Good grixis commander?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on May 1, 2015, 6:25 a.m. by abenz419
I used to have a Marchesa, the Black Rose EDH deck but half the time I play it's at a friends so I play 1v1 a lot. Obviously, she loses some of her strength when you only have one opponent so I ended up taking it apart because I didn't play it as often as I would have liked. I was thinking of putting together another Grixis deck to make use of some of these cards and I came across Lord of Tresserhorn, and wanted to get some opinions on him. Also, I thought I'd see if there were any other recommendations for a Grixis commander?
I'm playing Crosis, the Purger right now for grixis. I've tried to build the deck so that it wins without it, since it's cmc 
and has a 
for it's ability which makes it kinda slow, but still backbreaking when I pop his ability. I've always had a grixis 60 card deck, so when my playgroup switched to edh I didn't want to neglect those colors.
I also have Garza Zol, Plague Queen and Thraximundar in the deck. Thrax is a beast; he'd make a good commander as well
May 1, 2015 7:21 a.m.
@Schuesseled eventually I will, it just sucked having invested the time building it to leave those cards tied up in the deck when it wasn't getting any use. She doesn't kick ass if you can't play her.
I thought about Thraximundar and Garza Zol, Plague Queen but wasn't sure if I wanted a commander that cost 7. Both are very interesting though.
May 1, 2015 11 a.m.
In competitive 1v1, ie French, settings Thraximundar is kind of the go to general if you're playing Grixis I think.
That being said, why would Marchesa, the Black Rose not be good in 1v1...? If you include ways of throwing counters on things outside of her dethrone ability as WELL as ways to hurt yourself you can typically still just wreak havoc. I have played 1v1 against an Oloro, Ageless Ascetic build before, floated some mana off pain lands to get myself just under the throne and then one shot him with Scourge of the Throne fairly easy with just a couple creatures and Flayer of the Hatebound. It really just comes down to deck construction.
May 1, 2015 11:21 a.m.
Because she's not, if your constantly trying to keep your life total just under your opponents by pinging yourself for small amounts of damage then your essentially racing your opponent with your own life total. For every damage you deal to your opponent you have to deal slightly more to yourself, this is a horrible strategy to have the deck built around for when I do play multi-player and have multiple people targeting me. In a 1v1 game something as simple as your opponent shocking in a land on turn 1 can make you have to do tons of extra work just to make use of the abilities the deck is built around. I don't really want to play a deck where my opponent using a painland can actually set me back.
Basically building the deck for 1v1 and building the deck for multi-player are two different things. So it's either I focus the deck for 1v1 games and only play it half as often as I like and eventually take it apart so it doesn't just sit there, or I focus the deck for multi-player games and only play it half as often as I like and eventually take it apart so it doesn't just sit there. I chose what seemed like the better option and decided to build a new deck that I'll be able to play in both settings.
May 1, 2015 12:37 p.m.
Also, iLikeDirt, the reason I say 1v1 and not French is because my friend and I build our decks for multi-player because we do play that and it's actually the preferred way to play. However there are times when we're just hanging out and don't have a third player so we simply take our decks and use them. They're not actually constructed for competitive French as they all contain banned cards under French rules.
May 1, 2015 12:43 p.m.
SageOfStone says... #8
There are a lot of good Grixis commanders. My favorite is Sedris, the Traitor King. Personally, I would just build it as Grixis goodstuff with a few reanimator undertones.
I also love Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge. She's very strong against combo decks, and she's one of those "attack and win" commanders. I usually build around her with very few creatures and other permanents.
May 1, 2015 1:55 p.m.
LittleBlueHero says... #9
I can vouch for Thraximundar. He was my first commander deck and I still keep it together for duels simply because if he hits the board the game usually ends that turn or a turn later with commander damage. Haste is a big deal.
He's fun to build around too.
May 1, 2015 2:58 p.m.
I see what you're getting at abenz419, I just disagree partially. Yes, hurting yourself to race an opponent in large doses isn't usually a good way to play, but thats where deck construction comes in. There's a good number of ways to put +1/+1 counters on creatures outside of a dethrone trigger, (ie Undying, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Unspeakable Symbol any number of graft creatures, etc, etc. Persist creatures also tend to work well with marchesa) or you could simply just not sack your guys? When you have one opponent left and you have the highest life total with an array of creatures that come back after a wrath, you shouldn't NEED to be putting more on.
Not trying to a combative or obnoxious "I'm right you're wrong" kind of guy here so I REALLY hope thats not how I'm coming off :] That being said, I actually play Marchesa, the Black Rose as well and she does some work with tuning and finding ways to get around needing to dethrone. So, before you go breaking down a deck you like I suggest looking at my list and a few others here on tappedout for other ideas on how to work around it. If you decide you'd rather play Thraximundar or something go for it, I just wanted to throw my two cents in lol
May 1, 2015 4:27 p.m.
Schuesseled says... #11
There's no need to build marchesa as a suicide deck, graft works so freaking well it's not necessary.
May 1, 2015 4:51 p.m.
Agreed Schuesseled, I run a couple elements of it (like my pain lands, Ancient Tomb and Unspeakable Symbol) but I also run a bunch of ways to gain it back later so as to stabilize after I've set up an engine where I just don't need to dethrone anymore
May 1, 2015 4:58 p.m.
No worries, I'm just explaining my experience's with it and why i took it apart. Also, literally every card you've mentioned... with the exception of Thraximundar... was in my deck including graft creatures such as Helium Squirter and Cytoplast Manipulator for example. It literally got to the point where you were completely reliant on those specific cards you talked about in order to even have a chance and even then you were still working 10 times harder to do stuff the deck was designed to do naturally in a multi-player setting. We take all our decks together and randomly select them when we play 1v1. It adds some variety and give me a chance to play my friends decks and him, mine. It became quickly obvious to us that despite performing well in multi-player set ups, she was easily the deck we wanted to randomly get the least. A couple bad draws could put you behind the rest of the decks even if they weren't doing anything special. Between that and all the extra work it felt like you had to do and it just took all the fun out of playing the deck. That eventually led to it being removed from the choices when we played and me only getting to play it when I had a chance to do multi-player. And since I have other decks I like to play in MP as well that meant it just didn't get played enough.
May 1, 2015 5:04 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #14
Uhhh Lord of Tresserhorn is clunky except in a deck built around him. Thraximundar is ridiculously easy to shut down since he's SOO expensive.
Honestly, I'd say Gwendlyn Di Corci is probably the best commander on its own in grixis for 1v1 (considering just the commander).
May 1, 2015 5:42 p.m.
well the idea is to build the deck around him lol.... I decided to give it a shot. It's basically going to be a voltron build that takes advantage of some recursion and undying. He just seems like he'd be really fun to send rampaging at people.
May 1, 2015 6:15 p.m.
So i am guessing that your Marchesa, the Black Rose deck wasn't infect. Which is actually one of the strongest ways to build her since, the creatures you would use deal damage in the form of counters and not life loss. Thus no real need to keep knocking your life total down out side of your opponents own self damage. Just an idea of course also she is brutal in 1v1 and group play (but costs a bit more for a solid infect build).
May 2, 2015 8:26 a.m.
UndeadHorde says... #17
Thanks Jeggard, I'll have to add that to my Marchesa deck, abenz419 use arcbound cards, sacrifice, and tons of undying, you can sacrifice the arcbounds to amp up each other and get the sacrifice ability. It scales great and you don't need to hurt yourself
Schuesseled says... #2
Go back to marchesa, she kicks ass.
May 1, 2015 6:45 a.m.