Noob Friendly Commanders Skullbriar
Welcome to the first noob friendly build on the CG Site! Today we are talking about Skullbriar that zombie that can’t seem to lose their counters. Skullbriar is a 1/1 that costs a black and green to cast and whenever it deals combat damage to a player it gets +1/+1 counter. Oh it also has haste!
Skullbriar is fantastic for new players especially as a two colored commander. First of all it meets all of the S.A.S requirements which is how I assess which commanders are the best for new players. S.A.S is an acronym for Simple, Affordable, Straightforward. Look below at the deck list I brewed for this commander.
Commander
1 Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
Creatures
1 Bloated Contaminator
1 Evolution Sage
1 Karok Wrangler
1 Leyline Prowler
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Misery's Shadow
1 Necrogen Rotpriest
1 Pollenbright Druid
1 Quirion Elves
1 Renata, Called to the Hunt
1 Simian Simulacrum
1 Winding Constrictor
Planeswalker
1 Nissa of Shadowed Boughs
Sorceries
1 Carnivorous Canopy
1 Courage in Crisis
1 Crawl from the Cellar
1 Cultivate
1 Drown in Ichor
1 Enter the Unknown
1 Essence Harvest
1 Expand the Sphere
1 Explore
1 Find // Finality
1 Monstrous Onslaught
1 Nissa's Pilgrimage
1 Open the Gates
1 Rampant Growth
1 Search for Tomorrow
1 Smell Fear
1 Spread the Sickness
1 Thirsting Roots
1 Thrive
1 Unnatural Restoration
1 Vat Emergence
1 Visions of Dominance
Instants
1 Astarion's Thirst
1 Cast Down
1 Devour Flesh
1 Fog
1 Grim Affliction
1 Infectious Bite
1 Invigorating Surge
1 Savage Summoning
1 Snakeskin Veil
1 Solidarity of Heroes
1 Tamiyo's Safekeeping
1 Tyvar's Stand
1 Unexpected Fangs
1 Whisper of the Dross
Artifacts
1 Golgari Cluestone
1 Golgari Keyrune
1 Golgari Locket
1 Golgari Signet
1 Prosthetic Injector
1 Sol Ring
1 Vat of Rebirth
Enchantments
1 Audacity
1 Dying Wish
1 Eternal Thirst
1 Grave Betrayal
1 Hydra's Growth
1 Necrogen Communion
1 Unspeakable Symbol
1 Wild Growth
Lands
1 Command Tower
1 Darkmoss Bridge
14 Forest
1 Foul Orchard
1 Golgari Guildgate
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Karn's Bastion
14 Swamp
1 Woodland Chasm
This deck as of the making of this blog post is under $35! That is cheaper than most precons! That being said how does this deck work, what are some good future upgrades, and how optimized is this deck on a scale of 1-10.
Let’s start with playing with skull smash and learning how it works. The deck is built to ensure you will always be able to cast Skullbriar on turn two. Once you cast Skullbriar swing at an opponent with no creatures. Usually around turn two most players either do not have a creature out or have a early game creature which they may need and will not want to block with such as a mana dork. Now that we hit one of our opponents for 1 damage we can get a +1/+1 counter on Skullbriar making it a 2/2. Now the fun begins. In future turns we want to focus all our efforts in proliferating our Skullbriar and adding as many counters as we can. However, our opponents may try to stop Skullbriar and get rid of the threat. This is why using cards like Safekeeping or Solidarity are great in the deck they give Skullbriar some protection for a moment. Whispersilk cloak or Swiftfoot boots are great equipment cards for also giving some added protection. Please be aware the cloak gives Skullbriar shroud which means you can not target Skullbriar. Shroud is different than hexproof. The boots have hexproof which makes it so a permanent you control can not be the target of a spell your opponents control. Shroud makes it so a permanent you control can not be targeted at all even by you. The cloak also makes Skullbriar unblockable which is a bonus if you don’t have rogues passage out this is a great alternative. If you are going to do something to target Skullbriar just make sure to unequip the cloak first by paying the equip cost again. Cards like Devour Flesh I also put in the deck in case you are in a pinch and need to gain some life quick. Sometimes it can be beneficial to kill our commander to just re-cast again later especially if the benefits gives you an advantage. This is also why I added grave recursion into the deck this way you can get around having to pay commander tax and simply just pull Skullbriar from the grave to the field. Be warned though if you pull Skullbriar from the grave to your hand you will lose any and all counters.
So what are some good upgrade options? A few expensive ones come to mind, but Parallel Lives and Doubling Season are stupid good in the deck just really really expensive. You can upgrade the land base if you like, but I wouldn’t say it is essential. Vorinclex monstrous raider is another great add to the deck! The Ozolith is super good especially if Skullbriar would return to your hand the Ozolith would hold onto the counters instead of Skullbriar since Skullbriar loses counters when it goes to either your hand or library. These are just a couple of cards I highly recommend adding over time and who knows maybe there will be new cards printed that will find a home in your Skullbriar deck.
So what would I scale the Skullsmash Skullbriar brew I did on a scale of 1-10 in terms of optimization. I would put it at about a 4. The deck is very weak against removal and focuses mainly on hitting your opponents continuously overtime with Skullbriar. A more fine tuned build would be able to take out an opponent faster and more efficiently. Let me know in the comments your thoughts on the brew and feel free to share your Skullbriar brews! Thank you all for checking out CG’s first Noob Friendly commander article!
