, either Doomsday itself, or a tutor that can fetch it for us, once we've assured this we need to play a careful waiting game. Waiting for our opponents to be tapped out and having limited responses, of course that can be hard with a Blue player since they could be packing, Force of Will , Force of Negation , or Pact of Negation if they are completely tapped out. In these situations you need to hope you hit one of our own counter spells, or Overmaster which can be used to bait out the counter. Once we're in a good position we throw everything out the window and tunnel in on Doomsday and hope we win.

We can also avoid counter magic by playing Doomsday having it be countered, and then using Recoup the next time our opponents are tapped out to attempt to go off again.

Now of course, there's gunna be times when we can't Doomsday because someone removes it from our deck, or uses a counter spell that removes it from the game. Failing in that we luckily have a fallback combo in Animate Dead + Worldgorger Dragon , now its risky but going off with this allows us to swing victory back into our favor.

Anarchist a quick option get back any tutors, or a countered Doomsday a bit hefty on mana cost but small price to pay to keep our options open.

Azra Oddsmaker an interesting card draw option it requires us to deal damage to an opponent but in games were we have no blue players it gives the opportunity to dump some of our counters.

Burnished Hart not the most viable thing but when you're playing Rakdos I'll take what I can get when it allows us to broaden our mana pool!

Filigree Familiar can be a good card draw engine explained in better detail in the Assembling Combos heading.

Hellkite Tyrant excellent way to steal someone's rocks or other pesky artifacts we do not like! Also gives us an alternate win con if it can survive that long.

Urabrask the Hidden another haste source but also taps our opponents creatures down as the enter not the best card but its not totally awful.

Withered Wretch targeted graveyard hate at its finest outside of maybe Scavenging Ooze this thing mangles opponents' graveyards, it also doubles as a way to remove combos that cause our opponents to reshuffle their library such as Kozilek, Butcher of Truth , or Gaea's Blessing .

Dark Tutelage card advantage, better explained above in Assembling Combos.

Everlasting Torment I mentioned before we can have a problem with damage prevention effects, well this is our answer to it. Fantastic card with a low CMC!

Phyrexian Reclamation gives us access to creature cards that were thrown into the Graveyard, such as Sidisi, Undead Vizier or Solemn Simulacrum can also work into an ok engine with Filigree Familiar and Ashnod's Altar / Phyrexian Altar .

Liliana of the Dark Realms who doesn't like searching for lands? Well its not to the field this Liliana gives us quick access to our lands that share both types, or just in general Swamps so we don't miss land drops. Generally we'll get one or two searches before someone takes her out due to her final ability but that's ok as long as we can gain some value out of it!

Liliana Vess our discount Vampiric Tutor to be 100% honest it would be much better to remove this for a Vamp Tutor and down the line I feel that will be done. But for now its a solid option especially with all of our card draw options.

Canyon Slough one of the Amhonket Duel lands, its not the most awful card, but it does always enter tapped but its searchable with Liliana of the Dark Realms , and if we need a quick card draw we can pitch it due to cycling all in all a solid card overall.

Kher Keep a way to produce tokens to use with Skullclamp giving us a slow draw engine.

Shizo, Death's Storehouse you might be wondering why is this card in here? Well its simple really, if we go off with Worldgorger we make Infinite Mana which we can then use to pump up Grenzo and provided we have haste this gives us an out if all our other combo options have been exhausted or were down to us playing against one other player. They NEVER see it coming.

Imp's Mischief a very interesting card, it can provide a way to save our combos or redirect effects but we have to be careful since multi-targeting abilities will still get through.

Dreadbore just an extra removal option something we use on our turn to keep our instant speed ones open!

Defense Grid great way to keep people from responding when we try to go off also effectively works as Counterspell bait!

For cards I'd like to add in the future.

I think Vampiric Tutor would be a good option, and if possible a Badlands .

I'd also really love a Imperial Seal but they are harder to find then a Duel Land in my experience.

Well there you have 50 Shades of Grenzo, I hope you enjoyed reading the list and I'd appreciate any feedback! Thank you!

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Date added 4 years
Last updated 4 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

5 - 0 Mythic Rares

38 - 0 Rares

28 - 0 Uncommons

13 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.78
Tokens Copy Clone, Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Kobold 0/1 R
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