Explorer: Mardu Greasefang Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

The Explorer Metagame after Winota, Joiner of Forces' ban has gradually been fixed to be able to assess how the main decks have been behaving and which archetypes you need to consider when building your deck.

Among these archetypes, one that has caused a certain buzz in online communities, and that is not too difficult to find in ranked matches or tournaments has been the Greasefang, Okiba Boss and Parhelion II combo lists, which, as I mentioned in my article with speculations of what to expect, would be “the most absurd thing to do in Winota's absence”.

There are a few variants of this deck in Explorer today, especially the Esper and Mardu versions, but I suppose there's also the possibility of building a version in Abzan colors. Among these, the most successful version has been the Mardu combination for offering the most coherent and proactive card combination for this strategy, and this is the version I have played the most since the last bans.

The strategy of all variants of this archetype involves putting Parhelion II into the graveyard through self-mill or discard effects, casting Greasefang, Okiba Boss, returning Parhelion II from the graveyard to the battlefield, crew with Greasefang itself, and attack with the vehicle, creating two 4/4 Angel tokens, totaling 13 damage that turn, with at least 8-12 more damage guaranteed the next turn, commonly becoming a 2- turn kill.

What makes this combo so effective is that it's incredibly fast (with the right hand, you can close the combo on turn 3), difficult to deal with early game trades, and it's in a color combination that has very high redundancy in ways to protect the combo or play the fair game when necessary.

The Mardu variant is probably the best in the current scenario because all the cards you use to enable the combo have another use besides that, like collaborating for a beatdown plan B, and they also make it possible to behave a base that favors one of the most powerful threats in the format: Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger.

All of this makes Mardu Greasefang one of the most powerful decks in Explorer today, and one you should respect and consider when building your decklist.

Despite including some Midrange elements such as discards and removals, the nature of Mardu Greasefang should never be confused. We're talking about a combo deck, and once I understood that while it can operate on a fairer plan, it's never what it aspires to do, my in-game decisions way more rewarding.

With that in mind, I designed my list to be almost entirely combo-focused, running two copies of Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger as an alternate game plan that also collaborates with disruption while setting a powerful clock if not answered.

The truth is that Explorer currently finds itself in a scenario where most players are trying to do their absurd thing in the game: reanimate Parhelion II with Greasefang, generate plenty of mana with Nissa, Who Shakes the World to cast bombs like Karn, the Great Creator, win the game out of nowhere by equipping Embercleave on Anax, Hardened in the Forge, play multiple Arclight Phoenix of your graveyard, cast Transmogrify to find Agent of Treachery and blink it with Yorion, Sky Nomad, and so on.

In a scenario like this, the best choice is usually the one that can explode faster, or the one that can explode fast while carrying disruptive elements that can delay opponents who try to make their important plays before you, or prevent them from interacting with you in the propitious moment.

Because it fits exactly into that category, I see Mardu Greasefang as the best deck option for Explorer right now.

The Maindeck

The main parts of the combo: there is no reason to use less than four copies of each.

It is important to point out that Parhelion II is a bad card in your hand, which is why this combo has an inherent weakness and needs a means to discard cards, and there are situations where you will draw multiple copies of this artifact.

Because of this, we run a huge amount of cards that can discard stuff to perform some effect, commonly coupled in 2-for-1, or 3-for-1 abilities like Voldaren Epicure, Bloodtithe Harvester and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker.

We also have Stitcher's Supplier to speed things up from turn 1, even allowing for a turn 2 win if you're lucky enough to mill Greasefang, Okiba Boss and Parhelion II, and having a Can't Stay Away in your hand, as well as interacting incredibly well with one of the best draw spells in Magic: The Gathering right now, Deadly Dispute.

Finally, Lightning Axe deals with virtually any creature of the format for one mana without relying on additional effects like Fatal Push, making it a great option for the current Metagame where you need to respond to certain bombs in Instant-Speed ​​at the lowest possible cost.

To complement the list, we have disruption effects to protect the combo with Thoughtseize (and a difference from my list to the most common is the addition of a playset), and as I explained above, the format is aimed at players trying to do your absurd thing before your opponent, making this spell an essential piece to delay other people's game plans, or to protect your combo when executing it.

Deadly Dispute is one of the most powerful draw spells we've had recently, and it also helps to get the extra mana to cast disruptions in the combo turn, or to set up and close the combo in the same turn.

Finally, to improve some of our discard effects, we have ways to reuse cards from the graveyard with Can't Stay Away, which even makes it possible to perform the combo if all the pieces are in your graveyard, in addition to Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger as an additional discard and a powerful clock in longer games, serving as an essential part of the deck's Plan B.

There's not much to say about manabase, but a notable inclusion is Takenuma, Abandoned Mire, Kamigawa's Channel Land: Neon Dynasty that makes it possible to return Greasefang, Okiba Boss from the graveyard to the hand at Instant -Speed.

Despite strongly recommending the use of basic lands, I chose to remove a Swamp from my list to use a second copy of Sacred Foundry, due to the increased need for white mana in post-sideboard games.

The Sideboard

There are many options when it comes to designing your Sideboard with Mardu Greasefang, and while I was playing games and adjusting it, I felt that the focus we need to have in playing around hate is much more harmful when we need to “counter” it using cards that favor the fair play.

Again, we're talking about a combo deck, and as such, we need to establish this threat every turn, as that's what makes our strategy fully viable. When we abdicate this threat to try a more balanced game, we are piloting a worse version of another more dedicated deck, and it is not uncommon for us to be fully punished for abstaining too much from our game plan.

So, there are some quirky choices on my list and you might change them if you prefer, but trust me when I mention that it's much better to focus on responding to what's holding the combo back rather than trying to play around them with other threats.

That's the reason I'm running both Cathar Commando and Rip Apart, both as 2-ofs because I wanted to have four or more answers to deal with Sideboard's main hates against Mardu Greasefang: Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage, Unlicensed Hearse and Graveyard Trespasser (sadly, there's not much to do about Go Blank).

What these cards have in common is that they deal with artifacts and enchantments while also being used for other purposes, such as dealing with creatures and Planeswalkers: Cathar Commando can attack or block and has Flash, serving as a threat and combat trick, while Rip Apart deals damage to any creature or Planeswalker.

The reason I chose Split is that both cards, despite having similar effects, operate better on different fronts during a game. Cathar Commando was infinitely better when playing against Control, due to being used at Instant-Speed ​​and being able to attack for 3 damage each turn, while Rip Apart was more relevant when dealing with creature archetypes, like Mono-Red Aggro, but unfortunately, it doesn't deal with creatures at Instant-Speed, so it's bad against opposing Greasefangs.

Currently, we also need to respect the opponent's graveyard, as both Greasefang and Izzet Phoenix decks along with Dreadhorde Arcanist lists make huge use of them. In this regard, I chose Go Blank as it is a powerful disruptive effect that can also be useful and collaborate with the discard plan, which greatly favors the match against Control decks or against Izzet Phoenix itself.

Unlicensed Hearse has grown significantly in the competitive scene recently and has proven itself to be a very high-value piece. Before, I used Graveyard Trespasser in this slot, but Streets of New Capenna's new vehicle produces an immediate and Instant-Speed ​​effect that makes a huge difference at any stage of the game, as well as becoming a bigger threat with each turn and can be revived by Greasefang, Okiba Boss and returned to its owner's hand if destroyed.

Duress is necessary when we know that many opponents will be able to have an Instant-Speed ​​answer to the combo, serving as additional protection for more interactive games where you don't have to worry so much about the opponent's clock.

Fateful Absence is probably another odd choice from my Sideboard: I wanted an answer that dealt with creatures and Planeswalkers at Instant-Speed ​​for varied occasions, and Noxious Grasp would probably suit the main targets I have in mind (Greasefang, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, The Wandering Emperor, Nissa, Who Shakes the World), but I also wanted extra removals to deal with bigger creatures and Chandra in Mono Red Aggro and to respond to Ledger Shredder before it becomes an issue, in addition to addressing one of our biggest threats, Karn, the Great Creator, so I opted for a broader removal.

There are some games where your best option is to attack the opponent's hand as many times as you can and not rely too much on the possibility that the combo will be your main path to victory, leaving it aside, but never entirely absent so that the opponent is always threatened. It's on these occasions where extra copies of Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger become your alternate wincondition.

Alternate Card Choices

There are several options that you can use in your list, and I will try to compile the main ones here so that you have the possibilities in mind if you want to change something.

Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord is an interesting and recurring choice on some lists, and it offers an extra attrition engine. However, as I'm betting on speed and consistency rather than long games, I chose to include one more copy of Can't Stay Away (which can be discarded for Lightning Axe, for example).

Skysovereign, Consul Flagship is a great target with Greasefang and can clear the opponent's board in a single turn if used correctly, but it requires a high mana investment and doesn't seem to do enough in the current Metagame.

Thrilling Discovery has been used in some lists and I consider it to be a good inclusion which it speeds up the combo absurdly if your proposal is to play with an integral focus on it. I opted for Bloodtithe Harvester because I haven't tested enough with Strixhaven's sorcery to know how much its use is really worth, and the mix of removal + discard outlet + clock in matches where you can't just jump straight into the combo seemed more attractive to me at the time of this writing.

There are also numerous options for the sideboard and I could see situations where I use any of these cards if the Metagame creates the need.

Among these, I have the need to highlight Portable Hole, as it is the commonly used answer to the format's graveyard haters, and I excluded it from my list for not offering a better range against cards like Graveyard Trespasser or Leyline of the Void, which has been appearing lately.

Stances

It is important to emphasize again that Mardu Greasefang is a combo deck and needs to be piloted as such: all plays are designed to try to make it viable at some stage of the game, even if its pieces operate well in the fair game.

However, that doesn't mean we just have to play the combo quickly and hope it works: this archetype is extremely flexible and having the patience to reanimate Parhelion II at the right moment is a necessary virtue when we're in more interactive games, especially against Control or some Midrange categories that might have efficient answers for Greasefang, Okiba Boss.

My general logic is that you need to be aware of what game proposal the opponent is looking to have: If they are going to the race and trying to do their absurd thing before you, bet on playing fast and getting the combo in the shortest possible way.

On the other hand, if they are proposing an interactive game, don't be afraid to try the fair game and try to force them to extend so that opportunities to make the combo open up. Play well with your pieces and know how to use the right timing with your interaction elements.

Mulligan

Your perfect hand is one that includes disruptive effects along with the combo pieces and the means necessary to put Parhelion II into your graveyard.

As we know that this option tends to be unlikely, we need to keep in mind what are the ways we have to speed up our game plan, drawing cards or milling the top to find the pieces of the combo before the opponent can stabilize into an irreversible point.

So, my Keep and Mulligan tips are:

• Any hand with the combo pieces and a decent amount of land (2 or 3) is a keep, especially if you have the means to discard Parhelion II.

• Hands with Greasefang, Okiba Boss are most likely a keep, as you are more likely to put Parhelion II in the graveyard than you are to draw Greasefang, but consider whether the other pieces in your hand contribute to find the artifact.

• Hands without any of the combo pieces can be a keep if they have elements that allow you to filter your hand in the next turns and/or a good play sequence, such as Stitcher's Supplier, Bloodtithe Harvester and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker.

• Remember that you can always go to Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger plan if it looks attractive for the game: hands with Kroxa + Stitcher's Supplier + Deadly Dispute or discard outlets can be a keep.

• If your starting hand has only one land, Mulligan. You can't afford to waste a turn popping a Blood token to find your land drop on turn 2.

• A starting hand with multiple copies of Parhelion II is a Mulligan, unless you have multiple ways to discard it, such as Fable of the Mirror-Breaker.

Tips and Tricks

• Remember that you need to crew Parhelion II before the attackers' declaration phase. It seems like a primary tip, but it can happen to less experienced players

• If you press the CTRL button, you enter “full control” mode in Magic Arena, which allows you to choose how and when to give priority to the opponent. This allows to, for example, respond to Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger trigger by sacrificing it with Deadly Dispute to draw cards.

• There are times when discarding interaction or other discard outlets for Fable of the Mirror-Breaker in favor of digging deeper for the combo is a viable option, especially if you're far behind in the game.

• Despite being a rare occasion, you can cast Thoughtseize on yourself to discard Parhelion II if necessary. This is also relevant if you need to cast Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger and keep it on the battlefield, but don't have enough cards in your graveyard to do so.

• Blood tokens' activation counts as a sacrifice, and this can create some awkward situations in front of a Mayhem Devil. In the same logic, it's important to remember that if you sacrifice them in your main phase with a Narset, Parter of Veils on the battlefield, you won't draw a card, but they're still useful if you just need to discard Parhelion II.

• Remember that the opponent can respond to Greasefang, Okiba Boss by destroying it with its trigger on the stack, before Parhelion II enters the battlefield, and the vehicle will be returned to your hand at the end of the turn. Taking that risk unnecessarily can often be the reason for your defeat in a match.

Unlike other combo decks, when we go to Sideboard games, we need to adapt better to the opponent to prevent the hate pieces from ending up delaying our game too much and having a less interactive game. This means, on many occasions, slowing down our strategy to have more opportunities to deal with the responses and threats on the other side of the board.

Another point you'll notice is that in longer matchups I tend to remove Voldaren Epicure often. The main reason is that Mardu Greasefang is a very complicated list to remove many pieces because everything works towards the same goal, and Crimson Vow's common one-drop is often the least impressive card in these games because it's easily blocked, or because the other cards contribute more to our plan than it does. You can opt for a split when removing enablers to add answers, but I preferred to standardize and remove the least impressive enabler out of the eighteen I run.

Mono Red Aggro

IN:

OUT:

I consider the match against Mono Red favorable pre-sideboard and slightly unfavorable post-sideboard if they have instant-speed answers for the combo because we have a window of few turns to deal with them.

Your best route in this match in both games is to try to speed up the combo and/or cast of Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger while exchanging removals and slowing your opponent's clock with chump blockers.

Mono Green Ramp

IN:

OUT:

Your biggest enemies in this matchup are Karn, the Great Creator and Scavenging Ooze, as they directly affect your strategy and your only plan in this match is to end the game with the combo, as Kroxa is easily blocked by an immeasurable number of creatures.

Karn should always be the target of your discard spells, as his mere presence (not to mention what is fetched from the Sideboard) threatens your plan too much for you to allow the luxury of letting him onto the battlefield.

Azorius Control

IN:

OUT:

Azorius Control is a favorable match in Game 1 and one of the few occasions where opting for the “fair game” plan initially is a great idea, as it will force the opponent to have to choose hard between respecting the combo or playing around your threats at the board.

Post-side, the opponent will usually have more pieces to deal with the combo, so we opted for a Midrange plan where we focused a lot on depriving their resources while attacking with our creatures, and since we want fewer dead pieces in our hand, we cut two copies of Greasefang and Parhelion II to make room for Sideboard additions, where Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger will commonly be our main threat.

You might consider removing Stitcher's Supplier, as Voldaren Epicure gives you better control of when to spend your resources and increase the clock, or splitting between the two, but the early to mid- game plays involving Stitcher's Supplier, Deadly Dispute, targeted discards to handle interaction, and Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger tend to turn the tables in your favor when you manage to keep the opponent off-balance.

Izzet Phoenix

IN:

OUT:

Izzet Phoenix is ​​a strange game because the opponent's explosive potential can just turn a game out of nowhere if we're not careful. Typically, Game 1 is defined by a race between your attempts to close the combo and the opponent's chances of placing more than one Arclight Phoenix on the battlefield and/or attacking multiple times with a huge Ledger Shredder.

In Game 2, we still adopt the combo stance, and even removed our copies of Kroxa for favoring the opponent's game plan while also being an easy target for the chump block. We bet on depriving the opponent of resources through Go Blank and using Unlicensed Hearse as an additional wincondition that also responds punctually to Arclight Phoenix.

Your biggest threat in this game is usually Ledger Shredder or Crackling Drake, so you need to maintain removals and use Blood tokens carefully to create more opportunities to Bloodtithe Harvester kill these creatures, and keep in mind that some variants are running Brazen Borrower between the maindeck and the sideboard, which significantly hinders our combo.

Removing Stitcher's Supplier might be the wrong choice, but we need a good amount of Blood tokens for Bloodtithe Harvester to deal with the opponent's creatures, and as we abandoned the plan to cast Kroxa due to the plethora of unfavorable answers that the opponent has (in particular, bounces), I chose to keep Voldaren Epicure.

Rakdos Midrange

IN:

OUT:

I think Rakdos Midrange is a tough matchup, as they have pretty much every kind of good answers to our gameplan, rendering the combo useless post-sideboard and managing to be a better midrange than we might actually try to be.

Between Go Blank, Leyline of the Void and Kolaghan's Command, I realized it's completely useless to keep the combo, and we have to achieve victory by exchanging resources profitably and deprive their hand, so we can deploy Kroxa and beat them up.

Mardu Greasefang

IN:

OUT:

The mirror match, in Game 1, is commonly made up of whoever can close the combo the fastest, or takes a topdeck war course where whoever has the most recursion pieces and/or casts Kroxa first wins the game.

Post-sideboard, the game depends a lot on which hate pieces your opponent is using against you, but I always assume that Go Blank and Unlicensed Hearse or Graveyard Trespasser will be the options on the other side, and normally the game develops with players trading resources until one of them closes the combo, or until one of their beatdown plans fits.

Although Kroxa is a great way to end the game in Late-Game, I'm not very comfortable with how much mana I need to invest to cast it through Escape while giving a free discard outlet that allows the opponent to combo in the next turn. So, the best route I found was to try to turn the game around by performing the combo faster than the opponent or trading resources while Unlicensed Hearse feeds from their graveyard, but if the game goes on too long, cards like Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord make a huge difference on the other side of the board.

I believe that Mardu Parhelion is one of, if not the best Explorer deck currently, being one of the most challenging archetypes to play with or against in the current Metagame, despite the notorious free-win button it has.

Unlike what some social media posts usually mention, I don't think a ban is necessary for now, and I'm looking forward to the next Historic Anthology bringing important elements that will help balance the Metagame a bit more and, if we consider how Pioneer has developed, Mardu Greasefang is not a very popular choice, being in the Tier 2 category in the format that Explorer aims to become, and it may be interesting that it, at the moment, occupies the space of the best competitive option until eventual additions takes its throne.

Thanks for reading!