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Prison Abolitionists

Commander / EDH BR (Rakdos) Bracket 3 Sacrifice Scry

Crockosneef

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Creature (42)

Land (33)

Instant (9)

Sorcery (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

Artifact (12)

Planeswalker (1)

Enchantment (1)

Grenzo sure is a fun card. For the success of this deck, all creature cards had to have power 3 or less for best consistency. I wanted it to be power 2 or less, but there are some good cards that require the number to be brought up to a 3. It's a good thing Grenzo's X cost makes him modular, himself, so that various strategies can be utilized. The main goals for this deck are to stack the bottom of the deck, cheat out impactful creatures, get a good sacrifice engine going, and eventually reach a point where you can recycle the cards.

Stacking the deck is easiest with scrying. Treasure Map  , Crystal Ball, and Warteye Witch are a few examples. However, there are ways to kick it up a notch, sometimes just incidentally. The most effective but also most dangerous ways of accomplishing this is through Teferi's Puzzle Box and Mindmoil. They're reckless, but you get so much control over the bottom of the deck when used correctly.

Grenzo is good at cheating out creatures. There sure are some creatures to cheat out with this deck. Cards like Sengir Autocrat come out with several bodies to use for aristocrat strategies. Cards like Meteor Golem can just destroy your opponent's things for the low price of 2 mana at instant speed. One of my favorites is Goblin Engineer, as it tutors one of the win conditions, like some artifact creatures, sacrifice outlets, or whatever needs to be used.

These cheatable creatures makes an aristocrat strategy more viable. Ashnod's Altar, Viscera Seer, and Altar of Dementia can all provide some amazing payoffs as sacrifice outlets. In addiiton, there are a lot of creatures or permanents which care about death: Pawn of Ulamog, Zulaport Cutthroat, Blood Artist, Pitiless Plunderer, and Mayhem Devil all help either ramp or drain the opponent when something dies. This is all well and good, but sometimes you need to go infinite, and there are several ways to do this:

Cards like Soldevi Digger, The Cauldron of Eternity, Barkform Harvester, Tomb Trawler, and Epitaph Golem can put dead creatures back on the bottom of the deck, where they can be cheated out again. Priest of Gix, Priest of Urabrask, and Emrakul's Hatcher all net 3 mana per cycle. This can be good if we have a Heartstone in play, but there is one card that does not necessarily need Heartstone. As a matter of fact, it is its own sacrifice outlet. That would be Workhorse. This card comes out as a 4/4 that can essentially sacrifice itself to give you 4 mana. If you have a card such as Soldevi Digger out, it can reduce itself to 0/0, net you 4 mana, die, get under your deck for 2 mana, and come out for 2 mana. Rinse and repeat, so long as you have a card that drains your opponent each time or nets you more mana.

There are also a few utilities that help the deck run smoothly. Cloak and Dagger protects Grenzo, and it raises his power automatically, meaning less mana spent to cast him. Fire Prophecy and Valakut Awakening   can tuck cards from our hand under our deck if we unfortunately draw into an important, expensive creature like Workhorse. There's also some good removal. Classic removal aside, such as Bedevil and Infernal Grasp, there's some creatures who can come out at instant speed via Grenzo. Ravenous Chupacabra does the job.

That concludes the general overview of the deck. It is aristocrat strategy with a bottom-deck matters twist that is fun to build around. I strongly recommend it if this sounds like something up your alley.

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93% Casual

Competitive