Golden Grahams

[John Cox]

Sometimes the best new ideas are old ideas. The original Golden Graham's list went for Darksteel Colossus . Griselbrand is much better and lets you win in one turn with tendrils. This means you can use summoner's pact, making the whole deck better.


2 Gamekeeper
4 Griselbrand
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Tendrils of Agony
2 Duress
4 Orim's Chant
4 Gemstone Mine
1 City of Brass
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Serum Powder
4 Summoner's Pact


The idea behind the deck is to get out a Gamekeeper and sacrifice it to mill yourself into a Griselbrand, then draw into a tendrils kill. You have duress, therapy and chant for protection.

The Serum Powders have been only OK, I may cut them for Brainstorm and find a way to fit in Ponder .
Dark Triumph , and Mind Swords may be worth looking into as sac outlets. Another card worth looking at is dragon breath .
This is rough but it's something I'd like to play.

[Final Fortune]

I tried bringing this deck back from the dead awhile ago and had limitted success, the problem was Deathrite Shaman obviously, but what I found was that the synergy between Gamekeeper, Summoner's Pact and Lion's Eye Diamond was crucial for speed and that lead me to the Auriok Salvagers combo because you can keep your sacrifice trigger in the graveyard or on the board with Cabal Therapy and Phyrexian Tower.

I think the problem with what you're doing is that it's done better by Tinfins, a lack of cost effective tutors were never an issue

[John Cox]

I tried bringing this deck back from the dead awhile ago and had limitted success, the problem was Deathrite Shaman obviously, but what I found was that the synergy between Gamekeeper, Summoner's Pact and Lion's Eye Diamond was crucial for speed and that lead me to the Auriok Salvagers combo because you can keep your sacrifice trigger in the graveyard or on the board with Cabal Therapy and Phyrexian Tower.

I think the problem with what you're doing is that it's done better by Tinfins, a lack of cost effective tutors were never an issue


I think that griselbrand changes a lot. tin fins worries about a lot of grave hate, this really only cares about leyline. How many Gamekeepers did you have? I can't see Deathrite shaman being a problem with a low number.

[Poron]

how will this ever be better than Show and Tell --> Griselbrand? or worse Sneak Attack --> Griselbrand?

they are 4 mana anyway and instead of another card (to sac GK) it just requires a red mana. Ah it gives haste too...

[Joe Eigo]

Well... it's at least faster then Show and Tell like Belcher, No Lands Deck, etc... but very fragile for sure...

I really don't like the Serum Powder, after goldfishing a lot with it. Everytime you draw it, it also makes the rest of your hand worse. It's like i never really wanted to keep a hand with it. Having more redundancy has more proft in my opinion.

Also even if Elvish Spirit Guide has bad synergy with Gamekeeper, it helps so much with additional Summoners Pact. Not sure if it's worth the risk though, but I'd try if it can work!

The list looked basically very solid. Made a few changes, since you were too dependant on Therapy:

2 Gamekeeper
4 Summoners Pact

4 Griselbrand
4 Tendrils of Agony

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Unmask
4 Gitaxian Probe

1 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
2 Culling the Weak (or Innocent Blood as sac outlet? Could help against meddling mage at least...)
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal

12 Lands/Fetches (a Dryad arbor for culling the weak maybe... ?)
3 City of Traitors

What you think ?

[Final Fortune]

how will this ever be better than Show and Tell --> Griselbrand? or worse Sneak Attack --> Griselbrand?

they are 4 mana anyway and instead of another card (to sac GK) it just requires a red mana. Ah it gives haste too...

I'm not saying it's better, but one of the obvious advantages is that you get to play with cost efficient and versatile tutors as opposed to cantrips.