@TheOtherGuy: Yes, I completely agree. The wedges got some phenomenal new spells (Crackling Doom, charms) and creatures, and they got great lands to support it (base of 4 wedge-lands, 8 enemy pain-lands and 4 allied fetch-lands). However, I believe the next set will not be completely wedge-based (instead using hybrid mana-symbols), thus shards could again become viable. It's not a Grixis only problem of course, Esper, Jund and Naya isn't seen much anymore.
I am crossing my fingers for some good black lifegain that isn't Gary in the coming sets. I abused Crypt incursion so much last season. The black wrath is a good sign of possible goodies still anger is still the main reason you want red.. that and Keranos.
I originally posted a thread for rakdos control, and no one seemed very interested in it, which got me to thinking " If I add blue I include a lot more inevitability and can make this deck more versatile" So I Did!
went 2/2 tonight and planning to play an IQ later today.
Beat Abzan midrange g1 and went to time in g2 but I got to worst fears him in g2 and it was pretty sweet before we went to time. I think I had that game in a few more turns.
Lost to UW Heroic in 3. He got me in game 1, g2 I dropped the curve and got to anger away his board after 2 thoughtsieze and some 1-1 removal before re-upping with draw. He scooped to play g3. I was unable to pull it off and he top decked a second stubborn denial and stopped my anger. It was closer than I thought it was going to be.
Lost to what looked like a BG devotion deck but he was playing some blue sources. He had a main deck negate which kept me from killing his dorks and I lost that game because I was letting him overextend. He only had a caryatid for blue mana so reading that seems rather unlikely. He beat me in game 2 as well. Too many threats and not enough answers.
Beat another abzan deck. Not nearl as intense as the previous abzan match. I think he stumbled a bit or was just not as prepared for control. Lost g1, won g2 and g3.
R1 2-0 vs Abzan Midrange -
G1: I vault twice taking 2 coursers and a rhino followed by a whip rhino on the second vault. I use counters to slow him down and manage to stabilize at 2 with a sphinx. He is off the top deck. I get him from 30 down to 16 and mind swipe him for 9, then jet him for 2 and swipe him for the win.
G2: -2 angers, -2 jets, and -2 strikes, -2 Mindswipe, +1 Vault, +2 Disdainfull stroke, +1 Nullify, +1 Worst Fears, +1 thoughtsieze, +2 Mind Rot. He gets a polukronous down and swings twice while I take a turn to mind rot him and vault, I can't remember what he played after polyk. I vault and he slows down for a turn and I land a sphinx with counter back up. I just scry more counters to the top and a second sphinx. Play the second sphinx and that pretty much locks up the game. I stabilized at 7.
R2 G/R Monsters 0-2
G1: I thoughtsieze him on turn 2 after his caryatid. He had 2 coursers and 2 polukronous and a stormbreath and a sarkan. I take the sarkan since I had a downfall, his courser reveals a destructive revelry main. I get second downfall and a dissolve for the dragon and 2x polukronous taking courser damage the whole time. I run out of gass not hitting any of my draw and he eventually kils me.
G2: I similar side board as the previous match except I leave out the worst fears and swap 2 of the dissolves for 2 negates and the mind swipes for strokes and leave in the lightning strikes since he had zenagos and I anticipated myst cutters. Leaving the Strike was probably a mistake in hind site. He brings the myst cutter hydras and Polukronous I take a bunch of damage and aetherspouts once, mystcutter comes back down and that is game.
R3 Mono Red 2-1, a much younger opponent.
G1: I kept a decent hand against an unknown opponent. He plays mountain into swift spear and dumps his hand onto the table including hoardling outburst and some enchantments. I manage to get a vault down and clear the board with 2 life. He gets 2 strikes back to back ad I counter one but I die to the second.
G2: -2 Mindswipe, -2 Vault, -3 Dissolve, -1 Liliana, -1 downfall, +2 Mindrot, +2 negate, +2 magma spray, +2 anger, +1 thoughtseize. He has a similar opening and I have magma spray and jet into anger and mind rot 4th land into augury. I stabilize at 5 with him off the top deck and sphinx takes the game.
G3: Plays out pretty much the same tons of cheep spells to answer the threats and 2 angers eventually gass him out and I dig and play a sphinx. I stabilized at 7.
R4 Kibler Temur 0-2
G1: He starts with a dork and I jet it and he lands a polukronous and a knuckle blade with mana up to bounce him after I answer polukronous. I downfall polukronous and he manages to ride out the knuckle blade for the rest of the game before clawsing me for lethal. I was only able to strike him, jet him, and swipe him for a total of 14, so it was almost close.
G2: He just brought the beats and I was too far on the back foot to recover, the removal matches up poorly. I was able to spray a phoenix and thoughtsieze another but he just kept top decking things and stubborn denials/stroke. There was a tipping point when I was able to Dig but ended up needing 3 cards to get out of the scenario but could only put two in my hand.
R5 2-0 Abzan Midrange, but more walkers
G1: He thoughtsiezed me 3 times in the first 5 turns. I almost thought I was going to lose the game because he was even able to use charm to draw into more cards. At this point the only saving grace is the 4 scry lands that were in my hand as I was able to work myself back into the game. I find a downfall as he plays a rhino and a steam augury to start the chain reaction. I thoughtsieze him and am able to Mindswipe Elspeth for 5, putting him at 8. From there a sphinx, jet, and strike finish him off.
G2: board same as previous abzan match. He gets stuck on 2 land, I guess because he boarded out his dorks. I am able to land a sphinx and he almost recovers with courser but never finds his second white source. I Worst fears him when he is at 6 before combat with a sphinx on board. He scoops.
R6 0-2 Sultai Control
G1: He resolves an ashiok on turn 3 and I never recover.
G2: He gets a nessa and I vault it off the board but die to the 4/4 land. both games were over pretty fast.
R7 0-2 Temur, the friend I drove to the tournament. Always happens for some reason...He was running ascendancy's in the main.
G1: He just puts too much value on the board and I am unable to get it all before he kills me.
G2: Same in game 2. His surak and myst cutters get me.
Impressions, I apparently just beat abzan midrange and really struggle with other Gx Decks. The auto loss to ashiok and nessa really hurts. There was a relatively high mental fatigue by the end of the 7 rounds, not sure how to fix that. Overall I think I would want access to a 4th downfall somewhere for the green matchups. I am not really sure what to do about Knuckleblade/Ashiok/Nessa. There are just so many other things happening in those shells that need to be dealt with. Games that I do not get to augury or at least dig once are just games I lose. It almost feels like the deck wants one more draw spell sometimes but I am not sure what that should be if anything at all. Mind rot did some real work. I wish I could take more than 2 cards from their hands. It definitely takes some of the impetus and you can occasionally get the last two cards in their hand. I think there was only once that I did not want to see it buy had it in my hand. Worst Fears against decks with black removal was awesome. since they collect some amount of it and threaten to take your hand while targeting the sphinx. Instead you just make them kill everything they own and take another turn.
I saw some UW heroic decks and some abzan mid range reanimators as well but because of my losses I never had to face them. UW is another difficult matchup. It feels like the delvers of yesteryear.
Has anyone had some level of success against those matchups and what was helpful?
I tried to take out the mind swipes and add a swamp and a downfall main.
I went 1-3, quite sad. Round 1 was against a kid so not much there.
Round 2 was against an agro temur agro deck. He had main deck stubborn denial for my anger and I was too far behind in g1 after that to win. Game 2 he played draw go till he hit 7 mana while I was forced to discard reactive spells to hand size. Smart player. He flashed in surrak, I did not have the downfall and I suspect he had a counter anyway. He swung and followed up with a knuckle blade and some other stuff I was unable to answer in time. There was too much damage to handle combined with his counters. Still not sure how to beat this style of deck. Feels like one of the worse matchups.
Round 3 was against abzan good stuff. He beat me game 1 lack of second blue mana put me too far behind as my hand had dissolves and other blue pills that could have kept me in the game. Game 2 I go get a mind rot and the worst fears. I resolve keranos and courser reveals his only utter end. I play lili to draw out the utter end tutoring for mind rot. He ends keranos and seizes my dig then I take his hand with rot + lili. He was shocked. I am left with sieze only. He top decks sorin, then ness, then elspeth. I am left with just a worst fears which is pretty bad since his hand was gone. My only out was to top deck a vault after I fears him. I top deck dig, cast it and hit spouts but am short the second untapped blue land having already spent 2. He takes g2.
Round 4 was against 5 color walkers, friend of mine. He wanted to tweak his deck for a tourney so we spend half the round deck teching and play a round for kicks. He concedes the round but beats me in the practice game. I was unable to stop all the walkers at some point and slowly fall behind until I lose. G2 he would have brought in seize and I would be grabbing various counters. It would have been grindy but I am calling it a loss. Given the g1
I found that the losing the mind swipe hurt in two ways. 1 losing the damage kind of hurt for game 1's and its a pretty decent win con. 2 adding the extra land made me short one side board slot to take from the main which definitely messed up my Board plan. They are definitely good enough for game 1's and the side board slots felt more valuable than land 27 without better card quality.
Playing with the draw engine could be interesting, not sure where to take that experiment. Sometimes getting the augury/dig engine up and running is tough so trying to smooth that transition could be good.
The meta game seems to be evolving in ways that make this deck less relevant across the board. It definitely wants some updates but again, not really sure where to take it.
So I haven't played magic in quite a while, and now that I'm coming back, I really don't care for most of the decks atm and I'm looking at UBx control as a possible deck to play. To me it seems that if you are going to play 3 colors and your aren't going to play the 5 clans then you should be focusing on the color that gets two fetch lands. So you can do Gwr, Ubw, Bur, Rbg or Wgu. Gwr, Rbg and Wgu seem like they won't provide the controlling aspect of play and would be fairly aggressive. I will probably try a Wgu tempo deck some other time though. Back on topic, Ubw is where I started, and the deck seems alright. Elspeth and sphinx are fine finishers, Sorin does quite a bit of work, the creature removal seems alright for this format, but in the end I felt the best way to combat an aggressive and midrange field was probably going to rely on Thoughtseize and Despise. The prospect of beating a mono-red aggro with 3cc removal and 5cc sweepers plus crap counter magic isn't where I want to be. So now that I want to focus on pro-active spells to carry my bad counters and removal suite, A black dominant mana base seems best. 8 fetch and 8 temples + urborg and 1-3 Swamps seems like a good place to sit. then filling in my U/R w/ w/e other lands should be alright if I plan accordingly.
so I already mentioned the disruption package, I think a midrange dominated field is a great place to run the full 8 and it reasonably deals with aggro and the disrupts might hit a trade with other control decks. Dig through time is simply one of the best card draw spell I have seen for control decks in a long time. I might want to run 1 or so Jace's ingenuity, but with initial testing I will be playing just the 4 dig's. keranos is the only reason that we can dump white in Ux control decks, Elspeth is the main redeeming quality of white for me and keranos can shut down a game in a fine fashion as well. Prognostic sphinx is a fine finisher and ashiok is great vs midrange and pretty good vs control. I think she doesn't affect the board enough vs aggro so we will side her there.
Now I have some tough decisions. I want to be running control magic, that's my favorite play style and one of the best ways to play into a field that sports heavy artifact/enchantment/spells such as this format. also siege rhino is one hell of a card. So what are our options... Well we have
immediately we can take these 14 down to 4 (disdainful stroke, dissipate, dissolve, negate). the rest either too limited in scope (gainsay, nullify) or worse versions of these (cancel) or work better in a tempo deck (stubborn denial, thassa's rebuff). Negate is a great sb card and it will definitely be there; Dissipate isn't as good as dissolve and we don't need a bunch of 3 mana counters, it may see 1-2 slots in a full board control deck, but I think I would have to just stop playing countermagic for a couple of months at that point. That leaves us with dissolve, which is 1 keyword from being good, but will suffice, and disdainful stroke. Disdainful stroke is a very interesting magic card, on one hand missing out on 1-3 made me initially toss it into the pile with Countermand, but after looking at the format for a while, I realize that it might be perfectly fine. The main thing about disdainful stroke is that it's single U. I don't have to have dbl blue by turn 3 (their 4), I don't have to change my mana base to be predominantly blue, I don't have to run 12 cipt lands (which I hate, I have never considered running 8 before this). the biggest target that disdainful stroke doesn't hit is rabblemaster, that card is kind of good. it also misses jeskai ascendancy and courser of kruphix and other countermagic and 70% of Mono-red aggro. it does hit treasure cruise, whip, hornet queen, siege rhino, Elspeth and other PW's, stoke the flames, Butcher of the horde, Stormbreath dragon etc. essentially it hits the true gas of the top decks (sans jeskai tokens, this deck might roll over and die to Jeskai tokens).
our removal suite is about the best in the format, which is nice, I love me some 2 mana removal and this format is packed with it... Oh wait. On the bright side of things we have fairly good PW removal with Hero's downfall, and we have Anger and Drown for cheap sweepers. Looking at the format, I am seeing a lot of 4+ toughness creatures, and a LOT of <3 creatures, but at 3 we have caryatid and fleecemane and Sidisi. This is really a metagame decision. On one hand, drown is easier for us to cast, but anger is a better card. if your metagame is filled with Sidisi whip and abzhan aggro you might want to consider Anger, if your metagame is jeskai tokens, U/W Heroic, other rabblemaster decks then Drown might be better for the mana base. I want to start with Anger and see if it's a real problem, I also like hero's downfall at 4 and 2 jets.
The sideboard is extremely weak and I'll have to playtest a lot to see what I need here. I'll also look at the decks posted here to see what u guys are using. Jorubai, Cure, and Spray are for aggro; The Negate, rabblemaster, and read the bones vs control; I think this deck will be alright games 1 vs midrange, but since the field varies so much I'm not sure what I'll be weak to, this needs some serious testing.
So that's the starting point. I am really looking forward to January, I don't feel that this deck has enough options to be competitive and the removal suite in this metagame sucks. Fortunately siege rhino and friends beat out extremely fast aggro strategies for the most part and you will mainly be dealing with mono-red aggro/sligh and UW Heroics (which is probably going to be annoying as well). Luckily Mardu is forcing Hero of Iroas to the trade binder. I'm pretty excited to be thoughtseizing someones hand away, and Keranos is a boss... Now I just have to test it out.
I suspect you will probably like playing 8 hand disruption spells but you probably want 4 more draw spells. Thoughtsieze and despise are still one-for-ones and people have tons of ways to draw cards these days. Abzan charm, other digs, cruise, ascendency... You probably want to consider removing the 5 drops in the main for the 3 drops in your side(rabble master). Once you get them off the top deck you want to close it out pretty fast. Keeping the curve low means you can probably play Tourmented Thoughts and toss every land after 5 you see and the hand disruption if you do not need it. Maybe consider spite of Mogis over magma jet. You should still be able to cast it main phase and dig eot. Grixis really wants a flame slash type card and that is probably the closest thing available. Coursers are tough for you to deal with and using a stoke the flames on one seems bad. There is just so much mid range value these days. I have stopped playing for a spell.
Getting the new 5 mana semi sweeper could be the card we are looking for but that will also depend on what else is available. although the vault is slow it does take walkers with it, crux of fate will not be able to do that. This makes the downfall will still be a little stretched thin. I do agree that the deck also wants a way to take the opponents hand. Perhaps one card at a time is the way to get that done. Although I dislike losing that many card slots to the effect. 26 land is probably correct. Every time I added my 27th I was finding that the overall card quality was so low that losing the 1 card actually hurt. You will more than likely update the mana base.
Its hard to stop every siege rhino and it makes it a little easier to take damage while you get set up if playing land negates or slows down their win cons. It is also probably from a time when Jeskai burn/wins was heavily played with a field of agro. It can also offset the loss of life from fetches and thoughtsieze if you are not under that much pressure. the 5 I play I treat like temples #4 and if you need the mana fixing temple number 5. Some people also play a pearl lake ancient which gives them marginally more upside although that card is not as well positioned these days it seems.
If you can afford the turns it takes to develop your mana then I would say they are worth it. If you are on a more direct plan then they may not bee what you are looking for. They have saved my on several occasions and kept me just outside of lightning strike/stoke range by just playing one of them. 2-3 means their courser did not really attack you for a turn of the rhino only got them 3 life. But again its marginal.
are we supposed to play Grixis dragons when FRF comes out?
Play whatever you want, but there is very little from Fate that suggests this archetype will be any bigger of a player than it already wasn't.
If anything I'd say UW will overtake UB as the 2 color control option of choice and that some manner of Jeskai control will be the premier control deck, ala Ben Stark's lists from CFB. That said Esper seems more appealing by the day, still has a terrible mana base though.
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Brilliant ideas are stupid ideas that worked - Patrick Chapin
after trying out esper for a few months I wanna test out grixis.
Can someone post a decent grixis shell that i can altar :)?
If you go backwards a page or two in the forum you can see multiple decks with playtest reports that you can thumb through.
TOG, you make it seem so dismal. I am still playing it. I went 2-2 last weekend and am planning to play tonight and on Friday. I still have fun with it. Crackling doom is a rough one though.
If I was going to take a list to my local store it would probably be some variation of this just to mess with people. The newly spoiled elemental that can recur itself would also get allot of my attention since you could feasibly build a strategy around Whip+PLA+Elemental and just not care about ever losing win cons, while still getting to play Dig+Augury.
I did see the elemental and I liked the concept of augury/delve and still being able to play it and its not lost to the vault. It looks pretty good but it is still a 3/5. it helps put tormenting voice back on the map as a draw option. Honestly I think I am just a Timmy for Grixis. I do agree that the card pool has problems at competitive magic events. It is just missing a certain something. I also feel like my local fnm is rather competitive. We get about 70 or so people on average and there is always some number of top 8 decks represented.
Hey guys, I have been working on building a grixis control deck from what I have lying around, and I wanted to see if any of you had any suggestions for me. Mainly I am having issues with creatures to run in this build, but I will leave a skeleton deck for you guys to look at that I want built around.
Your deck will be more tap out boardwipe control... I am a little worried about not having downfall for walkers, however you have dragons with haste so hopefully they can knock out walkers. As I have found playing UB control aggro can be a pain, anger of the gods might be very very good in the coming meta so keep it in mind.
We really have to decide weather you are URb (like this) or RBu (no counters hand disruption and downfalls) grixis has to be base two colours splash the last one. reality shift is dangerous but also kinda good so I'd have to test it but lightning strike might just be better though.
Yeah, sorry,I messed around a bit with it to fix those errors.
I should probably sideboard the shatters, but there are lots of whip players at my FNM so I just decided to mainboard it. I am on a slight budget so no thoughtseize or full playsets of fetchlands.
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Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
2 prognostic sphinx
2 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
3 Bile Blight
4 Despise
3 Dig Through Time
4 Hero's Downfall
2 Jace's Ingenuity
4 Lightning Strike
3 Magma Jet
2 Murderous Cut
3 Stoke the Flames
3 Island
4 Mountain
3 Polluted Delta
4 Swamp
3 Temple of Epiphany
3 Temple of Malice
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Disdainful Stroke
3 Drown in Sorrow
2 aetherspout
3 Searing Blood
2 Stubborn Denial
Sorry for the mess.
Beat Abzan midrange g1 and went to time in g2 but I got to worst fears him in g2 and it was pretty sweet before we went to time. I think I had that game in a few more turns.
Lost to UW Heroic in 3. He got me in game 1, g2 I dropped the curve and got to anger away his board after 2 thoughtsieze and some 1-1 removal before re-upping with draw. He scooped to play g3. I was unable to pull it off and he top decked a second stubborn denial and stopped my anger. It was closer than I thought it was going to be.
Lost to what looked like a BG devotion deck but he was playing some blue sources. He had a main deck negate which kept me from killing his dorks and I lost that game because I was letting him overextend. He only had a caryatid for blue mana so reading that seems rather unlikely. He beat me in game 2 as well. Too many threats and not enough answers.
Beat another abzan deck. Not nearl as intense as the previous abzan match. I think he stumbled a bit or was just not as prepared for control. Lost g1, won g2 and g3.
Planning 0 changes for the IQ.
1x Liliana Vess
Gods 1
1x Keranos, God of Storms
Creatures 3
3x Prognostic Sphinx
Spells 29
4x Dig through time
4x Steam augury
3x Hero's downfall
4x Dissolve
2x Anger of the god's
1x Aetherspouts
3x Perilous vault
2x Mindswipe
2x Magma jet
2x Lightning strike
2x Thoughtseize
3x Temple of Deceit
3x Temple of Epiphany
3x Temple of Malice
2x Swiftwater Cliffs
1x bloodfell caves
1x dismal backwater
2x Swamp
2x Island
2x mountain
1x evolving wilds
2x Polluted delta
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
1x Radiant fountain
1x Shivan Reef
1x Worst Fears
1x Nullify
1x Perilous Vault
2x Mind Rot
2x disdainful stroke
2x negate
1x Pearl Lake Ancient
2x Magma Spray
2x Anger of the Gods
1x Thoughtsieze
Highlights below
R1 2-0 vs Abzan Midrange -
G1: I vault twice taking 2 coursers and a rhino followed by a whip rhino on the second vault. I use counters to slow him down and manage to stabilize at 2 with a sphinx. He is off the top deck. I get him from 30 down to 16 and mind swipe him for 9, then jet him for 2 and swipe him for the win.
G2: -2 angers, -2 jets, and -2 strikes, -2 Mindswipe, +1 Vault, +2 Disdainfull stroke, +1 Nullify, +1 Worst Fears, +1 thoughtsieze, +2 Mind Rot. He gets a polukronous down and swings twice while I take a turn to mind rot him and vault, I can't remember what he played after polyk. I vault and he slows down for a turn and I land a sphinx with counter back up. I just scry more counters to the top and a second sphinx. Play the second sphinx and that pretty much locks up the game. I stabilized at 7.
R2 G/R Monsters 0-2
G1: I thoughtsieze him on turn 2 after his caryatid. He had 2 coursers and 2 polukronous and a stormbreath and a sarkan. I take the sarkan since I had a downfall, his courser reveals a destructive revelry main. I get second downfall and a dissolve for the dragon and 2x polukronous taking courser damage the whole time. I run out of gass not hitting any of my draw and he eventually kils me.
G2: I similar side board as the previous match except I leave out the worst fears and swap 2 of the dissolves for 2 negates and the mind swipes for strokes and leave in the lightning strikes since he had zenagos and I anticipated myst cutters. Leaving the Strike was probably a mistake in hind site. He brings the myst cutter hydras and Polukronous I take a bunch of damage and aetherspouts once, mystcutter comes back down and that is game.
R3 Mono Red 2-1, a much younger opponent.
G1: I kept a decent hand against an unknown opponent. He plays mountain into swift spear and dumps his hand onto the table including hoardling outburst and some enchantments. I manage to get a vault down and clear the board with 2 life. He gets 2 strikes back to back ad I counter one but I die to the second.
G2: -2 Mindswipe, -2 Vault, -3 Dissolve, -1 Liliana, -1 downfall, +2 Mindrot, +2 negate, +2 magma spray, +2 anger, +1 thoughtseize. He has a similar opening and I have magma spray and jet into anger and mind rot 4th land into augury. I stabilize at 5 with him off the top deck and sphinx takes the game.
G3: Plays out pretty much the same tons of cheep spells to answer the threats and 2 angers eventually gass him out and I dig and play a sphinx. I stabilized at 7.
R4 Kibler Temur 0-2
G1: He starts with a dork and I jet it and he lands a polukronous and a knuckle blade with mana up to bounce him after I answer polukronous. I downfall polukronous and he manages to ride out the knuckle blade for the rest of the game before clawsing me for lethal. I was only able to strike him, jet him, and swipe him for a total of 14, so it was almost close.
G2: He just brought the beats and I was too far on the back foot to recover, the removal matches up poorly. I was able to spray a phoenix and thoughtsieze another but he just kept top decking things and stubborn denials/stroke. There was a tipping point when I was able to Dig but ended up needing 3 cards to get out of the scenario but could only put two in my hand.
R5 2-0 Abzan Midrange, but more walkers
G1: He thoughtsiezed me 3 times in the first 5 turns. I almost thought I was going to lose the game because he was even able to use charm to draw into more cards. At this point the only saving grace is the 4 scry lands that were in my hand as I was able to work myself back into the game. I find a downfall as he plays a rhino and a steam augury to start the chain reaction. I thoughtsieze him and am able to Mindswipe Elspeth for 5, putting him at 8. From there a sphinx, jet, and strike finish him off.
G2: board same as previous abzan match. He gets stuck on 2 land, I guess because he boarded out his dorks. I am able to land a sphinx and he almost recovers with courser but never finds his second white source. I Worst fears him when he is at 6 before combat with a sphinx on board. He scoops.
R6 0-2 Sultai Control
G1: He resolves an ashiok on turn 3 and I never recover.
G2: He gets a nessa and I vault it off the board but die to the 4/4 land. both games were over pretty fast.
R7 0-2 Temur, the friend I drove to the tournament. Always happens for some reason...He was running ascendancy's in the main.
G1: He just puts too much value on the board and I am unable to get it all before he kills me.
G2: Same in game 2. His surak and myst cutters get me.
Impressions, I apparently just beat abzan midrange and really struggle with other Gx Decks. The auto loss to ashiok and nessa really hurts. There was a relatively high mental fatigue by the end of the 7 rounds, not sure how to fix that. Overall I think I would want access to a 4th downfall somewhere for the green matchups. I am not really sure what to do about Knuckleblade/Ashiok/Nessa. There are just so many other things happening in those shells that need to be dealt with. Games that I do not get to augury or at least dig once are just games I lose. It almost feels like the deck wants one more draw spell sometimes but I am not sure what that should be if anything at all. Mind rot did some real work. I wish I could take more than 2 cards from their hands. It definitely takes some of the impetus and you can occasionally get the last two cards in their hand. I think there was only once that I did not want to see it buy had it in my hand. Worst Fears against decks with black removal was awesome. since they collect some amount of it and threaten to take your hand while targeting the sphinx. Instead you just make them kill everything they own and take another turn.
I saw some UW heroic decks and some abzan mid range reanimators as well but because of my losses I never had to face them. UW is another difficult matchup. It feels like the delvers of yesteryear.
Has anyone had some level of success against those matchups and what was helpful?
I went 1-3, quite sad. Round 1 was against a kid so not much there.
Round 2 was against an agro temur agro deck. He had main deck stubborn denial for my anger and I was too far behind in g1 after that to win. Game 2 he played draw go till he hit 7 mana while I was forced to discard reactive spells to hand size. Smart player. He flashed in surrak, I did not have the downfall and I suspect he had a counter anyway. He swung and followed up with a knuckle blade and some other stuff I was unable to answer in time. There was too much damage to handle combined with his counters. Still not sure how to beat this style of deck. Feels like one of the worse matchups.
Round 3 was against abzan good stuff. He beat me game 1 lack of second blue mana put me too far behind as my hand had dissolves and other blue pills that could have kept me in the game. Game 2 I go get a mind rot and the worst fears. I resolve keranos and courser reveals his only utter end. I play lili to draw out the utter end tutoring for mind rot. He ends keranos and seizes my dig then I take his hand with rot + lili. He was shocked. I am left with sieze only. He top decks sorin, then ness, then elspeth. I am left with just a worst fears which is pretty bad since his hand was gone. My only out was to top deck a vault after I fears him. I top deck dig, cast it and hit spouts but am short the second untapped blue land having already spent 2. He takes g2.
Round 4 was against 5 color walkers, friend of mine. He wanted to tweak his deck for a tourney so we spend half the round deck teching and play a round for kicks. He concedes the round but beats me in the practice game. I was unable to stop all the walkers at some point and slowly fall behind until I lose. G2 he would have brought in seize and I would be grabbing various counters. It would have been grindy but I am calling it a loss. Given the g1
I found that the losing the mind swipe hurt in two ways. 1 losing the damage kind of hurt for game 1's and its a pretty decent win con. 2 adding the extra land made me short one side board slot to take from the main which definitely messed up my Board plan. They are definitely good enough for game 1's and the side board slots felt more valuable than land 27 without better card quality.
Playing with the draw engine could be interesting, not sure where to take that experiment. Sometimes getting the augury/dig engine up and running is tough so trying to smooth that transition could be good.
The meta game seems to be evolving in ways that make this deck less relevant across the board. It definitely wants some updates but again, not really sure where to take it.
3 Temple of deceit
3 temple of Malice
2 Temple of Epiphany
4 bloodstained mire
4 Polluted delta
1 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
2 shivan reef
3 swamp
2 island
2 mountain
Something like that
Now looking at the rest of the deck, I know I want
so I already mentioned the disruption package, I think a midrange dominated field is a great place to run the full 8 and it reasonably deals with aggro and the disrupts might hit a trade with other control decks. Dig through time is simply one of the best card draw spell I have seen for control decks in a long time. I might want to run 1 or so Jace's ingenuity, but with initial testing I will be playing just the 4 dig's. keranos is the only reason that we can dump white in Ux control decks, Elspeth is the main redeeming quality of white for me and keranos can shut down a game in a fine fashion as well. Prognostic sphinx is a fine finisher and ashiok is great vs midrange and pretty good vs control. I think she doesn't affect the board enough vs aggro so we will side her there.
Now I have some tough decisions. I want to be running control magic, that's my favorite play style and one of the best ways to play into a field that sports heavy artifact/enchantment/spells such as this format. also siege rhino is one hell of a card. So what are our options... Well we have
immediately we can take these 14 down to 4 (disdainful stroke, dissipate, dissolve, negate). the rest either too limited in scope (gainsay, nullify) or worse versions of these (cancel) or work better in a tempo deck (stubborn denial, thassa's rebuff). Negate is a great sb card and it will definitely be there; Dissipate isn't as good as dissolve and we don't need a bunch of 3 mana counters, it may see 1-2 slots in a full board control deck, but I think I would have to just stop playing countermagic for a couple of months at that point. That leaves us with dissolve, which is 1 keyword from being good, but will suffice, and disdainful stroke. Disdainful stroke is a very interesting magic card, on one hand missing out on 1-3 made me initially toss it into the pile with Countermand, but after looking at the format for a while, I realize that it might be perfectly fine. The main thing about disdainful stroke is that it's single U. I don't have to have dbl blue by turn 3 (their 4), I don't have to change my mana base to be predominantly blue, I don't have to run 12 cipt lands (which I hate, I have never considered running 8 before this). the biggest target that disdainful stroke doesn't hit is rabblemaster, that card is kind of good. it also misses jeskai ascendancy and courser of kruphix and other countermagic and 70% of Mono-red aggro. it does hit treasure cruise, whip, hornet queen, siege rhino, Elspeth and other PW's, stoke the flames, Butcher of the horde, Stormbreath dragon etc. essentially it hits the true gas of the top decks (sans jeskai tokens, this deck might roll over and die to Jeskai tokens).
Set 1
Set 2
our removal suite is about the best in the format, which is nice, I love me some 2 mana removal and this format is packed with it... Oh wait. On the bright side of things we have fairly good PW removal with Hero's downfall, and we have Anger and Drown for cheap sweepers. Looking at the format, I am seeing a lot of 4+ toughness creatures, and a LOT of <3 creatures, but at 3 we have caryatid and fleecemane and Sidisi. This is really a metagame decision. On one hand, drown is easier for us to cast, but anger is a better card. if your metagame is filled with Sidisi whip and abzhan aggro you might want to consider Anger, if your metagame is jeskai tokens, U/W Heroic, other rabblemaster decks then Drown might be better for the mana base. I want to start with Anger and see if it's a real problem, I also like hero's downfall at 4 and 2 jets.
4 Temple of deceit
4 temple of Malice
4 bloodstained mire
4 Polluted delta
1 urborg
2 shivan reef
2 swamp
2 island
3 mountain
Wincons
2 Keranos, God of storms
2 Prognostic sphinx
3 Ashiok
4 thoughtseize
4 Despise
3 Anger of the gods
4 Hero's downfall
2 Magma jet
4 Dig through time
2 Disdainful stroke
4 Dissolve
2 negate
4 Jorubai Murk Lurker
3 Pharika's Cure
0 Magma spray
4 Gobline Rabblemaster
2 Read the bones
The sideboard is extremely weak and I'll have to playtest a lot to see what I need here. I'll also look at the decks posted here to see what u guys are using. Jorubai, Cure, and Spray are for aggro; The Negate, rabblemaster, and read the bones vs control; I think this deck will be alright games 1 vs midrange, but since the field varies so much I'm not sure what I'll be weak to, this needs some serious testing.
So that's the starting point. I am really looking forward to January, I don't feel that this deck has enough options to be competitive and the removal suite in this metagame sucks. Fortunately siege rhino and friends beat out extremely fast aggro strategies for the most part and you will mainly be dealing with mono-red aggro/sligh and UW Heroics (which is probably going to be annoying as well). Luckily Mardu is forcing Hero of Iroas to the trade binder. I'm pretty excited to be thoughtseizing someones hand away, and Keranos is a boss... Now I just have to test it out.
Getting the new 5 mana semi sweeper could be the card we are looking for but that will also depend on what else is available. although the vault is slow it does take walkers with it, crux of fate will not be able to do that. This makes the downfall will still be a little stretched thin. I do agree that the deck also wants a way to take the opponents hand. Perhaps one card at a time is the way to get that done. Although I dislike losing that many card slots to the effect. 26 land is probably correct. Every time I added my 27th I was finding that the overall card quality was so low that losing the 1 card actually hurt. You will more than likely update the mana base.
Good luck
Is the life gain important enough to warrant that? Maybe extra temples will smooth out draws
If you can afford the turns it takes to develop your mana then I would say they are worth it. If you are on a more direct plan then they may not bee what you are looking for. They have saved my on several occasions and kept me just outside of lightning strike/stoke range by just playing one of them. 2-3 means their courser did not really attack you for a turn of the rhino only got them 3 life. But again its marginal.
Can someone post a decent grixis shell that i can altar :)?
If it helps my esper deck is more of a superfriends/walkers type deck.
Play whatever you want, but there is very little from Fate that suggests this archetype will be any bigger of a player than it already wasn't.
If anything I'd say UW will overtake UB as the 2 color control option of choice and that some manner of Jeskai control will be the premier control deck, ala Ben Stark's lists from CFB. That said Esper seems more appealing by the day, still has a terrible mana base though.
If you go backwards a page or two in the forum you can see multiple decks with playtest reports that you can thumb through.
TOG, you make it seem so dismal. I am still playing it. I went 2-2 last weekend and am planning to play tonight and on Friday. I still have fun with it. Crackling doom is a rough one though.
I like the colors, I really do, but I'm not going to force myself when the mana and card pool simply is not there.
Keep in mind I'm talking about the deck in context of the Competitive Standard environment and not merely FNM's.
That said...
1 Mountain
2 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Temple of Deceit
4 Temple of Epiphany
4 Temple of Malice
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Dig Through Time
4 Dissolve
3 Empty the Pits
4 Hero's Downfall
3 Lightning Strike
4 Steam Augury
2 Despise
4 Thoughtseize
3 Tormenting Voice
If I was going to take a list to my local store it would probably be some variation of this just to mess with people. The newly spoiled elemental that can recur itself would also get allot of my attention since you could feasibly build a strategy around Whip+PLA+Elemental and just not care about ever losing win cons, while still getting to play Dig+Augury.
2 Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury
2 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
2 Stormbreath Dragon
Walkers: (2)
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
Spells: (22)
4 Dissolve
4 Crux of Fate
4 Reality Shift
4 Stoke the Flames
4 Stubborn Denial
2 Dig Through Time
3 Bloodstained Mire
5 Island
3 Mountain
3 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
4 Temple of Deceit
4 Temple of Epiphany
I need at atleast 4 more creatures. Let me know what you think!
Here's an easy fix.
-2 Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury
+1 Polluted Delta
+1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
3 Stormbreath Dragon
Walkers: (2)
3 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
Spells: (22)
4 Dissolve
4 Crux of Fate
4 Reality Shift
4 Anger of the gods
4 Dig Through Time
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Island
3 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
4 Temple of Deceit
4 Temple of Epiphany
Your deck will be more tap out boardwipe control... I am a little worried about not having downfall for walkers, however you have dragons with haste so hopefully they can knock out walkers. As I have found playing UB control aggro can be a pain, anger of the gods might be very very good in the coming meta so keep it in mind.
We really have to decide weather you are URb (like this) or RBu (no counters hand disruption and downfalls) grixis has to be base two colours splash the last one. reality shift is dangerous but also kinda good so I'd have to test it but lightning strike might just be better though.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Something to think about.
2x liliana vess
2 planeswalkers
INSTANTS
2x magma jet
4x hero's downfall
4x steam augury
2x dissolve
2x negate
2x disdainful stroke
1x aetherspouts
2x silence the believers
2x shatter
25 instants
2x empty the pits
2x anger of the gods
4x despise
4 sorcery
CREATURES
2x prognostic sphinx
1x keranos
LAND
2x polluted delta
2x bloodstained mire
2x temple of deceit
1x dismal backwater
2x urborg. tomb of yawgmoth
7x island
6x mountain
5x swamp
I should probably sideboard the shatters, but there are lots of whip players at my FNM so I just decided to mainboard it. I am on a slight budget so no thoughtseize or full playsets of fetchlands.