I don't think this will allow much more decks to enter the format. It will end up being mostly the same except SLIGHTLY slower thanks to no Copter. They want to shake it up, they needed to ban Marvel and Gideon (with Copter).
Dark Jeskai and Esper Dragons were hardly dominating around where I play. People played them, got blown out by mono red sligh and Heroic aggro. The other decks were only good because of the non-blue cards.
Snapcaster Mage and actual Counterspell could not help blue based control right now. Blue has been in a terrible place outside of Sphinx's Revelation since Snapcaster Mage rotated. If Sphinx's Revelation wasn't printed, nobody is playing blue control. It would be nice if blue had the counters or superior card draw, rather than inferior of both to the creatures of G/W. Why can't blue have a instant speed draw 3 for UU1 with all these crappy counters it has. Maybe a U counter a creature or U1 counter creature or planeswalker. I haven't been excited about a blue card since Dig Through Time and even that wasn't good in my meta, too slow.
I'd like to see Dual lands that count as a basic land of one type, but when it etb you choose one of the allied colors and it 'locks' into being a dual land of that type. So if you can search for Mountains for instance, you can get this land, and when it etb, you choose Green or Black and it's a dual land of that color pair.
I think a colorless land that when it ETB you can have it gain 2 abilities to tap for mana, you pay 1 life for each color you want it to add. Late game you may only want it to be 1 color (if you have 8 swamps, 1 mountain out) so you only pay 1 life to let it add red. or maybe you have 6 of each color, so you pay no life and it only adds colorless.
I know checklands aren't standard, the "only comes into play tapped" is what sets Grixis back imo. It can't recoup lost life from shocklands like a deck with Sphinx's Revelation.
Replace Scry Lands with Checklands and I bet Grixis could be a T1.5 deck at least, but the tapped lands slow it down too much and it doesn't have the lifegain of Sphinx's Revelation to fall back on.
The problem with Anger in a 3 color deck is getting 3 lands, 2 of them blue and the 3rd one can come in untapped. They go first: Cackler, Zealot, Zealot going 2nd and playing a tapped 2nd turn land, you are at 10 already. Which means you HAVE to Anger 3rd turn, or you will lose. Also, Anger vs Reckoners isn't very good. Also, if you are going first, you HAVE to get an Anger to 2 for 1 them at some point, they have the card advantage of going 2nd, and you will always run out of threats 1 for 1ing them. I actual stand a better chance going 2nd with my Rakdos because of that.
Ashiok is a waste of a card slot, unless you play it on the 3rd turn and flip over a Reckoner or something like Polukranos, your opponent can ignore it completely. I have way too many hands of: Land, Land, Land, Jace, Jace, Returns, Turn//Burn OR Mountain, Mountain, Izzet Guildgate, Jace, Des Demon, Downfall, Doom Blade and never draw a 2nd Island or 2 Swamps. Even with 12 of the on color Scry Lands, I wouldn't want to play a game where I am a turn behind, imo, the Scry lands are a trap, without a hard sweeper like Supreme or (Damnation reprint hopefully in Journey) it won't be viable against aggro.
In my Rakdos Control deck I am running 4 Thoughtseizes, 12 2-mana removals, 4 Angers, 4 Downfalls and I still run out of removal before I can stabilize usually. I must be the most unlucky person in the world when it comes to Magic, but in about 12 test games today I went 9-3 vs the Mono-Red aggro and I still had 2 losses to not having a 2nd red or 2nd black when I needed it. 2 of the wins were the Red mulling to 5 and 1 win from the red ripping off 6 lands in a row T3-T9. I imagine the record would be waaaaaaay worse with a 3rd color. The most key card splashing a 3rd color for would be Jace, and I would rather have Desecration Demons or Whip of Erebos which landing T4 Whip into T5 Stormbreath is just evil.
I have a FNM environment that is dominated by Mono Red, WR weenie, and Mono blue devotion. MonoG, GR monsters/devotion, GW aggro and a couple other aggro type of decks. I've have tested over and over against aggro decks, there is no comination of Weirds, Doom Blades, Downfalls, Ult Prices, Jaces, Magma Jets, Desecration Demons, Nightveils, Counters, Dimir Charms, and anything else in 3 colors that will help you beat aggro.
Stick to 2 colors, I suggest Rakdos, I got a great deck that can own the aggro match 80-90% of the time, against full on control, is where the difficulty lies, still tweaking my 15 to beat them.
Steam Augury is too hit or miss. I've tried to make it seem good, but it's not. You are better off with a mix of Divination/Read the Bones. Anger is great in a 2 color deck, in 3, especially with so many tap lands you have, it's just going to be too slow. Throw in your opponent having 1 (or 2 Reckoners out) or Judge's Familiar to delay it a turn, it just loses it's ineffectiveness very quickly. I agree with mrisaiahc about Rakdos Returns, if you want something good vs control, play Slaughter Games. Cards that will wreck your day are Sphinx's Revelations, Elspeth, Stormbreath Dragon, Blood Baron (if you don't have the right removal at the right time). Slaughter Games just fixes that, I have had 1 main, 3 SB in every Grixis or Rakdos control deck I have played for the last year.
I honestly don't feel there is enough in standard to make prophet good enough. There needs to be something like Mayael or other creature you can activate like her to really break it.
Never knew about either of those things and how they worked on the stack. Doesn't make sense that you can kill a creature before it's "enter the battlefield" stuff resolves. You would think that "enter the battlefield" triggers would all resolve before you can target the creatures.
I honestly don't know why you would play mill but not win by milling, creatures are pointless. Wouldn't counters just be better or assorted discard and removal. Deathrite is the only one I would run, for helping trigger Bloodchief Ascension faster.
That deck will just get run over by zoo or any creature based decks. You should have 4 Paths and 4 GftT/Doom Blades in it. Rhox Faithmender would help a little probably. I also think Phyrexian Arena should be replaced by Sign in Blood or Underworld Connections. Disfigure would be better than Darkblast as well probably since it can kill more things. Probably also just go to 4 Souls. With a low mana count, you aren't going to really get a lot of mini exsanguinates since you don't have very difficult to kill creatures and without Extort I really don't see you winning. Drawing multiple Arenas early on isn't good and Verdict is really something for sideboard since you won't ever get to kill what you want unless it's the only creature on the field. However, if you play vs GoST and Invisible Stalker, it will be good to SB in 4 of them.
^ Oh, in response to Yrocks deck.
Original deck seems like it just wants to spread out and do too much. Extort imo is really only good in multiplayer. I have tried several different versions of extort decks and it's just lackluster in almost every type of format. The best I had was multiplayer FFAs or kitchen table 3hg or something like that. Crypt Ghast is best when ramping into a big X spell or ramping out stuff like Griselbrand or Emrakul. Regardless, the deck needs more drawing or top decking lands 2-3 turns in a row hoping to get spells to keep you alive.
I think a colorless land that when it ETB you can have it gain 2 abilities to tap for mana, you pay 1 life for each color you want it to add. Late game you may only want it to be 1 color (if you have 8 swamps, 1 mountain out) so you only pay 1 life to let it add red. or maybe you have 6 of each color, so you pay no life and it only adds colorless.
Ashiok is a waste of a card slot, unless you play it on the 3rd turn and flip over a Reckoner or something like Polukranos, your opponent can ignore it completely. I have way too many hands of: Land, Land, Land, Jace, Jace, Returns, Turn//Burn OR Mountain, Mountain, Izzet Guildgate, Jace, Des Demon, Downfall, Doom Blade and never draw a 2nd Island or 2 Swamps. Even with 12 of the on color Scry Lands, I wouldn't want to play a game where I am a turn behind, imo, the Scry lands are a trap, without a hard sweeper like Supreme or (Damnation reprint hopefully in Journey) it won't be viable against aggro.
In my Rakdos Control deck I am running 4 Thoughtseizes, 12 2-mana removals, 4 Angers, 4 Downfalls and I still run out of removal before I can stabilize usually. I must be the most unlucky person in the world when it comes to Magic, but in about 12 test games today I went 9-3 vs the Mono-Red aggro and I still had 2 losses to not having a 2nd red or 2nd black when I needed it. 2 of the wins were the Red mulling to 5 and 1 win from the red ripping off 6 lands in a row T3-T9. I imagine the record would be waaaaaaay worse with a 3rd color. The most key card splashing a 3rd color for would be Jace, and I would rather have Desecration Demons or Whip of Erebos which landing T4 Whip into T5 Stormbreath is just evil.
Stick to 2 colors, I suggest Rakdos, I got a great deck that can own the aggro match 80-90% of the time, against full on control, is where the difficulty lies, still tweaking my 15 to beat them.
^ Oh, in response to Yrocks deck.
Original deck seems like it just wants to spread out and do too much. Extort imo is really only good in multiplayer. I have tried several different versions of extort decks and it's just lackluster in almost every type of format. The best I had was multiplayer FFAs or kitchen table 3hg or something like that. Crypt Ghast is best when ramping into a big X spell or ramping out stuff like Griselbrand or Emrakul. Regardless, the deck needs more drawing or top decking lands 2-3 turns in a row hoping to get spells to keep you alive.