Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Greasefang, Okiba Boss!

Greasefang is a three mana 4/3 that at the beginning of combat on your turn you return target Vehicle card from your graveyard to the battlefield, it gaining haste, and it return’s to your hand at the beginning of your next end step.

Greasefang is one of my go to decks in Pioneer, and while we are limiting ourselves to only two colors when all iterations include a third color, we are also simultaneously opening up our options in what cards to include in the deck.

The goal of the deck is to get a bunch of Vehicles into the graveyard and then bring them out with Greasefang and attack to slowly gain value. We will need to have a bit of a midrange strategy to help us keep slowly accumulating resources, but we can make it manage.

The first thing we need to look at are ways to get our Vehicles into our graveyard, ideally while getting some value from them.

Jo Grant is perfect for this because she gives each historic card in our hand cycling for 2 generic and a white while also growing bigger whenever we cycle a card. We also have access to a pseudo Dark Ritual effect with Bog Witch, who for one black mana, tap and discard a card we can add three black mana to our mana pool.

We also have a number of creatures that can send cards from our library to our graveyard like Vile Entomber who does that when it enters, Oriq Loremage who taps to do so while growing if it was an instant or sorcery, and one of the cheapest options in Cynical Loner who has a Survival ability to put a card into our graveyard at the beginning of our second main phase if they are tapped which synergizes well in a Vehicles deck.

Another way we can gain value from our Vehicles is to sacrifice them before they bounce back to our hand at the end of turn. Zahur, Glory’s Past can sacrifice another creature to surveil 1 once each turn and if we have Max Speed then we can make a tapped Zombie token whenever a nontoken creature we control dies.

In a similar vein there is also Bartolome del Presidio who can sacrifice another creature or artifact to grow himself, which we can also use in response to any exile based removal spells that don’t hit the graveyard to protect our Vehicles.

The next thing we need to look at are the midrange pieces that are going to help carry us to the late game.

Damn is a solid card because early in the game we can use it to get rid of a problematic early creature, while in the late game we can Overload it into a board wipe that doesn’t hit our Vehicles and utility artifacts.

Speaking of board wipes, we may be going a bit heavy by also including Split Up, which is a modal board wipe that can either destroy all tapped creatures or all untapped creatures, and Starfall Invocation, a board wipe that can destroy all creatures but if we gift a card to an opponent we can return a creature we control that was destroyed this way back to the battlefield if we need to clear the board with Greasefang in play.

We could also have a couple of other Vehicle recursion pieces like Okiba Salvage which can bring a creature or Vehicle card from our graveyard to the battlefield and if we happen to control an artifact and enchantment then we put two +1/+1 counters on that permanent.

If we want some more uses from a Vehicle before we bounce it back we can use something like Hellish Sideswipe which as an additional cost requires us to sacrifice a creature or Vehicle to destroy a creature or Vehicle and if we sacrificed a Vehicle then we can also draw a card.

Now comes the fun part; the actual Vehicles that we are going to be using to win the game.

Taking notes from the Pioneer version of the deck, Parhelion II is one of the best options because whenever it attacks it makes two tapped and attacking 4/4 Angels with flying and vigilance that notably stick around even if Parhelion II leaves the battlefield, meaning we have some solid blockers to keep us alive.

Thundersteel Colossus is a 7/7 Vehicle with Crew 2 trample and haste if we just want a ton of damage, Demonic Junker to destroy a creature each player controls that can make itself bigger if we destroy a creature we control, Smuggler’s Copter for an early draw and discard outlet that has a solid body, Peacewalker Colossus to make another Vehicle into an artifact creature for two mana, and Unidentified Hovership to exile a creature with toughness 5 or less that has the owner manifest dread instead of giving the creature back.

This is really where you can mix and match depending on your personal preference, local meta, or whatever Vehicles you happen to have available. For example if you had access to a Reaver Titan then you can use that as a way to deal 5 damage to each opponent when it attacks.

If you want my personal preference and a fun personal win condition then you can use Mechtitan Core if you have some excess Vehicles in play to make the Mechtitan as a huge body that can bring those Vehicles back into play if it happens to leave the battlefield.

Greasefang is a build around Commander that requires you to put in a bit of work to get the Vehicles to the graveyard in order to get the most value from them and that can be a little tricky. Not impossible since we have the history of Magic to pull from, but the deck will most likely take longer to win since it needs a bit of a midrange strategy to hold itself up to get to the end game.

I do love playing Greasefang in Pioneer and while the third color does help (Mardu is my personal playstyle) we can still make a solid deck with just two colors given the wider card pool.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual