Making Grixis Discard Fun

Words of Waste | Art by Jerry Tiritilli

Friendly greetings and welcome! I'm John Sherwood, and today I'm making my opponents discard. If you feel a visceral reaction to that idea, then you're not alone. In fact, there was a time that I would have heard "Grixis Discard" and opted to find a different game.

The longer I play Commander, the more I see there's a fun approach to almost everything. So I'm building this deck as a personal challenge to make discard fun.

Forcing other players to discard is primarily a black effect, with secondary support in red and blue. Hence, today's commander candidates are all Grixis ().

That's right, I said candidates. This is another one of those articles where I build the deck and you vote for the commander.

Last time, we hosted a Battle of the Bards to choose a leader for Azorius () card-draw-matters. Bard, King of Dale came out victorious with more than 60% of the votes.

Despots of Discard

There are no benevolent rulers on today's ballot. The two legends vying for your votes today are both antagonists in Magic lore.

Like it or not, Grixis is the default color identity for three-color evildoers. These commanders aren't known for playing nice, and there's no point in sugarcoating it.

Once a mysterious bookworm, now a multiplanar archvillain, Nicol Bolas is one of the original Elder Dragons from Legends. As one of the original generals of Elder Dragon Highlander, this version of Bolas has pedigree predating the format's name change to Commander. The card is terrifying; if Nicol Bolas deals any damage to an opponent, they discard their whole hand.

Crosis, the Purger is one of the Primeval Dragons, the generation of Dominarian Dragons after the Elder Dragons. From a narrative viewpoint, Crosis is sort of Nicky B's nephew, and from a gameplay perspective he's a powered-down version of his predecessor. Crosis has to deal combat damage and pay mana for a chance to make an opponent discard.

Sometimes it's fun to be the villain in a Commander pod. Choosing to be the threat isn't constrained by Bracket guidelines. However, I feel playing a dedicated discard deck violates the social spirit of Bracket 2, so I'm aiming for Bracket 3 - Upgraded.

Either of these commanders could lead in that direction, but only one can earn your approval for the command zone. The other one will have to shuffle in with the rest of the library.

Reductive Reasoning

Before digging into the 99, I need to find the line where discard crosses from interactive to oppressive. Most card games involve discarding. Magic incorporates a broad spectrum of discard rules and effects. Discarding cards is baked into the clean-up step, during the end phase. Mechanically speaking, players tend to love versatile options like cycling, while they love to hate crimes like Thoughtseize.

Despite filling important design space for game balance, targeted hand destruction evokes strong feelings rooted in players' desire for agency. It subverts the expectation of freedom to choose how and when to use the cards in your own hand. Feeling like a violation of player agency, many players naturally find it repulsive.

I developed a gag reflex to Duress after grinding too many daily quests on Arena. I used to rant against these cards because I didn't understand their role in formats with a competitive metagame.

Metagame is one reason such cards seldom see play in Commander. Targeting one player to potentially discard one card is a terrible return on investment, especially considering many Commander players treat these cards as too rude for friendly games. Even if you whiffed with that Inquisition of Kozilek, a casual pod will probably punish you for trying.

A common draft filler template costs and makes each opponent discard with an enters-the-battlefield (ETB) trigger. Creatures like Burglar Rat scale to multiplayer. With more than a dozen functional duplicates, a simple engine built around these ETBs could simply strip opponents' hands. However, that strategy would quickly turn the match into a salty game of solitaire.

The premise of this deck is making discard fun, and that means intentionally leaving interaction points for opponents to counterplay.

Discard for Fun and Profit

The primary interaction point in this deck will be during combat. Apart from the potential commanders, eleven of the deck's creatures trigger discarding on combat damage. Ten of those are Specters.

Specter is one of those fringe creature types with a central theme, but lacking enough options for a dedicated typal deck. They tend to have flying, which is fantastic, because they also tend to have combat damage triggers. Sedraxis Specter is the only three-color specimen. Most of them are mono-black, like Scythe Specter. For those creatures without the Specter's go-to combat damage ability, there's Specter's Shroud.

Nesting many of the deck's discard effects in combat damage means opponents could simply block if they don't want to discard cards. The prevalence of flying in this deck makes blocking a little harder, but not hopeless.

Another chunk of the deck's discard abilities come on instants and sorceries. A few of these target one opponent, such as Kolaghan's Command, but I prefer the ones that affect each opponent, like Syphon Mind.

In either case, I made sure all of them allow the opponents to choose which card they discard. In other words, none of them are egregious agency violations like Thoughtseize. I enjoy being on the receiving end of discard effects as long as I get to choose the cards. That's because I build graveyard recursion into all of my decks, and you should too.

Choosing the cards to discard is another interaction point for opponents. If an opponent built their deck right, they will see these discard spells as an opportunity to sculpt their hand and graveyard. It might mean they can outplay me, but that risk is part of the fun.

Incremental Pain and Gain

In an effort to make every discarded card matter, the deck incorporates a number of payoffs. Some detrimental to opponents, some beneficial to me, and others go both ways.

One of my favorite discard payoffs comes from Edge of Eternities, a set that is aging really well for me. I loved it when it came out, and every time I look back, I find another gem. After stationing Entropic Battlecruiser, every time an opponent discards a card, they basically take a Lightning Bolt to the face. Zap.

What if Black Market Connections cost less mana, triggered multiple times per turn, and didn't eat your own life? Waste Not is that card in this deck.

After a little setup, Bloodchief Ascension may drain for two every time a card finds its way into an opponent's graveyard. That incremental pain and gain reliably spreads life totals far enough apart that opponents will be hard-pressed to close the gap.

Whether bolting, draining, or accruing value, the payoffs in this deck contribute to the fun by adding tension to the game. These permanents create different problems the table has to solve while the clock ticks down. Overcoming adversity in a game is one of the keys to making gameplay satisfying.

Now that I'm satisfied with the contents of the deck, it's time to show the full list, then each potential commander gets a chance to earn your loyalty.

The Deck List

Discard Dragon Showdown

Nicol Bolas is the establishment candidate. The popularity of an original Elder Dragon creature like this leans heavily on nostalgia.

Eight mana, including three pairs of colored pips, makes a tough casting cost. The cost doesn't stop there either. Nicol Bolas demands you pay an upkeep of for the privilege of his company.

If you pay the casting and upkeep costs, the returns are devastating. Seven power is lethal in three turns via commander damage. That player won't have much to fight back with either, because their hand will be empty. Instead of focusing on one player, spreading the damage to multiple players could be a better tactical decision. Either way, Nicol Bolas is a threatening commander option. Remember, it can be fun to be the threat.

The mana cost on Crosis, the Purger is much easier to pay, and there's no upkeep cost. If you never pay the cost nested in that combat damage trigger, then it's functionally a French vanilla flying Dragon. The Primeval's discard ability isn't nearly as scary as the Elder's threat of discarding an entire hand. Crosis can potentially fly under the radar if opponents have more obvious problems to worry about.

With those dreadmaw stats, Crosis takes four turns to net lethal commander damage. It doesn't have an upkeep cost, but it does charge you three mana for a chance to make someone else discard. It really is only a chance too. If you pick the wrong color, all that effort and mana still reveals the opponent's hand.

That's not nothing. The reveal informs decisions for later turns, helping you pick a better color next time. It might show that attacking a different player would be more prudent. There's also the political leverage of revealing one opponent's hand to help with deal-making and threat management.

So Crosis costs less to play, the discard ability is optional, and it has other niche uses. Being understated and underhanded are this legend's most redeeming qualities.

Can Discard Be Fun?

Yes, discard can be fun in moderation. I understand most Commander players prefer an additive gameplay experience over a subtractive one. Even so, all good Commander players enjoy the give and take of interaction, and the challenge of overcoming adversity. That's the kind of experience I hope this deck creates: a board state with problems to solve, and a game state with finite resources to solve them. Just enough challenge to make it interesting. Do you think I succeeded? Share your thoughts after you vote for your discard commander of choice.

Would you pay to play with the Elder statesman of Grixis discard, Nicol Bolas? Or would you gamble on the lesser-known challenger, Crosis? You can vote at the bottom of the article, and campaign for your candidate in the comments.