There are always cards that have the potential to be super scary.

When Stoneforge Mystic was first printed, it was just a fun card to go get some equipment and card advantage with. Basilisk Collar, maybe a Sword of Feast and Famine... all pretty fair things to do with the card. But once Batterskull was printed a short while later (and eventually Kaldra Compleat), suddenly we had a monster on our hands.

The same sort of "just wait until they print a busted X" is true with Greasefang, Okiba Boss, where X is a big vehicle.

Oh wait, too late!

Time Stamps:

03:54 - Match 1

23:13 - Match 2

40:14 - Match 3

Mardu Greasefang | Explorer | Jim Davis

• Creatures (13)
• 1 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
• 4 Bloodtithe Harvester
• 4 Greasefang, Okiba Boss
• 4 Stitcher's Supplier

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord

• Instants (10)
• 1 Can't Stay Away
• 2 Lightning Axe
• 3 Fatal Push
• 4 Deadly Dispute

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Thoughtseize

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

• Artifacts (5)
• 1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
• 4 Parhelion II

• Lands (23)
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 2 Brightclimb Pathway // Grimclimb Pathway
• 2 Needleverge Pathway // Pillarverge Pathway
• 3 Concealed Courtyard
• 4 Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway
• 4 Blood Crypt
• 4 Inspiring Vantage

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Hazoret the Fervent
• 1 Go Blank
• 2 Fracture
• 2 Portable Hole
• 1 Fatal Push
• 1 Thoughtseize
• 1 Kolaghan's Command
• 1 Noxious Grasp
• 1 Rite of Oblivion
• 1 Path of Peril
• 2 Unlicensed Hearse

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This is one of the many versions of Greasefang combo being played in Explorer right now, and frankly there's no consensus on the best way to build the deck.

If you go too hard on the combo, you risk running afoul of the many removal spells and graveyard hate available in the format. While returning a Parhelion II on turn three is extremely powerful and puts you in a dominating position, if your opponent has a way to kill Greasefang before combat or any piece of graveyard interaction, you can often be left out in the cold.

This leaves Greasefang decks asking themselves how all in they want to be, and how much of a plan B they want. There's no doubt that cards like Bloodtithe Harvester and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki are great cards, while Can't Stay Away and Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord give an amount of resilience too.

I'm not sure what the optimal Greasefang build is just yet, be it all in combo or a fairer base that has the ability to combo too, but once found it's bound to be a terror on the format!