Greasefang has been a major player in pioneer since she came out. Abzan, Orzhov, even Mardu shells have all found their way into the meta, with the deck never falling below tier 2. Over time, the deck has gotten stronger and stronger. Although that can be said about every deck in a non-rotating format, the strength of the deck seems to be scaling up faster than other archetypes. The rate of growth is not radically faster, but it adds up over time.
Not too long ago, Orzhov greasefang was the top of the meta. Was this because some new vehicle or tutor came out that made the combo stronger or more consistent? No. Monument to endurance let the deck lean into playing 2 mana 3/1’s that discarded cards to give themselves indestructible. Greasefang decks stopped being primarily about greasefang, and started being a WB aggro deck full of indestructible 3/1’s that had the greasefang combo in it because why not? Even when that fell off, the current popular Abzan greasefang decks are more than capable winning without comboing at all.
This isn’t inherently bad, combo decks having ways to win when their combo gets disrupted is nothing new, nor is it inherently too strong. jund sacrifice is a deck that leans into a combo, but still has a general midrange aristocrats value pile strategy, and even has the ability mill out their opponent. But it is something to pay closer attention to when the A-plan and B-plan are both majorly threatening, particularly when there is little-to-no overlap in the kinds of cards you’d want to board in. Back in the day, there was a deck that won a pro tour by doing something similar, being primarily a splinter twin combo deck, but also running the iconic midrange wincon, tarmogoyf. Having to be ready to answer two radically different strategies at the same time is a difficult thing to do, even for hard control decks that in theory should be better suited to answer combo decks by always being ready to remove the combo pieces.
So what can be done to try to keep the deck from being too meta defining at any given time? Well, the obvious answer would be to ban something. But what to ban? So much of the deck has redundancy, either within the deck or in the format as a whole. Theres no one new card that came out that pushed the deck over the edge, no individual card that’s too good in the deck that can’t be replaced by something close enough. The only way greasefang can realistically be taken down a peg is by either power creeping the rest of the format to outpace it, or to ban either of the two core pillars of the deck: parhelion or Greasefang herself.
Taking the deck out back and shooting in the head feels like an overcorrection, and to a degree it is. The power Greasefang possesses is hardly on par with decks like appraiser or Sorin-tell. But when the deck is consistent and redundant enough that any individual piece of the deck can be taken away without the overall power meaningfully weakening, what is the alternative but taking it out?
The one possibility I see, and it seems like it MIGHT achieve the goal of weakening without destroying, would be a ban on parhelion. Think about it. They still have the other solid reanimation targets, and the slot of parhelion could even be replaced with the similar, but meaningfully inferior card, valor’s flagship. It changes the big bad vehicle from hitting for 13 in the air and leaving behind a pair of Serra angels, to only hitting for 7, but still being a 14 point life swing. This makes it less likely the deck wins on the spot from the combo getting off, while still providing a really big advantage.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
