Duskmourn may not officially release until September 27, but players were able to utilize the new cards on Magic Online and MTG Arena as of yesterday. This is a very powerful set, and now we’re finally starting to see the cards in action.
While there’s still plenty of time for formats to evolve and metagames to shift, we wanted to highlight one particular strategy that managed to already boast an undefeated record in a Magic Online Pioneer league with a bunch of new cards. This deck is none other than Abzan Greasefang.
Abzan Greasefang has been a mainstay in the Pioneer format for a while. Thanks to some interesting Duskmourn self-mill engines, however, this new version of the deck is well-equipped to win the long game. To better understand what these changes bring to the table, we need to first dig deeper into the Greasefang shell at large.
The Usual Greasefang Pieces
- Mana Value: 1WB
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 4/3
- MTG Sets: Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty
- Card Text: At the beginning of combat on your turn, return target Vehicle card from your graveyard to the battlefield. It gains haste. Return it to its owner’s hand at the beginning of your next end step.
The main gameplan of the Abzan Greasefang archetype is rather simple: dig for the namesake card and fill your graveyard with potent Vehicles. By far the best Vehicle to return to play with Greasefang is Parhelion II.
Greasefang lets you recur Parhelion II and gives it Haste, while conveniently having just the right power to successfully Crew Parhelion II itself. Attacking with Parhelion II is usually enough to win the game, since you get two attacking Angel tokens for your troubles. Even if the 13-damage attack doesn’t outright win the game immediately, the opponent still has to combat the Angels and Greasefang next turn.
Beyond Parhelion II, this deck also utilizes a playset of Esika’s Chariot. The ceiling on Esika’s Chariot isn’t quite as high as it is with Parhelion II. The good news, though, is that Esika’s Chariot makes up for this by being a perfectly reasonable card to hard cast. In matchups like Izzet Phoenix and Azorius control where sticking a Greasefang can be tough, Esika’s Chariot serves as a solid secondary angle of attack. After all, it lines up very well agaisnt removal, producing multiple bodies when it enters.
Nonetheless, Greasefang still serves as the primary threat in this deck, so you’ll want ways to dig for it and put Vehicles into your graveyard. With this in mind, cards like Grisly Salvage work double duty. Raffine’s Informant and Bitter Triumph also help set things up, letting you discard Vehicles from your hand. You can even use Thoughtseize to fill a similar role in a pinch.
Read More: Missing Eternal Staples Finally Appear in MTG Fallout Rerelease
New Additions
- Mana Value: 3BB
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Stats: 5/5
- MTG Sets: Duskmourn
- Card Text: Impending 5—1B (If you cast this spell for its impending cost, it enters with five time counters and isn’t a creature until the last is removed. At the beginning of your end step, remove a time counter from it.) Whenever Overlord of the Balemurk enters or attacks, mill four cards, then you may return a non-Avatar creature card or a planeswalker card from your graveyard to your hand.
Typically, an array of cards like Cache Grab or Witherbloom Command would round out the remaining non-land flex slots. However, this particular decklist took advantage of these openings to try out a couple cards with very high upside. The first of these cards is Overlord of the Balemurk.
Just like Cache Grab, Overlord of the Balemurk digs four cards deep for Greasefang on turn two and fuels your graveyard. However, the fun doesn’t stop there. In a few turns, your opponent (assuming they’ve made it this far) will have to contend with a 5/5 Avatar Horror with a potent attack trigger. Of course, you can always pay five mana to cast Overlord of the Balemurk straight up when applicable later in the game.
Just like with Esika’s Chariot, Overlord of the Balemurk shines in grindy games where Greasefang isn’t the most reliable win condition. You still get a similar floor to Cache Grab (though not being able to grab lands with Overlord of the Balemurk can be problematic from time to time), but it comes attached to a late-game bomb.
Similarly, Say Its Name is usually a bit worse than Witherbloom Command as a two-mana card. However, it lets you churn through your library all the same. Then, in games that stall out where your opponent successfully deals with your Greasefang armada, you can tutor up Altanak, the Thrice-Called. Altanak is a beefy win condition in its own right that’s much harder than Greasefang for Izzet Phoenix players to get off the board.
Read More: New Two Mana 2/2 Could Sneakily Be One Of Duskmourn’s Best Cards
Tradeoffs
- Mana Value: 2
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: */*
- MTG Sets: Streets of New Capenna, Breaking News bonus sheet
- Card Text: Tap: Exile up to two target cards from a single graveyard. Unlicensed Hearse’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of cards exiled with it. Crew 2.
As you might expect, there are certainly some tradeoffs associated with running the Duskmourn cards described above. We already described how strong Overlord of the Balemurk and Say Its Name can be in the long game. The bad news, however, is that neither of these cards line up well in the face of graveyard hate.
Both Overlord and Say Its Name are worded in such a way where you mill cards, then you get to return any creature from your graveyard to your hand. You don’t actually need to select a card from among those milled this way. In many games, this can be beneficial. For example, if you get your turn-three Greasefang killed, casting Say Its Name on turn four will let you bring it back to your hand. The problem comes when the opponent has a card like Rest in Peace in play. Then, Say Its Name won’t actually get to return anything to your hand, since you have no cards in your graveyard.
In the situations where your opponent has Rest in Peace or even Unlicensed Hearse, you’d much rather have access to Witherbloom Command. If Greasefang sees an uptick in popularity, it may be worth running more answers to graveyard hate.
Assuming you can dodge graveyard hate, though, Say Its Name and Overlord of the Balemurk seem like welcome inclusions. Many players will bring in Rending Volley for games two and three to deal with Greasefang. Overlord and Altanak sidestep this piece of removal perfectly. At the end of the day, it’s unclear if these Duskmourn additions will prove to be long-term upgrades or just the new hotness. Either way, it’s nice to see players thinking outside of the box. Make sure to be on the lookout for any other unique uses of the new cards in the coming weeks.
