Greenshoalbrand (WAR Spoiler, New Deck Breakdown)

Modern Combo GU (Simic)

1vI

Lands (18)

• 4x Botanical Sanctum
• 2x Breeding Pool
• 4x Flooded Strand
• 4x Gemstone Mine
• 1x Island
• 3x Temple of Mystery

Win-Con (5)

• 1x Seismic Assault
• 4x Simian Spirit Guide

Combo-Enablers (16)

• 4x Allosaurus Rider
• 4x Eldritch Evolution
• 4x Neoform
• 4x Summoner's Pact

Griselbrand (11)

• 2x Autochthon Wurm
• 3x Crimson Wisps
• 2x Griselbrand
• 4x Nourishing Shoal

Consistency (10)

• 1x Gigadrowse
• 4x Serum Visions
• 4x Sleight of Hand
• 1x Wild Cantor

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Sideboard

Other (15)

• 4x Chalice of the Void
• 2x Echoing Truth
• 3x Gigadrowse
• 4x Spell Pierce
• 2x Void Snare

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War of the Spark is on it's way and so are our brews. Today I bring to you...

Dino Evolution

Intro to Griselbrand (click me)

Griselbrand decks have a reputation of being fast and powerful, Griselbrand himself known for typically winning the game as soon as he hits the battlefield. The most common "Grishoalbrand" lists that were popular for a while were designed to cheat Griselbrand into play using Goryo's Vengeance and Through the Breach .

1. Once Griselbrand hits the battlefield, the goal is to draw as many cards as possible with his ability, then cast Nourishing Shoal for its alternate cost by exiling an expensive green card from your hand such as Worldspine Wurm or Autochthon Wurm . This will let you gain a ton of life without any mana.
2. Once you cast Nourishing Shoal, you can proceed to draw more cards through Griselbrand with the life you gained.
3. Ultimately, you'll draw almost your entire deck, and exile a few Simian Spirit Guide from your hand. With that , you cast a win condition such as Lightning Storm , discarding almost an entire deck's worth of lands to shock your opponent for lethal damage.
   

Neoform Evolution (click me)

Among the cards recently spoiled in War of the Spark, there was a spicy Sorcery that inspired a lot of brewing among the magic community, Neoform . Its partner in crime, Eldritch Evolution has already had a good deal of success in creature toolbox decks such as those featuring the Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies combo. We aim to do something very different.

• Our primary goal in this deck is to sacrifice a 7 mana creature to Neoform or Eldritch Evolution , allowing us to put Griselbrand directly into play and win from there. "Which creature?" you may ask. Allosaurus Rider is the card of choice.
• By exiling two excess green cards in your hand, you can cast Allosaurus Rider without paying its mana cost, then immediately sacrifice it to Neoform or Eldritch Evolution to put Griselbrand into play for 2-3 mana.

The first concern that comes to mind is of course consistency. "How consistent is this compared to normal Grishoalbrand?" is a question I've received quite a few times, and reasonably so. While I won't be bold and say this deck is a billion times more consistent than Grishoalbrand lists, I will say it is at least as consistent as Grishoalbrand lists after playing at least a hundred games with both. It definitely wins on turn 2 and 3 a lot more than any other combo deck.

The ultimate goal is for an interested community to grow around the deck and contribute to putting up real results. More on that in the last "Conclusion and Resources" section.

Additional Card Choices (click me)

One of the most confusing parts of the deck is the card choices made, and I hope to do my best to explain that here.

1. 4x Summoner's Pact is absolutely crucial in the deck, and does multiple things. First of all, it acts as copies 5-8 of Allosaurus Rider , allowing you to virtually have 8 copies of both combo cards (8 Allosaurus Rider , 8 Evolution effects). Second of all, it's a green card, and can be exiled to Allosaurus if you draw multiples. Third, it can be used to tutor cards while comboing, notably the 15 mana Autochthon Wurm to be exiled to Nourishing Shoal .
2. 4x Serum Visions and 4x Sleight of Hand are very powerful and probably necessary for this deck to function as consistently as it does. Serum Visions is especially powerful in letting you draw a card, then choose to top the last card (combo card, green card, or land) you need to combo the next turn. Sleight of Hand is also very good, but if you absolutely must run some cards in your flex spots, you can run one less.
3. 2x Autochthon Wurm seems weird at first, but having Summoner's Pact and a playset of 7 mana Allosaurus Rider allows you to skimp on it a little. Running 3 is fine but really unnecessary.
4. 3x Crimson Wisps or Mass Hysteria allows you to attack with your normally not-hasted Griselbrand and net a nice 7 life off its lifelink. Crimson Wisps allows you to draw deeper before or during combo, but Mass Hysteria makes Allosaurus Rider beatdowns a lot easier if necessary.
5. 2x Griselbrand While we need to draw any Griselbrands to win, we also don't want to draw the only copy in our deck and lose on the spot or be forced to mulligan that hand. 2 copies is simply the sweet spot.
6. 1x Wild Cantor enables some clutch plays with Simian Spirit Guide , such as filtering the mana so you can cast a Sleight of Hand as you go off with Griselbrand , or casting Neoform off one land and a Simian Spirit Guide . Additionally, it can be used as a mana dork to hit a turn 2 Eldritch Evolution . It's also Green, so you can fetch it with Summoner's Pact or exile it to Allosaurus Rider .
7. 1x Seismic Assault is the win condition of choice for this deck. While Lightning Storm does 1-3 more damage and is an Instant, Seismic Assault has a few perks over it. First of all, it's capable of killing cards like Spellskite or Gideon of the Trials before dealing lethal to the opponent, where Lightning Storm is only capable of having one final target. Seismic Assault may also come important against creature decks like Spirits or Humans, since you can kill a bunch of them to clear creatures if you can't win somehow. Also, being an Enchantment, Seismic Assault avoids cards like Dispel and Mausoleum Wanderer . For quite a while I ran both Seismic Assault and Lightning Storm , and going back to that is reasonable.
8. 1x Gigadrowse is a very powerful card against control. While one might consider Pact of Negation to be the best answer that combo has for control decks, every land in the deck intentionally taps for , partially due to the 3-4 Gigadrowse we want to run. Gigadrowse works a bit like Storm (see: Grapeshot ) in that your opponent has to counter each copy individually. Because of this, you can force them to tap whatever remaining sources they have at the end of their turn and you're probably completely free to combo off the following turn. It can also tap other Permanents like Creatures and Artifacts. Additional copies are run in the sideboard, but having one copy maindeck as an out to control (or lots of Path to Exiles) is helpful. The sideboard copies of this and our raw speed often make control matchups surprisingly easy.

The manabase also has a few goals:
1. Deal as little damage to ourselves as possible (with Griselbrand , life is precious)

1. Be able to get an Island if the situation calls for it (sideboard outs to Blood Moon being )

2. Tap for immediate Serum Visions or Sleight of Hand

3. Support Gigadrowse and lots of sideboard cards.

4. Be able to cast our win conditions turn 2-3 ( Neoform / Eldritch Evolution

And having Temple of Mystery is a very good consistency booster. Many times you have room to place the tap land and gain significant consistency from it.

While I could elaborate about the sideboard, Modern matchups are something that each individual should learn, and something that is honestly impossible to completely cover. Also, this is already a lot to write XD But here is this:

1. 3-4x Gigadrowse stops most counterspells, the most powerful disruption the combo could face. (See section "Competitive Tips and Tricks" for why removal is useless against this deck most of the time.

2. 2x Void Snare and 2x Echoing Truth allow for extremely efficient and versatile answers to permanents for a turn. A turn should be all you need.

3. 4x Spell Pierce answers most of whatever threatens you on the stack or as soon as it hits the battlefield, such as Scapeshift (into Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle ), Land Destruction, Liliana of the Veil or even counterspells like Pact of Negation .

4. 4x Chalice of the Void is mostly a meta call. Also pairs well with our 4x Simian Spirit Guide . Aggressive Death's Shadow decks and their Thoughtseize + efficient counterspells can cause us trouble, and this hinders them quite a bit. Also significantly slows down Izzet Arclight Phoenix decks that happen to be meta right now. This 4 slots are $expensive and flexible. Basically all our important spells are converted mana cost 2 or 3, so this does basically nothing to us. ( Chalice of the Void on =Zero to stop opponents Pact of Negation or Summoner's Pact is also reasonable if you have Allosaurus Rider . Also shuts down Cheeri0s (if that's a thing anymore), one of the few decks probably capable of regularly outracing us.

1x Gigadrowse , 1x Void Snare , 2x Spell Pierce , and 4x Chalice of the Void are the best flex spots in the sideboard if you have any improvements in mind.

Competitive Tips and Tricks (click me)

I'm kind of tired for the night, so I'll write more on this later. The one you must know is:

1. As soon as Allosaurus Rider resolves and enters the battlefield, before you pass priority, you may cast Neoform or Eldritch Evolution , immediately sacrificing Allosaurus Rider to the cost. This basically means they don't have the chance to cast a removal spell between your Allosaurus Rider and paying the cost of an Evolution effect. After that, very few commonly played removal spells are capable of removing Griselbrand during your turn ( Path to Exile being the only one really worth noting), and you can activate his ability in response to removal. So, this deck is super resilient to removal, unlike most creature combos.

Oh and Allosaurus Rider beatdowns goes around Leyline of Sanctity OwO ...or if you just draw bad lmao

Conclusion and Resources (click me)

I'll probably write more on this later. If you want to contact me or talk to others about the deck, join our Dino Evolution Community Discord https://discord.gg/YyacGmY and tag me @ Joshie.

I'm also considering making a Griselbrand discord. Do tell me if that's of interest.

I'm super super thankful if you spent the time reading all that I wrote, and look forward to seeing a Greenshoalbrand community grow!

Top Ranked	Achieved #15 position overall 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Modern 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Key combos	Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies
Legality	This deck is not Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	2 - 4 Mythic Rares 36 - 0 Rares 8 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 11 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	3.10
Folders	nbxb, Post rotation ideas, decks to buy retail, Decks I Want