Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

Grenzo is X and two mana for a 2/2 that enters with X +1/+1 counters, and for two mana you can put the bottom card of your library into the graveyard and if it’s a creature with power less than or equal to Grenzo’s then you can put it onto the battlefield.

Grenzo is an interesting Commander because there aren’t many cards in general that care about the bottom of your deck, especially one that has the capability of reanimating a solid creature.

So what we need to do is find ways to manipulate the bottom of our library so we can have a better chance at getting some really good things onto the battlefield for a massive discount.

Scry is the most reliable way to manipulate cards to the bottom of our library, so those are going to be high priority. Anything that can scry is something to look at, though the ones that I would probably keep an eye on is anything that can also increase Grenzo’s power.

Grenzo’s ability only cares about his power against the other creature’s power, not the number of counters. This means that cheap combat tricks can carry a lot of weight, and if it’s anything like Samut’s Sprint that also scries, then even better.

There are also some creatures, artifacts, and enchantments that either scry as an ability or have some form of incidental scry when they enter or leave the battlefield, and any of those will also help with the deck.

The next thing to look at is the creatures that we are looking to reanimate.

While its is tempting to look at creatures with huge power, realistically we should be looking at creatures that have some long term value on the field.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is great at keeping our opponent’s creatures out of the graveyard while also giving us some Zombies to use as we need.

A creature like Glorybringer can immediately attack and deal some additional damage if you choose to exert it, if you have access to Sheoldred, the Apocalypse then you can punish your opponent’s draws, and so much more.

Grenzo can really act as a toolbox sort of Commander that allows you to play an assortment of creatures that can really be flavored to how you want to play the game.

Another group of creatures to look at are creatures with no power, or rather creatures that gain power through an assortment of ways.

Taking a look at the rules, any creatures that happen to have * power are essentially always looking at whatever makes their power, so we need to find creatures that have a defined number for their power, but get an increase when they are in play.

Creatures that give themselves +1/+1 counters when they enter the battlefield that are not determined by the amount of mana spent to cast them, like creatures with Modular, also work well.

This also means that creatures like Relentless Rats and Rat Colony work because they have a defined number, but get a bonus when they are on the field if the condition is met.

Grenzo is neat in how flexible you can build the deck, and there are plenty of options to take it that there really isn’t a wrong way to build it, just so long as you can get what you need to the bottom of the deck.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual