Grist, Voracious Larva Commander Deck Runs Entirely on One-Drops

Benjamin Levin published a deck tech on EDHREC today that does exactly what it says on the tin: "Oops, All One-Drops" builds around Grist, Voracious Larva with the 99 intentionally restricted to only one-mana cards, plus whatever necessary artifacts and enchantments the deck needs to function. The TappedOut version of the list, uploaded by community member platypusab13, confirms the constraint with a reported average CMC of 1.00 across all 100 cards.

The deck's composition breaks down as 36 creatures, 9 artifacts, 8 enchantments, 8 sorceries, 8 instants, and 30 lands, with functional categories on TappedOut showing 14 cards dedicated to flipping Grist, 14 win conditions, 10 tutors, 14 card draw pieces, 9 removal spells, and only 2 sacrifice outlets. The rarity spread leans heavily on constructed staples: 33 rares and 13 mythic rares alongside 24 uncommons and 24 commons.

The entire engine exists to get Grist off the battlefield and back from the graveyard. "Grist wants creatures to enter from the graveyard so she can flip and turn into a planeswalker," Levin writes. The payoff for pulling that off early is substantial. "Grist can flip as early as turn two with the right setup, allowing you to create enough deathtouch blockers to deter anyone from attack." That matters in Commander precisely because planeswalkers are usually soft targets with three opponents free to swing at them.

Levin addresses the obvious tension in a one-drop deck: what happens when the game goes long and you've flooded the board with 1/1s? His answer is X spells and scalable mana sinks. "Some people might consider X spells cheating; however, I consider them a vital part of the deck. Having mana outlets that scale with the game is critical, so you don't fall behind on board later in the game." Goldvein Hydra anchors that package, offering multiple keywords and refunding most of its mana cost on death. Sporocyst handles double duty by protecting Grist and converting mana dorks into actual land drops, while Pest Infestation generates bodies that double as sacrifice fodder. Crop Rotation is featured prominently on the TappedOut page as well, pointing toward a land-tutoring line the deck leans on for consistency.

If the board stalls completely, the deck has what Levin frankly calls a Plan C. Altar of the Brood can mill opponents out over time through the sheer volume of tokens the deck generates, though Levin is upfront that "this isn't the best option since there aren't any infinite combos in the deck." Deeper into the backup plan sits Helix Pinnacle as a pure mana sink, fed turn after turn with whatever Karn's Bastion, the deck's only proliferation source, can add. Levin's assessment is characteristically blunt: "These last two options are truly last resorts, but they fit the theme, so I had to include them."

Despite the aggro packaging, Levin classifies the deck as midrange. "You can have some explosive starts, closing out games quickly, but you can also grind out victory in some surprising ways." TappedOut's algorithm rates it at 91% casual, which tracks for a build that wins through token accumulation and graveyard recursion rather than a deterministic combo line. The token suite the deck generates spans Constructs, Fish, Food tokens, Treasures, and Wicked tokens, a breadth that reflects just how many different one-drop synergies Levin squeezed into a single Golgari shell.