So, Grixis was a deck that a few pros talked about around the PT.
Reid Duke had a Premium article that talked about UB, Esper and Grixis.
He said Grixis was a good choice, it has a good delver match up and an even better humans match up than UB because of slagstorm.
I really don't see why this deck has dropped completely off the radar.
Anyways, here's my list I've been working on, it's similar to Reid's but I changed some things I don't like.
I haven't played the deck much, but I was thinking post board, having 2 Blue Sun, 2 Dissipate, 3 Spellbomb, 4 Mana Leak, 2 Drownyard and a Negate would be sufficient. Maybe I'm wrong,
What do you suggest as a trump to UB?
Basically, what hard to deal with threat could I use? I can't think of anything really? Another sorin maybe?
was just browsing and wondering, is this the only current grixis thread? if so, i am planning to switch soon from solar to grixis so i would like a thread to throw ideas around...
The deck list has the same problem other grixis decks have... they kill your threats and you wait to die.. In my opinion i would add bloodline keeper and a batterskull
Here's what I'm tinkering with as more of a tempo Version of Grixis. The creatures I'm still toying with I'm tempted to add a couple Chandra's Phoenix to the mix along with a couple of pike's (removing the Nobles) but I'd then feel like I needed to up the amount of burn I was playing in the deck. Based on the popularity of Zombies I'm also considering replacing Devil's Play with Red Sun's Zenith for the exile effect.
Yeah, I don't think there is a lot you can do to shore up the UB matchup without sacrificing some percentage against the aggressive matchups. You just have too many dead cards in game one and not enough impact in the board to really change too much after you 'board. The "mirror" matches come down to Drownyard wars, mostly, and having less of them/less ways to deal with them will be the difference between a loss and a win. Most spells don't have a shot of doing too much since most of the time both players will be stockpiling counter spells and having to START the fight will almost always leave you losing said fight.
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Post Ravnica Allegiance Type 2 - WUB Control
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
I am on the fence about the Flashfreeze's as from what i have expierenced against decks like wolf run a Control list has a good match up. But I am not sure about G/R aggro as they are in my meta.
4 Shrine of Burning Rage is the best (only effective?) insurance against U/B Control and frankly means a clock on anyone. I have no problems popping them to drop bigger stuff and against stuff that is Pro red.
@Aukland
I don't think that Think Twice is the best choice here. Desperate Ravings or Faithless Looting are strictly better because of the deeper dig. DR gives definite CA, but Faithless allows more control over what you drop. I hate DR personally.
I am on the fence about the Flashfreeze's as from what i have expierenced against decks like wolf run a Control list has a good match up. But I am not sure about G/R aggro as they are in my meta.
Lol, came here because I thought it was a BV list.
Don't you want to be running more sweepers? Playing only 4 just seems like too few.
No Curse of Death's Hold? And I'd much rather the fourth Drownyard in the board over a Nihil Spellbomb. A Ghost Quarter could help too, as a 'fifth Drownyard' (neutralising theirs, hence equalising the board state as if you drew a Drownyard to match theirs).
Also, this list (and the deck in general, I suppose) has very few outs to resolved undying creatures. Perhaps another RSZ? Just a thought.
4 Shrine of Burning Rage is the best (only effective?) insurance against U/B Control and frankly means a clock on anyone. I have no problems popping them to drop bigger stuff and against stuff that is Pro red.
@Aukland
I don't think that Think Twice is the best choice here. Desperate Ravings or Faithless Looting are strictly better because of the deeper dig. DR gives definite CA, but Faithless allows more control over what you drop. I hate DR personally.
Looting is terrible, mainly because it's card disadvantage. Even the Burning Vengeance.dek players aren't running it, and you'd think that'd be the best application of the card. Because you have essentially zero recursion besides a couple of flashback spells (which is a pretty lousy use of the card, because you could just have cantripped with it and not lost a card), you're simply going to end up with a CA deficit of 2 when compared to Think Twice/Ravings.
What makes Grudge better than Crush? There are precious few noncreature artifacts you want to be killing, especially since hardly anyone plays Tempered Steel.
The entire time during the last match when I was color screwed and kept off double white I was thinking "Damnit Jaden, that troll-faced bastard might be right."
Have you guys tested Jace, Memory Adept and Karn Liberated against UB? Jace easily outraces even a pair of Drownyards and Karn exiles them.
Lol, came here because I thought it was a BV list.
Don't you want to be running more sweepers? Playing only 4 just seems like too few.
No Curse of Death's Hold? And I'd much rather the fourth Drownyard in the board over a Nihil Spellbomb. A Ghost Quarter could help too, as a 'fifth Drownyard' (neutralising theirs, hence equalising the board state as if you drew a Drownyard to match theirs).
Also, this list (and the deck in general, I suppose) has very few outs to resolved undying creatures. Perhaps another RSZ? Just a thought.
Looting is terrible, mainly because it's card disadvantage. Even the Burning Vengeance.dek players aren't running it, and you'd think that'd be the best application of the card. Because you have essentially zero recursion besides a couple of flashback spells (which is a pretty lousy use of the card, because you could just have cantripped with it and not lost a card), you're simply going to end up with a CA deficit of 2 when compared to Think Twice/Ravings.
What makes Grudge better than Crush? There are precious few noncreature artifacts you want to be killing, especially since hardly anyone plays Tempered Steel.
I'm going to run it as control for this fnm. I had commented on the Grixis control in creation not thinking it was a variant of UB control. Basically I really like the burning vengeance version, but I always felt on my heel's with nothing to resolve. I am running light on sweeper's and it's something I had considered, only spot to really remove is some spot removal. Tragic slip is much easier to turn Morbid on with a list like this though. And yes Undying is a little more difficult to deal with, but the matchups seem to be a higher % overall taking the control route. BV lists in my experience had a better matchup against control then this list does as they didn't have an easy was to deal with the card itself outside of ratchet bomb.
Cursh is it for me. Grixis base is already rough #1, #2 I have 5 land that produce colorless as it is, I don't need to make my base worse (if anything I will be fixing it for more red).
I may add a few Desperate Raving's. it is a good card I was sad to cut it in the first place. With more answer's and less need for flashback it was the one I decided to cut, but I probably won't be cutting any amount of Think Twice for it.
Curse was one I cut in the board for a Nihil. If I cut the second it will be for either the Drownyard or a Curse, I will be looking at it.
I was thinking about ditching the flashfreeze's adding 1 negate, that would leave a spot for both. Undecided currently on this as well.
Cursh is it for me. Grixis base is already rough #1, #2 I have 5 land that produce colorless as it is, I don't need to make my base worse (if anything I will be fixing it for more red).
Why not play Steel Sabotage? Seems a little more well rounded than Crush. In any case, even Shatter seems better situated than Crush, if at the end of the day you just absolutely won't play a single green source for Grudge's fb (although I'd still rather play Grudge just to threaten fb, even if I didn't play a single green source).
At the end of the day, I guess it just boils down to Crush really not comparing that well to the other artifact hate we have available....I'm not convinced that for 1 less colorless we should play a much more situational card.
Here's what I'm in the process of testing. There are two very obvious 'janky' cards in the mainboard that I'm not going to spend time in this post defending, but that I saw some promise in and I think are worth testing out...at the end of the day, I can't make a strong case to play Mindcrusher over a Titan or Sphinx, or Gravepurge over an additional Forbidden Alchemy, so just take it for what it is: 2 potentially (and I'm sure there are many who feel 'potentially' is an overstatement) very subpar cards.
The sideboard is pretty straightforward. I'm interested in how others who don't mainboard artifact hate are faring, and what kinds of responses are being played against 'walkers and Undyers. Also, what's the right number of Drownyards to play? I'm generally pointing it at myself unless I'm really in a strong spot (and sans wincons) and want to sit on countermagic and removal, and I don't dare tackle UB head on in a mill race, so I'm really hesitant to play too many colorless sources unnecessarily.
I've been working on a slightly different Grixis control deck. It is Standard constructed, but it is for a 2HG tournament, so some of the card choices were made with that in mind. Still, the differences are minor, so I think it's worth adding to this thread:
The sideboard is a work in progress. At the moment, it feels a bit creature heavy, and I'm thinking of cutting Olivia. Exsanguinate is there of course because of the double effect in 2HG, and Massacre Wurm was chosen over another copy of Curse of Death's Hold since it would hit both opponents' creatures instead of just one. Other than that it should run about the same as some of the other decks here, but it is still in testing. Any thoughts?
If anyone is interested, the conversation that got this deck started can be found here.
It's basically the same as the straight UB deck I've been playing, but it has a lot more game against any undying creatures like Strangleroot Geist and Geralf's Messenger due to Red Sun's Zenith. It also effectively neutralizes Gravecrawler, Doomed Traveler, Mirran Crusader, and Wurmcoil Engine. In addition, it can give you some game against resolved planeswalkers that isn't something horrible like Disperse. Whipflare out of the sideboard is better than BSZ in the matches that you want it and can help you get to the point where you can cast the Zeniths more realistically.
I found that that's what my deck was having the biggest difficulty with, so these changes seem to shore that up while also acting as an additional win condition. What do you think?
Reid Duke had a Premium article that talked about UB, Esper and Grixis.
He said Grixis was a good choice, it has a good delver match up and an even better humans match up than UB because of slagstorm.
I really don't see why this deck has dropped completely off the radar.
Anyways, here's my list I've been working on, it's similar to Reid's but I changed some things I don't like.
3 Grave Titan
3 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sorin Markov
2 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Desperate Ravings
2 Doom Blade
2 Faithless Looting
3 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Go for the Throat
4 Mana Leak
3 Slagstorm
1 Tribute to Hunger
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Drowned Catacomb
3 Evolving Wilds
3 Island
3 Mountain
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Swamp
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
2 Dissipate
1 Negate
2 Nephalia Drownyard
3 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Whipflare
2 Olivia Voldaren
1 Sever the Bloodline
2 Tragic Slip
Oppinions, comments?
I can post Reid's original list for those who dont have Premium if it's requested.
What do you suggest as a trump to UB?
Basically, what hard to deal with threat could I use? I can't think of anything really? Another sorin maybe?
That seems like decent actually. I might try it out.
Elixir would be good against mono red too.
I don't think Elixir is horrible, but trinket mage has been awful for me.
If anything I think a sideboard of multiple Lilianas or Jaces might be best.
UB is the only rough match up, after 3 days of testing, I've been consistently beating Delver, Humans, RG and zombies.
<(-'.'-)> Q(-'.'-Q) <(-'.'-<) (>-'.'-)> O==(-.-Q) t(-'.'-t)
""Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising everytime we fall" --- Confucius""
Now Playing:
(standard)
:symb::symu::symw: solar flare (permission heavy)
developing:
:symb::symu::symr: grixis control (unburial build)
:symg::symu::symr: dredge (unburial build)
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Snapcaster Mage
3x Stromkirk Noble
2x Olivia Voldaren
1x Havengul lich
Enchantments (2)
2x Curse of Death's Hold
Land (23)
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
3x Darkslick Shores
2x Copperline Gorge
3x Drowned Catacombs
4x Sulfur Falls
7x Island
1x Blue Sun’s Zenith
1x Black Sun’s Zenith
2x Whipflare
3x Mana Leak
1x Negate
4x Ponder
2x Incinerate
1x Dissipate
2x Forbidden Alchemy
1x Tribute to Hunger
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Devil's Play
1x Liliana of the Veil
1x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Ratchet Bomb
2x Flashfreeze
2x Phantasmal Image
2x Red Sun's Zenith
1x Tribute to hunger
3x Sever the Bloodline
2x Ancient Grudge
Take it easy
Jay
Olivia Voldaren and Stromkirk Captain make this deck better than it was. I was thinking something like this:
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Darkslick Shores
3 Sulfur Falls
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Dragonskull Summit
3 Evolving Wilds
1 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
2 Island
Creatures 10
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stromkirk Captain
2 Olivia Voldaren
4 Faithless Looting
4 Forbidden Alchemy
Counter 4
3 Mana Leak
1 Negate
Removal 10
3 Slagstorm
3 Tragic Slip
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Volt Charge
Artifacts 4
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
2 Curse of Death's Hold
2 Flashfreeze
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Negate
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Galvanic Blast
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
3 Snapcaster mage
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Consecrated Sphinx
2 Grave Titan
Enchantment's (1)
1 Curse of Death's Hold
Instant's (19)
4 Think Twice
2 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Desperate Ravings
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
3 Mana Leak
3 Dissipate
2 Tragic Slip
1 Go for the Throat
1 Doom Blade
1 Whipflare
2 Black Sun's Zenith
Planeswalker's (2)
2 Liliana of the Veil
land (26)
3 Drowned Catacomb
2 Dragonskull Summit
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Sulfur Falls
1 Rootbound Craig
3 Evolving Wilds
5 island
3 Mountain
2 Swamp
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Negate
1 Slagstorm
1 Karn liberated
2 Despise
Thought's on this set up? Thanks!
I am on the fence about the Flashfreeze's as from what i have expierenced against decks like wolf run a Control list has a good match up. But I am not sure about G/R aggro as they are in my meta.
Edit: Updated 3/15
Community Vs. Staff Tournament -cast your vote!
Trade Thread
Buying Thread
@Aukland
I don't think that Think Twice is the best choice here. Desperate Ravings or Faithless Looting are strictly better because of the deeper dig. DR gives definite CA, but Faithless allows more control over what you drop. I hate DR personally.
Ancient Grudge is better than Crush, even without Flashback color mana, but that's why you run Evolving Wilds and a singleton Forest.
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
Lol, came here because I thought it was a BV list.
Don't you want to be running more sweepers? Playing only 4 just seems like too few.
No Curse of Death's Hold? And I'd much rather the fourth Drownyard in the board over a Nihil Spellbomb. A Ghost Quarter could help too, as a 'fifth Drownyard' (neutralising theirs, hence equalising the board state as if you drew a Drownyard to match theirs).
Also, this list (and the deck in general, I suppose) has very few outs to resolved undying creatures. Perhaps another RSZ? Just a thought.
Looting is terrible, mainly because it's card disadvantage. Even the Burning Vengeance.dek players aren't running it, and you'd think that'd be the best application of the card. Because you have essentially zero recursion besides a couple of flashback spells (which is a pretty lousy use of the card, because you could just have cantripped with it and not lost a card), you're simply going to end up with a CA deficit of 2 when compared to Think Twice/Ravings.
What makes Grudge better than Crush? There are precious few noncreature artifacts you want to be killing, especially since hardly anyone plays Tempered Steel.
Domain Zoo
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Retired decks:
URWBGrixis Teachings (pauper) BWRU
URWB Tainted Vengeance (SOM-INN standard) BWRU
UBR Grixis Vengeance (SOM-INN Standard) RBU
(click for decklist)
Ego Quotes:
I'm going to run it as control for this fnm. I had commented on the Grixis control in creation not thinking it was a variant of UB control. Basically I really like the burning vengeance version, but I always felt on my heel's with nothing to resolve. I am running light on sweeper's and it's something I had considered, only spot to really remove is some spot removal. Tragic slip is much easier to turn Morbid on with a list like this though. And yes Undying is a little more difficult to deal with, but the matchups seem to be a higher % overall taking the control route. BV lists in my experience had a better matchup against control then this list does as they didn't have an easy was to deal with the card itself outside of ratchet bomb.
Cursh is it for me. Grixis base is already rough #1, #2 I have 5 land that produce colorless as it is, I don't need to make my base worse (if anything I will be fixing it for more red).
I may add a few Desperate Raving's. it is a good card I was sad to cut it in the first place. With more answer's and less need for flashback it was the one I decided to cut, but I probably won't be cutting any amount of Think Twice for it.
Curse was one I cut in the board for a Nihil. If I cut the second it will be for either the Drownyard or a Curse, I will be looking at it.
I was thinking about ditching the flashfreeze's adding 1 negate, that would leave a spot for both. Undecided currently on this as well.
Edit: Updated list
Community Vs. Staff Tournament -cast your vote!
Trade Thread
Buying Thread
Why not play Steel Sabotage? Seems a little more well rounded than Crush. In any case, even Shatter seems better situated than Crush, if at the end of the day you just absolutely won't play a single green source for Grudge's fb (although I'd still rather play Grudge just to threaten fb, even if I didn't play a single green source).
At the end of the day, I guess it just boils down to Crush really not comparing that well to the other artifact hate we have available....I'm not convinced that for 1 less colorless we should play a much more situational card.
The sideboard is pretty straightforward. I'm interested in how others who don't mainboard artifact hate are faring, and what kinds of responses are being played against 'walkers and Undyers. Also, what's the right number of Drownyards to play? I'm generally pointing it at myself unless I'm really in a strong spot (and sans wincons) and want to sit on countermagic and removal, and I don't dare tackle UB head on in a mill race, so I'm really hesitant to play too many colorless sources unnecessarily.
1 Curse of Death's Hold
2 Red Sun's Zenith
1 Black Sun's Zenith
4 Slagstorm
1 Sever the Bloodline
4 Mana Leak
1 Go for the Throat
1 Doom Blade
4 Desperate Ravings
2 Brimstone Volley
1 Gravepurge
2 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Dissipate
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Inferno Titan
1 Geralf's Mindcrusher
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Drowned Catacomb
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Dragonskull Summit
4 Sulfur Falls
2 Evolving Wilds
3 Mountain
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Nephalia Drownyard
1 Ghost Quarter
Sideboard
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Doom Blade
2 Flashfreeze
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Shrine of Burning Rage
1 Sever the Bloodline
1 Sorin Markov
1 Volition Reins
1 Karn Liberated
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Grave Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Olivia Voldaren
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Massacre Wurm
Removal Spells (11)
2 Whipflare
2 Slagstorm
1 Go for the Throat
1 Tribute to Hunger
2 Tragic Slip
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Black Sun's Zenith
3 Mana Leak
2 Dissipate
Draw Spells (7)
4 Think Twice
3 Forbidden Alchemy
Other Spells (2)
2 Exsanguinate
Lands (26)
3 Drowned Catacomb
2 Dragonskull Summit
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Sulfur Falls
3 Evolving Wilds
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Mountain
4 Island
3 Swamp
The sideboard is a work in progress. At the moment, it feels a bit creature heavy, and I'm thinking of cutting Olivia. Exsanguinate is there of course because of the double effect in 2HG, and Massacre Wurm was chosen over another copy of Curse of Death's Hold since it would hit both opponents' creatures instead of just one. Other than that it should run about the same as some of the other decks here, but it is still in testing. Any thoughts?
If anyone is interested, the conversation that got this deck started can be found here.
6 Island
4 Swamp
1 Mountain
3 Drowned Catacomb
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Dragonskull
2 Darkslick Shores
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Evolving Wilds
3 Nephalia Drownyard
2 Ghost Quarter
Spells
4 Mana Leak
4 Dissipate
4 Think Twice
3 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Doom Blade
2 Black Sun's Zenith
2 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Life's Finale
4 Red Sun's Zenith
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Grave Titan
1 Batterskull (effectively a creature)
1 Nephalia Drownyard
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Negate
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Life's Finale
1 Grave Titan
2 Whipeflare
1 Batterskull
It's basically the same as the straight UB deck I've been playing, but it has a lot more game against any undying creatures like Strangleroot Geist and Geralf's Messenger due to Red Sun's Zenith. It also effectively neutralizes Gravecrawler, Doomed Traveler, Mirran Crusader, and Wurmcoil Engine. In addition, it can give you some game against resolved planeswalkers that isn't something horrible like Disperse. Whipflare out of the sideboard is better than BSZ in the matches that you want it and can help you get to the point where you can cast the Zeniths more realistically.
I found that that's what my deck was having the biggest difficulty with, so these changes seem to shore that up while also acting as an additional win condition. What do you think?
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.