I actually just playtested like a million games against Hardened Scales last night.
The matchup didn't feel great, but not horrible either. Our gameplan is to try to play tempo until we can make an opening for TBR
They don't vomit their hand like Affinity so keep in all your discard, board out Street Wraiths
My best games usually went something like Discard > Removal > Last Hope > Shadow/Delve Threat, or if you can pump out a Gurmag on turn 2 and follow it up with removal. Anger of the Gods is also way better than it seems at first. Shutting off Modular is really useful, even if it only ends up being a 1 for 1 on a hangerback or something. Don't bother with Lavaman, Thoughtseize is better here
Sorry everything I wrote is kind of a jumble
@svarog
Hey welcome man, I'm new to this deck as well
I don't think we're particularly good at the moment, but we aren't bad either
No Spirits is definitely a hard matchup, especially if they're throwing in Reflector mages too.
Tribal aggro decks with really good interaction stapled onto creatures is such a nightmare. Humans is a hard enough matchup, Spirits are hard in similar ways except they all fly too lol. Post board you just turn into a bad control deck.
Bring in Lavaman, Brutality, Last Hope, Kommand, EE, Abrade, any sweepers you have
Take out Wraiths, Delve Threats, Stub D's, maybe a TBR if you have enough cards to bring in
Currently I'm running a 17 land deck with these cantrips:
3 x Thought Scour
3 x Serum Visions
2 x Faithless Looting
3 x Mishra's Bauble
If I want to run 2 of Mausoleum Secrets (and go 4 Thought Scour, 2 Faithless Looting, 3 Mishra's Bauble), should I go to 18 lands to accomodate for the overall increase in mana curve? If I go to 18 lands should I cut the baubles? Any advice appreciated!
Are you sure you want to run Secrets?
We don't have a whole lot of creatures, and we typically only end up with them
in the yard on accident. I suppose you can tutor a Surgical on 0, but otherwise even
Getting to 1 for a Shadow/push/thoughtseize can be tricky. If you want this type of effect you
Should probably just play Traverse
Are you sure you want to run Secrets?
We don't have a whole lot of creatures, and we typically only end up with them
in the yard on accident. I suppose you can tutor a Surgical on 0, but otherwise even
Getting to 1 for a Shadow/push/thoughtseize can be tricky. If you want this type of effect you
Should probably just play Traverse
Surgical has a CMC of 1 despite having an alternate cost of 2 life, so it requires at least 1 creature in the graveyard.
We have 4 street wraiths and at least 3 thought scour to turn the spell on, but the main drawback in my mind is that the deck is currently focused on a very low cmc curve, which secrets disrupts by costing 2.
Also between 15+ cantrips and these 2 copies of secrets, there are a lot of spells in the deck that don't effect the board in a meaningful way so I would prefer to retain lightning bolts personally.
Oh you're right, I wasn't thinking clearly about Surgical. My brain is fuzzy before I've finished my coffee
Agree with everything you said. On top of not affecting the board, those cantrips should be finding you the cards you're casting Secrets for anyways, and Snap can take care of the rest
@dejadal hey thanks for the input on the spirits match up.
Was wondering how you guys play against boggles with this deck? Im not running veils and it seems almost like an instaloss to me. Should i board for that match up or just save sb slots and hope i dodge it? Haha !
Well ideally you hope to dodge Bogles, I wouldn't devote any slots to specific tech for them.
Board out any non-bolt removal, board in EE, any extra Stubs and any other relevant counters you have.
Save your counters for the really important enchantments. If you're lucky you can strip their threats from hand (if they don't see their Leyline), or blow them up with EE. Blowing up key enchantments with EE is okay too if they have Totem Armor online already.
Then you're basically all in on TBR
Im liking baubles in opener. But I usually wish it was another cantrip when I see it, especially late game. So hard to find right ammount of cantrips hehe, is the golden rule keep 15 in? Debating cutting one of something for extra removal due to so many agro decks. Also what are yalls thoughts on collective brutality?
Bauble is great, it has a number of flexible uses and fuels a fast Gurmag Angler start.
Collective Brutality is super medium in this deck. You rarely want to be gaining life, the spell is a sorcery, it only kills very small things and more importantly it costs 2 mana. Ideally the deck should be mostly 1s and 0s with some snaps and tbr at the top of the curve. If you want more removal, I would add another push or bolt.
Hmm I see. Getting ready for gp portland. With the current meta do you think more removal is better? Also how important is 4th scour ? Thats the card im debating trimming one of for a push. Cant decide!
This is current sb, any suggestions?
4x leyline of the void
1x kcommand
1x anger
2x disdainful
1x stub
2x grimlava
2x abrade
1x ee
1x last hope
There's a lot of cards mausoleum can find. Snapcaster are common, as are looting. Faerie Macabre builds up undergrowth and has an effect attached. You can eat up decks with less threats with ego and surgical. You can't snap on turn 2. But u can certainly enable an undergrowth of 2 pretty easily. Watching LtLH with a surgical flat out beats blue decks
Archanz is right, it can only tutor for black cards. If it was a functional Demonic Tutor with undergrowth I would be much higher on it.
On a different topic, I have heard some conversation about using Apostle's Blessing in the deck to protect your threats and push through damage on a gummed up board. Anybody got any experience testing the card in GDS?
TBR is a straight up combo with Shadow and can outright win you games you had no business winning. The list is too tight to play Apostle Blessing.
This week Ben Friedman wrote about Grixis and was playing a 1 of Izzet Charm. I decided to test it out with 2x Izzet Charm (since I play 2x Loot). Anyone else tried it? I'm trying to test it and see how relevant it can be.
I ran Izzet Charm. I'm a bit surprised to see it included in a list. I feel like there are a lot better cards to run in that slot, including faithless looting. Izzet charm just isn't good enough in a stalled board state.
Hey all, I desperately need help with the G Tron matchup. I haven't won a single game in testing. My mainboard is pretty stock (4 Scour, 3 Bauble, 3 Visions, 2 Looting).
I don't have much experience against Tron, but my understanding is that you're all on on Discard/counterspells and TBR.
You might get a chance to blow up some artifacts.
But mainly you're just trying to go fast/play tempo if you can
Very good, thanks so much. Does anyone else feel this deck is high-variance? I love it but I often have polar-opposite games within the same match-up. Perhaps I do not mulligan enough?
Against a deck like tron you dont keep a hand without a clear way to victory. If its durdling dont keep it. If you're on the draw and have counters and 2 chances to cantrip it's worth a keep but still shakey. 4 lands is far too much. A slow hand where you cannot pump out gurman is bad too.
Based off your sideboard I'd do something like
-2 push
-2 bolt
-2 dismember
+1 stub
+2 stroke
+2 abrade
1+ k command
You're probably keeping bad hands. This matchup is far easier than when jund players had to go up against tron
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The matchup didn't feel great, but not horrible either. Our gameplan is to try to play tempo until we can make an opening for TBR
They don't vomit their hand like Affinity so keep in all your discard, board out Street Wraiths
My best games usually went something like Discard > Removal > Last Hope > Shadow/Delve Threat, or if you can pump out a Gurmag on turn 2 and follow it up with removal. Anger of the Gods is also way better than it seems at first. Shutting off Modular is really useful, even if it only ends up being a 1 for 1 on a hangerback or something. Don't bother with Lavaman, Thoughtseize is better here
Sorry everything I wrote is kind of a jumble
@svarog
Hey welcome man, I'm new to this deck as well
I don't think we're particularly good at the moment, but we aren't bad either
No Spirits is definitely a hard matchup, especially if they're throwing in Reflector mages too.
Tribal aggro decks with really good interaction stapled onto creatures is such a nightmare. Humans is a hard enough matchup, Spirits are hard in similar ways except they all fly too lol. Post board you just turn into a bad control deck.
Bring in Lavaman, Brutality, Last Hope, Kommand, EE, Abrade, any sweepers you have
Take out Wraiths, Delve Threats, Stub D's, maybe a TBR if you have enough cards to bring in
Currently I'm running a 17 land deck with these cantrips:
3 x Thought Scour
3 x Serum Visions
2 x Faithless Looting
3 x Mishra's Bauble
If I want to run 2 of Mausoleum Secrets (and go 4 Thought Scour, 2 Faithless Looting, 3 Mishra's Bauble), should I go to 18 lands to accomodate for the overall increase in mana curve? If I go to 18 lands should I cut the baubles? Any advice appreciated!
We don't have a whole lot of creatures, and we typically only end up with them
in the yard on accident. I suppose you can tutor a Surgical on 0, but otherwise even
Getting to 1 for a Shadow/push/thoughtseize can be tricky. If you want this type of effect you
Should probably just play Traverse
Surgical has a CMC of 1 despite having an alternate cost of 2 life, so it requires at least 1 creature in the graveyard.
We have 4 street wraiths and at least 3 thought scour to turn the spell on, but the main drawback in my mind is that the deck is currently focused on a very low cmc curve, which secrets disrupts by costing 2.
Also between 15+ cantrips and these 2 copies of secrets, there are a lot of spells in the deck that don't effect the board in a meaningful way so I would prefer to retain lightning bolts personally.
Agree with everything you said. On top of not affecting the board, those cantrips should be finding you the cards you're casting Secrets for anyways, and Snap can take care of the rest
Was wondering how you guys play against boggles with this deck? Im not running veils and it seems almost like an instaloss to me. Should i board for that match up or just save sb slots and hope i dodge it? Haha !
Board out any non-bolt removal, board in EE, any extra Stubs and any other relevant counters you have.
Save your counters for the really important enchantments. If you're lucky you can strip their threats from hand (if they don't see their Leyline), or blow them up with EE. Blowing up key enchantments with EE is okay too if they have Totem Armor online already.
Then you're basically all in on TBR
I know pros swear by it but I really don't like it in Grixis
Collective Brutality is super medium in this deck. You rarely want to be gaining life, the spell is a sorcery, it only kills very small things and more importantly it costs 2 mana. Ideally the deck should be mostly 1s and 0s with some snaps and tbr at the top of the curve. If you want more removal, I would add another push or bolt.
This is current sb, any suggestions?
4x leyline of the void
1x kcommand
1x anger
2x disdainful
1x stub
2x grimlava
2x abrade
1x ee
1x last hope
On a different topic, I have heard some conversation about using Apostle's Blessing in the deck to protect your threats and push through damage on a gummed up board. Anybody got any experience testing the card in GDS?
This week Ben Friedman wrote about Grixis and was playing a 1 of Izzet Charm. I decided to test it out with 2x Izzet Charm (since I play 2x Loot). Anyone else tried it? I'm trying to test it and see how relevant it can be.
Sideboard:
2x Abrade
2x Collective Brutality
2x Disdainful Stroke
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Grim Lavamancer
2x Kolaghan's Command
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Stubborn Denial
Unrelated, how necessary has Leyline of the Void felt in this meta?
You might get a chance to blow up some artifacts.
But mainly you're just trying to go fast/play tempo if you can
Based off your sideboard I'd do something like
-2 push
-2 bolt
-2 dismember
+1 stub
+2 stroke
+2 abrade
1+ k command
You're probably keeping bad hands. This matchup is far easier than when jund players had to go up against tron