The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride Commander Deck Tech

The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride | Illustrated by Johan Grenier

How'd partner, and welcome to a very special deck tech! In this week's article, I'm showing the newest version of my favorite legendary creature, The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride. Finally, we can have Thalia riding Gitrog just as Garfield intended.

Jokes aside, this is one of the more interesting Gitrog commanders. We don't often see trample and haste in these colors, especially from the command zone. It's a welcome departure in both flavor and ability from the original The Gitrog Monster and the newer Thalia and The Gitrog Monster. Also, don't forget to check out the special second deck tech at the end. Without further ado, let's mount up and see what we got! 

If at First You Don't Succeed...

The first thought I had after seeing Gitrog for the first time was Golgari Equipment. I quickly threw a deck together with Sword of Hearth and Home, Sword of Forge and Frontier, and Umezawa's Jitte. Finally, I had a home for my favorite artifacts with my favorite commander. By the time I finished the first draft of the deck, it was time to get back to my day job. I was proud of that first deck. I thought I had something unique and powerful.

That evening I revisited my original list with a fresh-ish pair of eyes and a mug full of coffee (it was decaf cause it was, like, 7 pm) ready to work on this very article. As I scrolled through the deck, I realized how awful my first draft was. Maybe awful is a bit harsh. It had too few creatures and too many Equipment that were powerful but unnecessary. Some Equipment did make the final cut, most notably Basilisk Collar, Blackblade Reforged, and Trailblazer's Boots. Lesson learned, let's take another look and see what changes we can make.

Now We're Cooking!

Okay, Ben, time to saddle up and get this deck built! Let's cut a good chunk of the Equipment, but what do we want to add in its place? I know it needed more creatures, but which creatures? Whenever I'm brewing with a new commander, I try to look for commanders that do a similar thing. A person can only store so many Magic cards in their brain at once, unless you're Ben Wheeler. So off to EDHREC I went, where I looked at two commanders for inspiration: Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and Greven, Predator Captain. Both of these commanders care about the power of creatures, just like Gitrog, and I was hoping to find some obvious inclusions I was missing.

There were quite a few cards I would have missed. The legendary Frog Spirits Yargle, Glutton of Urborg and Yargle and Multani were no-brainers. The same goes Wall of Blood, which is a card I forgot existed. I also added Daemogoth Woe-Eater, Hunted Bonebrute, Ebondeath, Dracolich, and Shakedown Heavy. Finally, the Dragon Spirits Junji, the Midnight Sky and Kokusho, the Evening Star make an appearance in the list; they have powerful death triggers and are good cards on their own. 

Landfall

I then added Landfall staples Tireless Tracker, Tireless Provisioner, and Scute Swarm before it hit me like a ton of bricks: creatures that grow with lands, like Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer, Ulvenwald Hydra, and Ashaya, Soul of the Wild. This was a great start, but I needed more. I needed Avenger of Zendikar, Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, and Territorial Scythecat. They act as secondary win conditions and become great sacrifice targets for Gitrog later in the game. Same is true for Retreat to Hagra, Retreat to Kazandu, and Roaring Earth. 

What's in the Saddle?

As I brewed this deck I realized there were three things I wanted to add to the deck. First was a way to give Gitrog deathtouch. This is easy enough thanks to Bow of Nylea, Basilisk Collar, and Vorpal Sword. Next, I wanted to give him a double strike so we can double up on his combat damage trigger. There are only five Equipment that give double strike, and Fireshrieker is the best. Lastly, I wanted to re-trigger Landfall. In a The Gitrog Monster deck, we do this by sacrificing lands, using Life from the Loam to return them to our hand, and then playing them again, or by using cards like Scapeshift and Nahiri's Lithoforming in conjunction with Splendid Reclamation, but I wanted to return lands to our hand from play, and you know what card does exactly that? If you guessed Storm Cauldron, you'd be correct. 

More Power!

But if you think that's all the tricks I have, you're sorely mistaken. The Skullspore Nexus is one of the best cards in this deck. It only costs two green with Gitrog out, gives us another body we can saddle next turn and double's the power of the creature we sacrifice for a grand total four mana. Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus buffs our entire board each combat. It is seven mana, but with how much we ramp, this isn't a problem. The latest addition to the deck, Rancor, is almost an Ancestral Recall in the deck since we can buff a creature's power by two for one mana and return itself to our hand. 

Useful Lands

What kind of Gitrog deck would this be without some utility lands? The three I want to highlight are Shizo, Death's Storehouse, Rogue's Passage, and The Black Gate. These are here to help Gitrog attack freely, plus Reliquary Tower helps keep our hand full of all the cards we draw. 

Winning

There are three ways we can win with this deck: commander damage, Landfall, and drawing cards. Commander damage is self-explanatory and requires the least amount of setup. We can use Retreat to Hagra and Ob Nixilis, the Fall to win with Landfall triggers. Finally, to win with card draw, we have Psychosis Crawler and Starving Revenant. The latter requires eight or more permanents in our graveyard, which shouldn't be that hard to do. 

The Special Deck Tech

Wait, hear me out! I think Gitrog is one of the best Slime commanders. Each slime we sacrifice provides us with more cards, ramp, and more slimes. You can add Abundance you can pick if you want more lands or Slimes. If you want a full write-up on Gitrog Slimes, let me know with the poll down below.