Sometimes you don’t want to think. Usually for Kendra’s stream I try to come up with a new brew. This week, however, I wanted to play one of my paper decks. So I went to one with a backstory.
For quite some time now, I’ve worked with Mike (Omniczech/Big Mike) on building decks for some time. Mike helps me to cut some of the chaff and refine the ideas as I move towards a full list. When I saw Polukranos, Unchained I started sounding off about a million terrible ideas. Mike recommended I build Grismold, the Dreadsower. As he put it, it would let me run a ton of bad cards and “readers” – cards that most people would need to read regardless of how long they had played the game.
I was sold.
Grismold provided an interesting challenge. But I was up for it. I looked for persistent effects that would handle the tokens created by my commander on regular basis. I knew about Plague Spitter, Illness in the Ranks, and Virulent Plague. Mike introduced me to Festering Evil and I was excited to add it, as well as every Pestilence variant I could get my grubby hands on. Last Laugh was a fun find and one that, if I set it up correctly, should leave me with a massive troll and an empty board.
Grismold also gave me the opportunity to run some of my favorite cards and combinations. The +1/+1 counter theme let me run Animation Module, which feeds Grismold twice over. It also let me turn Retribution of the Ancients into a machine gun. Grismold provided a home for some combos that would otherwise have no home in my collection like Nath–Hypnotist and Mephidross Vampire–Triskelion. I also got to include Vigor, which is just good, and Saber Ants, which is just weird.
Wednesday’s game was wild and even though I was choked on lands for most of it, I managed to get a few good hits in and eventually helped to dictate the way the game ended. Even if it wasn’t entirely on my terms.
So here it is, in all its glory – Grismold, the Trash King.
NerdtotheCore 