The Best “Grinch” Cards to Steal Commander Christmas

It’s that most magical and idealistic time of year, when most of us are fortunate enough to see our loved ones, relax, eat amazing food and even savor the feeling of ripping open a few choice gifts! Christmas cheer is infectious and I’m sure any number of other articles on this blog will be telling you how to lean into that spirit of “fun” and “giving” with your Commander gameplay. But where are the Christmas articles for the rest of us, huh? The mean, green, fun hating Magic player who’s never had a group-hug and just wants everyone to shut up and be miserable again? 

Trying to write the Grinches of our world a strategy guide for stealing Christmas is a tricky proposition. Of course, it’s easy to just prevent the other players from using their favorite toys. I literally just wrote a guide to understanding and playing the miserly Stax/Prison archetype this month! But I don’t feel like you can really be channeling the correct Grinch vibes just by denying fun – you need to be projecting your own twisted, petulant, jealous glee to your peers so they know what they’re missing. And just as the OG Grinch decides in his famous plot against Whoville, the best way to do that is to steal all the presents for yourself! 

Magic is full of devious and dastardly ways to pinch, purloin and vacuum up all the fun cards at the table onto your side, and we’re going to run through some of the most extravagantly villainous options today!

HM: Don Andres, the Renegade

Don Andres is in many ways a perfect commander for what I think of as this “grinch-ian” type of deck. He gives you specific incentives to steal as much stuff as you can, which is sometimes necessary to help you keep up with other decks and their lame “synergy between cards”. 

The treasure tokens in particular make me feel more comfortable with stealing effects that don’t come with a “you may pay mana of any color” rider, broadening your available card pool. Making all stolen creatures into Pirates doesn’t need to become a big part of your deck, but it is potentially a very interesting theme to blend into a list given how many strong Commander cards refer to that type!

However, I am forced to leave The Don here as an Honorable Mention outside the actual list, for one vital reason: he cannot steal any presents/cards on his own. The OG Grinch worked alone to steal Christmas, and so do all the cards on our actual list.

12.  Reins of Power

I think it’s also true to say that dramatic and splashy spells are more Grinch-coded than one that’s just mana-efficient. A one-off stealing effect has to be pretty impactful to shape the narrative of a multiplayer game, but Reins of Power certainly packs that kind of punch! And at instant speed the mana cost isn’t nearly as much of an impediment 

Obviously it is not on-brand to play this card in a situation where you’re giving creatures away, like some kind of fair, good-faith exchange of gifts! But I would assume any proper creature-stealing deck either has very few creatures of its own, or at least has some handy sacrifice outlets around to dispose of them in a situation like this. Make sure you give your opponent the most brutal gift of all – NOTHING.

11. Herald of Leshrac

Specifically stealing lands is not a very fun and on-theme for this list, but everything else about the Herald made me feel like I had to still find a place for it. Here we have a weird, impractical, evil-looking guy who nobody likes (probably because it’s a seven-cost 2/4), who sits in his cave on an icy mountain and covets the wealth of his neighbors. The only way this could be more Grinch is if we applied a green tint to the art!

Also, as someone who has a soft-spot for this card, I think the actual play patterns of the card do not really end up being as oppressive as the land-targeting text suggests. Cumulative upkeep is a very hard cap to work around when you’re drawing on a finite supply of other people’s lands to target. So this is usually just an expensive, delayed way to take a couple of massive turns with extra mana available before the Herald implodes and gives it all back – a pretty unique and fun final-boss scenario!

10. Debt of Loyalty

Three mana is a great rate for this effect, especially at instant speed – although the need to trigger the regeneration to get the full effect does undercut that versatility. This is also a permanent control-taking effect not associated with any aura or other permanent, so it’s very difficult for the original owner to get their defecting creature back. 

The multiplayer environment is what really helps this spell out though – just hold your mana up and snipe at a creature already dying to combat or a boardwipe. Nobody expects the white player to pinch their presents, and to do that as an opportunistic third-party sneaking in to profit from a “normal” interaction feels far more Grinch-alicious than I would have expected from a mono-white spell.

9. The Ruinous Powers

I love how much this card brings the literal Chaos of its titular powers, while still managing to be a quite effective deal for its mana. There is a risk when you’re paying this much to get a look at one random opponent’s card per turn cycle – hitting a land is particularly mediocre, since all you can do is use it as your normal drop for the turn and forgo the last part of the trigger.

It’s that damage clause that makes me most determined to put this on the list though. Being able to literally make opponents feel the pain of losing their promised Christmas gifts will always make me crack a villainous smile.

8. Daring Thief

It’s like the old saying goes – “who dares, wins”. This is the card on the list I’ve personally played the most with and it has become feared and despised among my friends for the repeated, sometimes interaction-proof permanent-swapping it can enable. All you need is a way to make this plucky rogue unblockable, or provide a safer way to tap it (e.g. vehicles, mounts, convoke, conspire, etc.) and you’re already halfway down the chimney to your goal.

The other half of the plan is the same as it was for Reins of Power: figure out how to minimise any mandated charity to your opponents. Swapping a dodgy token for their best permanent is the classic method, but you can also try giving people double-sided utility cards like Howling Mine… or simply reclaim your “gifts” with something like Homeward Path.

7. Yasova Dragonclaw

Besides the core concept of stealing things, Yasova has a lot more Grinch in her vibe than in her mechanics. First she gets a ton of points for actually being green! But she also has that “lives on a mountain and hates other people” energy, which seems very much apropos for our potential Grinch commander.

I do think it’s fun (and thematic) that you usually need to do a bit of work to get Yasova’s master plan primed and situated within a game. But the OG Grinch also needed to do a lot of preparation in order to successfully steal Christmas. Equipping or enchanting Yasova to access larger and larger targets for her ability is an equally rewarding quest as anything else – and Temur colors give you a very interesting, unique card pool to work from compared to other relevant choices.

6. Gather Specimens

Again, we see how even an expensive instant can force its way high onto this list through raw game impact. Gather Specimens is an excellent way to intercept every gift on its way to the children of Whoville… or every token on its way to the board of the Darien player!

The instant speed and unique wording of this effect makes it effective (if very costly) combo interaction in a lot of situations, since it will just sit in place like an invisible net and scoop up everything entering the battlefield for the rest of the current turn. It sucks that you can’t just use it to counter Clue and Treasure tokens, but I suppose that’s why it’s only here at #6 and not even lower!  

5. Olivia Voldaren

In my first draft of this list, it was this card at number 1. I’ve since had to revise it down to #5 due to stiff competition, but I’m sure that most of you can understand why I would value Olivia Voldaren so highly. 

Either you were like me, and you experienced the full wrath of this vampiric Grinch during her reign over Innistrad Standard – or you’ve played against her in the context of a typal Commander deck, one which can make amazing use of both her active abilities to take the impressive synergies between vampire cards over the top.

The only critique I can make of her (and it is a subjective one) is that having such a powerful, reusable activated ability in the command zone tends to really collapse the gameplan of a deck into just over relying on that ability whenever possible. That can create a bad (or bored) impression with a lot of opponents, so if you are playing Olivia then try your best to read the vibe in the room and avoid boring people into submission with her repeated biting.

4. Grave Betrayal

Being able to actively (and free of charge) take a profit from every combat trade, spot removal spell, or board wipe where creatures are destroyed is actually crazy good – particularly when there’s three people’s worth of stuff to steal, and three other people’s worth of removal flying around.

As usual, having a sacrifice outlet as part of the boardstate can unlock significantly higher performance from your creature-stealing effect – but not quite for the same reasons as usual. After all, it’s not like your opponent is afforded any opportunities to get their zombie creatures back under control! No, this time it’s about the potential devastating synergy between this card, a sac outlet, and cards like Death Pact or Butcher of Malakir. The “next end step” delay on Grave Betrayal stops it becoming an instant death button for the train, but it’s still able to completely take over the board in as little as half a turn cycle.

3. Bribery

I’m not sure the canon provides a reason to us for why the OG Grinch doesn’t actually try bribery as a countermeasure against the oppressive joy of Toon-town. It’s certainly effective in this Magic context, as Bribery might be the most long-tenured and convincing “gain control” effect in 1v1 tournament play.

It might be possible for new players to understate the value of targeting the opposing library as opposed to stealing creatures from in play. After all, stealing their guy from in play is diminishing their board while improving yours! But especially in the 100 card singleton formats, getting a chance to take the best situational target out of anybody’s deck is going to have a much better strike rate than hoping they incidentally put the one creature you need into play and left it targetable! Sometimes the simple explanations are all it takes to secure a top-three Grinch-est card ever view…

2. Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools

Another legend I had locked in at rank #1 on this list for a while, but ultimately had to bump. Even so, all three of these abilities are simply iconic. The whole theme of the card is about taking away all the opponents favorite toys (their planeswalkers), which the design wonderfully realises without being too oppressive in how it happens. 

Players will always feel a bit uncomfortable Tevesh Szat is lurking in a corner of the table. This might make them gun for you first, or just try and get on your good side. But that’s where his non-stealing ability to create 0/1 tokens really shines through. So long as you can defend Tevesh Szat, you’ll eventually be able to use that ultimate – and I doubt that anyone in Whoville has the moxie to keep going after that kind of blow.

1. Gonti, Canny Acquisitor

Your #1 Magic: the Grinch-ening card for all the marbles is… New Gonti! The previous Gonti card did sterling work and launched many a steal-centric Commander deck in its own right. But it did have some major defects, not least of which was the mono-black color identity you were forced to have to get real repeated use out of it. 

I still think it was a good enough card to challenge for this spot anyway, but THEN Wizards went ahead and printed a new three-color Gonti in Thunder Junction. Now we have a Gonti which can steal cards on its own or with help, and do it repeatedly. We have a bonus to casting stolen spells to keep it efficient, and a wide-open cast timing window to keep it flexible. 

The Canny Acquisitor even scales up mightily with a wider attack group of creatures – so if we were to decide last minute the Grinch is allowed to have helpers, this too-small-heart-having cowboy would be ready to accept them with open, present-stealing arms.

GRINCHES CAN BE GIFTS TOO

Building around stealing cards in Magic really does hit the perfect mark between naughty and nice that I want from my gameplan. Using people’s own cards against them is highly evocative, generating instantly memorable in-game moments and narratives of revenge.

It might be more insulting to get beaten down by your own signature cards, but it does mean that the Grinch deck automatically scales its power level to match the other decks present. In many cases it’s even scaling with the current strength of their board state, so you can argue it’s among the most fair and reasonable strategies that could exist!

Playing with other people’s cards also leans strongly into the other vital aspect of the Commander play experience – variety! It’s very difficult to ever play the same game twice with this style of deck, even if you’re going against the same set of opponents. When you combine that kind of dynamism with the added emotional weight of stealing people’s stuff, you’ve got a recipe for an exciting Grinch-y gameplay that will keep your playgroup fed throughout the holiday season!