Conditions Allow - Grist, Voracious Larva EDH
(Grist, Voracious Larva | Art by Chris Rahn)
Sorry to Bug You
Hello, and welcome back to Conditions Allow. In this series I take a legendary creature with a drawback and build a deck to turn it into a strength. This week I'm tackling one of the newest flip 'walkers from Modern Horizons 3. Each of these has a condition that represents the event that causes a planeswalkers spark to ignite. First up on the brewing block is Grist, Voracious Larva.
Grist, Voracious Larva is a one 1/2 legendary Insect with deathtouch. More importantly, whenever Grist or another creature enters play from your graveyard, or is cast from your graveyard, you may pay a green mana to exile it and return it to play as Grist, the Plague Swarm. Just like Grist, the Hunger Tide, Grist, the Plague Swarm fills your graveyard for a powerful ultimate ability. Instead of dealing direct damage, however, this Grist makes a copy of each creature in your graveyard as 1/1 black and green Insects. Before you can even think about ultimate abilities, however, you need a plan to turn Grist, Voracious Larva into a planeswalker.
The Circle of Life
Luckily, the Golgari colors have no difficulty in recycling creatures from the graveyard. I'm including all the sacrifice classics, from Bloodghast to Persistent Specimen. These are going to be the most straightforward ways to flip your commander as early as possible. Bloodghast is the best option, since it doesn't cost any mana to bring back to play. Grist, Voracious Larva needs an additional green mana, so the costs of Bloodsoaked Champion and Persistent Specimen are effectively increased by one.
At the even more expensive end of things, I'm including Vengevine and Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. Vengevine isn't as impressive in EDH as it is in 60-card formats, but having access to a bigger body is great for skewing combat in your favor, and it can still flip Grist, Voracious Larva if you have a second creature to cast. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is in for the same reason and because it feels wrong to build a graveyard deck without it.
Of course, Grist, Voracious Larva will also transform if it is the creature entering from your graveyard. This makes it much easier to skip directly to Grist, the Plague SwarmGrist, Voracious Larva[/elr] when it inevitably dies. You could lean into a reanimator theme even more heavily, using Grist to fill your graveyard and destroy troublesome creatures and enchantments, but I'm only including three reanimation effects. Rather than bring big creatures back from the grave, I'm want to use Grist's ability to make a lot of tokens, then win with Zulaport Cutthroat.
Here There Be Insects
For all this to work, you need to get as many cards into your graveyard as possible. Once again, I'm including all the classics, with a heavy emphasis on creatures, so Skull Prophet rather than Perpetual Timepiece. Even Circle of the Land Druid and Blanchwood Prowler make the cut here. This both ensures you mill enough cards to flip Grist, the Plague Swarm early, and find at least one big token-maker and a Zulaport Cutthroat effect.
There are a few noncreature spells worth including as well. Grisly Salvage, Winding Way, and Mulch help round out your suite of two-mana mill effects, while Altar of Dementia is simply too powerful to leave out. Six also technically has a self-mill ability, although it is more useful to re-cast Stitcher's Supplier and Satyr Wayfinder. I'm not including Life from the Loam to combo with Six, but the Deadly Disputes and Grim Haruspexes in the deck should make sure you have a land to discard when you need it.
Big Fish in a Big Graveyard
Now all we need are a few big creatures for Grist, the Plague Swarm to create tokens of. If you're goal is to go wide, then you can't do much better than Avenger of Zendikar and Abhorrent Overlord. Remember that Grist makes token copies of all your creatures, so they'll still have their mana costs and contribute to your devotion. This also makes Izoni, Thousand-Eyed much more powerful, since she'll still see all those creatures in your graveyard. Finally, I'm including Grave Titan and Hornet Queen as creatures that create a set number of tokens. They both make excellent blockers to keep your commander safe from attacks, and they still contribute plenty of bodies for your aristocratic needs.
With your graveyard setup, the final step is to get Grist, the Plague Swarm up to six loyalty. You don't have to do this quickly, because your graveyard needs to be full enough, so I'm not including a ton of proliferation effects. Staff of Compleation and Vraska, Betrayal's Sting both double as draw engines, while putting you a turn closer to Grist's ultimate. Karn's Bastion is also a great inclusion in any deck that cares about counters. Finally, Atomize and Cankerbloom are both solid removal options that have the potential to proliferate.
Young Grist
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I'm always a little wary of planeswalkers as commanders because they're so much more fragile in multiplayer, but these origin cards are so flavorful they're hard to resist. Grist, Voracious Larva is also so easy to re-transform that it isn't much of a problem if they happen to die once or twice. It's also very cool to see a powerful reanimator effect that encourages you to go wide rather than tall. Although you don't have to build towards Grist's ultimate either. You could focus on milling and reanimating classic big bodies while handling troublesome artifacts and enchantments.
But what do you think? How have you built around Grist, Voracious Larva? Are there any cards or synergies I've overlooked? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading!
