burkhart tried it prior to gp okhc and immediately went off it again. it makes the deck super clunky and inconsistent, feels like. no fuel for tasigur, 2land hands that were just fine become unkeepable, etc.
at that point you're trying to be jund+snap
This exactly. You obviously don't wanna overdo it with cantrips otherwise you start spinning your wheels a lot, but filtering your draws is incredibly important in a control deck. Serum visions is crucial especially game one as it helps you filter away bad draws; whether it's trying to avoid flood or screw, scrying away counters when you need to deal with the board or scrying away removal against ad nauseam or scapeshift. Thought scour is great because it synergizes with almost every card in the deck between tasigur, search, snap and kommand. I think without those spells you'll lose a lot more game one's (two and three as well but to a lesser extent as you'll likely board out all or most bad cards anyway).
Just finished up a modern competitive league, ended up going 4-1. Last match was an extremely disappointing way to go out but that's variance for you. My list is as follows:
It's basically Burkhart's list plus or minus a few cards. The sideboard is currently in flux as I'm trying a few things out. The two changes I'm testing currently are the pyros and the crumbles.
Pyro is usually a straight swap for search and comes in when I need to emphasize a clock (big mana, combo, burn) and also puts in work in grindy matchups like control or midrange/shadow. Pet card of mine I'll admit so it's probably not objectively correct but they've been putting in work so far.
The crumbles I'm much less sure of, I put them in becuase especially against tron sometimes fulminator isn't enough if you don't also have surgical in hand. In my third match against tron this card basically won me the game and it was amazing as I would hope a four mana sorcery would be. However what I don't like the card is that it's only really good against Gx tron but is either poor or useless against other matchups I would bring in fulminator such as E-tron, valakut or control. I'm most likely dropping these and one rejection back to 3 mages.
For the games themselves, here's a brief write-up of each. I would do turn by turn but some of the games were incredibly long and it's not practical to do so. I may at some point record or stream but I'll wait til I get better with the deck before that happens.
Match 1
UW Control 2-0
I'll just briefly go over this one since it was a very weird game. I normally love playing against this matchup as we win the long game but we never got past I think turn 10 or 11 in either game. Game one went fairly long with lots of back and forth but ended abruptly after my opponent somehow managed to target his own cryptic on the stack with mana leak and then immediately conceded afterwards.
I usually board out the searches against uw control as well but I didn't have enough that I wanted to bring in without the fulminators so they stayed in. Game 2 was much of the same, lots of back and forth jockeying for position. Then at some point my opponent made another mistake, got frustrated, and conceded somewhere around turn 7 or 8. Very uneventful and disappointing game overall. I have a good win percentage against uw control so I was really looking forward to a proper game against them as it's a very skill intensive matchup and I enjoy having the practice.
Match 2
UR Breach 2-0
Really close nail-biting game one. We got to turn 20 or something ridiculous and it felt very much like playing against twin where I never wanted to fully tapout or risk getting combo'd out. I would pick little fights here and there over certain cards (k command and search warranted answers almost every time) to bait out as many counterspells as possible to he wouldn't be able to defend his combo as well. Ended up eventually getting there with chip shots and a resolved tasigur in the late game.
Game two I brought in the staticaster as I've seen lists with a pyro sideboard plan of their own and wanted to have insurance against that. Sniping down opposing snaps and cliques also seemed relevant. It ended up not making a difference though as tasigur quickly ran away with the game.
My turn one I played a fetch and passed. They spent their second turn casting a nihil spellbomb and left one blue open. I cast scour on their end step to force my opponent to crack the spellbomb before I could untap but they got greedy and held it. My turn I played a basic land so they wouldn't get priority and windmill slammed tasigur. The rest of the game I was able to just sit back and amass counter spells/make land drops until my opponent eventually had to go for the combo without any counter backup or die (had countersquall waiting). I don't know if my opponent was correct with holding the spellbomb to either wait for more targets or "counter" a snapcaster but considering their deck struggles a lot with a resolved delve creature like tasigur I think they should have played around that more. Hindsight is 20/20 but the game would have been much different if I didn't get him out there turn two.
Match 3
Mono Green Tron 2-0
I keep a decent, if awkward hand with two tasigurs, a scour and a squall as the relevant cards. I ended up not running out tasigur quickly as I wanted to hold up squall for a potential karn. I ended up using squall more aggressively to counter a sylvan scrying on turn 3 rather than the potential payoff card, followed up with tasigur on my turn. I got him down to 8 with kommand and beats while he had 3 towers, a mine and a forest. He then cast o-stone which I countered and bounced the mine, meaning even if he found the plant now he wouldn't have tron next turn. Wrapped the game up shortly after that. Not everyday I win game one against tron but it feels good to do so.
Ended up bringing in the flashfreeze to deal with thragtusks and potentially snipe a tutor early. I still brought in surgical even with crumble to deal with world breaker as that card can be a nightmare to deal with.
Game two my opponent quickly got tron but only had a thragtusk to cast with it. I cast crumble on 4 to get them off of tron and went down to 1 off of the thragtusk beats by turn 5. I had to come up with elaborate ways of dealing with the thragstusks as I only had snaps, kommands and cryptic in hand and didn't find a terminate for a while. Had to bounce one, flash in a snap and block + kommand back the snap and finish off the token. Then my opponent replays it which I have cryptic for this time. The third one I had to repeat the first process again but finally got rid of it. Used surgical on both wurmcoil and karn, eventually drew a second surgical and took his ugins too. The only relevant cards left in my opponent's deck were emrakul (promised end) and ulamog. Got the emrakul off of a Kommand in the draw step and eventually got there with the little ambush vipers. This game took a very long time to eventually win because I never found a tasigur or pyro but without tron the deck is very manageable. Was very pleased with crumble in this matchup, no surprises there.
Game 4
Humans 2-1
Lost game one very quickly, opponent had a nice curve and quickly cast out their hand with the help of vial. Opponent had Thalia, freebooter, lieutenant and mantis rider this game and I just couldn't keep up with my hand full of cryptics.
Pyro is very lackluster in this matchup with all the flyers but puts on a decent clock and the chump blockers can be relevant. Kept in the snares as without cavern or vial maybe I can snipe an important creature since the two drops are the ones I'm most afraid of.
Game two was very close as I ran out of removal but I ended up using cryptic to continuously tap his team and raced him with tasigur and snapcaster (along with tar pit on the last turn).
Sideboard
-2 snare
+2 cryptic
My opponent led on turn one cavern basically every game so I boarded out the snares and figured the bounce or tap down modes of cryptic were going to be more relevant. Game three I had to very carefully manage my spells but eventually ground him down and I had a search to catch me back up on cards. Definitely a tricky matchup but with this much spot removal they can't keep up in the long term. Card I was most worried about post board was the bob's my opponent boarded into and I killed those on site as a priority so they never got the cards off of him.
Match 5
Valakut 0-2
My opponent led on valakut and I unfortunately didn't have much relevant interaction for this matchup. I would have had cryptic for his prime time on turn 5 but my opponent actually had mwonvuli acid moss in his main deck which completely screwed me over. Very strange inclusion for the list but it won him game one.
Game two was very unfortunate. My opening seven was way too slow so I went down to six and had no blue mana in hand and only blue spells. Ended up mulling down to 5 with a one lander but I had serum visions, scour, pyro and tasigur in hand so it wasn't too bad all things considered. Unfortunately even with all the cantrips (even found another scour which I cast) I couldn't find my second land the entire game. Opponent killed me on turn 5 or 6 I believe.
Major takeaways for me:
Crumble was amazing vs tron and basically useless outside of that. I'm probably going back to the fulminators. The flashfreeze was to help hedge against blood moon/sun decks which I've played a lot against in practice but didn't end up being relevant in much of the games. I think I still prefer a 1/1 split with it and stroke but maybe 2 strokes is better. The pyros didn't have too much opportunity to shine today as I rarely drew them or cast them but I still really like the card and I want to give it another shot through a league where I hopefully have more opportunity to cast it.
Overall a disappointing beginning and ending to the league but otherwise I felt the deck was sharp and did what it needed to do. I have a tournament coming up on the weekend I'm looking forward to. Was originally going to play shadow for it as I've had success with it before but I've been doing very poorly lately so I'm giving it a break in favour of control.
It was brought up but never actually tested. I think it is basically this decks revelation. Although Glimmer of Genius looks appealing as well. 4 Kcommands could at least ping for 2 and instant discard at draw step or end step so it isn't that bad. You want to run your opp out of cards asap.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
GG for your result !
Aren't 4 K-Commands a bit overkill these days ? I feel like 3 is the perfect number as it's really good when its good, and awfully bad when it's bad.
I've been test Pull From Tomorrowing recently, as I was wondering why Grixis Control was the only heavy blue-based Control deck not running a card like Revelation.
It has been quite good so far, but no life gain hurts. Has anyone some thoughts about it ? I know the card was a bit discussed when it was spoiled, but it was when we were still playing Ancestral Vision, and the deck changed quite a lot since then, so...
Thanks, I tried testing 4 kommands after I saw Corey stream with them and honestly the card is just back breaking against so many decks. I've stolen so many games against big mana with chaining discard in their draw step and that's not even going over how grindy the card is in other matchups. I agree that you can get away with 3 and I was playing that for a while, but it's easily the best card in the deck next to snap and cryptic so I don't regret having the playset.
Regarding pull, as you point out later the card basically fills the same grindy role as k command. I've tested the card myself in bigger grixis control lists and while it was good against midrange decks especially, it was incredibly underwhelming everywhere else. The lack of life gain is actually very relevant compared to sphinx's rev for stablizing. I don't like it as much as ancestral or search for raw card advantage (both of which come down much cheaper) or as good as k command in grindy games.
TheAlexGnan I agree completely, I've since switched back to fulminators myself. It was an interesting experiment but not a fan personally
I really hope Grixis Control shows some results in the next couple of months so we can build around several players' lists and not only Burkhart's ones (though he is awesome).
Yeah that seems to be the issue unfortunately, outside of him I don't think anyone else in recent memory has put up anywhere near the same results. Even then Corey has seemed to switch over to shadow himself and I don't necessarily blame him even though I've done exactly the opposite lately. Hopefully one of us gets there one day
I noticed this was mentioned a few pages back, so I tried putting all of grixis' sideboard options together for reference purposes. Here is what I came up with so far. Anything I'm missing? Are there cards that shouldn't even be on this list?
I watched his video about Death's Shadow, and I think he is playing it mostly because people asked him to. When I watch him play Grixis Control, I always whisper: "ooh, bold move", but it almost always end up well. Sometimes I just feel like we're not playing the same cards !
Hopefully, he'll top 8 with a great new list so hype for Grixis Contol can rise again...
Thankfully it seems you're right lol, haven't had a chance to look through the video myself and only saw it was posted with the description of practicing for the next event. After watching the video it seems he comes to the conclusion that it's a good deck but not insanely overpowered like some claimed it was. Hopefully he puts up a good showing with control!
I noticed this was mentioned a few pages back, so I tried putting all of grixis' sideboard options together for reference purposes. Here is what I came up with so far. Anything I'm missing? Are there cards that shouldn't even be on this list?
Is this just a general list of cards that the grixis colours can potentially use? If so there's quite a few cards you could still include I guess. If it's meant to be a list of competitive options I think it's the opposite and there's too many cards on there that I don't think have ever been registered in a modern grixis deck or at least not one that's done very well.
I finally dusted off my Grixis Control deck. Bought most of it 2 years back when Chapin pioneered (?) the 22 land Delve version but sucked at playing it and getting frustrated with it. Wanted to update it with the release of Ancestral Vision but it's cost drove me away. Now with Corey championing the Azcanta/8 command version I'm finally getting somewhere. Had a blast at FNM yesterday, even though I went 1-1-1 vs Ponza, Tron and Affinty (god I need to shore up my game vs Ponza)
Anyway, I'm wondering if Torrential Gearhulk could be a fit in the deck as another disruptive finisher. I can see why its inclusion could be iffy due to it's manacost but a flipped Azcanta might get us there more reliably compared to the past. Thoughts?
It makes your good match ups better and your bad matchups worse. It's certainly a good card, but for example against Ponza, Tron, and Affinity it's worse than pretty much every other card you have.
Just finished up at a modern 1k invitational event with control. Ended up getting 8th (we all split in top 8 to split the store credit) so i not only got the invite but got extra credit as well so I'm very happy with the result. Way too tired to do a write up but here are the matches:
Snuck into 8 on breakers cause I lost to the top 2 guys. Overall very happy with the deck but the pyros underperformed. I'm gonna take them out and put brutality back in as much as I don't like the card in control. Seems like a necessary evil against burn since I have no way of otherwise winning the matchup without getting very lucky
Also of note I took out the crumbles and put 3 fulminators back in which I was very happy with
Is this just a general list of cards that the grixis colours can potentially use? If so there's quite a few cards you could still include I guess. If it's meant to be a list of competitive options I think it's the opposite and there's too many cards on there that I don't think have ever been registered in a modern grixis deck or at least not one that's done very well.
I'm trying to compile a list of all "playable" SB cards for grixis control in any given meta with any build, be it proactive heavy PW/heavy creature tapout or reactive cryptic draw-go.
Which of these do you think are unplayable and why? What cards should be in this list that aren't?
Ok good to know it's more of a general list, I'll adjust my critique accordingly.
So the following cards I'm just confused by in general:
Dark blast strikes me as a card that I don't entirely understand the purpose of or when it would be good in our deck.
Deathmark also seems far too niche and was probably better when it was hard to kill goyfs but we have push now so I don't know what this hits.
Bribery is very strange but maybe against a deck running OG emrakul? Not sure what it's there for as 5 mana is a lot.
Magma spray also seems like a very odd choice to me.
Aside from that there are several cards that seem like strictly worse options than we we currently have available:
Tec edge is too hard to run with our mana base. Field of ruin seems strictly better but I'd prefer it in the main instead of putting a land into your board.
Speaking of land destruction, rain of tears is a strictly worse version of both molten rain and fulminator mage so I wouldn't bother putting it on the list. Spreading seas is also way too low impact unless it's in conjunction with other land destruction but at that point you're talking about half your sideboard slots for just land destruction.
Steel sabotage seems like a strictly inferior rejection as bouncing an artifact seems way less useful in any matchup (especially given how much straight artifact removal our colours have) than having the ability to counter eldrazi as well as artifacts.
Siphon life is a strictly worse version of collective brutality in every way,
All the other cards I really like or I could at least see an argument for. Thanks for putting in the effort to get this together though it's still a very good start even though I disagree with some of the inclusions. Hopefully others can chime in and we can get a solid list going for non-shadow grixis variants.
As a budget option absolutely, I think it's a perfectly fine choice and if anything it would actually be preferred in aggressive shells like delver.
That being said the 2/2 body is very relevant, both on offense and defense and the flexibility of the card is what makes it so good. Both cards are functionally the same against Tron as you mention but it's the other matchups like against colonnade decks for instance where fulminator really gets a leg up over molten rain. Fulminator is also more flexible mana wise and the instant speed activation can be very relevant as well. I think there's too many situations where the card is far more versatile to run molten rain over it outside of budget or specific deckbuilding choices.
Fulminator is easier to cast with 1BR usually, also he does not get hit by negate type counterspells which are prominent to hard counters. Otherwise Molten Rain is a fine substitue.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Btw, 3 grixis control decks with 21+ points in the PT!
I'm aware of the deck fetch during the PT I was more referring to how he thinks it went afterwards. Wanna know if he stands by his changes or if there is some other change he would make going forward.
That's awesome news though and not surprising considering how humans was the most played deck (a great matchup for control)
Btw, 3 grixis control decks with 21+ points in the PT!
I'm aware of the deck fetch during the PT I was more referring to how he thinks it went afterwards. Wanna know if he stands by his changes or if there is some other change he would make going forward.
That's awesome news though and not surprising considering how humans was the most played deck (a great matchup for control)
Yeah but on the other hand, Jeskai did poorly. So grixis must have had something else going for it as well.
I think it's a combination of a poor humans matchup (the queller list) and an abysmal lantern and Tron (both traditional and E Tron) matchups that caused jeskai to perform poorly. Grixis actually does very well against most of the above aside from Tron but even then Corey was on 4 field of ruins for maindeck hate. For those same reasons/matchups straight UW actually performed very well but the draft records held them down from placing better. Overall a solid pro tour and meta even though the vast majority of top 8 is aggro but that's not nearly as degenerate as all big mana or combo/dredge.
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This exactly. You obviously don't wanna overdo it with cantrips otherwise you start spinning your wheels a lot, but filtering your draws is incredibly important in a control deck. Serum visions is crucial especially game one as it helps you filter away bad draws; whether it's trying to avoid flood or screw, scrying away counters when you need to deal with the board or scrying away removal against ad nauseam or scapeshift. Thought scour is great because it synergizes with almost every card in the deck between tasigur, search, snap and kommand. I think without those spells you'll lose a lot more game one's (two and three as well but to a lesser extent as you'll likely board out all or most bad cards anyway).
1x blood crypt
1x bloodstained mire
2x creeping tar pit
1x drowned catacomb
2x island
1x mountain
4x polluted delta
4x scalding tarn
2x steam vents
1x sulfur falls
1x swamp
2x watery grave
4x snapcaster mage
2x tasigur, the golden fang
Non-Creatures (32)
2x countersquall
4x cryptic command
2x fatal push
4x kolaghan's command
4x lightning bolt
1x logic knot
2x spell snare
3x terminate
4x thought scour
4x serum visions
2x search for azcanta
2x anger of the gods
2x ceremonious rejection
2x crumble to dust
1x disdainful stroke
2x dispel
1x flashfreeze
1x izzet staticaster
2x surgical extraction
2x young pyromancer
It's basically Burkhart's list plus or minus a few cards. The sideboard is currently in flux as I'm trying a few things out. The two changes I'm testing currently are the pyros and the crumbles.
Pyro is usually a straight swap for search and comes in when I need to emphasize a clock (big mana, combo, burn) and also puts in work in grindy matchups like control or midrange/shadow. Pet card of mine I'll admit so it's probably not objectively correct but they've been putting in work so far.
The crumbles I'm much less sure of, I put them in becuase especially against tron sometimes fulminator isn't enough if you don't also have surgical in hand. In my third match against tron this card basically won me the game and it was amazing as I would hope a four mana sorcery would be. However what I don't like the card is that it's only really good against Gx tron but is either poor or useless against other matchups I would bring in fulminator such as E-tron, valakut or control. I'm most likely dropping these and one rejection back to 3 mages.
For the games themselves, here's a brief write-up of each. I would do turn by turn but some of the games were incredibly long and it's not practical to do so. I may at some point record or stream but I'll wait til I get better with the deck before that happens.
Match 1
UW Control 2-0
I'll just briefly go over this one since it was a very weird game. I normally love playing against this matchup as we win the long game but we never got past I think turn 10 or 11 in either game. Game one went fairly long with lots of back and forth but ended abruptly after my opponent somehow managed to target his own cryptic on the stack with mana leak and then immediately conceded afterwards.
Sideboarding
-3 terminate
-2 bolt
+1 stroke
+2 dispel
+2 pyro
I usually board out the searches against uw control as well but I didn't have enough that I wanted to bring in without the fulminators so they stayed in. Game 2 was much of the same, lots of back and forth jockeying for position. Then at some point my opponent made another mistake, got frustrated, and conceded somewhere around turn 7 or 8. Very uneventful and disappointing game overall. I have a good win percentage against uw control so I was really looking forward to a proper game against them as it's a very skill intensive matchup and I enjoy having the practice.
Match 2
UR Breach 2-0
Really close nail-biting game one. We got to turn 20 or something ridiculous and it felt very much like playing against twin where I never wanted to fully tapout or risk getting combo'd out. I would pick little fights here and there over certain cards (k command and search warranted answers almost every time) to bait out as many counterspells as possible to he wouldn't be able to defend his combo as well. Ended up eventually getting there with chip shots and a resolved tasigur in the late game.
Sideboarding
-2 push
-3 terminate
-2 bolt
+1 stroke
+2 dispel
+1 flashfreeze
+1 staticaster
+2 young pyromancer
Game two I brought in the staticaster as I've seen lists with a pyro sideboard plan of their own and wanted to have insurance against that. Sniping down opposing snaps and cliques also seemed relevant. It ended up not making a difference though as tasigur quickly ran away with the game.
My turn one I played a fetch and passed. They spent their second turn casting a nihil spellbomb and left one blue open. I cast scour on their end step to force my opponent to crack the spellbomb before I could untap but they got greedy and held it. My turn I played a basic land so they wouldn't get priority and windmill slammed tasigur. The rest of the game I was able to just sit back and amass counter spells/make land drops until my opponent eventually had to go for the combo without any counter backup or die (had countersquall waiting). I don't know if my opponent was correct with holding the spellbomb to either wait for more targets or "counter" a snapcaster but considering their deck struggles a lot with a resolved delve creature like tasigur I think they should have played around that more. Hindsight is 20/20 but the game would have been much different if I didn't get him out there turn two.
Match 3
Mono Green Tron 2-0
I keep a decent, if awkward hand with two tasigurs, a scour and a squall as the relevant cards. I ended up not running out tasigur quickly as I wanted to hold up squall for a potential karn. I ended up using squall more aggressively to counter a sylvan scrying on turn 3 rather than the potential payoff card, followed up with tasigur on my turn. I got him down to 8 with kommand and beats while he had 3 towers, a mine and a forest. He then cast o-stone which I countered and bounced the mine, meaning even if he found the plant now he wouldn't have tron next turn. Wrapped the game up shortly after that. Not everyday I win game one against tron but it feels good to do so.
Sideboard
-2 push
-4 bolt
-2 search
-2 snare
+2 rejection
+2 crumble
+1 stroke
+1 flashfreeze
+2 surgical
+2 pyro
Ended up bringing in the flashfreeze to deal with thragtusks and potentially snipe a tutor early. I still brought in surgical even with crumble to deal with world breaker as that card can be a nightmare to deal with.
Game two my opponent quickly got tron but only had a thragtusk to cast with it. I cast crumble on 4 to get them off of tron and went down to 1 off of the thragtusk beats by turn 5. I had to come up with elaborate ways of dealing with the thragstusks as I only had snaps, kommands and cryptic in hand and didn't find a terminate for a while. Had to bounce one, flash in a snap and block + kommand back the snap and finish off the token. Then my opponent replays it which I have cryptic for this time. The third one I had to repeat the first process again but finally got rid of it. Used surgical on both wurmcoil and karn, eventually drew a second surgical and took his ugins too. The only relevant cards left in my opponent's deck were emrakul (promised end) and ulamog. Got the emrakul off of a Kommand in the draw step and eventually got there with the little ambush vipers. This game took a very long time to eventually win because I never found a tasigur or pyro but without tron the deck is very manageable. Was very pleased with crumble in this matchup, no surprises there.
Game 4
Humans 2-1
Lost game one very quickly, opponent had a nice curve and quickly cast out their hand with the help of vial. Opponent had Thalia, freebooter, lieutenant and mantis rider this game and I just couldn't keep up with my hand full of cryptics.
Sideboard
-2 cryptic
-1 knot
-2 squall
+2 anger
+1 staticaster
+2 pyro
Pyro is very lackluster in this matchup with all the flyers but puts on a decent clock and the chump blockers can be relevant. Kept in the snares as without cavern or vial maybe I can snipe an important creature since the two drops are the ones I'm most afraid of.
Game two was very close as I ran out of removal but I ended up using cryptic to continuously tap his team and raced him with tasigur and snapcaster (along with tar pit on the last turn).
Sideboard
-2 snare
+2 cryptic
My opponent led on turn one cavern basically every game so I boarded out the snares and figured the bounce or tap down modes of cryptic were going to be more relevant. Game three I had to very carefully manage my spells but eventually ground him down and I had a search to catch me back up on cards. Definitely a tricky matchup but with this much spot removal they can't keep up in the long term. Card I was most worried about post board was the bob's my opponent boarded into and I killed those on site as a priority so they never got the cards off of him.
Match 5
Valakut 0-2
My opponent led on valakut and I unfortunately didn't have much relevant interaction for this matchup. I would have had cryptic for his prime time on turn 5 but my opponent actually had mwonvuli acid moss in his main deck which completely screwed me over. Very strange inclusion for the list but it won him game one.
Sideboard
-2 push
-3 terminate
-1 bolt
+1 stroke
+1 flashfreeze
+2 crumble
+2 pyro
Game two was very unfortunate. My opening seven was way too slow so I went down to six and had no blue mana in hand and only blue spells. Ended up mulling down to 5 with a one lander but I had serum visions, scour, pyro and tasigur in hand so it wasn't too bad all things considered. Unfortunately even with all the cantrips (even found another scour which I cast) I couldn't find my second land the entire game. Opponent killed me on turn 5 or 6 I believe.
Major takeaways for me:
Crumble was amazing vs tron and basically useless outside of that. I'm probably going back to the fulminators. The flashfreeze was to help hedge against blood moon/sun decks which I've played a lot against in practice but didn't end up being relevant in much of the games. I think I still prefer a 1/1 split with it and stroke but maybe 2 strokes is better. The pyros didn't have too much opportunity to shine today as I rarely drew them or cast them but I still really like the card and I want to give it another shot through a league where I hopefully have more opportunity to cast it.
Overall a disappointing beginning and ending to the league but otherwise I felt the deck was sharp and did what it needed to do. I have a tournament coming up on the weekend I'm looking forward to. Was originally going to play shadow for it as I've had success with it before but I've been doing very poorly lately so I'm giving it a break in favour of control.
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Thanks, I tried testing 4 kommands after I saw Corey stream with them and honestly the card is just back breaking against so many decks. I've stolen so many games against big mana with chaining discard in their draw step and that's not even going over how grindy the card is in other matchups. I agree that you can get away with 3 and I was playing that for a while, but it's easily the best card in the deck next to snap and cryptic so I don't regret having the playset.
Regarding pull, as you point out later the card basically fills the same grindy role as k command. I've tested the card myself in bigger grixis control lists and while it was good against midrange decks especially, it was incredibly underwhelming everywhere else. The lack of life gain is actually very relevant compared to sphinx's rev for stablizing. I don't like it as much as ancestral or search for raw card advantage (both of which come down much cheaper) or as good as k command in grindy games.
TheAlexGnan I agree completely, I've since switched back to fulminators myself. It was an interesting experiment but not a fan personally
Yeah that seems to be the issue unfortunately, outside of him I don't think anyone else in recent memory has put up anywhere near the same results. Even then Corey has seemed to switch over to shadow himself and I don't necessarily blame him even though I've done exactly the opposite lately. Hopefully one of us gets there one day
RBGJundRBG
UBRGrixis ControlUBR
Thankfully it seems you're right lol, haven't had a chance to look through the video myself and only saw it was posted with the description of practicing for the next event. After watching the video it seems he comes to the conclusion that it's a good deck but not insanely overpowered like some claimed it was. Hopefully he puts up a good showing with control!
Is this just a general list of cards that the grixis colours can potentially use? If so there's quite a few cards you could still include I guess. If it's meant to be a list of competitive options I think it's the opposite and there's too many cards on there that I don't think have ever been registered in a modern grixis deck or at least not one that's done very well.
It makes your good match ups better and your bad matchups worse. It's certainly a good card, but for example against Ponza, Tron, and Affinity it's worse than pretty much every other card you have.
Breach shift 0-2
Storm 2-0
Abzan 2-0
BW Eldrazi 2-1
Burn 0-2
Snuck into 8 on breakers cause I lost to the top 2 guys. Overall very happy with the deck but the pyros underperformed. I'm gonna take them out and put brutality back in as much as I don't like the card in control. Seems like a necessary evil against burn since I have no way of otherwise winning the matchup without getting very lucky
Also of note I took out the crumbles and put 3 fulminators back in which I was very happy with
I'm trying to compile a list of all "playable" SB cards for grixis control in any given meta with any build, be it proactive heavy PW/heavy creature tapout or reactive cryptic draw-go.
Which of these do you think are unplayable and why? What cards should be in this list that aren't?
RBGJundRBG
UBRGrixis ControlUBR
So the following cards I'm just confused by in general:
Dark blast strikes me as a card that I don't entirely understand the purpose of or when it would be good in our deck.
Deathmark also seems far too niche and was probably better when it was hard to kill goyfs but we have push now so I don't know what this hits.
Bribery is very strange but maybe against a deck running OG emrakul? Not sure what it's there for as 5 mana is a lot.
Magma spray also seems like a very odd choice to me.
Aside from that there are several cards that seem like strictly worse options than we we currently have available:
Tec edge is too hard to run with our mana base. Field of ruin seems strictly better but I'd prefer it in the main instead of putting a land into your board.
Speaking of land destruction, rain of tears is a strictly worse version of both molten rain and fulminator mage so I wouldn't bother putting it on the list. Spreading seas is also way too low impact unless it's in conjunction with other land destruction but at that point you're talking about half your sideboard slots for just land destruction.
Steel sabotage seems like a strictly inferior rejection as bouncing an artifact seems way less useful in any matchup (especially given how much straight artifact removal our colours have) than having the ability to counter eldrazi as well as artifacts.
Siphon life is a strictly worse version of collective brutality in every way,
All the other cards I really like or I could at least see an argument for. Thanks for putting in the effort to get this together though it's still a very good start even though I disagree with some of the inclusions. Hopefully others can chime in and we can get a solid list going for non-shadow grixis variants.
That being said the 2/2 body is very relevant, both on offense and defense and the flexibility of the card is what makes it so good. Both cards are functionally the same against Tron as you mention but it's the other matchups like against colonnade decks for instance where fulminator really gets a leg up over molten rain. Fulminator is also more flexible mana wise and the instant speed activation can be very relevant as well. I think there's too many situations where the card is far more versatile to run molten rain over it outside of budget or specific deckbuilding choices.
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Pretty standard list but runs 1 Pull from Tomorrow.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Reading through the recent posts, it seems that people aren't generally running Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize... why is that?
0 copies of serum visions
4 copies of field of ruin which he says has been amazing for him
2 inquisitions (said he was expecting lots of combo which makes sense)
1 pia and Kiran nalaar (said it was to hedge against affinity as well as give him an out under blood moon)
Other than that it was his standard list. He's looking good to make top 8, let's hope!
Still a very good showing overall for the deck. Curious to hear his thoughts afterwards
Btw, 3 grixis control decks with 21+ points in the PT!
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
I'm aware of the deck fetch during the PT I was more referring to how he thinks it went afterwards. Wanna know if he stands by his changes or if there is some other change he would make going forward.
That's awesome news though and not surprising considering how humans was the most played deck (a great matchup for control)
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past