Hello and welcome to Daily Commnader!

Today we are going to be talking about Grakmaw, Skyclave Ravager!

Grakmaw is a three mana 0/0 and enters with three +1/+1 counters, whenever another creature you control dies, if it had a +1/+1 counter on it you put a +1/+1 counter on Grakmaw and when Grakmaw dies you create an X/X black and green Hydra creature token where X is the number of +1/+1 counter on Grakmaw.

A +1/+1 strategy that has a bit of interesting interactions with having our creatures with +1/+1 counters dying in order to make Grakmaw bigger, and in case of emergency we can have Grakmaw die in order to make a Hydra token to replace them.

The game plan is to slowly accumulate ways to get small creatures with +1/+1 counters on them and then sacrifice them for value in order to make Grakmaw bigger, until Grakmaw is big enough that we can sacrifice them as necessary to make one or more Hydra tokens.

The first thing we need are ways to get +1/+1 counters on our creatures, and provide a bit of value from those +1/+1 counters.

Duskshell Crawler is nice because when it enters we can put a +1/+1 counter on target creature, including itself, and it also gives creatures we control with +1/+1 counters trample, which on a cheap creature like Duskshell Crawler can be a massive boon in the late game.

Hagra Constrictor is similar in that regard because it enters with two +1/+1 counters and gives creatures we control with +1/+1 counter on them menace, Fertilid enters with two +1/+1 counters and we can pay two mana to look for a basic land and put onto the battlefield tapped, and Gyre Sage can tap for a green mana for each +1/+1 counter it has and has Evolve to grow bigger.

Swarm Shambler is a sneaky way to get an early creature in play with a +1/+1 counter on it and whenever a creature we control with a +1/+1 counter on it becomes the target of a spell an opponent controls, we make a 1/1 Insect token and we can pay one mana and tap it to give it another +1/+1 counter.

Saving towards the end of this section, one of the best creatures to get +1/+1 counters on them are of course other Hydras, and we can actually start accruing value out of the ones that have an X cost early since we just need them to have at least one +1/+1 counter to get Grakmaw bigger.

Wildwood Scourge is a nice Hydra that we can use pretty early on since it enters with X +1/+1 counters on it and whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on another non-Hydra creature, then we put a +1/+1 counter on it, which means our smaller creatures that enter with a +1/+1 counter also help fuel Wildwood Scourge.

The next thing we need are ways we can reliably sacrifice a creature we control with a +1/+1 counter in order to make Grakmaw grow.

Bloodflow Connoisseur is perfect for this because we can sacrifice a creature in order to put a +1/+1 counter on it, and since we have a decent number of smaller creatures with +1/+1 counters, we can slowly grow both the Connoisseur and Grakmaw. Carrion Feeder can also do this, but has the benefit of costing only one mana to cast and can’t block.

Skyclave Shadowcat is a solid way to sacrifice a creature in order to put a +1/+1 counter on itself, but it also has it so that whenever another creature we control with a +1/+1 counter dies, we draw a card which is great for us to maintain a solid hand as we need it while also growing Grakmaw.

Reyhan, Last of the Abzan is an interesting include because they enter with three +1/+1 counters and whenever a creature we control with one or more +1/+1 counters dies or is put into the Command Zone, then we may put that many +1/+1 counters on target creature, which we can do to move the +1/+1 counters from creatures we sacrifice onto Grakmaw to make them even bigger.

We can also get additional value from creatures we control when they dies with something like Undying Malice or Feign Death, both of which give a target creature the ability to come back into play tapped when it dies with an +1/+1 counter on it, meaning that if Grakmaw dies we can have it come back with another +1/+1 counter to start working on making an additional Hydra.

If we have a substantially big creature or make Grakmaw really big, then we can use Tend the Pests which requires us to sacrifice a creature as an additional cost in or to make X 1/1 Pest tokens that gain us a life when they die where X is the power of the sacrificed creature.

There are also the usual advantage cards that require us to sacrifice a creature as an additional cost like Village Rites and Corrupted Conviction to draw two cards, Deadly Dispute to draw two cards and make a Treasure token, and Bone Shards to destroy a creature or Planeswalker.

The last thing we need are ways we can make use of making Grakmaw massive or a bunch of Hydras.

Death’s Presence is great because whenever a creature we control dies, we put X +1/+1 counters on target creature we control where X is the power of the sacrificed creature, and there are several ways we can exploit this ability to work two different ways.

If we have say something like a Scurry Oak, which whenever that gets one or more +1/+1 counters put on it, then we make a 1/1 Squirrel token, which if we have another card like say Master Chef, which gives our Commander the ability to enter with a +1/+1 counter and also has our other creatures enter with a +1/+1 counter, and a sacrifice outlet, then we can make Grakmaw massive in a loop.

There is also a way for us to make a ton of Hydra tokens by constantly sacrificing Grakmaw over and over again. Getting this to be repeatable is a bit trickier, but the closest way I can find is by using Osteomancer Adept, which can tap to let us cast creature spells in our graveyard by foraging in addition to their other costs and they enter with a finality counter on it.

To help deal with the finality counter issue we can use Hex Parasite, which for X mana and Phyrexian black we can remove up to X counters from a creature to give it a +1/+0, and to deal with the foraging issue we can use Peregrin Took to make a Food token whenever we make one or more other tokens and to also gain us a ton of mana we can use Culling Ritual to clear the board of nonland permanents of mana value two or less and add green or black mana for each permanent destroyed this way.

We can then use either a massive Grakmaw with a ton of +1/+1 counters to deal a ton of Commander Damage, use an army of Hydra tokens to go wide, or if we make a massive creature we can also use something as simple as a Rite of Consumption to fling that massive creature to an opponent.

Grakmaw takes a +1/+1 counters strategy and adds a sacrifice dimension to it to either go wide or go tall, with some pretty fun ways to enable both into long loops to gain us a ton of advantage.

The problem is that those are multi card loops where at any time if any of those pieces gets destroyed, we lose a major way to gain advantage. We don’t outright lose, but we do fall behind a bit.

Grakmaw does need to die in order to make a Hydra token, so exile removal is not great for us and since Grakmaw doesn’t have the usual Hydra X in their mana cost to gain extra counters, they will enter with three counters over and over again if they do get exiled and we have to pay the Commander Tax.

This is still a fun deck that has some surprise combo aspects that needs many cards to get working, but when it does get working we can make some wacky stuff indeed.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual