COMMANDER! Review: Griselbrand

Hello everyone! David here again to talk about the new Avacyn Restored Legendary Creatures and I hope you're excited for more Commander-themed content! Today we're putting Griselbrand up to the test.

Looking at this 8 mana 7/7 Flyer, he is a monster. A pure monster; with Lifelink! Holy cow! Griselbrand can clog up the battlefield and make combat nearly impossible for your opponents to profitably attack you. He's as defensive as he is offensive. Griselbrand stands in front of the gate to your life total and threatens to gain +7 life when he blocks and can aggressively swing to gain life and use that same life to use his activated ability. What was that ability again? Oh right, DRAW 7 FREAKING CARDS!! Griselbrand's ability is very similar to Necropotence or Greed; however, both of those strong enchantments lack the ability to feed themselves. Griselbrand's Lifelink ability fuels his activated ability, which is incredibly scary. Have a low life total? Swing and gain 7 life. Have so much life you don't know what to do with it? Flip it for cards.

In casual games, Griselbrand is a little difficult to cast but is one of the best creatures to cheat into play via Quicksilver Amulet or Elvish Piper. He's also one of the best reanimation targets out there. He can generate card advantage, bring on the beats, and keeps you alive all in one card. Nothing is more gratifying than reanimating this guy after drawing 7 when they killed him the first time. This huge demon also fuels discard Grixis and other reanimation strategies, since you're fueling your hand and probably discarding a lot of cards during your end step. Nice. Living Death. I expect tons of casual players aiming to slam this guy on the battlefield and rule the skies while they attempt to assemble their combo and take down multiple opponents.

Griselbrand will make a splash in Standard in the Frites decks as a 1x or 2x of alongside Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite as their premier Unburial Rites target. Unless some tribal deck with demons shows up from M13, I don't think decks will try to hardcast Griselbrand, even with the help of Cavern of Souls. Although Griselbrand favorably blocks Lingering Souls tokens and any creature holding a Sword of War and Peace, his 8 mana cost will keep him out of range of being reliably cast to defend you, especially with the popularity of Vapor Snag and Snapcaster Mage consistency in the format. I'm most excited to see if Griselbrand makes a splash in Legacy. Although Reanimator has been a bit weak over the past few months, they could use a few upgrades. With Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur as one of their best targets, Griselbrand might be better. Jin-Gitaxias does reduce your opponents' maximum size to 0 which helps lock out the game quicker, but Griselbrand might have more resiliency against Swords to Plowshares so you can still draw the 7 cards that fuels your win even if they have the removal spell for your fatty. It's a toss up, but I'm excited to see what Griselbrand brings to the Legacy table.

What will Griselbrand bring to the EDH table? His 4bbbb mana cost will keep him safely put into mono-Black decks or B/x decks. B/x/x decks will use Griselbrand as a combo piece and might have a difficult time casting him (although Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth conveniently absolves the problem). Griselbrand does some huge things for the format. Giving a draw 7 ability on a creature will always change the format somehow, especially when it comes at a cost of 7 life which is marginal in a 40-life total format. Joining the ranks of Jin-Gitaxias, Wheel of Fortune, and Memory Jar, Griselbrand does a lot of work. Since he's a black creature, Griselbrand is very unique. He gives the decks playing Necropotence another Necropotence ability. Along with Ivory Tower, Reliquary Tower, and Venser's Journal, decks relying on this draw engine have more abilities to fuel themselves. This power will push mono-Black in commander, which has been desperately looking for a general to carry it forward after the Braids, Cabal Minion banning a couple years ago. If you had a chance to look at the Mikaeus, the Unhallowed REVIEW, you'll notice that black has tons of ways of ramping and abusing the plethora of swamps mono-Black players are using. Even though Griselbrand is an 8 mana creature, that mana cost is almost irrelevant with the Urborg/Cabal Coffers engine running. No matter how many times your opponents manage to kill Griselbrand, he'll persist through the General Tax payments and run around oppressively on the board. His sheer draw power and consistency as a General would facilitate digging for Drain Life effects like Exsanguinate in your library to kill off your opponents very quickly. Furthermore, the draw engine helps find more Caged Sun/Gauntlet of Power cards to defend the mono-Black mana engine if your opponents try to avoid Griselbrand directly and attack your resources. As a general, Griselbrand is probably one of the most powerful and efficient mana sinks the mono-Black Commander decks have available. Replaying Griselbrand over and over again stalls out opponents' removal spells and continues to generate card advantage since his ability is independent of summoning sickness, which gives him a huge edge over most other generals in the format.

For B/x decks, Griselbrand will provide a huge draw engine that those decks generally don't have. Most B/x decks don't play Necropotence because it's difficult to stick on the board in the early game is somewhat inefficient as the game progresses. Outside of mono-Black edh, Griselbrand will setup some insane Living Death scenarios. Griselbrand also is a MONSTER with Sneak Attack. Let's also not forget the hasty insanity that Kaalia of the Vast can accomplish with Griselbrand. Sneak Attack and Kaalia cheat Griselbrand into play, swing, then draw 7. The synergy becomes absolutely insane once you add in Phyrexian Reclamation to return it back to your hand. Card advantage in Red is very uncommon, so the R/B decks will absolutely love adding Griselbrand into their decks. Even B/W will enjoy casting Griselbrand because he's another huge win condition that the Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter deck will auto-include. The one place I expect Griselbrand to see play will be in Grixis control. Although the deck doesn't necessarily 'need' the draw engine, alongside Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Griselbrand can auto-kill a player at the table if your life total is 7+ higher than theirs. Although not as strong in multiplayer, when you're down to the wire and it's only you and one opponent standing in your way for victory, a Griselbrand ping to death comes out of nowhere and can blindside even the most crafty opponent. Griselbrand in the Grixis decks is also a good counter to Consecrated Sphinx where you can cast Cerebral Vortex or even Sudden Impact to knock out a good chunk of their life total once they've joined you in the card drawing madness.

I hope I touched on all the highlights of this new beast of a mono-Black Legendary demon. He is incredible and I can't wait to cast (or recur) my copy in my Teneb, the Harveter EDH deck. Let me know what you think of Griselbrand in the comments or the Facebook Group. Until the next legendary creature!

Can't get enough Commander/EDH content? Check out the Commander Series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!

-David J.

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