BlackLegendary Creature — Horror SpellshaperGreel, Mind Raker
Mana value5Rank#23,585
The Commander
, 
, Discard two cards: Target player discards X cards at random.
Guide
Gameplan
Greel turns your hand into a forced-discard machine, stripping opponents' resources while you build a graveyard you can profitably recur. Play a mono-black control/discard shell that draws extra cards to fuel Greel's ability, then leverage hand attack alongside discard payoffs to grind everyone out and win with reanimated threats or a few big finishers.
Strengths
- Repeatable hand disruption can lock out combo and control decks that rely on holding key cards
- Mono-black gives access to the best tutors, ramp (Cabal Coffers, dark rituals), and recursion in the format
- Discarding two cards as a cost synergizes with reanimation and madness/discard-matters payoffs
- Cheap commander with a powerful repeatable activated ability that scales with mana
Weaknesses
- Random discard is unreliable—you may strip lands instead of the bomb you wanted gone
- Hand attack does nothing against decks that empty their hand or operate from the battlefield/graveyard
- Heavy card consumption (two cards plus X mana per activation) can leave you resource-starved
- Mono-black struggles with artifacts/enchantments and lacks flexible interaction outside removal
- As a single-target ability, it's slow at policing a four-player table
Key Cards
- Bottomless Pit — Stacks symmetrical-but-favorable discard pressure that complements Greel's targeted attacks.
- Megrim — Punishes every card opponents discard to Greel, turning disruption into direct damage.
- Liliana of the Veil — Adds another repeatable discard engine and removal in mono-black.
- Reanimate — Turns the cards you pitch to Greel's cost into a discount on huge threats.
- Sign in Blood — Cheap card draw refuels the two-card cost of every Greel activation.
- Cabal Coffers — Provides the heavy black mana needed to pump X high and empty hands fast.
Upgrade Path
Add mana doublers (Nirkana Revenant, Crypt Ghast) and rituals to push X high enough to empty hands in a turn, and lean into reanimation targets that pitch to Greel's cost. Improve consistency with black tutors (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor) and card advantage engines (Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena) so you're never short on cards to discard. For a faster table-wide lock, pair Greel with symmetrical wheels and discard-punisher enchantments to convert disruption into wins.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Reanimating large threats and beating down once opponents are resource-locked
- ▸Discard-payoff damage from cards like Megrim and Liliana's Caress
- ▸Grinding everyone to topdeck mode then resolving an unanswered bomb
- ▸Drain/aristocrat loops (Gray Merchant of Asphodel, sacrifice engines)
Archetypes
- Discard / Hand Hate — Greel is a repeatable engine for forcing opponents to discard, the core of a stax-lite disruption deck.
- Reanimator — Pitching cards to Greel's cost loads your graveyard with fatties to cheat back into play.
- Control — Mono-black removal plus hand disruption lets you grind the table down before closing.
- Aristocrats — Black sacrifice and drain payoffs give an alternate path to victory while you disrupt hands.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
