Commander Deck Tech: Gwenom, Remorseless

A legendary creature that is practically a commander version of Bolas's Citadel? What could possibly go wrong?

The latest Universes Beyond set, Marvel's Spider-Man, gave us some very unusual cards inspired by this incredible hero, such as Spider-Man 2099 (click here to see more about him!) and the highly coveted The Soul Stone. But one card in particular stood out to Commander players: Gwenom, Remorseless.

In this article, we'll explore this commander and her strongest interactions with two lists. The first and main one uses combos to win the game through just a few interactions, and the second is a classic Reanimate list.

Are you ready to meet Gwenom?

Any MTG player can point out at least one classic card in each color that is automatically tied to certain strategies. Bolas's Citadel, for instance, is known for its role in the most popular combos in Commander. It is also one of the strongest black cards that lets us look at the top cards in our deck and move them around (it could even be the strongest way to do this in the entire format).

Why are we talking about this artifact? Well, our main star today is relatively similar to it.

Our commander is Gwenom, Remorseless, a 4/4 legendary creature with deathtouch and lifelink. For five mana, we can put her in play and get the most of her unique ability, which triggers when she attacks. After Gwenom attacks, we can look at the top card in our deck at any moment and play cards from there for life points instead of mana.

We've heard this before, haven't we?

Gwenom might not have Bolas's Citadel's other ability, which lets us sacrifice permanents to force our opponents to lose life, but she is still similar enough to deserve a comparison.

Bolas's Citadel is known for its explosive combo, so Gwenom should become a second Bolas's Citadel in your list. The only difference is that returning her to the board is easier than reanimating this artifact, and that, of course, our beloved hero can stay in our command zone.

A commander like Gwenom deserves a deck just as strong as her. In this case, her biggest strength comes from the powerful interactions that let us win the game on the spot.

This list is powerful. It was built for those who like to win with combo strategies and check how much their friends really like them. If that isn't you, don't click off just yet. At the very end of this article, we'll show you a Reanimate list with this commander that is more casual and friendly.

Tutors

It is practically impossible to discuss a deck that was built to combo consistently and not list at least one tutor. In this one, you'll find:

Apart from Urza's Saga, all the tutors in this list put a target card on the top of our deck and not in our hand. The reason for that is simple: we want to cast the cards we tutor with Gwenom's effect.

Please note that Gwenom's ability triggers when she attacks. As such, even if our opponent kills her or removes her from play, we can still look at the top card in our library and cast spells from there until the end of the turn.

By the way, Insidious Dreams is one of the strongest tutors in this deck. It essentially lets us look for more than one card in our deck and put all of them on the top at instant speed.

Combos

Let's briefly go over a few of the combos we can use to win the game while Gwenom commands our deck.

Aetherflux Reservoir + Bolas's Citadel or Gwenom, Remorseless + Sensei's Divining Top

We can use either our commander or our artifact for this one. Whatever we have at hand.

1. With all the cards above in play, we'll activate Sensei's Divining Top's ability to draw a card and put it on the top of our deck.

2. Then, we'll cast Sensei's Divining Top from the top of our deck for 1 life.

3. Next, we'll gain life with Aetherflux Reservoir's effect.

4. Aetherflux Reservoir's ability scales. So, whenever we do this process, we'll gain more life.

5. We'll get 52 or more life points and use the ability to deal 50 damage to an opponent.

6. Finally, we'll repeat this process until we kill every opponent.

Bolas's Citadel or Gwenom, Remorseless + Gray Merchant of Asphodel + Mortuary + Viscera Seer or Umbral Collar Zealot

The important thing for this combo is to have a way to sacrifice cards. That could be Viscera Seer or Umbral Collar Zealot, for instance.

1. We'll start by casting Gray Merchant of Asphodel, either from the top of our deck or our hand.

2. When Gray Merchant's ability resolves, our opponents will have lost life and we'll have gained more life.

3. We'll then sacrifice Gray Merchant of Asphodel to use Viscera Seer or Umbral Collar Zealot.

4. Because of Mortuary's effect, the creature will go to the top of our deck instead of the graveyard.

5. Finally, we'll cast Gray Merchant of Asphodel from the top of our deck and repeat this process to drain all our opponents.

Exquisite Blood or Bloodthirsty Conqueror + Sanguine Bond or Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Enduring Tenacity

This list plays many different cards that essentially set up the combo like we want it. So, even if our main combo is just two cards, we'll list the five that do what we want.

So, if one of our main pieces falls, we'll still have a few other ways to win the game.

1. First, we'll gain life by attacking with Gwenom or another effect.

2. This will trigger Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Sanguine Bond, or Enduring Tenacity and make an opponent lose 1 life.

3. This, in turn, will trigger Exquisite Blood or Bloodthirsty Conqueror, and we'll gain life.

4. Finally, we'll repeat this loop until we can kill our opponents.

Professor Onyx + Chain of Smog

This is the last combo we'll bring up, mainly because we added Chain of Smog specifically to do this. If you don't want to use it, you can replace it with anything that you find best.

Curiously, according to the Commander Spellbook, this list has over 30 possible combo interactions with many different cards!

1. With Professor Onyx in play, we'll cast Chain of Smog and target ourselves.

2. This will trigger Professor Onyx. Our opponents will lose 2 life and we'll gain life.

3. Next, we'll resolve the sorcery, discarding two cards and copying it without picking a new target.

4. Finally, we'll repeat this loop to gain life infinitely and make our opponents lose life infinitely.

Card Draw

Logically, this deck needs more than combos to work (though this is our main strategy).

Now that we've discussed a few of our main combos, let's go through a few of our support cards.

We added Insatiable Avarice to put cards on the top of our deck, but nothing is stopping us from using Spree's two extra mana to draw three cards and lose 3 life.

Scroll Rack is critical, as it puts cards we would rather not pay mana to cast on the top of our deck so that we can cast them with Gwenom. This is useful, particularly if we have too many expensive cards in hand and not enough mana in play.

Ramp and Creating Mana

Who said only green has ramp?

With these spells, we'll have more than enough mana to play Gwenom as fast as possible and even replay her if our opponents remove her.

If you enjoy monoblack decks with countless combos, you'll love our Deck Tech on K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth.

As usual, we also added some ways to discount costs.

Removals

To get rid of any problems on our opponent's boards, we added the following removals:

As we mentioned before, this alternative list is a classic Reanimate strategy. It is also a lot more friendly and casual than our first one, which, as we've seen, centers around combos and explosive wins.

Because this list reanimates creatures, we had to add a few favorites:

In this list, we'll use Gwenom's effect to get a lot of value from the top cards in our deck. The rest of our 99 cards includes great ETB and death abilities that drain the opponents's life points, remove creatures, and a lot more!

In my playgroup, Gwenom is what we call an easy commander, and not in a negative way. That's simply what she is.

That's what we call legendary creatures that are so strong that, regardless of which deck you built, they'll always make it work.

For this reason, I decided to bring you a list centered completely around explosive combos. Gwenom is so powerful she deserves a deck that wants to win at all costs.

Depending on your playgroup, the bracket you play in, or the rules you use, you can build Gwenom in other ways to make her more friendly and less explosive. She is versatile and even works as one of the 99 cards in your deck.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!