Hello and welcome to Weekly Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Grub, Storied Matriarch!

Grub is a three mana 2/1 with menace and whenever they enter or transform into the Grub, Storied Matriarch you return up to one Goblin card from your graveyard to your hand and at the beginning of your first main phase you may pay a red mana to transform into Grub, Notorious Auntie who is still a 2/1 with menace but whenever they attack you may blight 1, and if you do you create a tapped and attacking token of the blighted creature that sacrifices itself at the beginning of the end step and at the beginning of your first main phase you may pay a black mana to transform Grub.

To finish things off for Lorwyn Eclipsed for the time being, we are going to be taking a look at one of the transforming Commanders because they are all pretty interesting, but in my heart of hearts I do love playing Goblin decks, and Grub provides some interesting play patterns for the generally common Goblin swarm strategies.

Grub provides an excellent way for you to consistently recur your Goblins while also adding an aristocrats element to the deck so you can widen your card pool to not just have Goblins, though that will be a lot of what you will be casting.

Just Full of Goblins

As one would expect in a deck that is primarily Goblin based, we should start on the Goblins that we will be including in the deck.

Cost reducers and ways to cheat your Goblins into play are some of the better starts so something like Frogtosser Banneret is great because it makes our Goblins spells and our Rogue spells cost one mana less to cast and it also has haste, which for two mana is actually pretty solid.

Goblin Warchief has your Goblin spells cost one mana less to cast and gives Goblins you control haste, Goblin Lackey has it so that whenever it deals damage to a player you may put a Goblin permanent from your hand onto the battlefield, and if you happen to have the cash or are willing to proxy Goblin Wizard then you can tap it to put a Goblin permanent from your hand onto the battlefield.

There are also the plethora of lords for Goblins as well as ways to gain benefits from your Goblins doing things like Goblin Chieftain which gives other Goblin creatures we control haste and +1/+1 while it also happens to have haste.

Goblin Trashmaster gives other Goblins we control +1/+1 and we can sacrifice a Goblin to destroy target artifact, Boggart Mob has it so that whenever a Goblin we control deals combat damage to a player then we put a 1/1 Goblin Rogue creature token into play, and of course Goblin King has it so that we give other Goblins +1/+1 and mountainwalk.

Boggart Cursecrafter is a fine addition for us just throwing our Goblins to the wind because whenever another Goblin we control dies, it deals 1 damage to each opponent while also being a defensive threat because it has deathtouch.

Whenever Pashalik Mons or another Goblin we control dies then it deals 1 damage to any target, Searslicer Goblin makes a 1/1 Goblin at the beginning of our end step if we attacked this turn, Goblin Ringleader lets us look at the top four cards of our library when it enters and let’s us put all Goblin cards in our hand and the rest in the bottom of our library in any order, the list of solid utility Goblins goes on and on.

Goblins also happen to have a massive number of tutors like Goblin Matron which let’s you look for a Goblin card, reveal it and put it into your hand then shuffle your library and if you want to fully stack your draws then there is also Goblin Recruiter which let’s you search your library for any number of Goblin cards, reveal them then shuffle your library and then put the Goblins on top of your library in any order.

Shenanigans Ensue

Now one thing that we can take advantage of is that when Grub is the Notorious Auntie and has us make a token copy of the creature, they don’t have to be a Goblin, which opens us up to some interesting additions to thedeck.

To keep on theme for Goblins for a bit, when Goblin Settler enters then we destroy target land, which can be very useful to work against some of the utility lands that are floating around, and if we can get a bit of decent recursion and token making from Grub, then we can get a good number of lands destroyed this way.

Siege-Gang Commander enters and makes three 1/1 Goblin creature tokens and for two mana and sacrifice a Goblin it can deal 2 damage to any target, Rundvelt Hordemaster gives other Goblins we control +1/+1 and whenever they or another Goblin we control dies then we exile the top card of our library and can play it until the end of our next turn if it is a Goblin creature card, and when Taster of Wares enters then target opponent reveals X cards where X is the number of Goblins we control and we choose one to exile and if it was an instant or sorcery then we can cast it as long as we control this creature and use mana of any type to cast it.

Now we can also play into creatures that have enters effects that are not quite Goblins, but do help in our strategy like Grief, which when it enters then target opponent reveals their hand and we can discard a nonland card from their hand, and while we can Evoke it by exiling a black card from our hand we would rather have it be in play to get multiple uses of its effect.

In a similar space we can use Impulsivity to cast target instant or sorcery from a graveyard for free and then exiling it when it would go to the graveyard instead, Lamentation to destroy target creature an opponent controls and gain 3 life, and Fury which when it enters we deal 4 damage divided amongst any number of target creatures and/or Planeswalkers.

Since we are going to be sacrificing those creature tokens at the beginning of our end step, there are a variety of aristocrat payoffs we can take advantage of like Mayhem Devil because whenever a player sacrifices a permanent, it deals 1 damage to any target.

Mirkwood Bats has it so that whenever we create or sacrifice a token then each opponent loses 1 life, Blood Artist to drain target opponent 1 life and we gain 1 life whenever it or another creature dies, and Juri, Master of the Revue to get a +1/+1 counter whenever we sacrifice a permanent and when it dies we can deal damage equal to its power to any target.

Prowling Geistcatcher is pretty interesting because whenever we sacrifice another creature then we exile it, putting a +1/+1 counter on it instead if it was a token and when it leaves the battlefield then we can return each card we exiled with it to the battlefield under our control.

Rakdos, the Muscle is also great for us to consider because whenever we sacrifice another creature we exile cards equal to its mana value from the top of target player’s library and until your next end step we may play those cards and mana of any type can be spent to cast those spells, while also being a sacrifice outlet in letting us sacrifice another creature to give hit indestructible and tap it, though only once each turn.

Utility from Chaos

Of course we need to make sure that we can utilize our strategy as well as making use of the number of Goblins we have access to.

Brightstone Ritual is a massively powerful ritual spell, especially since for one mana then we can add a red mana for each Goblin in play, not just our Goblins, but all Goblins in play, and since Goblins are one of the more popular typal decks, that could mean that we get a lot of red mana out of it.

Battle Hymn, while not as strong, can also produce a good bit of mana because it makes a red mana for each creature we control. We can make even more mana if we happen to use something like Flare of Duplication, which let’s us sacrifice a nontoken red creature instead of paying its mana cost to copy target instant or sorcery and we can choose new targets for that spell if we so wish.

Since Grub gives us some recursion for our Goblins whenever they transform, we can make use board wipes like Blasphemous Act to deal 13 damage to each creature that we can cast for one mana if there are at least eight creatures in play, then we can make use of something like Blood for the Blood God! which costs one mana less to cast for each creature that died this turn and it lets us discard our hand, draw eight cards and deals 8 damage to each opponent while exiling itself.

We can also use Grub’s ability to bring a Goblin back from the graveyard to our advantage by using cards like Entomb to get a card from our library and put it into the graveyard. If we really want to get Goblins into our graveyard that we can get into our hand, then Buried Alive would also be great for us since we get three creature cards from our library and put them into our graveyard.

Lively Dirge also presents and interesting way for us to get creature cards from our library into the graveyard and into play because of it’s modal effect to search our library for a card and put it into the graveyard and/or to return up to two creatures with total mana value four or less from our graveyard into play, and since many Goblins are low mana, we can get a wide variety of Goblin combinations back into play.

It is also because of that low mana value that Bolas’s Citadel can work pretty decently for us to use as a potential Game Changer aside from the usual tutors.

With Bolas’s Citadel allowing is to look at the top card of our library and letting us play that top card by paying life instead of paying its mana cost while also being a way to make use as a sacrifice outlet by letting us sacrifice ten nonland permanents to have each opponent lose 10 life can also be very useful if we want to make use of more sacrifice synergies for the deck.

Horde of Victory

Now there are a couple of avenues in which we can win, and they all come from a different potential play style for the deck.

Fated Firepower is a great example of us making use of all the mana that will be produced from our rituals because it enters with X fire counters on it and if a source we control would deal damage to an opponent or a permanent that they control, it deals that much damage plus an amount of damage equal to the number of fire counters on it.

We can make use of it in an aggressive way in which our Goblins deal even more damage, or if we are going for a go wide strategy of Goblins and make use of something like Impact Tremors which whenever a creature we control enters then it deals 1 damage to each opponent, which is even more with Fated Firepower in play.

If we are leaning more to a sacrifice strategy and have a good number of Goblins in our graveyard and a decent number of creatures in play then we can also play Bloodline Bidding, which let’s us choose a creature type and then return all creature cards of the chosen type from our graveyard onto the battlefield.

Patriarch’s Bidding is a symmetrical mass reanimation spell that has each player choose a creature type and each player returns all creature cards of a type chosen this way from their graveyard to the battlefield. This can be a double edged sword against other typal decks, but on the flipside can also bring back some of our non-Goblin utility creatures from the graveyard back into play.

Of course if all else fails, there is always the Goblin horde method of winning games, and Krenko, Mob Boss can be extremely effective in getting a lot of Goblins into play since it can tap to put a number of Goblin tokens into play equal to the number of Goblins we control, which when combined with Fated Firepower and Impact Tremors can be a massive swing of damage just getting them into play.

There is also Goblin War Strike which deals damage to a player or Planeswalker equal to the number of Goblins we control to close out a game, Quest for the Goblin Lord which gets a quest counter whenever a Goblin we control enters and once it has five or more quest counters then creatures we control get +2/+0, and General Kreat, the Boltbringer which makes a 1/1 Goblin that’s tapped and attacking whenever we attack with one or more Goblins and deals 1 damage to each opponent whenever another creature we control enters.

In Conclusion

While Grub works extremely well as a Goblin Commander, there is a couple of other directions to take the deck, and while most of the deck will be composed of Goblins, having a few surprises can also be pretty useful and have your opponents scrambling to find a solution.

One of the potential downsides of the deck is that it can be pretty repetitive if you play it as a straightforward Goblins deck, which is why adding a sacrifice matters strategy can help provide some variety for playing the deck.

A downside to that sacrifice strategy that has a solid Goblins recursion package is that if there is something that is preventing you from using your graveyard, then that can hurt a massive part of your strategy.

However an upside that this deck presents is that it is still a Goblins deck, a deck that can be extremely resilient and deal a massive amount of damage by just playing Goblin cards, meaning that we can pivot easily from one strategy to another if we need to do so.

Thank you for reading, see you all next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

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