Frank Lepore
7/18/2012 10:00:00 AM
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It's been awhile since I've delved into the world of reanimating large creatures that I've discarded to Faithless Looting or Liliana of the Veil; well, about two months to be exact. For those that didn't know, Grites was an idea I tried to champion sometime back with the help of my buddy Rada. You can find that article here, which contains a good amount of Flayer of the Hatebound - a card I think will see its day once the Titans are long gone - along with the origin of the name “GRITES.” Unfortunately at that time, there was no Avacyn Restored on Magic Online so I had to be content simply piloting a basic Faithless Rites build that didn't contain a lot of the same bomb monsters but had kind of the same plan...


I don't really know the reason the deck never caught on, to be honest (I have to assume it had something to do with me not being LSV or Pat Chapin, and thus having a much smaller pool of people who take up arms with me and my brews); after all, it has a ton of powerful creatures, an amazing suite of removal, and a great game against Delver. Nonetheless, I think it's high time that the deck got the attention it deserves, especially considering that Shawn Ellis won the TCGplayer Open in Orlando this past weekend with the following deck:

Faithless Rites (GRITES) by Shawn Ellis Finished 1st Place at 2012 TCGplayer Open 5K - Orlando Main Deck Sideboard 3 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 2 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight 3 Griselbrand 1 Sun Titan 1 Thundermaw Hellkite Creatures [10] 3 Liliana of the Veil Planeswalkers [3] 1 Doom Blade 4 Faithless Looting 2 Go for the Throat 3 Lingering Souls 2 Oblivion Ring 2 Tribute to Hunger 4 Unburial Rites 4 Whipflare Spells [22] 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 3 Clifftop Retreat 2 Dragonskull Summit 3 Isolated Chapel 4 Mountain 3 Plains 2 Slayers' Stronghold 4 Swamp Lands [25] Deck Total [60] 2 Angel of Glory's Rise 3 Celestial Purge 4 Mental Misstep 2 Spellskite 2 Stony Silence 2 Torpor Orb Sideboard [15] View a Sample Hand! Solitaire this Deck! Click for full deck stats & notes!

As you can see, though, his list and my original list in that article are pretty close. The one thing I'm quite proud of is the inclusion of Gisela, Blade of Goldnight in Shawn's list. This was a card that I thought was just aces. It was an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite with evasion and I'm glad he thought enough to include both seven drops.

I had to make a few changes based on the fact that M13 is not currently available on Magic Online. To be honest my co-host Jackie Lee and I were curious as to why the singleton Thundermaw Hellkite made the cut, but I was glad it did either way. It's an awesome dude and it's able to machine gun down Lingering Souls tokens like nobody's business. Shawn mentioned that the Hellkite did some hard work all day, and that the Sun Titan would be the first card to go, but this is all neither here nor there however as the Hellkite isn't available to be played! Thankfully this was Shawn's only M13 card, so the list is pretty much otherwise intact...except for a couple sideboard cards. I took out one Celestial Purge and two Stony Silence. The reason being that in addition to Celestial Purge, you also have Angel of Glory's Rise to deal with Zombies and Oblivion Ring fills a similar role while also being more versatile against other matchups. I replaced the Stony Silence with Revoke Existence because, again, they tend to fill the same role, but have a little more versatility when it comes to dealing with opposing Oblivion Rings or anthem effects (Honor of the Pure, etc.).

The final changes I made were as follows:

-1 Thundermaw Hellkite
-1 Celestial Purge
-2 Stony Silence

+1 Lingering Souls (Cause less than four seems...odd.)
+1 Oblivion Ring
+2 Revoke Existence

I ran the deck through some games and these were my results.

GRITES vs. Naya Pod



GRITES vs. Monoblack Vengeance Control



GRITES vs. RG Budget Brew



BONUS! GRITES vs. Zombies, Game 1



To be fair, I ended up losing that last UB Zombies match in game three, but like a Neanderthal I accidentally stopped the recording after winning game one and thinking the match was over. It was pretty awkward when the sideboarding screen came up...

Nonetheless, I've loved the premise of this deck forever, the same way I love a good Mist Raven (bouncing creatures is pretty good, but that's also neither here nor there). I love the idea of being able to filter through cards, while also retaining value in the cards that you discard. There are essentially 21 cards in the deck that benefit you if they're put into the graveyard:

- 3 Griselbrand
- 3 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
- 2 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
- 1 Sun Titan
- 4 Lingering Souls
- 4 Faithless Looting
- 4 Unburial Rites

This says nothing to the cards that you benefit from discarding and then getting back with Sun Titan! GP Champion and friend, Bronson Magnan, was running a similar list at the Orlando Open, but his version used four Wild Guess in addition to the Faithless Looting to ensure adequate digging and discarding. Of course the mana base would need to be tweaked some in order to account for the double red, but it is no doubt another viable option. His list also had a few more sweepers, like Terminus, to deal with the more aggro matchups.

One piece of tech that Shawn used to great effect - especially in the finals - was the set of Slayers' Stronghold. In game three of the his finals match he managed to cast a Lingering Souls for two tokens, then simply ride them to victory while pumping both with his set of Strongholds. This added up to six vigilant points per turn that eventually won him the game. No fancy reanimation tricks. No seven or eight drop legends. Two 1/1 flying tokens. And two lands. After watching this game I was instantly sold. I had a copy of Vault of the Archangel in my list - I resigned myself to a single copy since the deck is indeed very mana intensive - and I thought it was amazing useful. I'm not sure, despite the results, whether or not Stronghold is better, but I do know that I am a fan of both lands. Being able to haste up a Griselbrand the turn he comes into play and gain nine life is...just huge.

High Mid Low

Griselbrand

$20.00

$13.72

$10.50

Store QTY Price   TerraMartin 1 $10.50 Gamer Apocalypse 1 $10.60 JCMTG Solo Seller 1 $10.90 Hall of Gaming 5 $10.90 Deck Factory 1 $11.45 Cloak and Dagger 1 $11.50 Comic Book Store 1 $11.69 AkromasWrath 5 $11.74 The Games Arena 1 $11.87 >> View all Prices for Griselbrand << Store.TCGplayer.com allows you to buy cards from any of our vendors, all at the same time! Shop, Compare & Save with TCGplayer.com! - [Store FAQ]

The sideboard is pretty sweet as well. I've always loved the four Mental Misstep in decks that utilize the graveyard, since they shut down both Surgical Extraction and Nihil Spellbomb, as well as any Vapor Snags that would target your monsters. I also love both the Angel of Glory's Rise and the Spellskites. Before you guys complain there are no humans in the deck, the Angel is great against Zombies, exiling every last one of them, never to return. Spellskite is great at taking the heat off of your monsters from this like removal or Zealous Conscripts.

I'll add that the current changes Shawn said he had made to his initial list so far had been as follows:

-1 Sun Titan
-1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

+1 Griselbrand
+1 Wild Guess

Turns out Griselbrand is the cards you want most often, and that Wild Guess is indeed a helpful card for filtering! All in all, I think Shawn came up with a pretty solid 75 and he's about $1500 richer for it! Congrats Shawn! I think this archetype is the real deal, and I'm proud to have had a hand in showing it off a couple months back. That's all I have for this today though. Thanks for reading guys, and I'll see you next week!

Frank Lepore
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