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This deck has been refined thoroughly to give it a competitive edge over 3 years. At the current status my play group has found it will answer every situation. Here is my comprehensive breakdown for particular strategies in the deck. I will add and remove them as they become more or less prominent within the main strategy. Please leave a like and/or a comment to let me know I'm doing something right or wrong.
Overview
Grist and her swarm are a seemingly unfeeling mass of insects born of an ominous white flash to wipe the world of all sustenance before she leaves in a white flash once more to do the same to another unsuspecting plane, I love her character and the way they played her scarce lore. She is an enigma as much as she is a Fearsome presence. I tried my hardest to reflect that attitude on tabletop. Grist being a Golgari (black/Green) commander works super well for a Grave-play Combo deck as much as helping her theme very much. Using insects and other creatures with Undergrowth abilities or the like, you use your graveyard and the devoured sustenance as fuel for your ever growing swarm of chittering wings, throwing them at your opponents in a number of ways. She will excel at always having fuel, Board control and creature generation while you focus on how you really want to use your graveyard whether it be to throw the swarm with Grist's powerful -5 or using a Splintefright to crush out any issues, maybe nether of those suit your style and opponents so you want to overwhelm with things like Giant Adephage.... However you want to helm this mass of monstrosities, I will give you my best explanation on how to Jailbreak this Queen after YEARS of playing my favourite card ever printed!
Can't wait for more story with her as much as the addition/flushing out of a very underplayed tribe of creatures!
Grist Loyalty
Grist's +1 loyalty ability can seem really complicated, nobody can deny that. But that's what I'm here for. To simplify when she +1s you make 1 insect first, then add a loyalty counter after this you mill one card (take the top one card of your library and add it to the graveyard) is the milled card an insect? Then repeat this process till you find something else! This makes her quite unique and very powerful if combod well or you get lucky with the top cards! The -2 she has is great for a lot of things and I will go into detail about that later! the -5 is the part we want to talk about right now. Using that pings your opponents for 1 damage per creature card in your graveyard. Saying "Card" here means that if you instant speed sacrifice tokens, even though they are technically in the graveyard for a second whilst moving to graveyard is on the stack, but since she says "creature cards" not "Creatures" it will not check tokens for this damage no matter what. Keeping that in mind if you use cards like Forever Young or Bone Harvest you can use her -5 to burn your opponents and immediately stack all X creatures you want back on top of your library so that the next turn you draw the one on top and have a Grist stack to work with netting you a repeated +1 guaranteed. Think about using cards like Maskwood Nexus or Conspiracy to turn all not in play Creatures into insects as well, makes everything a whole lot smoother! Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider also does wonders for loyalty as every 1 gained becomes 2!
Main Idea
The idea behind this deck is using Grist and her very powerful ability set to help control board presence with things like the -2 while also committing to self mill for your win-con. The insects all boost mill speed and shockingly enough do synergize together quite well on board, I was impressed. the deck being filled with Heavy threats and multiple other ways to get combat damage through while supporting those with removal tend to make this deck quite painfully aggressive. While also giving you other pathways to victory should your grave play not really be working well enough for you. Combos to pull things back from grave as fast as they go in while you fill your board with a continuously ramping mana state. You could also cast large creatures to slow the board down with walls all the while filling your grave ramping mana off grave. Tribal aspects as much as single creature aspects give the deck a lot of avenues to do what you need to win or do everything at once if needed. Being able to fluidly pivot your style of play and interest in win con tends to also make for an infuriating match up as your opponents could spend the whole match prepping for a grave win just for you to last second board state win all the while seemingly barely a threat since your board state is "small" even if its wide.
Threat Presence
Using removal spells to both control the board as much as potentially fueling your own yard in dire need of 1-2 more creatures to deal that game winning damage with Grist's extremely powerful -5. As it doesn't exile your yard at all. You have cards like Life From the Loam and Liliana's Talent to bring back a ridiculous board presence and keep fueling yourself with what you mill. Lets say Grist won't do the job? Then use your board presence to close the gap with Deathrite Shaman, Splinterfright, either form of scute, or cards like the Giant Adephage, could even go the avenue of grave interaction like Old Stickfingers or Souls of the Lost just to name a few. Things like Swarm of Bloodflies can also do huge damage while sac outlets like Nantuko Husk are also wildly threatening. - Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider shuts down super-friends as much as doubling your output on Grist herself. Additionally stopping things like replicating ring from being of any use. along with cards that have scavenge you may do some crazy things.... Scute mob loves this card as much as the beast (my nickname for Swarm of Bloodflies as I chant Feed The Beast) using things like Crypt of Agadeem you may also generate a dumb amount of mana easily to ramp out easier. While others like Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest or Amzu, Swarm's Hunger can help you boost your entire board state at once while you are just doing what your deck does!
Grave Play
Using Treasured Find (Lost my copy) and Regrowth or even Noxious Revival, you may pull useful things back from the grave or recur threats to the board easily. Regrowth can be reused though! Gleancrawler will let things like Grist's +1 give you free things to play with, or let you Gravepurge/Forever Young will also both supply you with tons of free things to play with as they all were "put into the Graveyard this turn". Also lets you re-use sacrificed goods for the next turn. Liliana's Talent as mentioned prior can be an incredible tool for games where Grist just won't cut it, for a relatively expensive loyalty cost you can return EVERY creature from all graveyards... Hermit Druid and Altar of Dementia also really help the deck mill itself to keep that graveyard nice and full! with light help and extreme synergy off of Splinterfright! Journey to Eternity is also an incredible tool for pulling back those little nitty gritty monstrosities to annoy your enemy! Crucible of worlds and Life from the loam hit largely the same slot! Yet I find life better as you get the consistent mill off the card! Crypt of Agadeem also requires you to use your graveyard to actually be viable in this deck doing much the same mechanically as Mausoleum secrets, which nets you a tutor based off of creature count in grave. Couldn't help but add in Buried Ruin specifically to find and use Elixir of Immortality in a dire situation. By using buried ruin you can either Dredge it back with Life From the Loam or use Crucible of Worlds to bring it out of the grave and then fling it into Elixir, essentially making it as close to guaranteed as I can a pull back without tweaking the overall flow (This is important as you can mill yourself to death with Hermit Druid easily. I promised myself never again). Team Liliana's Talent up with Mortal Combat and you end up putting the whole board under a tremendous amount of pressure.
Tribal
Bugs are great. Back in 2021 the tribal aspect of this deck was basically non-existant no matter how hard you tried. Unless using shapeshifters you really just didn't have enough insect support to do it. When we did get that support it was mostly stuff like Crawling Infestation... Not very good or Tribal. But we did get the occasional card that was actually useful and fit the tribes overall theme. Now the Tribal aspect of the deck is a very rare wincon for me but oh god is it probably the most terrifying one. GleamCrawler and Amzu together make the tribe endless, Cards like Xantid Swarm and Mazirek, Giant Adephage. All this combined with Duskshell Crawler or Phyrexian Swarmlord, Backed up by Hornet Queen or Hornet Nest pinging off the infinite cycle of Amzu, Swarm's Hunger and Gleamcrawler into them finally killing them all just so you Liliana's Talent or Mortal Combat to show them just how much of a folly they have been on climbing the insurmountable hill of death. Not to mention both variants of Grist add to the backline of the tribe incessantly. I am aware of Cards like Zask, Skittering Swarmlord and The Swarmweaver, I just couldn't find anything I deemed less worthy then the Swarmweaver yet and I don't have one in hand. Zask on the other hand is counterintuitive to the deck's entire style, he would be graveyard fodder or create another entirely unique win path within the deck I don't even wanna try and figure out.
Sacrifice
Now with Viscera seer and Altar of dementia to sacrifice your stuff last second to Grist's -5! Grist does count in graveyard even if you move it to command zone on suicide as it momentarily hits the grave...This giving you a potentially huge buff to the damage output last second! (idea taken from rulings on Wizards of The Coast website talking about how it interacts with things) as well as Nantuko Husk being an outlet to use as a grave filler on -5 and you could totally use the husk to deal LOTS of damage quickly in annoyingly hard to answer ways. Sacrifice is mostly here as a middle ground mechanic. Being useful for momentary bursts of strength on buff outlets like Nantuko Husk or being burn pace outlets before a -5 Ult using a Woe Strider to get decent value when you do, or let's say you are getting board wiped? Well you're losing everything anyway might as well sacrifice it to get a potential 10 Scry 1s in case you really do bottom all of those nasty top cards or ping a Dictate of Erebos if the wipe only hit opponents so its perfectly balanced as all things should be. It's a crucial mechanic in this deck for Pivoting or for reinforcing what you are doing, just not so crucial that you can't run without it or win purely off of sacrifice combos, because frankly. You can't in my version of the deck.
Board Control
Using a lot of the attributes in this deck we can essentially shut down the board. Using things Like Grist's -2 to force a problem creature or walker off the board. Using this with Dictate of Erebos forces your opponents to start dwindling the board as you do what your deck does... Works exceptionally well as we have a large amount of Sacrifice outlets anyways to help our grave stay full and active! While also using the few Destroy Permanent spells I put in this deck like Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse! Believe it or not I find BlightBeetle to be one of the BEST board state controllers as well. When dealing with any sort of Army or Token Or Monster Deck You can use this to stop anyone other than you from being Privy to counters at all... Makes Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider even more terrifying. Nice little touch he has protection from Green as well! Small creature you would typically never notice shut down half my play group more then once locking them to a hunt for removal! Svogthos, The Restless Tomb is something everyone forgets about, creating an incredible deterrent or last second blocker to make people groan at a 17/17 While Bane of the living is your favourite board wipe, nonetheless having access to Terror Tide gives us a backup with an easier punchline for this deck!. Sucks that the Bane of the Living kills your stuff and potentially itself in the process! But regardless many a time have I mid Block step wiped the board to the dismay of my friends! Grist, Voracious Larva might not seem like much, also oddly hard to flip sometimes, but when she does flip you end up with her -2 being absurdly useful for taking out things you typically can't without having specified removal or Caustic Caterpillar. The active ability to shoot a Palantir of Orthanc or Commanders Plate, not to mention Rest in Peace whenever I need is just too strong in this deck, not to mention the + giving us board presence and mill while setting us up for an ult not dissimilar from Liliana's Talent but with the added effect of everyone being tribally adjacent. Not to mention Amzu, Swarm's Hunger with a very similar board state buffing effect.
Other
You may find yourself in a situation where you need card's Like a Mazirek, Kraul Deathpriest or a Hermit Druid to solve certain issues or help supercharge your combo, using bug's you've already thrown out like a Token can get you to a Hermit Druid with card's like Eldritch Evolution! Keeping in mind you will HAVE to learn the deck and the creature's you are using before you FULLY take advantage of such a card. But it can be endlessly Viable. Especially when considering how you want to play the game in a match. Sometimes your hand is perfect for a Mortal combat/Grist Ult win but as the game progresses you have to do things like Dictate of erebos the board down while using Liliana's Talent and Gleamcrawler to keep your board full of horrible little crawlies. It's very hard to figure out exactly which path you should take considering how wide the options are with this theme from Tribal Takedown, To ult wins, Overflowing the board with tokens, Mortal combat wins, maybe even the Old Stickfingers, Boneyard Wurm wincons. Considering even with experience sometimes matches just change fast with wipes or group hug or the like, hence cards like the Ozolith and the Elixir of Immortality easy pullback combo I talked about both of these are used as ides for easily pivoting yourself to a new wincon style or playstyle in the deck, ignoring the obvious Talent ult pivot.
Please enjoy, leave comments and criticism. Make your own little unique twists to it! This is my ground up brain baby EDH I want to take to CEDH. used no prebuilds or any sort of blueprints. ALL of this came out of MY own ass. Breakdown Is a work in progress!! I add and remove as I grow and change with my pet deck!
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