This deck is an utter abomination against nature. Don't play it
This is a full 100 card version of my Grist Oathbreaker Combo rebuilt for EDH. This deck is possible in EDH for the first time ever now that the MH3 MDFC lands have given us just BARELY enough of a manabase to function. Essentially this is an "Oops all spells" style combo deck which revolves around stacking our deck via effects like Recross the Paths, setting up an instant kill enabled by Grist's +1 mill ability. Below is a detailed walkthrough of the entire combo, modified from the original description on my Oathbreaker deck. The combo works almost exactly the same here just with more insects needed to handle the higher life totals of EDH. The EDH version also has slightly more efficient lines because we have access to Lion's Eye DiamondGC which is banned in Oathbreaker.
Here's how we kill the entire table using extremely janky insects and 0 lands:
- Cast Grist, the Hunger Tide
- Cast Recross the Paths, OR cast + activate Goblin Charbelcher, OR cast Abundance and draw using its replacement effect. ((((at this point, you can win on the spot if you are able to make OR , OR with mana using the free draw from Conjurer's Bauble / Street Wraith. You can also win with Sensei's Divining Top in play and . Having a combo piece in hand can make it even easier, or it might be more difficult and slower with certain pieces in hand or grave. Winning on the next turn is also very viable and the safest way to multi-turn is usually to cast Grist (or Recross first if you expect Grist to die), pass, then cast Recross and combo same turn. If you Recross first you get a free tutor because you can put any card on top and draw it for turn, but this reveals way more of your plan vs. leading on Grist.))))
- Stack your deck. Because the deck has no (front-facing) lands, any of the effects from step 2 will result in revealing the entire deck. Since all of those effects say to bottom the revealed cards in ANY order, reorder the deck with all remaining insects on top, followed by Dread Return, Corrupted Conviction, Songs of the Damned, Yawgmoth's Will, and then Exsanguinate. This is the most basic form of the combo. If going for the No-draw line, which seems to be the most common line, your pile will begin with BUGS--Dread Return--Corrupted Conviction--Lion's Eye DiamondGC--Street Wraith--Skullclamp--Songs/Yawg/Exan. For the + draw line, the pile could look like BUGS--Dread Return--Lion's Eye DiamondGC--Skullclamp--Lotus Petal--Songs/Yawg/Exan/whatever you want really, once you have clamp+mana set up. You might have to get a little creative if certain cards end up in your graveyard, generally you can fix this with Bala Ged Recovery
or Yawgmoth's Will. You can win without clamp/LED at all by stacking the basic combo BUGS/Dread/Corrupted/Songs/Yawg/Exan but you will need . Just keep in mind your pile may need to change based on the circumstances. I like to put extra rituals and Phyrexian Altar just above, with Bala Ged and Goblin Charbelcher just below the core combo to serve as a backup plan. Veil of Summer is also important to have on hand but the only ways to get it before casting Skullclamp are to pass after recrossing and draw it for turn, buy it with a free draw, or to stack Corrupted Conviction--Veil of Summer--Skullclamp which will require to win with veil up. Currently the highest CMC in the deck is 6 with Aatchik, Emerald Radian or Turntimber Symbiosis
, so in the case of Recross the Paths generally put one of these on top to try and win the clash.
- With the deck stacking effect resolved, keep priority and activate Grist +1 milling all your insects from the top and also Dread Return as the last card, making 26 or so insect tokens
- Cast Dread Return using the Grist tokens, targeting Grave-Shell Scarab
- For the line use Grave-Shell Scarab to draw Corrupted Conviction, then cast to draw into LED and Street Wraith, rsp the Wraith with the LED, draw clamp and get , cast clamp and equip an insect to draw Songs of the Damned + Yawgmoth's Will with left in pool. ---OR--- 6b. For the line, use your free draw from Conjurer's Bauble or Street Wraith to draw Lion's Eye DiamondGC. Then use Diamond to pay for Grave-Shell Scarab with floating, draw Skullclamp, cast+equip, then draw Lotus Petal+Songs of the Damned
- Use your single to cast Songs of the Damned. You need give or take 25 creatures in your yard OR additional fast mana cards you can recast off Will. We'll use 25 creatures to illustrate mana in pool going forward
- Make 25 from songs. Draw into Yawgmoth's Will per one of the above lines.
- Cast the Yawgmoth's Will. Down to 21 mana
- Recast Songs from graveyard, -1+25 up to 45
- Even without clamp, at this point you can cast Stirge from graveyard, and activate to draw Exsanguinate. Stirge draw costs 3 so 42 mana left
- Cast Exsanguinate for lethal!
And that's the combo.
With a good hand you can totally jam this on turn 3-4. Whenever you get 3 mana and a tutor, it's go time. If you get stopped after the Grist +1, you are backed up fairly well by a board of insect tokens, grist ult for ~30 life, and the ability to cast Recross the Paths again because usually you win the clash. Goblin Charbelcher can also gib players as a backup. The deck's weaknesses are getting your combo cards countered, instant speed graveyard removal, decks with infinite lifegain, removal on skullclamp, never finding a Recross card in the first place, and of course the manabase barely being held together by meme dreams and multiple mulligans. And if anything goes wrong you're stuck durdling out crummy insects for the rest of the game and then dying, so I would definitely put this deck in the "glass cannon" archetype. Though it is oddly resilient in some ways, mostly because of the alt-wincons and recursion. This deck has won in multiple cEDH pods (yes we get up to a bit of memery here) where the table was able to interact and stopped the combo but then still died to the token swarm. It's also worth noting that Grist is a somewhat political card, because she kills stuff. Several times I've said "Leave Grist alone and I won't kill your stuff," and my opponent says "Sounds good." And then I murder them with the combo 2 turns later. To sum up, I think the deck's strengths lie in that it's sneaky, works along multiple angles, has multiple '1-card-wins' with tons of tutors allowing repeated attempts at going off even after being interacted with, all in addition to being a fast instant-kill combo. I would rate this a solid power level 9, I might even say 10 if it were not for the inherent problems with the mana base and lack of interactive spells.
A couple EDITS I've made to the list since the original posting, + some card considerations:
Added Corrupted Conviction to enable the clamp line with with just . Switched in Universal Automaton and Giant Adephage as new insects. Added Phyrexian Altar. Added Scheming Symmetry Dimir Machinations Cruel Tutor to max tutors. Took out the chromatics/baubles. Took out Pentad Prism. Took out Blessed Respite. Took out our mascot Deadly Insect so we can live the dream of Blister Beetleing ragavans and birds.
Changed up some mana rocks after the Mana Crypt ban. Mostly trying out a Lotus Blossom. Moonsilver Key or Pentad Prism are the other main contenders for that slot I think. Dowsing Dagger
was considered as well but I think it's mostly just too slow and clunky to get online, even with so many 1 drop creatures (partly because so much of our mana enters tapped). Also swapped in Coldsteel Heart (totally forgot about this classic), taking out Helm of Awakening because Helm just gives your opponents too much of an advantage and helps them interact against you, so it's a rather risky card in such a fragile shell. I could also see swapping in more 1 mana dorks like Llanowar Elves or Forsworn Paladin, I may experiment with this as well.
Swapped Conjurer's Bauble back in for Unbridled Growth because 1. it turns on Mox Opal, and 2. being able to bottom a card from graveyard is actually really helpful sometimes e.g. if you mill LED with a standard Grist +1 before the combo turn. I also added Grist, Voracious Larva
which I had originally avoided due to being an unclampable x/2, but I realized that flipping her as a freebie off Dread Return and potentially sniping a Rule of Law or similar hate piece was too juicy of tech to pass up. Lastly I changed up parts of the combo description to try and make things clearer and provide more info around possible lines and decision making while Recrossing, as this is the crux of the entire combo and trickiest aspect of playing the deck.
Most recently added Molt Tender and Webstrike Elite removing Scute Mob and Wirewood Symbiote (basically vanilla 1-drops). 1-drop insect mana dork? Uncounterable removal insect? I don't think they could have printed better cards for us! Also made a couple other changeling related insect swaps: Realmwalker, Masked Vandal, and Nameless Inversion in; Giant Adephage, Plague Beetle, and Blightbeetle out. Also Cryptolith Rite in Lotus Blossom out. IDK how I slept on Cryptolith for so long because this card is freakin amazing in here. I think now I am going to have to jam Aatchik, Emerald Radian too, this card seems too perfect as a top end "fair" threat / alternate reanimation target (which is what Adephage was meant to be). It is possible cutting so many 1 drops could negatively affect our ability to use Skullclamp and Springleaf Drum, but I think maximizing our removal like this should be worthwhile. I'll see how this plays, honestly have not been playing this as much lately in favor of new brews!
